By a Birmingham Labour Party member
Labour Party members are feeling they are increasingly in an Alice Through the Looking Glass world with a leadership and bureaucracy taking its lead from Humpty Dumpty, who famously told Alice: “When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean—neither more nor less.”
By co-incidence, our CLP had a scheduled meeting on the day Jeremy Corbyn was suspended. There was much anger, but the chair had to intervene and explain that our secretary had received ‘guidance’ from the general secretary just that afternoon, saying we couldn’t discuss the suspension until the investigation into Jeremy Corbyn was concluded.
Somewhat confused, our party agreed to hold an emergency meeting on Jeremy Corbyn and the EHRC report two weeks later, to give our Executive Committee a chance to digest what exactly the general secretary’s ‘guidance’ meant.
That meeting took place last week, and, once again, we were told we could face suspension if we wanted to discuss He Who Must Not Be Named, and that any motions critical of the EHRC report would be ruled out of order.
Not allowed to vote a resolution down!
Our local Starmer supporters put up a resolution supporting the EHRC report and condemning all forms of racism, which obviously could not be disagreed with, but it also contained a line praising “the firm response of Keir Starmer”.
Following a point of order query, it was explained if the resolution was passed that was OK, but if we voted it down, that would be ruled out of order. So much for democracy! As one comrade pointed out, the Labour Party is not meant to be a Stalinist organisation.
Another explained that the EHRC report itself, on page 27, stated: “Article 10 (of the Human Rights Act) will protect Labour Party members who… express their opinions on internal party matters…” Yet Keir Starmer, having said he backs every dot and comma of the report, now blatantly ignores it.
This is the new ‘democracy’ of Starmer and the right wing: you can’t discuss Corbyn’s suspension, but you can vote on ‘the firm response of Keir Starmer’ (code for supporting the suspension), and if you don’t you are ruled out of order.
In August, the general secretary issued ‘guidance’ that Labour Party members couldn’t discuss the EHRC report as it ‘hadn’t been published yet’ – now it has, but we still can’t discuss it. And you can’t criticise any aspect of the EHRC report, even though the report itself says you have a right to.
This Looking Glass world is getting worse. Bristol West CLP has now been suspended for daring to discuss and condemn the suspension of Corbyn – using the general secretary’s logic on Corbyn, presumably our CLP would be suspended if we passed a resolution condemning the suspension of Bristol West CLP. The action against Bristol West shows the Starmer leadership are not just out for Corbyn alone, it is now a generalised witch-hunt against the party’s left-wing rank and file.
No references to Labour’s rule book
But back to our meeting. It was agreed the resolution could be amended and, needless to say, a well-supported amendment deleted the line about Starmer, and the substantive motion was passed.
The meeting was not in a good mood by the time we came to the second resolution of the evening, criticising the actions of the general secretary and his penchant for issuing ‘guidance’ on what we can and cannot discuss. In the short period of Starmer’s leadership, it has been done now THREE times, all with no reference to the Labour Party rule book or discussions with the NEC.
The resolution criticising the general secretary and calling for the withdrawal of his guidance was passed overwhelmingly, with around 75 per cent support from the members.
This is significant. Under Jeremy Corbyn, the membership rapidly grew in our constituency, many of the new members being young and enthusiastic. After the general election defeat, there was some demoralisation, and around a hundred members dropped away. Then, in the Labour leadership election, our constituency backed Starmer, albeit narrowly.
Yet not even a year into his leadership, Labour’s ranks like us are beginning to rebel. Starmer promised to stand by the policies of the 2019 manifesto, and that he would bring ‘unity’ to the party. After the past few weeks, rank and file members are now questioning whether they can trust anything that comes out of his mouth. And as for general secretary Humpty Dumpty, we must make sure his ‘guidance’ diktats have a great fall.
November 16, 2020
