Letter from Bob Edwards, Harlow Labour member.
In Dicken’s Tale of Two Cities, he said “it was the worst of times, and the best of times”. That was our CLP. Harlow Constituency Labour Party was told by our Regional Director (the headquarters is in Harlow) that if we dared to ‘divide the party’ over the Israel/Gaza conflict we’d either get expelled or be suspended. The result? In my sixty years of Labour membership, I’ve never seen such anger. “Freedom of speech!”, “Who elected our regional director?”
There were more than thirty at the meeting and about four threatened to tear up their Party cards while they spoke. Many were condemning the Regional Director and asking for an explanation of the threats made. The best was that Party rules has a clause saying that the Party supporting the UN, which is calling for a cease-fire!
The ‘division’ in the Party that the Regional Director was was talking about didn’t really exist, and a resolution calling for a cease-fire was passed after thirty minutes of angry discussion.
I had only asked, “are we discussing the Middle East crisis tonight?” and Boom, it was like a bomb went off.
[Top picture from Harlow CLP Facebook page]
