By John Pickard
It was a very positive development for five affiliated union general secretaries and over twenty five Labour MPs to put their name to a campaign to restore Labour democracy. But if the first rally of this campaign is anything to go by, this ‘Labour left’ does not seem to be showing an ounce of the determination and steel that is needed to beat back the right-wing faction currently in control.
The orginal statement of Restore Labour Democracy talked about “working together” and “reversing the damaging behaviour of the right wing”. It called on the wider Labour movement, including the affiliated sections to “join us in these efforts”. Unfortunately, the online rally on Monday was typical of so much of the Labour left – it had eleven platform speakers, not including the chairman, Richard Burgon – but not a single question or contribution taken from over 400 people on the webinar.
The speakers were generally good, and that goes especially for the two trade union general secretaries Andrea Egan of UNISON and Steve Wright of the FBU. A special mention, too, should be made for Paul Holden, who spoke. He is anInvestigative journalist and author of “The Fraud” which describes in great detail how Morgan McSweeney used the Labour Together organisation as a faction covert operation against the left.
Labour Together was in receipt of hundreds of thousands of pounds of dubious and undeclared (therefore illegal) donations. It wasn’t true to say that Labour Together was a ‘Starmer Project’ but what is undoubtedly true is that Starmer’s leadership bid was a Labour Together Project, masterminded by McSweeney. Upon Starmer’s election McSweeney left Labour Together to become the leader’s chief of staff. Several speakers referred to the baleful influence of this mis-named right wing factional organisation.
Political backsliding by Starmer
Collectively, the speakers detailed chapter and verse the political back-sliding of the Starmer government – with policies from complicity with the attacks Gaza to Winter Fuel Allowance to Mandelson’s appointment – all well known to readers of Left Horizons. Few attending this webinar would not have known about how the right wing sewed up the constitution to suit their own faction and how selections right across the country – for local and parliamentary candidates – have been dictated from the top.
But by the time that Ian Byrne was summing up the meeting, an hour and a half after the start, I can’t have been the only person thinking “yes, and now what?”. There was no plan outlined for the affiliated union general secretaries to campaign within TULO to change the rules. There was no suggestion that those MPs who had signed might get their CLPs to submit rule changes to bring back Open Selection.
As good as the speakers were – and we do not doubt for one moment their sincerity and their wish to return the Labour Party to better days – there was little in their contributions that was not already known to the 400 who were present.
What made the meeting all the more infuriating is the fact that there was not a single question presented to the panel of speakers. In the Q&A ‘chat’ there were a lot of ‘hellos’ and ‘welcomes’, but no questions.
I had registered for the meeting as Left Horizons and I posted a question, along the lines of: “wouldn’t it be simple to put a rule change that reinstated mandatory Open Selection for all local and parliamentary candidates?” This question, however, failed to appear so was not visible to the attendees.
Posted questions “not selected” to be seen
I then posted a second question, admittedly more of a comment: “I am in agreement with nearly all the speakers’ comments, but the right wing will not be defeated because we have ‘better arguments’. They don’t care about arguments. We need to organise a campaign every bit as ruthless as theirs, aiming firstly for TU resolutions to the national conference”
This, too, failed to appear. Then I noticed a link which, when clicked, told me, “If your question is selected, it will be visible to all attendees”. Clearly my questions – which would have been identified by the moderator behind the scenes as coming from Left Horizons – were not deemed to be suitable to be selected. If I was asking questions that were not made visible to other attendees, could this not also be the case for others who posed questions?
We have to ask a question to the organisers of this campaign – what are you so afraid of, that reasonable questions are not allowed in the very first rally? Is it a fear that Open Selection will scare away Labour right-wingers?
Jeremy Corbyn made a serious error as leader in 2018 when he moved against Open Selection at the Labour conference, even though the majority of CLP delegates favoured it. The Labour left should not show the same weakness again. It would be a pity if Restore Labour Democracy over-compromised even at the foundation of its campaign.
Instead of complaining about how bad and Machiavellian the right-wing are – which we all know – it would be far better if the Restore Labour Democracy offered a fight. The only rule changes mentioned were lowering the threshold of nominations for MPs to challenge the leader in parliament. Those would be useful rule changes, and no-one on the left would oppose it, but what about others? Like:
- Open Selection for all parliamentary and local candidate selections
- No Labour MPs to have private office donations from outside the labour movement (ie other than trade union donations).
- No Labour MPs to have second jobs.
There are a few more we could add, like Left Horizon’s policy of Labour MPs being on workers’ wages, but for the moment, we would acknowledge that this is more controversial, and may not be widely supported on the Labour left. But if Restore Labour Democracy is to get any traction among Labour members and members of affiliated unions, if it is to inspire them to fight and to organise as well as the right wing fought, it has to offer more than a relaxation of rules affecting only MPs.
The worm is turning as Labour and trade union members are waking up to the dead end of Starmerism. On present trajectory, three quarters of Labour MPs are set to lose their seats and this includes a large number . Now is not the time to compromise with the Labour right who are destroying the party. Restore Labour Democracy must offer a fight: relentless, organised and ruthless.
