I have been a member of the Labour Party since 1983, and I’ve stuck with it even when I disagreed with its policies (I still miss Clause IV). Admittedly while Tony Blair was Prime Minister I refused to vote, on the grounds I could not endorse someone I considered a war criminal, but I was not tempted to leave the Party. Now, however, I have lost patience and today resigned my membership. This dissatisfaction has been brewing for some time and has a number of strands, all converging on Jeremy Corbyn.
He has been a disaster electorally; the
last General Election was hailed as some kind of victory despite not gaining a
majority, but the victory comprised a relief that Labour’s showing wasn’t a
disaster, a poor reason to celebrate. At
this writing Labour is still behind the Conservatives in the opinion polls,
which bearing in mind the chaos reigning in the Tory Party is in itself some
kind of achievement. This is largely due
to the perception nationally of Corbyn as a potentially disastrous Prime
Minister, a perception I think is justified.
He is unelectable unless the Conservatives rip themselves apart to such
an extent he is able to sneak into Downing Street by default as the least worst
candidate, which if it were to happen would not be a vote of confidence in his abilities.
However, as the Blair example shows,
leaders come and go but the Party, one likes to think, will be there
forever. So rolling my eyes at Corbyn’s
unfitness for high office would not in itself be enough to make me resign. The breaking point has come with the
controversy over anti-Semitism. Clearly
there are anti-Semitic elements within Labour, whether or not it is falsely
dressed up as anti-Zionism, and the way in which these are being dealt with has
been inept and leads me to question the sincerity behind what little is being
done. Several incidents have brought me
to this pass.
I was concerned when Corbyn had to
apologise over having questioned the removal of Kalen Ockerman’s anti-Semitic
mural painted on a wall near Brick Lane.
Corbyn had initially defended his concern about its removal on grounds
of free speech (though the Jewish
Chronicle noted his hypocrisy as he also attended a rally against the Jyllands-Posten Mohammed cartoons). However, as Baroness Julia Neuberger said, and
which should have been obvious to Corbyn, if you can’t see a problem with the
painting you lack sensitivity to what constitutes anti-Semitism.
On the other side of the coin, Corbyn has
referred to Hamas and Hizbollah as ‘friends’.
Agreed that does not make him an anti-Semite himself (though Margaret
Hodge, who happens to be Jewish, seems to believe he is), but he is happy to be
their bedfellows. As further evidence of
Labour’s ambivalence on the subject, the Chakrabarti enquiry two years ago
hardly cleared the air, and feet shuffling rather than action followed its
report. The Livingstone affair was a
long-running embarrassment brought to an end only by his resignation.
Still, I hoped the situation would resolve
itself. When the Board of Deputies of
British Jews criticised the Party and organised a protest against it, they were
accused of being largely Conservative in their make-up and not having Labour’s
best interests at heart. It was possible
the issue was being used as a convenient means to attack Labour by those whose
political affiliations lay elsewhere, or even by those within the Party wishing
to undermine Corbyn.
There is probably an element of
opportunism in the attacks on Labour certainly, though if this is in part a
ploy by the Tories to divert attention from their difficulties it isn’t being
terribly successful. Yet when it comes
down to it, the anti-Semitism isn’t being made up, and if I were a Jewish
member, I think I would have quit in disgust some time ago; after all, who
wants to be seen as a kapo, as one
Jewish member of the Party was called?
For me, it has taken a little longer to reach that decision.
Now, despite a valiant rearguard action by
the PLP (though even that I have seen dismissed as simply an attempt to
undermine Corbyn), a code of conduct on anti-Semitism was adopted by the NEC
minus some of the key elements contained in the International Holocaust
Remembrance Alliance’s definition of anti-Semitism. The Campaign against Antisemitism accuses
Labour, in so doing, of dictating to Jews what they may call anti-Semitic
(gentilesplaining as the Campaign memorably calls it).
To suggest that somehow the International
Definition precludes criticism of the Israeli government’s actions is a red
herring and is incorrect. The full
International Definition of Antisemitism has been widely adopted, including by
the UK government and large numbers of local councils, putting the NEC out of
step and leading to the suspicion of ulterior motives. There may be legal challenges to the code and
further consultation with Jewish groups, but the fact this should be necessary
suggests a lack of coherence and an unwillingness to take an unambiguous stand
on what is acceptable within the Labour Party.
That Corbyn has had such a tin ear on anti-Semitism
for so long is exasperating, and his lack of vigour – apart from occasional
anti-racist platitudes – leads to the suspicion he is concerned to appeal to a
constituency he values more than the Jewish one. As a result I do not feel I want to continue
to belong to an organisation unable to tackle the issue with decisiveness. While this is not the only subject which has
left me disenchanted with Labour, it is the final one, so after 35 years I
decided to quit.
Why I have rejoined the Labour Party
Having given the matter considerable
thought, after a gap of almost five years today I decided to rejoin the Labour
Party, acknowledging the Party has changed greatly in the period since I
left. The issues that brought my
resignation to a head have been addressed and Jeremy Corbyn is history, the
speed of his downfall eclipsed in recent history only by Nicola Sturgeon’s. While Keir Starmer has his detractors, he has
managed to put Labour back on track.
My main reason for rejoining is to help the
push to eject the self-serving and incompetent government from office and get
back to sensible politics that prioritise the needs of the majority, in
particular addressing the state of public services this government in its
various manifestations has hollowed out since 2010. The Tories have done an incredible amount of
damage, in particular their ideological obsession with Brexit despite the
damage it was known it would cause. It
will be a massive relief to see the back of them, and Labour represents the
best hope of that happening.
17 April 2023
