The Labour Party is at a crossroads. It has emerged from a period of what can only be described as darkness under Jeremy Corbyn and the movement that both grew around him and those that used this phenomenon to further their own agendas. Many thousands of activists previously hostile to the Labour Party and what it traditionally has always stood for flocked to back one of the most illiberal and disingenuous politicians of our age.
Labour has always been a coalition of interests originating out of the desire of trade unions and their members to be represented in Parliament to further the interests of working people in British society. Over time Labour supplanted the Liberals as the main opposition party incorporating many people who may in different times have chosen other directions. This is the nature of two-party politics which results from our first past the post electoral system.
For the most part this has worked and Labour has been home to thinkers from a variety of traditions allowing for the development of an ideologically broad based party. Add to this the affiliated trade unions and other organisations Labour has always been a coalition of interests and ideas that existed in a (mostly) open and healthy political environment.
Of course as politics is the art of managing conflicts of interest in society the broad based model has faced more than one crisis over the decades. The rise of "Bennism" as it as know and the fight against the parasitical Militant entry group saw a major rifts occur and eventually a split leading to the creation of the Social Democratic Party.
The SDP of course was ultimately a failure and what survived was mostly absorbed by merger with the Liberal Party both of which created it's own recalcitrant splitters who continue to this day as The Liberal Party and the SDP. Neither of which have any standing in politics today whilst the merged "parent party" maintains a presence of sorts with a handful of MPs and a substantial pkace in local politics.
All this is history of course.
However the situation that grew under the Corbyn regime created a an environment that undermined the whole concept of a "broad based party. Despite the pronouncement of a "new, kinder, gentler politics " the exact opposite happened. The influx of thousands of hard left activists who had been involved in a myriad of minor political organisations and campaigns or simply attended demonstrations shouting slogans with no detail proved to be the beginning of what can only be described as an inquisition.
The leader was to be revered and a hard line socialism being the order of the day (literally it would seem) meant that many traditional Labour folk were suddenly targeted as "Blue Labour" or "Red Tories" and implored to fuck off and join the conservative party. Dissent was jumped on and shouted down in whatever medium was to hand. Twitter, Facebook and of course at meetings where many activists no longer felt welcome or in some cases safe in the party they had belonged to in years.
Those MPs that dared speak out were threatened not just with deselection but actual abuse and threats driving thousands of members and eventually a small group of MP's away. Of course this is all well known. as is the rise of antisemitism as a direct result of Corbynism.
Then disaster. Labour had it's worst ever election result. Corbyn finally went. Many thousands of his supporters likewise abandoned ship and returned to the sidelines sniping but many of them remain waiting in the wings plotting and planning revenge for the betrayal of their cause by those that opposed them.
Plus those pesky Jews, Zionists. Israel was to blame along with the (Jewish Zionist controlled media). Then there was the Northern "Red Wall" which fell to the Tories. The middle class left betrayed by the working class. How dare they.
Fast forward to today and the left has lost control of the party. There is a new leader, Sir Keir Starmer who has done much to rebuild ties with the Jewish community and admitted liability for the persecution of the whistle-blowers at Party HQ. More statesman like than Corbyn could ever be and a lawyer by trade he has quietly established himself as an alternative to Boris Johnston but despite the closing of the gaps in the opinion polls the Labour Party itself has more than some way to go.
The left are constantly sniping at Starmer and even Corbyn won't return to his vegetables preferring to tend to the ones around Momentum and the various left groups that stand in the same political patch the failed Messiah tended.
Momentum has shrunk but still retains a membership of 8,000 a figure that the old Militant tendency could rally at a pinch (and did in the Royal Albert Hall on one occasion before it's collapse). There are others some small entrist groups others around campaigns and front groups. Many with a reach they do not deserve.
How Labour is to deal with it's political credibility and avoid either continuing a civil war or the threat of a left-wing take over again in the future is the central question that members must ask themselves. Corbynism made maximalist demands on the party. Ideologically motivated and unachievable.
The party needs to change. It needs to modernise. Labour requires not just new leadership but new ideas or at least practical ones to deal with the economic and social mess that has been created by a mixture of the pandemic and poor governance.
In order to achieve this Labour must first get it's house in order. Can the party afford to allow cuckoos in the nest and there are many) of which Momentum is but part of the problem. there's a lot of groups and campaigns that are wheedling away undermine the rise of reason within Labour's ranks. Time to simply implement the party's own rules effectively.
It should seek to go further. Over the next decade Labour needs to undergo fundamental change. there should be no shibboleths on how the party modernises itself. It's time to ditch the extremists and remove them and their organisations along with a reform of ideological thinking. Ditching the ball & chain of old fashioned socialist dogma and imagery in favour of modern social democracy for reform and a new relationship with the people of this country.
Over the coming weeks there will be a series of posts looking at various aspects of Labour's internal strife and the examining the groups and campaigns along with a look at some of the issues that need to be dealt with. I have no illusions of how far this will effect events but as someone who until Corbyn traditionally supported Labour I want to do so again and am far from alone in being in this position.
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