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UK's Labour Party: A view from the grass roots

by Rosie Brocklehurst

After a whole year of being accused of criminal behaviour with not one shred of evidence, the innocent newbies, would-be Labour joiners, are learning about the state of politics today in a way that will either put them off politics for life or put steel into their backbone.
Adrien Mostyn (not his real name), 28, a young film-maker who became interested in politics at the last General Election, believes the Labour Party he joined just over 5 months ago is out to get him. “Why do they hate the grass roots so much?” he asks me. We are talking in a café where I have arranged to get his views as a new member on the new rules that prevent him from voting in the leadership election.
Diagnosed late with autism – he was in his early 20s – Adrien has rarely lasted long in a job due to his inability to express feelings of enthusiasm or despair appropriately. He receives ESA at £73 per week, and has jumped from unpaid work experience to many low paid jobs over the years.
Last summer, Adrien was attracted to Liz Kendall’s campaign and paid £3 as a registered supporter. But he moved his allegiance to Corbyn when Kendall only got 4% of the vote. As he put it, “I realised I needed to do some serious political research.”
Adrien is a dogged researcher in other ways. He dug out some startling facts about breaches of election expenses by Conservative MPs for the Daily Mirror campaign, a talent the Labour Party might value at any other time. Adrien decided to join the Labour Party as a full member on January 21st, paying his £4 a month fee – which he can ill afford. Last week he was denied eligibility to vote for Corbyn as he fell foul of the NEC’s cut-off point of January 12th.
He then got a message earlier this week from Liz Kendall urging him to register to vote. When he fully understood that he had been disenfranchised by the Party’s NEC, Adrien immediately sank into a black depression, alleviated only by some new friendships he has made among people who are sensitive to his autism. None of his friends can afford to pay his £25 registration fee to vote for Corbyn. Moreover, NEC rules mean that lending or directly paying someone’s registration fee renders the registration invalid, preventing people from being able to vote in the leadership election.
The Parliamentary Labour Party likes to present itself as saving the Labour Party.  But who for?  Many grass roots members believe that the Party betrayed its values under Blair and Brown.  They feel it was not fit for purpose in 2010 or in 2015.  However, years of austerity have created a tipping point, and Brexit has let loose a Pandora’s Box of ‘furies’. There has been a late awakening to the reality of the vast disaffected underclass so long neglected by the political élite.  Academics now whisper about Britain sharing aspects of the Weimar Republic in Germany from 1919 to 1933.  There are some parallels, certainly in terms of the politics of discontent.
What the country needs now is a united Labour Party – one that fights austerity, racism and greed.  But it was the PLP who abandoned ship, not Corbyn.
Of course, a lot of MPs love grass roots activism at election time when they need help with canvassing.  Power has become increasingly centralised since Neil Kinnock became leader in late 1983.  Consequently, due to the lack of engagement or perceived relevance to their lives, Labour Party membership dropped steadily to around 205,000 before the 2015 General Election.  Membership has now risen to over half a million; only half that of Attlee’s period, but still climbing.
Given these astonishing figures, what is one to make of the deliberate implosion of the PLP when Jeremy Corbyn tried so hard to reach out to them?   It is tempting to view the rebels of the PLP as a pack of lemmings who, by jumping off a cliff in choreographed formation, had hoped to suck Jeremy Corbyn into the downward draught.  But lemmings are not known for fancy footwork or orchestrated pyrotechnics, so the analogy is a little off-kilter.  Barbary pirates suits the PLP better.  When, in July 2015, the bookies had Corbyn as the odds-on favourite, senior members of the Blairite faction had already planned to hang the putative leader from the yard-arm.  It was never the case that he did not have the capacity or competence to be the captain of his crew.  In a podcast of that month, the Spectator’s Isabel Hardman revealed the nascent plotters’ strategy to mutiny before Corbyn was even whistled aboard.
The same Spectator podcast featured John McTernan.  Once safely isolated within a back room at Walworth Road as an assistant librarian, he has subsequently morphed into one of the most apoplectic of the Blairite attack dogs and let rip at the membership.  “The grass roots don’t matter” he spluttered to the gentle interviewer.  At Walworth Road, Labour’s HQ in the 80s, Peter Mandelson was often heard saying, “The Labour Party would be fine if only it didn’t have any members.”  Perhaps McTernan overheard that, because he was soon out of the library, and a few years later was to be found distributing images of himself on the campaign trail, mobile in hand, seated behind Blair on a high speed train.
In the same Spectator interview, Hardman says that the plotters of July 2015 spoke of plans to purge Labour’s new HQ when Corbyn went.  They told Hardman it would take two years to do (up to 2017) and they would need to eradicate ‘institutional memory’. Institutional memory is a good and necessary thing for the Labour historian of the future.
One can only imagine the kind of sordid imagination that can bring Labour Party apparatchiks and their bosses to speak of purges and erasure of historical experience to the political editor of a Conservative journal.
The crescendo of abuse is like the interference on an old analogue TV.  In the end it is just a lot of wasted energy, crackling blurred lines that signify nothing worthwhile, giving everyone a headache, even the perpetrators. It is deeply unedifying, immature and calculatingly disingenuous.
“How can the plotters sleep at night with all the Black Ops they are executing?”  This is a refrain to be heard amongst Corbyn’s supporters, who can’t help but admire the man and his policies.  They tend to communicate by social media or face to face in Momentum meetings because no other source of news and features about Corbyn reflects what they are experiencing. They are switching off traditional media at a time when print media is in crisis.
The establishment has closed its ranks. LSE’s new media report reveals that 75% of all print media coverage for the first two months of Corbyn’s leadership was negative.  BBC, ITV, Sky, and all the national newspapers have united against him.  Actual analysis of broadcasting bias is yet to be done in depth, but a recent report from The Media Reform Coalition and Birkbeck, showed the BBC in particular has gone beyond the pale. Labour MPs’ support for regime change is long overdue, but it may be too late.  Meanwhile, large numbers of mild, refined, intelligent, middle-aged and elderly people are joining with younger Corbyn supporters to give each other strength against the onslaught of false accusation – being called dogs, a mob, a rabble, and worse.  They are posting shocked comments on Facebook about the hall-of-mirrors effect perpetrated by plotters and swallowed almost whole by a fourth estate that uses its massive power to bend and distort reality.
When asked in 1972, “What do you think about the impact of the French Revolution?” the Chinese premier Zhou Enlai allegedly replied, “It is too early to tell.” Apocryphal it may be, but it illustrates how important it is to consider the long view of history in the middle of a perfect storm.  The history of the Labour Party did not end with Blair’s lurch to the right. Though still embedded in the party framework, it is not an irreversible position. Nevertheless, it will take time to change the Party.  History takes time.
But the time has come.  Corbyn’s supporters are waking up to their own and Labour’s history. They are reaching back to the principles that founded the Party.  Events such as the MPs’ expenses scandal was a clarion call.  There is deep anger at all the emoluments, the peerages, the formation of political dynasties, the mortgage switching and the self-voted pay rises, not to mention the directorships given to Labour leaders with some of the very investment banks that triggered the biggest financial crash in world history, and at a time when disabled people have been disgracefully attacked and welfare cuts are enthusiastically supported by some right wing Labour MPs.  The Tories of course think this is how things should be.
Now the grass roots wants to take back the reins and is poised to do so.  They want to build a Labour Party that is inclusive and fair under a principled leader they can trust.  For them, that leader can only be Jeremy Corbyn.

Rosie Brocklehurst worked as a Press Officer for the Labour Party nationally in the 1980s, and took the Sun to IPSO over their front page ‘Court Jezter’ story last year and won.  She is a founder of Momentum.

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Categories: democracy, latest, UK
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James Carless
James Carless
Aug 15, 2016 11:29 PM

Blair and Mandelson are pure neocon poison,Kinnock and son in it for the money to get them out of the valleys they claim to represent,Owen Smith an opportunist clueless stooge to keep the red flag gaffer taped till Miliband senior can be parachuted into a safe seat.
This backstabbing is well documented and understood,but could anyone explain to me the betrayal of Corbyn’s mentor the late, great Tony Benn, by his son Hillary ?
Following US orders to promote the bombing of Syria,supporting the £ billions on the WMD Trident renewal,staying in the unaccountable Goldman Sachs run EU,opposing grass roots democracy . . . . . is it delayed teenage rebellion ? Has MI5 got some incriminating photos ? Someone enlighten me please !

Mark Catlin
Mark Catlin
Aug 15, 2016 3:54 PM

Reblogged this on Mark Catlin's Blog and commented:
Excellent piece!!

Alan
Alan
Aug 15, 2016 3:22 PM

When hasn’t there been a cry for a return to grass roots? Leadership squabbles are inherent in all gang structures, political gangs suffer self imposed quasi legal constraints in an attempt to appear respectable. Whether this rule or that, this face or that face doesn’t alter the fact that political parties are merely servants of the crown. It is to the crown they swear allegiance, not the public, not Mr Mostyn. Why should we care about the leadership of a party that is part of a system that offers us no loyalty? One only has to look at the decades of empty promises to understand why. Labour or Tory, two sides of the same coin.

rotzeichen
rotzeichen
Aug 15, 2016 3:15 PM

The right in politics are throwing everything but the Kitchen Sink at Jeremy, not because they think he is unelectable but precisely the opposite reason, there is a lot at stake in our Neo-Liberal world, just when the corporate sector though it had world politics all stitched up it starting to come apart at the seams, Jeremy is a consequence of that.
He has transformed people into understanding that Austerity is in fact a policy not a fact of life, and since he and Bernie Sanders have exposed the myths that it is essential, suddenly all the so called Nay Sayers have all started saying that they will be more radical than Jeremy.
The best form of flattery is imitation, but what we really need is the real thing and that is Jeremy Corbyn.

mohandeer
mohandeer
Aug 15, 2016 2:47 PM

Reblogged this on Worldtruth.

Luther Blissett
Luther Blissett
Aug 15, 2016 2:36 PM

I feel the piece unfairly maligns pirates.
Pirates were generally far more egalitarian, democratic and showed more solidarity than the Labour Party.
Wealth was shared quite equally, the sick and disabled were cared for, and were often given set sums of money for serious injury or disability, captains were elected, there was a lot less racial descrimination, private hording of wealth was, if found out was rewarded by ostracism, the code that the sailors signed up was upheld for everyone, etc, etc.
The book ‘The many headed hydra’ has a good description of the radicalism of the pirates.

John
John
Aug 15, 2016 4:58 PM

Spoken/written like a true Pastafarian.
But why no mention of saucy wenches?
Without them, none of us would be here!

Lumpy Gravy
Lumpy Gravy
Aug 16, 2016 1:51 AM

I know Hari has been a bit of a crook. But his ousting in 2012 by the thoroughly dishonorable and discredited ‘publishing establishment’ was sheer hypocrisy by crooks infinitely worse than him.
Regarding pirates, here are two interesting pieces by Johann Hari:
You are being lied to about pirates
Somalia: pirates or struggling fishermen?

michaelk
michaelk
Aug 15, 2016 12:37 PM

The Labour Party establishment, the MPs and their defenders in the liberal media, are scared stiff that democracy might be returning to the party, after years and years of elite rule where power was increasingly concentrated in fewer and fewer hands. Outside the Labour Party, the prospect of the Labour Party turning into a movement for democracy is viewed with just as much concern. This is what all the fuss is about. The fear that the Labour Party might become the focus of radical and democratic urges and ideas in society. What’s happening in the Labour Party is, potentially, an insurrection, a challenge, to decades of neo-liberal rule. Neo-liberalism which has caused so much unecessary suffering at home and massive bloodshed overseas, is losing its grip as people see and understand that they’ve been conned by a system of values and economic ideas that only benefit a tiny sliver of people at the very top of society, whilst everyone else, increasingly, has to pay the price for this form of ‘freedom.’ ‘Freedom’ for the rich and powerful to reap the fruits, whilst ordinary people are crushed under the wheels of the juggernaut of false ‘freedom.’

Alan ingram
Alan ingram
Aug 15, 2016 11:56 AM

As an ex-Guardian subscriber, it’s really good to see someone upholding ‘real’ journalism.

STEVE PARRY
STEVE PARRY
Aug 15, 2016 10:25 AM

Excellent piece. Although I may be wrong I had always thought Zhou Enlai referred to the Paris Commune

poetrymuseuum
poetrymuseuum
Aug 15, 2016 11:20 AM
Reply to  STEVE PARRY

The Diplomats thought he may have been referring to something more recent -e.g. Paris 1968. But it is funnier and wiser to think 1789.

Joe Staten
Joe Staten
Aug 15, 2016 11:51 AM
Reply to  poetrymuseuum

I think it’s the Paris Commune of 1871

John Pinkerton
John Pinkerton
Aug 16, 2016 11:30 PM
Reply to  STEVE PARRY

No, it was the French Revolution. He was asked the question by President Francoise Mitterand.

Греъм Стивънсън
Греъм Стивънсън
Aug 15, 2016 7:03 AM

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.abv-omExternalClass a:hover { color: #ff0000; } .abv-omExternalClass a { color: #0088cc; } .abv-omExternalClass a.primaryactionlink:link { background-color: #2585b2; color: #ffffff; } .abv-omExternalClass a.primaryactionlink:hover { background-color: #11729e; color: #ffffff; } WordPress.com Vaska posted: “by Rosie Brocklehurst After a whole year of being accused of criminal behaviour with not one shred of evidence, the innocent newbies, would-be Labour joiners, are learning about the state of politics today in a way that will either put them off politics “

John
John
Aug 15, 2016 4:10 AM

I urge Adrien Mostyn (not his real name) to hang on and wait for the Labour Party Annual Conference at the end of September, which is when the results of the Leader election will be announced and the newly elected members of the National Executive Committee will will take their places.
From October onwards, I anticipate seeing the beginnings of a new – true – Labour Party.
If not, then the party may well implode totally, with internecine struggles carrying on for years.
This development is not solely restricted to the UK.
The USA has witnessed the Occupy Movement and significant support for Bernie Sanders.
In Spain, the Indignados Movement has also followed similar lines.
The era of neo-liberalism/neo-conservatism is coming to an end.
A paradigm shift is taking place, in which the greedy few are increasingly being challenged by mass movements.
Change will and must come – either real democracy or real dictatorships must happen.