Labour’s Gap Year

This article will be published in the House (of Commons) Magazine during Labour Conference Week

It happens with political parties.

Electoral defeat breeds depression and creates a blame culture which turns inwards. 2016 was Labour’s gap year when we had a holiday from reality. Measured in terms of election results, Labour had a brilliant year. Challenging these were opinions polls that presaged doom under Jeremy Corbyn in 2020. Party members chose to believe the soothsayers rather than the hard evidence of real votes by real people in real elections. Fear and pessimism triumphed and many MPs surrendered to unreason and sought ways to get rid of Corbyn by hook and sometimes by crook.

My role in this tragedy was a minor one. I have been a serial loyalist to Labour Party leaders since Attlee. Although I had a few wobbles about Tony Blair on Iraq and Afghanistan, since the 1945 election that I worked in as a 10 year old I have been loyal to the Labour Party through thick and thin. In the election for the previous Labour leader I supported David Miliband and inadvertently emphasized my pessimism about his brother Ed by being the only MP to place him in the 5th bottom place in the vote. As a good democrat I never once uttered a syllable of criticism of him during his doomed years as Prime Minister in waiting.

In the 2015 leadership election I publicly supported Liz Kendall who amassed 4.5% of the vote. This was a sobering lesson. Now and henceforth I will remain silent on my voting intentions. This time I followed the example of the Welsh Labour Leader Carwyn Jones and remained neutral.

Although their intentions were honourable the methods used by the anti-Corbynistas have failed and gravely damaged the future prospects of the Labour Party. A whole Chinese army of hostages to fortune were supplied in vehement red-on-red attacks.  First came the refuseniks who bad-mouthed Jeremy with tweets minutes after his victory was declared. Then came a drip-feed of resignations some inflicting maximum damage by being made on live television with banshee wails on the alleged desperate state of the party. The Brexit vote was unfairly blamed on Corbyn who persuaded 63% of his supporters to vote Labour’s way while Cameron got only 42% of his followers to vote his way. The anti-Corbynistas struck. Cascading resignations designed for 24-hour television coverage pre-occupied the media on a Sunday when the destruction of Prime Minister Cameron’s career should have occupied the media’s attention. The result was a shortage of Shadow Cabinet members.  The voices of opposition have been weakened but a wealth of new talent has been discovered among new backbenchers that will serve us well in the future.

Corbyn felt safe in his support from the burgeoning growth in party membership. A vote of no confidence by the majority of MPs left him unmoved.  By September Labour had grown into the biggest political party in Europe with a massive 600,000 members and supporters.  There was hope that an internal election undertaken in an atmosphere of mutual respect would provide a platform of Labour alternative policies to challenge government failures.  Instead the hustings swiftly plummeted into self-lacerating attacks in which brotherly and sisterly love were absent. The wild hyperbole of contempt, the shrieks of hopelessness created a Hallelujah Chorus of division. The party fell into cannibalising itself.  Not surprisingly, the unrelenting message from Labour MPs that the leader (and by extension the party) was rubbish was believed by the voters and the prophecies of doom and gloom fulfilled themselves in electoral failure.

The myth of hopelessness took hold in spite of the cliff of evidence that Labour under Corbyn was harvesting majority votes. Winning 1326 Council seats, hailed as triumph under Blair, were mocked as a failure under Corbyn.  Four magnificent mayoral victories were consigned to a dungeon of the unconscious mind where the equally stunning by-election triumphs dwelt.

In Wales the canard that UKIP has experienced a boom in Wales was endlessly repeated and became part of an accepted lexicon of lies. The New Statesman gullibly re-echoed the myth of a UKIP Welsh surge based on the election 18 months ago under Miliband, wilfully ignoring the election four months ago in which UKIP lost support.   The New Statesman’s article misses the point that if the Westminster election had been decided on the Welsh PR system, a factor now mentioned in the journal, UKIP would have had 83 seats in the Commons now instead of the one the FPTP system delivered.  Had the Welsh Assembly election been decided under Westminster rules, UKIP would have won no seats. Therefore, the true news story in Wales is of a UKIP droop and Labour gains. Labour won three parliamentary seats under Carwyn Jones and Jeremy Corbyn in May 2016 that were lost under Miliband in 2015. Instead of 25 General Election victories Labour had 29 Assembly wins and formed the Welsh Labour Government. A brilliant success.

Distinguished Welsh academic Richard Wyn Jones hailed, “The Labour Party in Wales’ remarkable record as the UK’s most successful electoral machine.’ He said that the Welsh Labour brand now make the SNP look like ‘gauche arrivistes’.  The gold truth of election victories was alchemised into dross in a desperate battle to create a fable of failure.

September should put the lid on self-destruction. The party has grown with a great force of the politically inspired idealistic young. Traditional party members are angered by the avoidable internal battles. There is a new spirit of compromise. Clive Betts presented his bid to change voting rules in a spirit of unity-seeking moderation. The Shadow Cabinet responded in a cooperative spirit. It would a relief to get some of the best talents in PLP back on the front benches. The PLP was firmly and loudly supportive of Corbyn defenestration of May in the most recent PMQs.

A year ago I wrote that party members had fallen in love with a principled, authentic partisan of Classic Labour. I hoped the country would follow. Unconventional politicians who break all the rules are succeeding across the world.

The gap year is over. Whoever becomes the leader, the way ahead for the PLP and members is ONE Leader (no quibbling or back-biting), ONE Party (no splits), and ONE Enemy (this awful Government).

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Comments

[Rachel G McGee]

Well said

[Paulflynn]

Politics is changing with revulsion against lies and attraction to the honest, authentic politicians of truth. Corbyn will continue to win.

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Whilst they are in charge they ought to sort their own house out instead of making us look increasingly stupid for putting up with them. Eventually they will need to be put in their place. The self confidence drilled into them at Eton will only take them so far. Its not real authority they just assume its theirs. Its not hard to get rid either. But it requires numbers to act in their own interest. It means us 'depriving' THEM the relatively few instead of them grabbing everything at everyone else's expense. Not concessions offered grudgingly but abolition, seizure and takeover. Make them pay it all back to us so they don't keep an advantage. Whilst we sit and watch instead of acting things get worse. What I describe is what they are doing. We aren't really doing anything but are being corralled and manipulated. Play them at their own game and it should be a pushover.

What do we need them for? What have they promised to 'give' to us, prosperity, security? Do we not get the reverse? A glimmer of socialism and people assemble in droves to hear it and the establishment fails to nullify it. They must be shifting uncomfortably as it is, never mind if more people stopped feeling small and unimportant and stopped allowing themselves to be ripped off by the 'big hitters' who milk the party machinery for their 'career'.

How much of that is hyperbole or just downright shit I don't know. But lets face it most of them are practically vermin/parasites. We need a clear out and we need to stop handing over authority and instead diminish them to what they rightly are. That takes people talking to each other and taking just a little time to change behaviour slightly. Not much to ask so not an unreasonable goal.

[Dan Berry]

Mr Flynn, is there any possibility that you could apply the same sense of collaboration and moving forward with members across the aisle? I'm sure there must be a great number you get along with but collective hate and calling them the enemy is what puts people off party politics. Gentler politics I think it was termed by Mr Corbyn.

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There doesn't seem to be much of a 'party' at all. A party that is nominally socialist.

I wish there was a bit of honesty that this is about political doctrine. The careerist £80k a year plus pension lot are only concerned with their own advancement. Thats not a contradiction in my view as many believe thats what matters. They will espouse whatever is advantageous. They've nothing to offer. All that matters is that they stay electable.

They want people to switch off in deference, I don't really understand where they are coming from. They are pulling us down. They think the fact the have 'made it' gives them license to act like this. The fact that they are elected means they can govern in terms of the opposite of the peoples' interests and aspirations. That is what is happening. Its been happening for decades and is getting worse.

That is the state of the 'authority' which they assume and boast of. There shouldn't be a wall between us and them. A wall allows them to feather their own nests, to keep a corrupt system going. Sorry to preach but we have shit political affiliation combined with a selfish grasping mentality and a lack of any real talent or conviction. Why are THEY given authority? Who does that benefit?

Lets change things. Corbyn is trying to do that. The PLP is busy undermining him. Lets put away the bullshit and find a purpose that benefits the party AND the country.