Text of Resignation Letter to Labour Party Dated Today

Dear X –

It is with regret that I resign from the Labour Party. Could you remove me from all membership and e-circulation lists? I do not think this will come as a surprise but it strikes me as good mannered to give some reasons. It would appear that I made a mistake in re-joining the Party and it is for me to take responsibility for my misjudgement. The reasons may, however, be instructive because I am not alone in my concerns. 

1    Lack of Respect for Dissent Within the Tradition

The insulting response by the Labour In Europe representative to my dissenting position on the European Referendum and the failure of the Chair to offer any reasonable opportunity for a reply would not in itself be sufficient cause to leave.

What provided sufficient cause alongside other issues of concern was the discovery that a Party Conference decision was not merely the basis for the decision of the Party Leadership to unite around the pro-Remain policy (which is reasonable) but that it was clear that those who disagreed with the policy would, more generally, not be treated with respect but rather treated as the enemy within.

I was not alone across the Party in finding pressure, often bullying (though I would never accuse anyone in XXXXXXXXX CLP of this), being placed on Members not to promote a dissident view but to follow a ‘line’, an attitude that I thought was one that went out with the old Communist Party. This lack of respect for reasonable dissent within the democratic socialist tradition was, frankly, shocking.

2     Lack of Respect for Evidence-Based Debate

The recent furore over Livingstone’s radio comments was equally disturbing. In fact, Livingstone had expressed an opinion based on a reasonable interpretation of certain facts. He had not expressed any anti-Semitic opinion whatsoever and that was clear at the time. Another MP then barracked him aggressively in public and in an un-comradely way.

Again, if this had resulted in an open debate about what Livingstone said, it would be classed as political education. It may be that the balance of opinion might reasonably have contested his position. Instead, Livingstone was virtually witch-hunted in public and the MP who verbally attacked him not only escaped any censure for his appalling behaviour but was protected by the Whips.

The matter was then ‘framed’ in the media  as one of general antisemitism (which was un-evidenced) in terms that bode ill for future freedom of debate and speech. Once again, the Party appeared to be moving towards the adoption of ‘lines’ and the rejection of open debate and away from a strategy of public political education which is the only way to engage honourably with the British people.

One aspect of this farrago was that the thuggish behaviour of the Labour Right and the intemperate arguments of the Labour Left were both derivative of the fact that each had its own constituency based on identity, Jewish or Left-Muslim in this case, which leads me to the third reason …

3     The Infiltration of the Party by Identity Politics

One thing that has radically changed since my earlier period with the Party is the further intensification of American-style identity politics as an acceptable ideology for a democratic socialist party. I find myself very uncomfortable with identity politics because it collectivises not the people as a whole but sections of the population around their attributes and beliefs. It is an indirect concession to fascism.

This is not to argue against action against discrimination and inequality when it disproportionately affects people with certain attributes (gay, black, female or whatever) but only to argue that action on discrimination and for equality is based on people being persons first and having attributes second. Identity politics creates communitarian blocs in which activists purport to speak for others.

Locally, I was disturbed at the dominant role played by radical feminism and was particularly disturbed to find local activists both giving a platform to a rival party (the Women’s Equality Party) and organising and publicising an event which would be ‘women only’, discriminating against men and using the Party brand for a sub-ideology of exclusiveness.

There is no issue here with supporting the Women’s Equality Party or with having women-only or men-only events in a free society. There is every issue with a democratic socialist party conniving in this or any other form of sectarian behaviour. It would be equally disturbing if we were offered Muslim only meetings or LGBT only meetings under the Labour ‘brand’. I want nothing of this.

What do all these have in common? They represent a closed-in exclusive activist ideology that is deeply alienating to dissent within the democratic socialist tradition – a person can be disrespected because they are a) critical of the European Project, b) educated, meaning here willing to test opinions against facts and undertake a civilised debate, and c) male (and, no doubt, the wrong skin colour in some contexts).

Enough is enough. The Party was founded on general working-class representation and on Enlightenment principles based on educational improvement and equality. The post-Marxist infiltration of the Party has created something else entirely – a liberal-left middle class party that expects group-think as a matter of course and reinstates communitarian ideology in place of political pragmatism and liberation ideology.

This has little to do with Left and Right – I am a Corbyn supporter and the Labour Right have led on the promotion of identity politics – but everything to do with civilisation and progress. The Labour Right are far more culpable in general than the incoming Left but I am reluctant to waste the rest of my life trying to contribute to a Party in a state of near-civil war, one in which my core values are clearly not respected.

Having said all that, I want to emphasise that there is no rancour or issue with the local Party (other than the failure to challenge visiting officials and identity activists). I know that the members are hard-working, decent, intelligent and good people who have made great strides in a very conservative local environment.  I wish them individually well but it would be wrong to stay silent.

Unfortunately, I cannot wish a Party well that I fear would bring its new habits of discrimination, authoritarianism and evasion and avoidance of challenging debate into high office. Armed with the machinery of the State, there is a serious risk that this culture of disrespect for dissent, of rejection of open debate in favour of media brawling and of discriminatory identity politics could become oppressive.

It is simply not enough to say that we should put up with these flaws in order to ensure a Labour Government, especially one that can reverse neo-liberal austerity measures. History teaches us that a Government that does not have core values based on reason and respect is a very dangerous Government and an anti-austerity culturally authoritarian Government could be very dangerous indeed.

If the Labour Party wants to win my vote (since that is now what it has come down to), it will have to demonstrate to me and to others that it represents the interests of the whole working population and not that of special interests, that it adopts pragmatic evidence-based policies and that it can accommodate reasoned debate and criticism on major existential issues.  At the moment, the Party is not for me.

The resignation is effective immediately.

Kind Regards

Tim Pendry

Enough is Enough - When You Are In An 'Ole, Stop Digging ...

I have been weighing up whether the Labour Party is worth the candle after around nine months of re-engagement, having, once again, observed it from the inside. I decided to try and be as objective as possible - does it match what I believe and is it good for the people of this country? These are the only two considerations for me. There is another consideration: is it good for my petty personal interest but, frankly, I would probably never have been a Labour Party supporter if that was so. Politics is about interest but it is also about values and I place values before interest while others (which is their right) do the opposite. Let us weigh up the evidence.

FOR THE LABOUR PARTY

1. There is no other party that at least purports to protect the interests of the most vulnerable in our society although a) the least worst is perhaps not the best, b) the record of Labour in office under Blair was chequered to say the least with its distracted interest in international issues, and c) there are 'conservative' forces that are equally evidentially concerned with the causes of poverty and with solutions (represented within the Labour Party by the increasingly isolated Frank Field).

2. A significant element in the leadership including the Leader represent the forces of peace and redistribution although a) the rest of the leading networks in the Party seem determined to oust it by fair means or foul and b) this values-driven element (of which I approve) seem to be consistently politically inept and naive.

3, It still represents the bulk of the Labour Movement although a) the trades unions seem no longer to be concerned about society as a whole but only with their special interests and b) the trades union movement is now largely associated (with exceptions such as the sterling work done in the transport, construction, retail, banking and manufacturing sectors) with a defensive strategy to maintain a large and often inefficient state sector as producers rather than having much concern with the services to be supplied.

AGAINST THE LABOUR PARTY

1. It is not organisationally fit for purpose. It has hollowed out in the North. It has lost Scotland and is under pressure in Wales. In the South, it has become dominated by naive cultural activists of the liberal-left in a state of alternating outrage and despair. In some urban areas, its structures are controlled by ethnic feudal elites. Its elected representatives are narcissists and out of control. Its leadership is weak, though not always a weakness of its own making. The party apparat (the professionals) have far too much influence and control within a supposedly democratic party. It is collapsing from within.

2. It has become dominated by cultural and identity politics for short term urban electoral reasons at the expense of class and national interest politics. Its European policy - thrust upon it by the apparat - alienates much of its working class base and is deeply flawed in its analysis of the nature of the European Project, aligning it further with the international liberal economic system. It has allowed itself to become distracted by urban culture wars between ethnic groups. It has also aligned itself with the movement to control thought and language and avoid free debate ('liberal totalitarianism') and it connives in the rewriting of history for political purposes. It has refused to face the very real problems created by global flows of migrants and tried to suppress all debate on the matter. Parts of its apparat have been taken over by sectional identity elements, most notably radical feminism (which is not to be confused with the commitment to social and economic equality between persons of all genders).

3. It has totally neglected any form of political education nor has it encouraged critical thinking and open debate (although the Leader has made moves in this direction on Trident and other matters though signally not on Europe). It has confused political organisation and building a party with issues campaigning as if it was little more than a giant NGO. It has acted as claque for the campaigning of NGOs that collude with other political interests. If its policies are coherent (which is to be doubted), they are poorly communicated.

In short, on the debit side, the democratic socialist and labour party of the early twentieth century has turned into a chaotic and naive liberal-left party that floats on the tide of history instead of creating it. It became little more than a mass of aging tribal loyalists supporting a small number of paid opportunists and cynics (amidst which men and women of integrity are undoubtedly to be found), all of limited horizon and education, but also without or with decreasing experience of mass social and political organisation.

The 'Corbyn revolution' merely brought all this out into the open - within a party that has been rotting for decades - by introducing a new and unstable force of passionate and inexperienced people who contain within their cohort ideologues as their most active element, an element even further disconnected from those in the working class whose livelihoods do not depend on the public sector.

From being a national working class party, the Labour Party has become an inchoate coalition of sectional special interest groups including urban ethnic groups and ideologues with increasingly little to say to a people who are suffering not only from austerity in the short term but neo-liberalism in the long term. The commitment to a subsumption under a European ameliorative neo-liberal project should be the last straw for many natural supporters of a genuine class and community-based democratic socialism.

The positives for the Party would be enhanced if a) it ceased its trajectory towards a civil war organised from the Right and unified itself around a national redistributive and democratic programme that eschewed culture wars and identity politics and offered a viable anti-austerity strategy or b) it was simply destroyed and replaced by a national democratic socialist party that could undertake this programme more effectively.

To recover ground would require a) the re-imposition of party discipline at every level around a programme that mediated between the party members and the general public where the party apparat and elected representatives were subject to the authority of a Leader elected by the members, b) the intellectal content of the party's programme to be radically upgraded to rely on only evidence-based solutions to value-driven problems instead of rhetorical and cultural position-taking c) the trades union movement either returned to a socialist position or partially sidelined as a special interest group and d) the liberal internationalist programme to become secondary to a pragmatic national democratic and redistributive programme.

None of these changes seem likely. To maintain and vote for the Party in its current condition is irresponsible. Placing values to one side, the national interest would not be served by having a Government of half-baked thinkers with ill-thought out policies and a propensity to legislate in the direction of thought and language control, let alone behaviour control. Worse, this Party would have half its eye on the absurd dream of transforming the European Union into a socialist paradise and be subject to the whims and fancies of whichever faction demanded some life-denying ideological policy to maintain a Parliamentary majority.

So, as Lenin, put it - 'What Is To Be Done?'. First, when one is in an hole, the first rule is to stop digging. This mess is not something that ordinary members can possibly have any control over. There is no sign that the Party Leadership has a grip on things and can make the necessary changes. Across the Party and the Labour Movement, the ruling elite are like ferrets in a sack or large rats fighting over a small cake. There is nothing to be done within the Party. It is degenerate in the most fundamental sense.

All the ordinary person can do who has the values that should have been expressed by a strong Labour Party is to stand back and not only let it implode but hope it implodes quickly so that something can take its place or that, perhaps, one or other of the 'civil war' wings of the party can be transformed into something that can represent the aspirations of the mass of the population while not being led by some maniacal cuckoo in the nest like the unlamented Tony Blair, the Conan of the Middle East.

The argument that anything is better than the Tories does not stand up any more. Idealism is not enough. Politics is about power and that means the competent control of a powerful and dangerous State, including the deep state aspects of it. It does not mean getting office in order to be taken over by the State as happened under the last Labour Government. Whoever is incompetent at controlling the State leaves the Deep State to control us. A competent democratic force that challenges the State is always preferable to an incompetent one that is the creature of the State. The Tories need to be challenged by something far more competent than they are, tougher, disciplined, even brutal in its support for core values of redistribution, democracy, community and individual freedom, including the freedom to dissent.

The Labour Party has become a waste of the space given to a radical, progressive, democratic force in this country. It will cease to have my membership. It will cease to have my support until it deals with the key issues of organisation and discipline, cultural and identity politics and values-deriven political education. None of these changes are likely and so I await something new that can do practical things for our poorest and most vulnerable, ensure maximum freedom and opportunity for the majority, maintain our national identity along progressive lines and control and limit the State and other institutional forces. I look forward to seeing pigs arrive at Terminal 1 Heathrow ...

My text of my resignation letter to the Party will follow in due course. This farrago was not what I signed up for.

An Update on the Brexit Debate - The Creation of Democratic Left Network

It is time for a report back on our limited involvement in the struggle for British national self-determination and democracy which will reach its climax yet not conclude with the vote on Brexit on June 23rd, 2016. The last campaign report was the text of the Speech given at the TEAM EU Counter-Summit given in November of last year - this is now available as a YouTube video courtesy of PaxVista TV (see below).

One of the major themes of that talk was the need for Right and Left to collaborate on an issue of massive importance to the general population of the country. A secondary result of our discussions in November was the realisation of thedegree to which the Labour Party had been appropriated by a 'soft left' Euro-socialist machine dependent on Brussels and, on this issue, by the Old Labour Right.

My own experience and that of others of being dismissed, of falsehoods about our position and even something close to bullying of dissent within the Party has led some of us to (in effect) suspend our engagement with the Party until June 24th and concentrate on the issue of Brexit. This issue is existential as far as this country and its democracy are concerned and it trumps mere party advantage.

Previous posts on this blog have supplied some of the reasoning behind a commitment to Brexit from a Left perspective but it was quickly recognised by myself and others that something more was required than individual protest. The issues raised by the rise of a pseudo-democratic European Left were far bigger than Brexit alone.

Earlier last month, a number of activists, all Labour Party members, combined to create the Democratic Left Network [DLN] which now has its own web site, blog, twitter account and Facebook Page after herculean efforts by dedicated members of the younger generation with real world jobs to hold down. This in turn has been nurtured and supported by the non-partisan Democracy Movement although DLN is wholly independent.

Although I have stuck to my guns in being distanced from direct activism in Leave.EU, I made a point of attending the last Advisory Board Meeting to explain what the Democratic Left Network was, how it would work and how it would collaborate with older Labour Movement organisations such as the Campaign Against Euro-Federalism [CAEF] and the Trades Unions Against The European Union [TUAEU]. We found an atmosphere of collaboration and support on all sides.

Our ideas have been tested in public meeting since and have not been found wanting. Liberal-left and democratic socialist opinion is confused, feels led by the nose and is beginning to ask some serious questions about where we are heading if we Stay in the European Union. In fact, DLN, whose Editorial Board will be confirmed on April 14th, does not exist solely to fight for Brexit from the Left. It exists to fight for improved political education and for democratic socialism on the Left.

The DLN intends to continue to exist and to grow stronger after June 23rd regardless of the result. Its position on the European Union has emerged logically out of a democratic socialist position that stands against the capture of the Labour Party and Labour Movement by a failed liberal-left on the one hand and by pseudo-democratic rightists on the other. Democracy and socialism are seen here as equal parts of the same whole in defiance of both Liberal Democrats and latter-day Bolsheviks alike.

Our concern is two-fold in the current debate. The first to raise the status of political education and free and open debate and to stand up and show those overwhelmed by propaganda but who have doubts about the technocratic neo-liberal and barely competent European Project that they are not alone and that they should feel free to speak out and raise issues of concern. The second is to expose the absurdity inherent in the posture of Varoufakis and his muddled associates that Britons should vote to stay in the European Union on the dubious grounds that it can be democratised and socialised - as DLN has pointed out in robust terms.

Varoufakis himself describes the crisis of the proto-State in devastating terms. It is puzzling that he continues to believe that his band of idealists could persuade the middle classes of Northern Europe to vote for their own demise when the most logical outcome for Europe, if it survives the crisis, is to become an integrated empire where its citizens are reduced to fodder for the neo-liberal project.

Our view is that the vote on June 23rd is an opportunity to transform not only Britain but also Europe by showing Europeans that they can escape from the machinery of liberal federalism and neo-liberal economics through national self-determination and internationalism in preference to supranationalism. In understanding this, they can then escape from a deep pessimism about the possibility of social change within the United Kingdom, one that seems to have affected depressive left-wing intellectuals and made them give up on the project of empowering the people to take command of their own destiny.