Category Archives: Democracy and the Labour Party

Labour Party conference, The right

God save the king, the Starmer regime

James Harvey calls for rebellion against the blue Labour monarchism being foisted on the Liverpool conference

After 10 days of national mourning and media saturation of matters monarchical, it seems that our trip to Ruritania is over and we are now very much back to business as usual – particularly in the Labour Party.

As befits a new prime minister, Liz Truss is settling in at the United Nations and upping the ante in the war drive against Russia, while at home her government is announcing its economic strategy and plans to deal with the energy crisis. So, despite all the talk of a new national mood following the death of Elizabeth Windsor and the accession of her son, it seems that, after a brief hiatus for the funeral, normal service has been resumed.

That certainly seems true on the face of it for this week’s Labour conference in Liverpool. Over the last year, Sir Keir Starmer and the pro-capitalist right have continued to tighten their control over the party, along with their triangulation strategy and its promise of electoral success. The Labour leadership’s tepid response to the cost-of-living crisis and soaring energy bills, along with its failure to support strikes in defence of living standards, are all of a piece with this ‘responsible’, statesmanlike strategy. So far Sir Keir has done a good job in reassuring the capitalist class that the ‘bad old Corbyn days’ are well and truly over and will never return. It seems that he has finally restored ‘sanity’ and ‘common sense’, and once again made Labour an acceptable second eleven.

Should the crisis become too severe and the challenge of the working class too great for the Truss government, it seems that our noble knight can ride to the rescue and save the day for the capitalist class. Favourable articles in the Financial Times and The Economist show that Starmer’s message is getting through to sections of bourgeois opinion, while even The Times – the Murdoch flagship – is saying some nice things about a possible Starmer government.

It is worth taking a moment to understand the political and strategic thinking of the pro-capitalist leadership. Leaving aside the obvious careerism and individual desire for advancement, wealth and status exhibited by many Labour politicians, they do have a political project that essentially boils down to maintaining capitalism. Historically, this might have been understood as reforms in the interests of the working class, or framed in the rhetoric of ‘modernisation’, but the options for even the most minor modifications are now very limited indeed.

As leaders of a bourgeois workers’ party, Labour politicians are an integral part of the ruling class, so protecting capitalism and advancing their own interests go hand in hand. They are completely loyal to the constitutional and economic order: they stick to the rules, because they are intrinsically part of the game. This is all we need to know to understand the politics of Sir Keir Starmer.

Guillotine

While media neutrality or even support is useful for electoral success, the Starmer strategy still has to win over and retain the support of sufficient voters to win the next general election. Labour’s lead in the opinion polls can be read as a type of quiet progress for the Starmer camp, but in their eyes there is still a lot for them to do if they are to become a credible party of government.

Again, a small, symbolic act can reveal a lot. For Sir Keir, and the constitutional loyalists who form the leadership of the party and the trade unions, the death of Elizabeth Windsor was a good opportunity to demonstrate their fealty in every way to the status quo. The Labour leaders played their part to the full in the official ceremonies of mourning and the accession of a new monarch: they did not put a foot wrong. They were joined in that bowing and curtsying by the supine Labour ‘left’ MPs, who maintained a vow of loyal silence and tweeted their officially sanctioned sorrow at the passing of the hereditary head of state.

The Labour leadership wants to double down on this pro-monarchism and keep the patriotic mood going by opening the party conference with a rousing rendition of ‘God save the king’. What better way to convince socially conservative ‘red wall’ voters, who supposedly defected to the Tories in 2019 because they hated Corbyn’s suspect leftism, that Labour under Starmer is the patriotic party once again? Likewise, for Tory ‘blue wall’ voters, such a stirring example of banal loyalty by conference delegates would seal the deal and show that Sir Keir’s party was on the side of ‘people like us’. Appealing to two vital electoral targets with one anthem – what an absolutely wizard wheeze and a brilliant master-stroke of media management. If it comes off!

However, lots could go wrong; let’s hope so. We would suggest that delegates in good voice sing The Guillotine. Written in 1794 by the American republican and French citizen, Joel Barlow, the music is the same. It is only the words that are rather different:

God save the guillotine
Till England’s king and queen
Her power shall prove:
Till each appointed knob
Affords a clipping job
Let no vile halter rob
The guillotine.[1]

That, or we would urge delegates to walk out. Rows of empty seats would send an excellent republican message (including to viewers at home – that is, unless the TV companies resort to censorship).

The historical record of Labour leaderships and governments from the very beginning has been one of complete loyalty to the state and British imperialism. There have been occasional social-pacifist lapses, but both at home and abroad Labour has safely been an obedient servant of the constitutional order. Yet Sir Keir still feels the need to sing the ‘national anthem’ to prove his allegiance to the ruling class: explained by the fact that Labour remains a bourgeois workers’ party (because of its name, trade union links, mass membership, voting base, etc).

But what of the Labour left – both historically and, most immediately, at this conference? In the early 1920s there were motions calling for the abolition of the monarchy and the hereditary principle. James Maxton in the 1930s and Tony Benn in the 1990s championed republicanism too. Nowadays, however, the official left, represented by the completely tamed Socialist Campaign Group of MPs, has fallen into line and capitulated entirely to the Starmer leadership. Apart from Clive Lewis’s rather feeble comments on our new head of state, these so-called left MPs have remained completely silent when it comes to republicanism.

Meanwhile, Andy Burnham is on manoeuvres, tacking to the left, speaking at Enough is Enough rallies and angling for a return to Westminster: Burnham for West Lancashire, following Rosie Cooper’s announced retirement, anyone? He is clearly waiting in the wings, should the Starmer electoral strategy fail. Such flagrant opportunism and careerism fools no-one, but, given the pathetic state of the parliamentary left, they could rally to his cause as a future ‘left’ candidate for the Labour leadership.

Although the recent election of Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi to the national executive committee was a small ray of light, the incoherence and disorientation of the non-parliamentary Labour left continues. The expulsions and suspensions of the witch-hunt, combined with resignations and disillusion amongst activists in the CLPs, have severely weakened the left. Momentum’s outright capitulation to the Labour right during the witch-hunt continues, while the Campaign for Labour Party Democracy equivocates in such a way as to effectively render support for the Starmer leadership.

Attempts to open a debate on the Forde report or change the rules to allow Jeremy Corbyn to rejoin the party and stand as a Labour MP must, of course, be supported. The same goes for demands that the party leadership support workers’ demands for higher pay and give solidarity to strikes. However, remember that such conference victories can safely be ignored by Sir Keir. The left will protest, grumble and begin again the endless cycle of drafting new conference resolutions and getting ready to throw themselves into the next general election (this time with the chance of replacing the Liz Truss government with one headed by Sir Keir).

The current balance of forces within the party is not simply a product of the inability of the Labour left to learn from history. The more successful the Labour left is, the more it merges with the labour and trade union bureaucracy and therefore the outer layers of the state. Going from left to right is par for the course.

Even when leftwingers break with the Labour Party organisationally, they just reproduce its politics of Labourism in another form. Whether it is called the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition, the Socialist Labour Network or Resist, all we get is lowest-common-denominator politics and therefore economism.

Until leftwingers break decisively with that type of politics and recognise the necessity of a Communist Party, a mass party based on a Marxist programme and the principles of democratic, not bureaucratic, centralism, there is no possibility of winning the Labour Party to socialism, let alone winning a socialist government l

[1]. For all the words and something about Joel Barlow see: davidmhart.com/wordpress/archives/1048.

Democracy and the Labour Party, The left

A ray of light

Momentum behaved despicably, while the CLPD was hardly any better, but there was a welcome upset. James Harvey examines the Labour left after the NEC elections

Over the ‘summer of discontent’ much of the focus of the left has been on the increasing tempo of the class struggle and the strike wave that looks set to continue into the autumn and well beyond.

Taken together with Sir Keir Starmer’s ‘statesmanlike’ neutrality on the strikes and attempts to slap down frontbenchers who offer solidarity by appearing on picket lines, it is no surprise that many have concluded that now is the time to abandon ship. Socialist Worker is far from alone in its ‘streets and strikes’ obsession. The Morning Star, The Socialist, even Socialist Appeal take a similar approach. But before ditching Labour as a site of struggle we ought to be clear about what is going on and what is still possible. It is not all doom and gloom.

A good place to take the political temperature amongst the party’s rank and file is the recent elections to the national executive committee. The bald voting figures show a further slight swing to the right, with the left losing, and the right gaining, one seat.[1] However, given the expulsions, suspensions and resignations since the last elections in 2020, this result had been widely expected. No, the major upset was the composition of the four leftwingers now on the NEC. Leading Momentum member Mish Rahman failed to get elected, while Jewish Voice for Labour’s Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi won the ninth place.[2]

This is all the more remarkable, given that Momentum’s new-old leadership not only failed to endorse Naomi, but actively attempted to undermine her, giving rise to a whispering campaign on social media which urged party members to treat her as an untouchable. The refusal to endorse her was dovetailed by the Campaign for Labour Party Democracy’s geographically slanted voting advice. Ostensibly designed to maximise the left vote in a proportional representation election system, its recommendations were surely designed to reduce the vote of a ‘nationally’ based comrade like Naomi. So not only did Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi have to contend with the expected attacks from the right: she also faced sabotage from the so-called left as well.

What really distinguishes her, what really marks her out as controversial, dangerous even, is, of course, her brave opposition to the ‘anti-Zionism equals anti-Semitism’ witch-hunt. That is why she is reviled, treated as toxic by the likes of the Board of Deputies and the Jewish Labour Movement. Nor does her position on trans rights, good or bad, have anything to do with the desperate attempt by Momentum and CLPD to treat her as a non-person. Typically, Momentum leadership’s response to Naomi’s heartening NEC victory was to ignore it. This shows just how low the official Labour left has sunk. They would, if they could, impose a regime where the only facts are Momentum-approved facts.

Momentum’s official response to the NEC elections, which actually saw them lose a seat, was, therefore, to celebrate a great triumph for ‘socialism’. But, of course, outside Momentum’s Orwellian bubble, what everyone was talking about was Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi.

However, while her 4,686 first-preference votes represent two fingers up to both the Labour right and the fake left, her election remains a ray of light in what is, overall, a rather dark picture. With the aid of trade union and affiliated society members Starmer has a comfortable majority on the NEC. Furthermore, the right dominates the Parliamentary Labour Party. The Socialist Campaign Group of MPs is largely neutered by its own timidity. Although Wimborne-Idrissi’s election gave the left in the Constituency Labour Parties something of a morale boost just weeks before Liverpool, what will surely be one of the most stage-managed conferences ever, the knives are already out for her.

The outraged reaction of the Jewish Labour Movement and the Board of Deputies to her election shows that moves may well be underway to oust her from the NEC, even expel her from the party. Needless to say, such Zionist outfits regard her election as unacceptable, an affront. After all, she is the ‘wrong kind of Jew’. She is an anti-Zionist Jew and, no less worse, a socialist to boot.

When it comes to removing her, much will depend on whether Starmer and the right feel the need to launch yet another symbolic attack on the left, yet another demonstration of Labour’s eminent suitability for government and abject loyalty to the US-dominated world order. Perhaps Starmer will stay his hand simply because the left is safely marginalised. Whatever happens, though, we can be assured, given their past record during the height of the ‘anti-Zionism equal anti-Semitism’ witch-hunt, that neither Momentum nor the SCG will lift a finger to defend Wimborne-Idrissi if she faces the usual trumped-up charges coming from Labour’s Victoria Street HQ. They will easily find ‘principled reasons’ to look the other way.

Jeremy Corbyn’s failure in 2019, the defeat of the hapless Rebecca Long-Bailey, the proscribing of ‘poisonous’ organisations such as Labour Against the Witchhunt, led some to conclude that Labour was dead. The Tories were undefeatable. The UK had a one-party system. Apparently Sir Keir’s sole concern was purging the left. He knew that getting into No10 was always impossible. Stupid then, even more stupid now.

Today Labour is well ahead in the polls, and, despite misconceived leftwing predictions, stands well placed to secure a majority government. It is true that a Labour government under Starmer would be the most rightwing in history. But Starmer’s openly pro-capitalist and pro-imperialist politics make him a very acceptable captain of the second eleven, as far as the British state and capitalist class are concerned. They would certainly be more than happy to support a Starmer government as a way to pacify, dampen down, tame an out of control strike wave and hold the line for British capitalism, if the situation required it.

Electorally, the Labour right’s triangulation strategy and keeping a distance from the trade unions carries the possibility that Labour could be ‘de-Labourised’ and become a British version of the American Democrats – an idea Tony Blair toyed with in the 1990s. Looking back at history, Blair always regretted the strange death of Gladstone’s Great Liberal Party and wanted to reunite Libism with Labism.

But, if there is a parting of ways between Labour and the trade unions, such a split could easily be initiated either by the Labour leadership or the trade union bureaucracy. We saw not a few disaffiliations under Blair: eg, RMT, BFAWU, FBU. However, the chances are that trade union officialdom will stick to the devil they know. Given a choice between Sir Keir and Liz Truss, they will go for Sir Keir.

This rather degraded relationship remains a key aspect of Labour’s characterisation as a bourgeois worker’s party, which maintains its roots in the working class through the organised workers in the trade unions. These roots also allow the class struggle to be reflected in the party and provide the structures which ensure the periodic spontaneous reproduction of a left, despite the dominance of the pro-capitalist leadership, which is organically attached to the state.

If the nature of Labour throws up a recurrent leftwing resurgence, politically these movements have historically remained limited and circumscribed by Labourism and the election of any Labour government, in the forlorn hope that Labour can be reclaimed and eventually there will be a left Labour government which introduces ‘socialism’.

This inability to break with Labourism is the original sin of both the Labour left and those comrades who seek to build Labour Party mark two parties outside of Labour. These projects, such as the Socialist Alliance, Respect, Socialist Labour Network and the now badly wounded Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition, merely seek to reproduce Labour in both its political and organisational forms.

The more these Labour Party mark two comrades proclaim that ‘Labour is dead’, the more they actually do to keep Labourism alive. Our position of reforging Labour as a united front of all working class and socialist organisations is not a strategy to reclaim the Labour Party or reboot left‑reformist politics. Rather it is a strategy that seeks to drive out the right and win Labour to a Marxist programme under a Marxist leadership.

For that, though, we need a Communist Party.

[1]. labourlist.org/2022/09/results-released-in-nec-national-policy-forum-and-youth-wing-elections.

[2]. www.jewishvoiceforlabour.org.uk/statement/naomi-wimborne-idrissi-is-elected-to-labours-nec.

Momentum, The left

Under false colours

Jon Lansman’s departure and the advent of a new regime held out the promise of radical change. Clive Dean tells the sorry tale of bureaucratic control, missed opportunities and political cynicism

The process of ‘refounding Momentum’ that began with the departure of founder/chair/owner Jon Lansman has recently concluded with a raft of 17 organisational changes designed to ‘restore decision-making’ to members.[1]

However, these changes do not amount to rolling back the constitution imposed on the organisation in 2017 following Lansman’s coup. In particular there will be no representative democracy based on local groups, regions and delegate conferences. The changes leave in place the atomised online voting process for members’ involvement, where click-based choices provide no opportunity for real participation in meaningful debates.

Momentum emerged in 2015 from Jeremy Corbyn’s successful leadership campaign. By 2016, when I joined, there was talk of 20,000 members organised in local groups all over the country. In my local group, meetings attracted 20-30 people – both members and some frightened political opponents. We held policy debates and organised left slates for elections within the Constituency Labour Party. Later that year I attended a regional meeting of Momentum, where delegates from a dozen active local groups exchanged experiences and established comradely connections for future campaigns. Like many regions we used the Loomio platform to collaborate and develop coordinated interventions.

There was an air of confidence within the Labour left at that time. Preparations were well in hand for the first Momentum delegate conference and leadership elections in early 2017. Then on October 28 2016 Jon Lansman staged his coup, using the steering committee to cancel a meeting of the body it was subordinate to, the executive committee.[2]

With the full support of Jeremy Corbyn and others in the Socialist Campaign Group of MPs he went on to cancel all the preparations for the conference and then introduced a new constitution, abolishing the regions and downgrading the role of local groups. Lansman used a members’ survey to claim endorsement for his new constitution, ensuring he kept control of his private property. Naturally, the dynamism and enthusiasm of Momentum quickly drained away, along with the members and the local groups.

Momentum became just another lifeless campaign, with all decisions taken at the top, and, despite the veneer of digital democracy, a membership reduced to the role of canvassing fodder. The oh-so-close general election result in 2017 obscured the decline, but with the 2019 election disaster, followed by Sir Keir’s victory as Labour’s leader, Momentum needed a serious overhaul.

Forward

In May 2020 Lansman announced his departure and the overhaul began. Things had got so bad that the rest of the existing leadership decided a new image was required. Their slate for the June 2020 elections to the national coordinating group (NCG – Momentum’s leading committee) adopted the brand, ‘Momentum Renewal’, and promised changes. But instead the fresher faces on the new ‘Forward Momentum’ slate won all 20 seats in the members’ ballot.[3] The old guard had to make do with the remaining 14 NGC seats, elected or appointed by other routes.

The Forward Momentum pitch picked up on some of the grievances within the organisation:

Too many decisions have been made in back rooms, unwanted candidates have been imposed on local groups, and bold socialist strategy has been abandoned, often for no strategy at all. Momentum is failing because of this. Members have left in droves and trust in the organisation is at an all-time low. We are standing to change this.[4]

The process of meetings and consultations seemed to drag on for ages, but by May this year the refounding proposals were ready to be voted on by the membership – online, of course. Yes, there were 17 subjects where a choice was required, sometimes with three or four options, and very brief technical ‘supporting arguments’ to clarify the wording. But, having gone through each vote, and selecting the most radical in terms of member participation, you were left at the end with the distinct feeling that nothing fundamental would come of it all, that really it was just about tinkering with the details.

To illustrate, the topic of the first vote was ‘A Momentum convention’. This was the nearest we would be offered to a sovereign annual national delegate conference. There were four options here:

  1. A convention of all members every two years to debate and vote on campaigning priorities;
  2. As 1, but with delegates rather than all members;
  3. An online convention of all members, but with voting deferred until later to allow offline members to participate;
  4. No convention – existing routes to influence Momentum policy would remain.

The result for this vote was a win for option 1, with 41% support. We were not told how many members voted for it, or how much support the other options received.

Briefly, other decisions included:

  • Allowing members to decide who Momentum endorses in leader/deputy leader elections (backing Angela Rayner rather than Richard Burgon for deputy leader did not go down well).
  • The re-introduction of the regional level of organisation – though this is very much for ‘coordinating’ and ‘helping’ rather than decision-making.
  • Providing a formal framework for Momentum local groups, including many requirements and standards they have to meet – thus providing a convenient stick to use against troublesome opposition: “Local Momentum groups that do not meet these standards will be transitioned to ‘Groups in recess’”!
  • Momentum endorsement of candidates in selection processes to be decided by local groups. This seems obvious but caused a few rows during the Lansman era.
  • Also included are some requirements for MP/councillor accountability – absolutely a good idea, but hard to enforce, I think.
  • Single transferable vote rather than ‘first past the post’ in NCG elections, which ironically should prevent a repeat of the 2020 result referred to above!
  • Finally an attempt to ensure that all members are nominally in a group, even when they are miles from a functioning local organisation.

Here the supporting arguments were revealing. We learnt that “Only a very small percentage of Momentum members are currently organised in local groups”; and “Very few Momentum members fall in the catchment area for a local Momentum group (approximately less than five percent)”. My logical deduction from these two statements is that Momentum is now a collection of dispersed individuals rather than an organised political force.

Today

On June 13 Momentum will open nominations for this year’s NCG elections, with voting beginning on June 28. So far two slates are known to be standing: last time’s winners are now branded as ‘Your Momentum’, and they are being challenged by ‘Momentum Organisers’. Hopefully we will be able to report on some real political differences during the campaign.

The turnout in 2020 was 8,580. Given that the last two years have been dominated by Starmer’s reign of terror against the Labour left, we should expect a much smaller involvement this time. Indeed many groups that share Momentum’s terrain are struggling to survive. Momentum’s insistence on Labour Party membership will not help here either, given the large number of activists who have either been expelled or hounded out of the party, with hardly a whimper of protest from Momentum.

Where Momentum is still having an impact is in its promotion of The World Transformed – the major Labour left fringe umbrella that accompanies the annual party conference. Last year at Brighton it hosted 120 events, and it is now gearing up for Liverpool in September this year. Momentum also provides training courses for its membership, to enable them to function better as organisers within the milieu of protest politics, and to oil the career paths of would-be councillors and MPs (though maybe having Momentum on your CV could be an impediment just now!). In this educational activity Momentum is partnered (organisationally and financially) by the Berlin-based Rosa Luxemburg Foundation. Indeed Deborah Hermanns, who was elected to the NCG in 2020, is listed as an employee at the London office of the RLF.

The RLF functions as a vehicle for the German Left Party (Die Linke) to receive millions of euros from the German state. With this funding it promotes political research and education activities around the world – it has offices in over 20 countries. The link between Momentum and the RLF is a cosy fit politically – left reformism with a radical edge of anti-racism, feminism, pacifism and climate justice, so Momentum is a fortunate beneficiary here.

However, for genuine Marxists such a relationship would be problematic. First, we pride ourselves on our financial and political independence. In our movement there are too many examples of revolutionary politics being abandoned by parties which became dependent on direct or indirect government funding, whatever the government. Second, the legacy of Rosa Luxemburg projected by the RLF – ‘democratic socialism’, coupled with identity politics – is in complete contrast to the real Rosa Luxemburg: a communist revolutionary who fought against opportunism in the German Social Democratic Party, and an ally of Lenin who was committed to spreading the Bolshevik revolution beyond Russia to the heart of European capitalism.

Dare I suggest a session on ‘Rosa Luxembourg, the party and proletarian revolution’ for this year’s The World Transformed?

[1]. labourlist.org/2022/05/momentum-unveils-democratic-changes-passed-in-refounding-process.

[2]. See ‘Sole director wants to dispense with representative democracy’ Weekly Worker November 3 2016: weeklyworker.co.uk/worker/1129/sole-director-wants-to-dispense-with-representativ.

[3]. labourlist.org/2020/07/victory-for-forward-momentum-candidates-as-lansman-steps-down.

[4]. labourlist.org/2020/06/forward-momentum-our-bold-vision-for-change-a-plan-to-rebuild-momentum.

Democracy and the Labour Party, The left

Don’t mention Jeremy

The NEC is now dominated by the right and arrogantly rides roughshod over rules not to its liking. Clive Dean ridicules the debilitating illusions of the Campaign for Labour Party Democracy

On May 16 the Labour Party selected Simon Lightwood as candidate for the forthcoming Wakefield by-election, caused by the resignation of disgraced Tory MP, Imran Khan.

However, just before the vote between the two shortlisted Starmerite hopefuls, the 16-strong Constituency Labour Party executive resigned en masse and led a walkout from the selection meeting. This was in protest at the way the process had been rigged to exclude any meaningful involvement of local members, contrary to party rules.

A rule change was passed at the Labour conference last September that requires a majority of local representatives on the panel selecting the shortlist for a parliamentary by-election. However, as in the three previous by-elections, this rule has been ignored by the party’s national executive committee, with just a single local voice allowed on the panel of five.[1]

You might think this arrogant disregard for the rules by the NEC would deter those claiming to be on the party’s ‘left’ from placing their hopes in further tinkering rule changes, but far from it. A recent email to members of the Campaign for Labour Party Democracy (entitled ‘Justice for Jeremy – should be the priority at annual conference!’) is urging its members to promote a rule change through their CLPs. This particular change is intended to allow Jeremy Corbyn to stand as an official Labour candidate in the next general election, even though he has been suspended from the Parliamentary Labour Party precisely to prevent him from standing.

To achieve this trick requires some legalese in wording. The rule being changed currently begins: “If a CLP is represented in parliament by a member of the PLP …”; and is followed by sub-clauses detailing the processes for trigger ballots and reselection. The proposed new wording reads:

If a CLP is represented in parliament by either a member of the PLP or by a member of the Labour Party who has not had their membership rights to stand in internal selections to represent the party as a publicly elected representative suspended under the provisions of chapters 1, 2 or 6 of this rule book …

… then a further sub-clause is added to nullify any selection rushed through before this year’s conference in an effort to beat the rule change. The whole thing is a blatant contrivance to allow Jeremy Corbyn to keep his Islington North seat despite the machinations of Starmer and the PLP. After all, though he remains suspended from the PLP, he was reinstated as a Labour Party member in November 2020 after a 19-day suspension. But this rule change has a novel extra hurdle to clear. The CLPD provides guidance on how to move it within your CLP.

It points out:

Under the draconian restrictions on free speech that have been imposed on official Labour Party meetings it is not permitted to mention Jeremy Corbyn or discuss why he should be treated fairly by the party. This is a result of the extraordinary instructions that the general secretary has issued.

CLPD strongly advises Jeremy’s name should not be mentioned in any Labour Party meeting (branch or CLP) in connection with this rule change. It is not necessary to mention him in official meetings in order to explain the need for the rule book to be democratised in this way.

Pantomime

If the movers are unable to articulate the real purpose of the rule change in their speeches, then presumably they will have to use some other creative method to get the message across. It will be interesting to see how many CLPs manage to successfully submit this rule change before the deadline on June 17.

Then the real fun will begin. First it will need to be accepted as a valid rule change by the conference arrangements committee. In recent years this body has been tolerant of controversial proposals, correctly leaving it to conference to pass or reject them. However, there is no left majority here, so no guarantee it will reach conference floor. If it does, then no doubt it will be strongly opposed by the NEC (which now has a significant rightwing majority). That does not automatically mean it will fall – the NEC opposed the successful ‘by-election selections’ rule change referred to above. But every other CLP rule change fell last year.

There is a good chance that the majority of delegates representing CLPs will vote for it, but its real fate will be decided by trade union block votes. Here the horse-trading behind closed doors comes into play. Even if you have it in black and white, passed by your union’s full policy conference, there is nothing to stop the delegation to conference voting the other way as part of a bigger deal brokered by the general secretary.

But say, despite everything, the left has a good conference and the rule change is passed. What should we expect? Well, the NEC could easily get around it, as it has been doing with the ‘by-elections selections’ rule. Here it simply ‘determined’ that it was ‘inexpertly drafted’ and required NEC guidance to ‘clarify’ it. This guidance effectively turned it on its head, giving the NEC, instead of the local CLPs, a majority on the selection panels.

A more likely outcome is that the NEC will simply suspend Jeremy Corbyn over some other issue – perhaps something he has said criticising Nato during the war in Ukraine could form the basis of a complaint – and suspensions in the Labour Party can drag on for years. Whatever happens, the current balance of forces in Labour points to another defeat for the left, and no Jeremy on the ballot paper.

Clearly this whole pantomime is not the correct way for the Labour left to regroup and begin a fightback following the devastating defeats of the last two and a half years. The Corbyn period provided the left with the opportunity to put its strategy and tactics to the test, but they were found to be wanting. This is not the time for ‘back to business as usual’, as groups like the CLPD maintain: it is time to question everything, especially what socialism means, and what needs to change in the Labour Party to bring it about. The CLPD as an organisation is unworthy of its name. The changes it promotes just tinker around the edges of the rule book, and any ‘left’ victory it might win is dependent on a coalition with the right wing – and we have seen where that leads.

The CLPD will not call for the kind of democracy we need to transform the Labour Party into a genuine workers’ party. It is even against introducing democracy into the left itself. At its AGM earlier this year, questions were asked about its role in the secretive Centre Left Grassroots Alliance (CLGA) and the way it imposed left candidates for internal party elections. The top-table reply was that the CLGA would not be expanded if it meant including left groups where some members had been expelled from Labour. And there was no chance of any transparency, because the groups that made up the CLGA were sovereign organisations and anyway there was no need to change things: the current set-up was delivering.

In order to make real progress, the Labour left requires its victories in the party to be accompanied by the destruction of the fortresses of the right – the party bureaucracy and domination by the PLP. This means defeating that part of the party that is loyal to the British state and US imperialism. Such an approach has to be based on the ideas of class struggle, the ideas of Marxism. Anything else will just take us further down the Corbyn sinkhole.

[1].  labourlist.org/2022/05/exclusive-labour-accused-of-breaching-rules-in-wakefield-candidate-selection.

The left

Dead not resting

James Harvey looks at the origins, politics and ultimate demise of Labour Briefing

The news that Labour Briefing has ceased publication, in both physical and online format, marks in many ways the end of an era for the Labour left.

Founded in 1980 as a “bulletin board for Labour Party activists”, the journal was a product of the growth of the left in the party’s ranks in the late 1970s and early 1980s.[1] Although Labour Briefing did have something of a national profile, its main base was in the London left and amongst those activists who would become prominent in the municipal politics of the Greater London Council in the Livingstone period. The politics of this current grew out of Trotskyism – either in the form of organised groups such as the Chartist minority or various ex-members of the various groups.[2] By its own lights, Labour Briefing reflected these differences and made a virtue out of eclecticism. As Chris Knight, one of the journal’s founders, puts it, “instead of propagating a particular ideology, we acted on the basis that class unity comes first and information is power”.[3]

However, behind this ostensible pluralism Labour Briefing was tied body and soul to the Labour Party and thus left reformism, which continues to reflect the wider ‘common sense’ politics of important sections of the Labour left up to the present day. In the 1980s this produced a municipal strategy of confronting the Thatcher government and supporting Bennite left reformism during Labour’s internal battles, whilst during the Blairite counterrevolution of the 1990s and 2000s it meant hunkering down and hoping for better days to come again.

Thus in 2012 Labour Briefing was ‘transferred’ to the Labour Representation Committee – a Labour left group formed around John McDonnell.[4] This gave rise to a split led by former Labour NEC member Christine Shawcroft. The politics behind this bust-up are thoroughly obscure and mixed with personality clashes. Despite brave attempts to have a full and honest debate, both sides preferred to listen to the latest witterrings of Owen Jones. The minority, having lost the vote by a pretty sizable margin, went on to produce their very own version of Labour Briefing – the so-called original Labour Briefing.[5] Somewhat bizarrely the minority blamed the CPGB for the split – we had two comrades at the meeting!

Of course, the LRC presented itself as the potential nucleus of a revived Labour Party, should the Blairite project completely overwhelm Labourism and sever the party’s links with the trade unions. In practice, the LRC was simply a vehicle for the dwindling careerist ambitions of left councillors and would-be councillors, combined with acting as a lifeboat for beleaguered activists trying to keep what remained of the Labour left together.

However, the election of Jeremy Corbyn and the influx of a new mass left membership, combined with the return of a layer of former left activists to the colours, would have been expected to provide both Labour Briefing and the LRC with something of a fillip. Given Corbyn’s personal and political links with both Labour Briefing and the political milieu from which it emerged, to the comrades on the editorial board it must have seemed that, following his election as Labour leader, their day had indeed finally come.[6] Strangely, it didn’t. The LRC membership remained static and nothing could prepare them for the ‘anti-Zionism equals anti-Semitism’ witch-hunt, which began, of course under Corbyn’s leadership, and continued even after Jennie Formby took over as general secretary.

Neither Corbyn nor McDonnell raised a peep of protest. All they did was appease, appease and appease again. To its credit Labour Briefing did fight back against the witch-hunt. To its discredit Labour Briefing refused to denounce the treachery of Corbyn, McDonnell and co. The dream was always of getting Corbyn into No10 and McDonnell into No11.

Whatever the specific and immediate reasons for the demise of Labour Briefing, its political trajectory from the 1980s reflects that of the official Labour left as a whole. Following the 2019 general election and the acceleration of the witch-hunt under Sir Keir, the official left fell into demoralisation and decay. The surrender of the official left in the Socialist Campaign Group of MPs, the business-as-usual passivity of the Campaign for Labour Party Democracy, the gutting of Momentum and the failure of broad left outfits such as the Labour Left Alliance illustrate the depth of the crisis now facing what remains of the Labour left. There has been initiative after initiative. All have come to nothing.

Necessity

The demise of Labour Briefing reflects the failure of the Labour left to develop the politics and strategy needed to mount any kind of fightback. We in Labour Party Marxists have long argued that the sorry fate of the official Labour left is not simply about individual betrayal and careerism (although these characteristics play an undoubted role), but rather can be found in the fundamental premises of the official left’s politics and its understanding of the nature of the Labour Party.

Throughout its history Labour Briefing argued that ‘transitional politics’ were the way to develop the socialist consciousness of the working class and that demands predicated on the election of a left Labour government were key in that process. Although framed in the insurrectionary language of ‘Labour take the power’ (with its self-conscious echoes of Lenin’s ‘All power to the soviets!’), this differed little in form from the usual Labour left reformism and electoral politics found in the old CPGB’s British road to socialism or the pages of Militant in the 1980s.

Whilst the politics of Labour Briefing from the beginning recognised the pro-capitalist nature of the Labour right and the roadblock that this leadership presents for socialists, they failed to even challenge, let alone break with, the reformism of the Labour left. Their politics remained essentially confined within the framework of Labourism and so continued to suffer the fate of the Labour left as a whole. Whether tail-ending the municipal left in the 1980s or excusing Corbyn’s retreats in the face of the Labour right in the late 2010s, Labour Briefing often provided a left cover for further accommodation and concessions. The result was that in the aftermath of the Corbyn moment, like others on the Labour left, the supporters of Labour Briefing could offer no real explanation of what went wrong – beyond Corbyn’s tactical misjudgements or some mild criticisms of his personal and political failings.

To really come to terms with the failure of Corbynism would have required a thorough rejection of their previous positions and developing instead a truly militant stance: namely that Labour cannot be understood as a ready-made instrument for the socialist transformation of society and that the self-emancipation of the working class requires revolutionary consciousness, not so-called transitional reformism.

It is not enough to simply note the passing of Labour Briefing and think of its demise as the end of a song. The type of politics it espoused and the illusions it fostered have deep roots in the workers’ movement: the closure of a journal does not liquidate the politics which it embodied. The left reformism of Labour Briefing and its like on the Labour left is a real barrier, which must be overcome if we are to develop a programme and build a party that can lead the working class to power.

Moreover, the spurious eclecticism and speculative discussion with which Labour Briefing identified itself are luxuries we cannot afford. Not developing clear and definite positions is criminally irresponsible for Marxists and amounts to an apolitical betrayal of the cause of the working class.

Given the growing threats of war and the serious political and economic crises that face the working class internationally, reforging authentic, militant, working class politics is not a choice, but an urgent necessity.

[1]. labourbriefing.org/blog/about.

[2]. The history of the British far left in this period – especially of the groups that entered the Labour Party – still remains to be written. Militant received considerable attention at the time, but there were other currents which also influenced the Labour left in this period and have been overlooked in the standard accounts.

[3]. labourbriefing.org/blog/about.

[4]. After the transfer, the editorial board of Labour Briefing was elected by LRC members, although Graham Bash and other founder members remained the driving force behind the journal.

[5]. This version of the journal still continues to be produced. See LB Archive – Labour Briefing Co-operative: labourbriefingcooperative.net/lb-archive.

[6]. By way of illustrating this relationship, the Labour Briefing website has a 1980s picture of Graham Bash and Jeremy Corbyn together at a demonstration: labourbriefing.org/blog/about.

Democracy and the Labour Party

The biters bitten

James Harvey asks why the AWL has been proscribed when it has given such unstinting service to the right in promoting the ‘anti-Zionism equals anti-Semitism’ big lie

The recent decision of Labour’s national executive committee to proscribe the Alliance for Workers’ Liberty almost makes you feel sorry for the average AWL member, who must be asking: what have we done to deserve such shabby and ungrateful treatment at the hands of the Labour bureaucracy? How dare they lump us in with such left groups as the Labour Left Alliance and the Socialist Labour Network, who were also proscribed at the same NEC meeting on March 29.[1] After all we have done, and continue doing, in support of Labour’s pro-imperialist leadership, they now turn on us and discard their faithful servants without so much as a second thought. Truly there is no gratitude left in the world!

It must all be very distressing for the AWL to find itself out in the cold and so shamefully abandoned. Worse still, it now shares the same fate as Labour left groups that the AWL accuses of being anti-Semitic and acting as useful idiots for Putin during the Ukraine war. Such pain was evident when a leading AWL supporter, Peter Radcliffe, put the group’s case when he appeared recently on Not the Andrew Marr show. The presenter, Crispin Flintoff, asked, why proscribe a group so close to Labour leadership positions on Ukraine, a second referendum on the European Union, and purging the left through (false) accusations of anti-Semitism? Radcliffe was hard put to produce a coherent response.[2] The core of his defence was a standard Labour loyalism and the AWL’s long history of campaigning for a Labour government as the only alternative to the Tories.

According to the faithful Peter, it seems that Keir Starmer does not know what is in the party’s best interests: he is worried, it appears, about the potential strength of the AWL’s influence within Labour’s ranks. So, despite being on the same page as Starmer on so many issues, Radcliffe asserted that the AWL is now under attack because it is the most credible opposition to the Labour leadership’s attempts to ensure total conformity within the party![3] For anyone with even the most cursory knowledge of the AWL’s complicity in the witch-hunt and the cover it provided for the most outrageous attacks on the authentic left, such an utterly self-serving explanation is risible. Such attempts at self-justification are also very revealing about the bankruptcy of AWL politics.

Its new-found opposition to bans and proscriptions and demands for freedom of speech within Labour have also provoked some wry amusement amongst those of us who defended such principled positions from the very beginning of the Labour right’s onslaught.[4] Where was the AWL when Labour Against the Witchhunt was proscribed and supporters of Palestinian rights were smeared as anti-Semites and hounded by the media? Did they support the pickets and protests at the Labour conference and outside NEC meetings in opposition to bans and proscriptions? Not only was the AWL absent from Labour movement demonstrations and meetings in favour of free speech, but it actively lined up with the right and joined in the attack. The role of individual AWL supporters in the constituencies in collaborating with the Labour bureaucracy by targeting leftwingers for expulsion is well-known.

All of this scabbing is not simply an accidental lapse in judgement: it is all of a piece with the AWL’s wider social-imperialist politics and practice since the 2000s.[5] Its current support for US imperialism and the aims of Nato expansion in Ukraine only builds on its earlier backing for imperialism’s ‘progressive’ wars of intervention in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya, and the AWL’s active defence of Israel, and despite the inherent racism, expansionism and bellicose nature of the whole settler-colonial project.

This is why it is important to look at why the Labour leadership has now imposed these bans and proscriptions. The AWL’s own explanation – that it represents a real challenge to Starmer that has to be removed – does not really stand up. Having proven to be such ‘useful idiots’ for the Labour right throughout the witch-hunt, they are no threat at all to the party leadership. Perhaps the real explanation lies in the dynamics of a witch-hunt, which quickly takes on a momentum of its own – especially in such a bureaucratised, top-down, managerial-style party as Labour.

The party apparat has regained secure control once again after the temporary disruptions of the Corbyn period. As was all too apparent under his leadership, Labour MPs and full-time officials – both at the party’s HQ and in the regions – still retained considerable power, which they successfully used to undermine the left and democratic accountability within the party. Furthermore, we know how Corbyn and the rest of the official left compromised, thus failing to take the fight to the Labour right, and the political disaster that resulted. This weakness and acquiescence gave the bureaucracy a safe space from which to attack the left – an offensive which has continued to this day.

It may be that these party bureaucrats lack the political finesse to understand the valuable role the AWL has played for the right. To these hacks the AWL is just another bunch of Trots who need to be purged like all the rest. Apart from the tendency of purges to quickly get out of hand and embroil new victims far beyond the original targets, this latest move might have a more direct purpose in further weakening the soft left. If they can even go for such collaborators with the Labour right as the AWL, then even the mildest of critics are not safe.

Through its role in Another Europe is Possible and now the Ukraine Solidarity Campaign, the AWL has developed clear links with some soft left MPs and trade union bureaucrats. It is thus possible that behind this move against the AWL the real aim is to further muzzle even this hitherto accepted ‘left’ current. However, whatever the exact circumstances, the proscription of the AWL clearly points towards the direction that Labour is taking under Starmer. Even the most lukewarm of criticism cannot be tolerated and will be suppressed, irrespective of how useful a role its perpetrators may have played in the past.

Given the group’s poisonous, social-imperialist politics, few on the militant, genuine left will naturally have much sympathy for the AWL. With such an appalling record it would be easy to indulge in a little Schadenfreude and derive just some small pleasure from the way that the AWL biters have now themselves been bitten. However, that misses the point.

Despite our vehement opposition to the openly pro-imperialist politics of the AWL, we must, at this present juncture, oppose its proscription in the name of defending what remains of free speech in the Labour Party.

[1]. labourlist.org/2022/03/exclusive-awl-among-three-more-groups-to-be-proscribed-by-labour-nec.

[2]. www.youtube.com/watch?v=O93Orer7rXQ1.

[3]. www.workersliberty.org/index.php/story/2022-04-05/ban-means-narrowing-labour.

[4]. www.workersliberty.org/index.php/story/2022-04-05/model-motion-labour-ban-workers-liberty.

[5]. The Weekly Worker has an extensive archive of articles outlining how the politics and role of the AWL have developed from the 2000s onwards. For just a couple of examples of these processes, see ‘Matgamna’s chauvinistic tirade’ (October 31 2013): weeklyworker.co.uk/worker/984/awl-matgamnas-chauvinistic-tirade; and ‘Those who side with imperialism’ (October 23 2014): weeklyworker.co.uk/worker/1031/those-who-side-with-imperialism.

Nationalism and internationalism, The left

Spineless response to the Ukraine war

Its response to the Ukraine war shows the official Labour ‘left’ is sinking ever further into the mire, writes James Harvey

Sir Keir Starmer is having a ‘good war’, but, then again, we would expect nothing less from this trusted servant of British imperialism and its American masters.

For months Sir Keir has been setting out his stall as an alternative prime minister and a safe, reliable pair of hands, who can be trusted to enter Downing Street and ‘govern’ in the interests of capitalism. Defence of Nato and the interests of US imperialism are central to the British state, and in his job application Starmer has made his support for this strategic status quo a central theme. Until last autumn this had something of a platonic character: true, it was politically and symbolically important in demonstrating loyalty to the state, and a good way of drawing a clear line between himself and his notoriously unreliable predecessor, Jeremy Corbyn, but there was no immediate political crisis that necessitated a choice.

Then came Ukraine and Sir Keir relished his opportunity to trumpet his loyalty to Nato and show that, when called upon, he could take an even harder line than the most rightwing jingoists on the Tory back benches. Whether it was calling for even tougher sanctions or standing fully behind the Ukrainian state, Starmer was always on hand to provide the statesmanlike rhetoric and necessary support for the Nato line.[1] As war fever swept the House of Commons and the media, he enthusiastically joined in and, like the rest of the capitalist class, was willing to fight to the last Ukrainian in defence of western values and freedom against the Russian autocracy.

If Sir Keir acted his part to perfection, the official Labour left too has been playing its own rather ignominious role during this crisis. If truth is the first casualty of war, for the parliamentary left principled politics comes a very close second. Just when you thought what passes for a left wing in the Labour Party could not fall any lower, leading left MPs sink even further into the mire and prostrate themselves before the pro-imperialist leadership of Starmer.

Apart from the unashamedly pro-Nato Paul Mason, the openly pro-imperialist Alliance for Workers’ Liberty, the confused Mandelites of Anti-Capitalist Resistance and the fellow-travellers of rightwing Ukrainian nationalism in the Ukrainian Solidarity Campaign, the dominant moods on the left are a species of social pacifism, reflected in the statements of the Stop the War Coalition. These oppose the war, criticise Nato expansion and urge diplomacy and negotiation as a solution to the crisis. In line with the popular-frontism of its leadership, they seek to build a mass movement in alliance with progressives and other bien pensants of the liberal bourgeoisie.[2] Hence, they stick to righteous indignation at the horrors of war and avoid the complexities of great-power politics. Above all, they do not link the struggle against war to the capitalist system that spawns it or pose a specifically independent working class politics that links fundamental questions of war, peace and the importance of fighting the real enemy – the ruling class at home.

It was to a statement of this type of social pacifism that 11 Labour MPs (plus Jeremy Corbyn and Claudia Webbe) added their names on the eve of the war – only to retract them when Starmer threatened to withdraw the whip or even possibly expel them from the party for daring to be even mildly critical of Nato![3] This was followed by an even more cowardly retreat, when John McDonnell and Diane Abbott pulled out of speaking at an StWC meeting following yet more reported threats from Starmer.[4] To compound McDonnell’s cowardice, it appears from reports that Starmer only said that “ the party would be looking closely at what was said about Nato and the war in Ukraine” rather than pronouncing an explicit anathema on McDonnell’s attendance per se. However, McDonnell has always been good at sniffing the wind and knew exactly what Starmer expected of him.[5]

Abbott went even further in her abject recantation and gave explicit backing to Nato as a “defensive alliance”. Having a debate around Nato strategy is one thing,” she said, but “attacking Nato is another. Everybody in the Labour Party supports a defensive alliance” (my emphasis).[6]

Sir Keir has made Stop the War a particularly symbolic and political target, and his attacks on this social-pacifist campaign have grown as the crisis has unfolded.[7] As he drove the point home and denounced even the muted critical politics of the Labour left, these bold leaders simply collapsed and grovelled at the leadership’s bidding.

Betrayal

This betrayal by what remains of the official Labour left is all the more stark because of the long histories of McDonnell and Abbott in opposition to Blair’s imperialist wars, and their personal connections with Jeremy Corbyn in those campaigns. In this instance the wounds and the sense of treachery truly are personal. Given McDonnell’s role in conniving at the witch-hunt and attempting to placate the Labour right during the Corbyn era, we should not be at all surprised by his abject surrender to Starmer and his vow of silence, when it comes to criticism of Nato and the strategy of the British state. Moreover, he continues to support the USC and thus give a ‘left’ cover to pro-Nato politics. So bold John is now effectively amongst the cheerleaders for greater support for the Ukrainian state and is laying the ground for even more direct intervention in the war. But, before we pass on to the bigger picture, let us consider McDonnell’s specific defence of his recantation of the StWC statement and withdrawal from the protest meeting. Beginning with the argument that “people are dying on the streets of Ukrainian cities”, McDonnell goes on to say:

This is not the time to be distracted by political arguments here. Now is the time to unite and do all we can to assist the people of Ukraine desperately seeking asylum and to do all we can to bring about peace. Nothing is more important at this time. Nothing should distract us from that. So I won’t feed into that distraction by going tonight.

I do think many Labour Party members will want clarity over the Labour Party’s attitude to attending demonstrations organised by Stop the War or by them jointly with other groups. My final comment is that, in the wider context of securing a socialist Labour government, and possibly inspired by my team Liverpool at Wembley at the weekend, I do believe it’s important for socialists to stay on the pitch for as long as it takes [my emphasis throughout].[8]

This rather brief statement reveals the utter bankruptcy and rotten core at the heart of the official Labour left, and the complete lack of any authentic or determined leadership amongst its MPs and trade union bureaucrats. As the official Labour left continues its demoralisation and disintegration, this is the type of compromising ‘leadership’ that remains behind to further disillusion and disorientate honest left activists. Now is not the time to be distracted by political arguments!

As if questions of war, peace, imperialism and great-power strategic rivalry are not issues for political argument which demand a socialist, working class response to the war in Ukraine. Rather than develop our own politics and make the voice of independent proletarian internationalism heard amidst the clamour of war, demands by the likes of McDonnell that we unite and do all we can for peace really mean that workers in each country are being asked to effectively line up behind their ruling class.

The reasons why McDonnell and co fail this vital test is not just moral cowardice or careerism, although they have their part in these betrayals of the official Labour left. At the root of these politics is the original sin of the Labour left since the early 20th century: namely compromise with capitalism and a lack of confidence that the working class can rise to the challenges of both war and peace, and overthrow capitalism internationally. The official Labour left’s road to socialism lies not through the conscious self-emancipation of the working class, but through the parliamentary road of “ socialist Labour governments” and gradual modifications of capitalism. Any hint of principled politics is jettisoned in subordination to that goal, which requires endless compromise with the pro-capitalist Labour right and constant retreat on even the semblance of socialist politics.

War and peace are fundamental questions for society and the working class internationally. Wars have historically exposed the nature of imperialist and great-power rivalry, and the reality of class society. The war in Ukraine is no exception, showing the strategic competition between the US hegemon and its Nato clients, and a regional power, Russia (and, behind it, a major challenger to US hegemony, China).

The voice of the left and independent working class politics is at its weakest since the 19th century, but that does not mean we must meekly surrender to capitalism and imperialism like the official Labour left. Our forces are as yet too weak to turn this colonial war by proxy into a civil war of workers against the bourgeoisie, but we must continue to adhere to that programme of independent working class action.

Unlike traitors such as John McDonnell, for the genuine partisans of socialist and internationalist politics the main enemy remains at home. In time of war there is no other position: here we stand – we can do no other

 

[1]. www.theguardian.com/world/2022/mar/08/zelenskiy-invokes-churchill-calls-on-uk-do-more-help-ukraine.

[2]. morningstaronline.co.uk/article/being-anti-war-does-not-make-us-apologists-enemy-or-anyone-else.

[3]. www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/feb/24/labour-mps-drop-backing-for-statement-criticising-nato-after-starmer-warning.

[4]. www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/mar/02/john-mcdonnell-and-diane-abbott-pull-out-of-stop-the-war-rally.

[5]. labourlist.org/2022/03/exclusive-john-mcdonnell-will-not-attend-stop-the-war-event.

[6]. labourlist.org/2022/03/diane-abbott-we-could-even-support-stop-the-war-under-tony-blair.

[7]. www.newstatesman.com/comment/2022/03/by-repudiating-stop-the-war-keir-starmer-has-reclaimed-labours-true-history; www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/feb/10/keir-starmer-says-stop-the-war-coalition-gives-help-to-authoritarians-like-putin.

[8]. labourlist.org/2022/03/exclusive-john-mcdonnell-will-not-attend-stop-the-war-event.