I feel for departing moderates, but here's why I'm sticking with Labour

Me campaigning for Labour in Southwark,
April 2014

This week has not been a great one for my party, to put it lightly. It started with confusion over Jeremy Corbyn’s stance on police ‘shoot-to-kill’ policy in the event of a terrorist attack and aspects of his view on Syria, neither of which cut well with the public mood after the barbaric attacks in Paris and elsewhere. On Wednesday, Ken Livingstone was controversially announced as co-chair of Labour’s defence review, and subsequently had to be forced to issue a tepid apology for mental health-shaming comments he aimed at shadow defence minister Kevan Jones.

After that, shadow chancellor John McDonnell and Corbyn’s policy chief Andrew Fisher were found to have signed a pre-election letter that called for MI5 to be disbanded and the police to be disarmed (after initial denials, McDonnell stressed that he hadn’t read it before signing). It was reported that the Labour leadership’s perceived outlook on security and patriotism may be driving more working-class voters towards UKIP in Oldham, where a by-election is being held on December 3^rd. Labour pollster James Morris released data showing that voters find Labour’s current message “unclear and incoherent”, and that even those identifying as anti-austerity don’t trust the party on spending.

Linked to all this were two other revelations yesterday – the New Statesman’s George Eaton reported that according to one senior MP, Labour is losing 25 moderate non-Corbynite members for every 75 new pro-Corbyn signups, meaning Labour’s internal selectorate is moving further away from the country. Peep Show actor Robert Webb (who penned a moving letter on the eve of the election backing Ed Miliband, but warned presciently in the summer that “with Corbyn leading Labour, the Conservatives won't even look over their shoulder”), revealed himself as one of the leavers in a Twitter exchange, explaining that “it’s a personal choice & I admire those sticking around. I’ve just had it”.

Likewise, I having nothing but respect for Webb and other moderate Labourites who feel the desire to leave, although I’d also echo Hopi Sen’s heartfelt plea to Webb and others (“This distresses me. Really. Stay. We may not deserve your loyalty, but we desperately need your help”). But I’m one of those staying put, despite my intense frustration with the current direction of the party – here’s why.

One small part of it isn’t solely political as such, it’s personal – I’ve been an active Labour member since 2007 and I’ve devoted a lot of time and energy to it. Through Labour I’ve met and campaigned alongside friends and acquaintances in Devon, Southampton and London of all left-of-centre hues, and whenever I’ve moved to a new address, seeking out the local party branch has always been a nice way to root myself in my new surroundings and meet a few people. Leaving means walking away from that sense of belonging. It would also make joining any other party difficult – even if there was another one for me (and there’s not really - more on that in a sec), doing so would in some sense pit me against people I know and respect. It’s the same for many others on the right of the party – when asked a few months ago, Liz Kendall simply said “I can no more leave the Labour Party than leave my own family”.

As for why there’s no other party for me anyway, it’s simple. My number one requirement is a progressive centre-left party that is a plausible alternative to the Conservatives in the eyes of the public. Right now, that party is not available, leaving Britain a one-party Tory state by default, drifting ever-further right. It’s already why George Osborne feels he can cut tax credits for the low-paid, without fear of the political ramifications. But provided public faith in the party’s reputation isn’t permanently damaged by the current crisis, Labour still has infinitely more chance of renewing itself as a viable alternative than perhaps the next-most obvious option people sometimes moot, the Lib Dems. It starts out with 232 MPs to the Lib Dems’ 8, and would still have far more even after boundary changes and a 2020 bloodbath. As it did in the 1980s, FPTP will hold many anti-Tory voters captive in Labour. Though the Lib Dems insist their coalition deal was an attempt to moderate the Tories, they still vastly underplayed their hand and supported far too many regressive measures, and on some of the issues that most divide moderate Labourites from Corbyn, like the balance between civil liberties and security, Lib Dem instincts sometimes don’t appear much better than his.

Above all, I know which party I want in government. It’s the one I joined in 2007, when it was in office and making real changes to people’s lives. It can go without saying that New Labour was far from perfect, but as our then-prime minister Gordon Brown said, “those who don’t believe in the potential of government shouldn’t be trusted to form one” (he meant those words for small-state Conservatives, of course, but the willingness of some Corbynistas to disregard Labour’s post-1997 social achievements and openly ridicule the value of electability betrays a certain nihilism too). It’s also the one it was just six months ago, as while Ed Miliband was the wrong man to win an election, I at least had faith he would’ve been a great prime minister, backed by an impressive team. And it still exists even now, both within the shadow cabinet and on the backbenches of the PLP, embodied by sharp men and women that could steer us back towards power and deliver real change again, if only we would let them.

I also fear that there are far too many talented Labourites who will undeservedly find themselves in the firing line if the electorate feel the need to lash out at Labour as a whole, in order to protest our misguided leadership. We will never lose Jeremy’s stronghold seat in Islington North, but others will not be so lucky, which will hollow out the party and make a comeback even harder. 

It’s Sadiq Khan, the bus driver’s son who will tackle cultural divides and fight for better housing, transport and pay for Londoners, but who isn’t afraid to reach out to groups the party struggles to connect with (I was glad to be at a phonebank for Sadiq on Thursday night). It’s Jim McMahon, another working-class rising star who could be a strong voice for dynamic localism in the lethargic halls of Westminster. It’s the thousands of unsung Labour councillors, making harrowing decisions I would wish on nobody about how best to protect and improve local services in the face of unrelenting Conservative-imposed cutbacks. It’s our AMs in Wales, where Labour is wielding executive power to good use, but where a bad night in May 2016 could cost the current majority. It’s our MSPs north of the border, where Ruth Davidson’s Tories are within the margin of Labour in the polls. And lastly, it’s our hardworking MPs, who I want to be able to stand with as they face an unpalatable choice - online abuse and deselection threats from within if they speak up, or potential defeat in 2020 if they don’t. Like Robert Webb I detest that my membership subs help pay the likes of Seumas Milne’s wages, but they’re also my contribution to the leaflets and field organisers we need to keep all these people in office.

It’s a cliché, but they say you have to be the change you want to see in the world. Corbynism may not be exactly the change I want to see, but since it’s not one the British electorate will ever want to see either, it’s hard to feel that staying active in the party means I’m trying to bring it about in any meaningful sense. Instead, I want to be around to keep alive the flame of the Labour I joined eight years ago, doing my little bit to make sure it gets called upon once again. The only other alternative is no change at all – just an abyss of cold, interminable Tory rule.