LABOUR MPs with pro-people principles should resign as LABOUR MPs. NOW!

End the illusion that Labour is a party of "change." Instead, it's just the same old, same old.

Cover photo: Chancellor Rachel Reeves walking past Downing Street on her way to the Commons. Few disabled people were so bubbly or chirpy.

By Alan Story

Just before I went away on a terrific mini break, I had a long chat with a long time Labour Party activist I will call Bill. For more than four decades, Bill has been pushing party leaflets through mail shots here in Norwich. The late Tony Benn (1925 -2014) was his hero; here's the Wikipedia entry if you don't recognise the name.

Over a beer, Bill was extremely bitter about the Starmer government and the repressive/ oppressive trajectory it is carving out for itself and this country. He likes his MP, but is “disillusioned,” “distrustful”, “disturbed” … and a few other “dis’s” which summed up how he felt about the party.

I can only imagine how Bill felt yesterday (26 March) after hearing chancellor Rachel Reeves give her boosterish spring statement in the Commons over the lunch hour on the state of the economy.

The devil was definitely in the detail that came an hour later in a report from the Office of Budget Responsibility. Here is but one example of the cuts to come, for now mainly landing on the heads of disabled people: “ Overall, it is estimated that in 2029/30 there will be 3.2 million families – some current recipients and some future recipients - who will financially lose as a result of this package, with an average loss of £1,720 per year compared to inflation.”

Said one disabled activist interviewed by THE LEFT LANE: “This is but the latest opportunity by the Labour government to remove financial support from hundreds of thousands of disabled people who both need and deserve support to try to lead an independent and equitable life. It’s simply disgusting.”

NEVER BEEN A SOCIALIST PARTY

The message from Reeves - and similar ones that, by comparison, the armaments industry will get a great boost in funding and paid for, in part, by further slashing of overseas aid - should come as no surprise. As Tony Benn often reminded us: “the Labour Party has never been a Socialist Party, although there have always been socialists in it- a bit like Christians in the Church of England.”

So we what do we say to the current socialists in Labour, and, in particular, to supposedly socialist MPs such as Zarah Sultana and John McDonnell (both expelled from the Parliamentary Labour Party since days after the general election), Clive Lewis, Richard Burgon, Nadia Whittom and a few others?

We should say to them what I said to Bill a few weeks ago over a beer: “You should resign as MPs for Labour.”

In a bit more detail and slightly updated, here are six of the reasons that Bill and I debated and discussed about why these MPs should step outside the confines of Labour. The reasons go far beyond the disastrous effects of yesterday’s cuts announced by Reeves.

Yesterday in Norwich, about 100 activists with Disabled People Against the Cuts ( DPAC) joined colleagues in other parts of the UK to protest Reeves’ dire plans for their future.

There was a good turnout as well in Leeds where Reeves is an MP.

REASON 1) - Before the July 2024 general election, respected accounting professor and commentator Richard Murphy wrote that “it is apparent that there is almost no identifiable difference” between Labour and the Conservatives. Since Labour assumed government, we could safely say there is EVEN LESS of an identifiable difference. The phrase, “the thickness of a cigarette paper” comes to mind.

MERELY A DIFFERENT SET OF MANAGERS

Labour is merely a different set of managers who we have next to zero chance of influencing in a positive direction. Indeed, as health minister Wes Streeting bragged a few weeks ago, Labour can do more retrograde things in office than the Tories could never dream of doing. “We’re doing things Tories only talked about”, said Streeting as Labour continues along on its rightward path.

What’s the point of voting when there is no real choice?

REASON 2) - Speaking of voting: how can Labour MPs, many elected for the first time nine months ago, continue to justify our archaic first-past-the-post voting system which gave Labour a huge landslide last July on less than 35% of the overall vote total? They cannot.

Yesterday was a classic demonstration of how this system creates the arrogance of power and a sense that a ruling party can do whatever it wants without restraint. Starmer and Reeves have no mandate whatsoever to crush disabled people, our fellow citizens. PERIOD!

The best recognised electoral alternative, namely proportional representation (PR), often was introduced into other countries at times of democratic crisis. (Moreover, surveys reveal that more than 80% of Labour Party members favour PR.) A swathe of Labour MPs resigning could, in part, be the catalyst of such a crisis. Good!

REASON 3) - As a matter of simple pragmatism, Labour MPs should recognise that morale in party ranks continues to plunge as more and more party members at all levels head through the exit door. Being on Keir Starmer's “team” at the next election will not be any guarantee of being re-elected.

STARMER REINFORCES FARAGE MESSAGE

REASON 4) – This brings us to Nigel Farage and Reform. One of the main reasons why Reform can get such mileage from the immigration issue is because Starmer himself continues to reinforce Reform’s hateful xenophobic message.

In December, I wrote about this phenomenon in THE LEFT LANE story titled: “Starmer doesn’t challenge the rise of the far right. Instead, he reinforces it. Playing the immigration card simply echoes Farage’s despicable tactics.” You can read it HERE and I will not repeat the point.

Such tactics have been tried and failed by governments in Germany, France and, in the United States, by the Democrats. Does someone such as Zarah Sultana want to be associated with Labour’s racist message about immigration?

REASON 5) - Fighting for global climate justice and doing all we can to oppose further climate and environmental change in the UK will cost money, lots of it. As well, 2024 had the highest temperatures of any year in recorded world history.

Perhaps Reeves and Labour haven't noticed. The words “climate change” never even passed her lips on Wednesday in all her talk about “protecting our future.”

In fact, she trumpeted Labour’s support for a third runway at Heathrow and, in nearby courtroom at the same hour, government lawyers were sticking to the line that Starmer has regularly announced: they won’t repeal existing oil and gas drilling licences in the North Sea awarded by the Tories.

IS THE MOON MADE OF CREAM CHEESE?

Meanwhile on Friday, MP Clive Lewis (my MP) will be trying to win support for his private member’s bill in the House of Commons. The bill would require public ownership of our miserably failing privatised water supply and sewerage systems.

Labour has a huge majority in the Commons. Such a bill would pass easily if Starmer gave it the thumbs up. Will he? Is the moon made of cream cheese?

To be an environmentalist and supporter of the Labour Party is a contradiction in terms.

REASON 6) - Labour is once again the party of warfare, either as in direct participant or as a cheerleader. It played a direct role in the Iraq War two decades ago. It is now directly complicit in Israeli’s genocide in Gaza by shipping UK-made weaponry to the Netanyahu gang of war criminals. Yesterday, Reeves spent the most time yesterday on the need to turn the UK into what she called a “defence industrial superpower.”

NEVER A DISCOURAGING WORD

Suckiness knows no limits. Keir Starmer told the New York Times in a weekend interview he personally “likes and respects” Donald Trump and what he is trying to achieve in foreign policy.

As for US foreign policy under Trump, Starmer has never uttered a discouraging word. Trump's plan to ethnically cleanse Gaza and change it into some type of Mediterranean resort? Silence from Starmer. Trump's wish to annex Canada and turn it into the 51st state? Ditto. The provocative and uninvited trip to Greenland in the next 48 hours by a US delegation headed by Vice President JD Vance who is acting like a real estate tycoon angling to make a take over? Again, silence from Starmer.

It is obvious what would have been the reaction if either China or Russia had been engaging in the same type of assault on the sovereignty of a peoples or a nation.

Do sitting Labour MPs endorse such a stance by the leader of their party?

And if none of the above convinces, you want might to read the views of two quite mainstream economists on the economic wizardry of Reeves.

REASON 7) -

REEVES’ METHOD OF PROJECTING THE FUTURE IS “NUTS”

Professor Iain Begg of the London School of Economics agrees with Reeves that is a good idea to have a few “golden rules” when setting future spending, borrowing, and revenue targets.

But Begg added in an interview that basing projections of public spending which are, in turn, based on forecasts of economic growth and debt costs is “heaping one interpretation on another, which is nuts.”

Paul Johnson, director of the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS), warned that Reeves’ approach will fuel seven months of speculation over potential tax hikes in the autumn Budget. “The government will suffer the political cost. We will suffer the economic cost,” he concluded.

And some of us will suffer far far more economically than others.

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So Bill: I hope we get to meet up again soon for another chat.

As I said last time, I think the best option is to work hard to create and build a mass socialist party. I know you had some questions about this idea and have your own proposals. I’m most willing to listen and continue the debate.

Cheers

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Edited by Alan Story, THE LEFT LANE is a reader-supported publication. To receive new posts and support our work, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber: http://theleftlane2024.substack.com/subscribe

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