Thread for anyone to explain why Labour would do better under Owen Smith's leadership.

[Ken Burch]

25. Not a purge. I don't personally favor kicking anyone out of your party. That's not my business.

Expecting MPs to have some accountability to the people(the Constituency Labour Parties)without whose efforts none of them would ever get elected is NOT a purge...it's democracy. And even the Labour Right claim that the party stands for "Democratic socialism".

It would be the people who run the constituency parties deselecting right wing MPs(and no, deselection is not a "purge"-losing a parliamentary nomination is not the equivalent of shooting people in the head and then sending the bill for the bullet to their families-thank you, though for illustrating the ridiculously paranoid attitude the Labour Right takes towards the majority of the party's members and supporters who aren't Blairite) deciding to de-select them on a constituency by constituency basis, and are you arguing that the CLP should never be able to deny renomination to an MP who has refused to work with and listen to them about their concerns?

Also, if you are going to use the word "purge", would you agree that, if it is wrong to deny sitting MPs automatic renomination for life, as the Labour Right seems to think MPs are entitled to, that its equally wrong to speak of kicking Momentum supporters and other Corbyn supporters out of the party(or denying a vote in the leadership contest to people whose only crime was joining the party recently to support Corbyn)?

I don't want anyone driven away. I just want the part to get past the reactionary and anti-democratic notion that the MPs and the leader(when it's a leader from the right wing of the party)being the ONLY people who have a say in what the party stands for and(effectively) being the only people who get to decided, as a result of control of the shortlists from above, who gets to stand as a Labour candidate. That kind of thing is no longer necessary. Labour is supposed to be a democratically-run party, reflecting the views of those who campaign hard for Labour victories and who show loyalty to the party when no one else does. When that is stopped, when control is centralized in a handful of "insiders" who see their mission in life as keeping the Labour rank-and-file powerless, the result is a party that stands for next to nothing.

It's not about wanting anyone kicked out. It's about getting the MPs to accept that they aren't the only people in the party who know how to win an election or the only people who should have a real say in what the party stands for, who leads it, and who is permitted to be a parliamentary candidate. It's the Labour Party, not the Labour MP Party. And you can't expect people to pay to join the party but be given no voice in the party's direction. Paid party membership has to mean something more than the chance to campaign for candidates someone else chose on a manifesto someone who had no obligation to listen to them devised. Why would you expect anyone to pay to be a party member and get so little for what they paid? Labour didn't lose in the Eighties because the rank-and-file had a say(with the left wing platform, with Michael Foot as leader, Labour had an eleven point lead in the last poll taken prior to the launch of the "Alliance", so the left ideas weren't THAT unpopular), it lost because a group of MPs threw a tantrum and deserted the party rather than accept that the left had won control of the party fairly and squarely according to the party rules of the day. Having a Blair-type leader and a Blair-type party structure and decision-making apparatus would have made little if any difference(and if Labour HAD won in 1983, 1987 or 1992 on those terms, it is now clear that a Labour government of that stripe would have made nearly every cut Thatcher or Major made and sold off just as much of the family silver at bargain basement prices. We know this because the Australian Labor Party did exactly that when in power in the same period).

Labour did not win in 1997 because the grassroots was kept totally out in the cold. It won because the voters were sick of everything the Tories had done, not just the Tory Party as a group of personalities. Labour's manifesto that year included a proposal that Corbyn is now being called "far left" for supporting-nationalization of the railroads(a commitment that Blair refused to implement, for no good reason whatsoever, and a commitment that would have done the country nothing but good IF implemented).

BTW, most of the current MPs represent safe Labour seats...seats that ALWAYS vote Labour no matter what. There are hardly any constituencies at all where the MP was elected because she or he treated the constituency party with contempt and dismissiveness, where the MP made a point of not caring what the CLP wants.

I was involved with the Alaska Democratic Party for most of the 33 years I lived there, and will be involved with the Democratic Party in Washington State now that I lived there. I supported a lot of people who were too right wing for my taste. Most of them lost even though they made a point of being well to the right of the grassrots, activist Democrats. And this spring, the "socialist" presidential candidate took 82% of the vote in our party's precinct caucuses.

It's not about "purity". It's about the reasonable expectation that the party you support will at the very least treat your principles with respect and be clearly moving in the direction you want it to be moving in. Is that such an intolerable combination of things to ask for?