The New Labour Leadership - Voting with heart than mind

On Sunday February 23^rd, 2020  at the Radisson Blu Hotel on a bank of the river Wear in the Durham, I listened to eight exceptional individuals explaining to an invited audience who should become the Leader and the deputy leader of the British Labour Party, the largest political membership party in western Europe. 

The tragedy of the situation is that they all should have been members of a government negotiating a fair deal for exiting the European Community in accordance with the promise given by political parties to honour the result of the 2016 referendum; reversing the past ten years of the ideological political dismantling of public services and the  values of the welfare state established after the war; promoting ethical policies and programmes in relationships with other countries and reaching agreement on measures to first halt the physical destruction of our planet, and move forward to secure its longer term security.

Apart from the politicians and political journalists, I suspect I am one of the few people who was able and willing to watch live every moment of the bitter exchanges over Brexit in the House of Commons, and the accompanying News broadcasts  by the  BBC, Sky, ITN and Channel Four, the interviews and the features on Newsnight, Andrew Marr, Politics Today and Peston, and then waiting for the Papers first editions to read the articles before going to bed, unable to sleep thinking over what had happened and likely to happen next.

I stopped doing this on the hearing the Exit Poll seconds after 10pm on General Election Night. I was not surprised by the result but its scale, with loss of the seat of Laura Piddock in North West Durham, the most disappointing.

In truth, a Jeremy Corbyn led majority socialist leaning government had always seemed to me unlikely although there was a period when the combination of Keir Starmer and Jeremy could have achieved the softest of Brexit if Jo Swinson’s, Liberal Democrats and a handful of Tory rebels had agreed to an interim Corbyn led government, which in turn could have changed the media and publics’ perspective.

.

In fairness, I repeatedly warned that an alliance appeared to have been formed between a wide range of interests across the political spectrum to  prevent a socialist leaning administration, even  it meant  leaving the European Economics Union without any of the advantages of membership and without securing anything better. 

There is anger and frustration at being proved right

The Conservative Party with its alpha gender males, commanding control of all the British institutions of state and of business, commerce and the national media has been in power for the majority of 313 years that the Westminster Parliament has controlled the British Islands  four nations. 

The British Labour Party has had a Parliamentary majority government for only 25 years and a government with a socialist manifesto programme for 6 of those years with Tony Blair’s three General Election wins gained by removing the basis on which the Party was created soon after he was elected leader. 

The position in Scotland merits repeating- Scottish Nationalists 48, Conservatives 6, Liberal Democrats 4 and Labour 1.

The position in Scotland merits repeating- Scottish Nationalists 48, Conservatives 6, Liberal Democrats 4 and Labour 1.

The one, Ian Murray, retained his seat increasing his majority because of his character, work, communicating and connecting with the people of his constituency. No Labour Government will be possible unless Scotland remains part of a British Government, and the majority of seats held by the Nationalists and Tories are reclaimed.

The last time the gulf between the Tory and Labour Parties at Westminster was as wide was in 1983 and another 14 years passed before the Blair landslide victory. The often quoted George Santayana- “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it,” also merits saying  again and again.

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it,”

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it,”

In 2015, as I explained to someone from Jeremy Corbyn’s team who telephoned before my vote was cast, although I agreed with every word  of his leadership manifesto, I believed the time had come to end  domination and control by men, and I intended to vote, as I did, for Yvette Cooper, whose work as Shadow Home Secretary, I admired, and Angela Eagle whose knew from direct experience that some of those on the far left  could be as unscrupulous and disingenuous as those on the far right. 

I also predicted that a substantial number of the Parliamentary party would find Corbyn’s approach to leadership and achieving lasting political change, unacceptable.

Despite the internal rebellion, the resignations timed to do most damage, and the threat of a split the Party managed achieve two brilliant economically sound General Election manifesto’s which offered to change British politics in a fundamental way for the better. On Sunday I hoped for confirmation that whoever becomes Leader and deputy leader the policies and programmes will be retained in principle and developed to meet the  general need when the next general election is held, however the Party and its message is rebranded.  I returned home greatly encouraged.

There were several memorable moments of prolonged applause at Durham on Sunday, one was when Rebecca Long Bailey referred to the enemy within and also when Dawn Butler talked about the need for party self-discipline, and the urgent need for a central rebuttal unit to counter the lies, the smears and the slander. Angela Rayner and Lisa Nandy made the point that when they had differences with the leader they made personal contact and reached a solution in private. The behaviour of some  members of the parliamentary party before and since the general election has been unacceptable and if they are unable to voice in private their disappointment at the outcome of the present leadership elections they should be replaced though due process at the earliest opportunity.

Nor should it be assumed  that opposition to Jeremey approach to politics came only from the centre right of the party as I first learned when just out of my teens sixty years ago. I was asked by the manager of Houseman’s Peace News to look after a bookstall at the second national meeting of the Socialist Labour League as Pat Arrowsmith of the Direct Action Committee had been invited to speak, and then heard Gerry Healy the leader explain their support for the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament but the retention of the Worker’s bomb and their plan for entryism into the machine tool  industry to create political strikes without any regard for the interests and welfare of those in the industries which they targeted or their families.

Concern was reinforced when supporters of the Militant Tendency gained control of the South Tyneside branch of the National Association of Local Government Officers, tricked residential care staff for children,  in one instance blackmailing the head of a child care establishment into striking, endangering the immediate welfare of  some of the most vulnerable and at risk children, but fortunately an all-party council emergency committee empowered me to use all means necessary with the help of management to ensure the children were protected.  

The hostility appeared to centre on his Satyagraha and Syndicalist based approach to leadership and to fundamentally changing society through bottom up democracy and an equality of involvement. I found as strong opposition to this aspect of his approach among those on far left when attending meetings of the Durham Miners Gala in Durham during the years of his leadership. At the same time. I also understood how  the British Institutions of State remain effective in preventing fundamental changes without the use of the methods associated with Stalin, Hitler, Chairman Mao and their present day successors.

My understanding of how the British state works to protect itself commenced just before Easter 1961 when on behalf of the Direct Action Committee Against Nuclear War, with George Clark, of the CND,  we met senior officers of the Metropolitan Police and was introduced to representatives  from the Home Office, the Admiralty and from the United States, to agree arrangements for the departure of the Polaris Protest march to Holy Loch which the authorities changed without notice as we set off.

However, being honest and open, and looking for the best in people throughout my involvement as democratic revolutionary, including what was planned for the land and sea Direct Action at Holy Loch in the Firth of Clyde on Whitsunday, led to a relationship with Home Office which could over the next half century, meeting a Minister of State in 1962, as chairman of the ex-prisoners group who published Inside Story; to the Home Office  arranging and financially sponsoring a place on a Child Care Qualification course at Birmingham University 1963-1964; to working with the Home Office Children’s Inspectorate on a child exploitation and political corruption case in the West Riding 1970, and advised  that I was being recommended to local authorities as one of the new Director of Social Services, which came into being in 1974 despite one national headline “Ex Con Gets Top Job”, signing the Official Secrets Acts in 1987 to help the Department of Health, as an ad hoc Inspector of Social Services,  establish its Drug Advisory Service, and invited onto a Home Office led committee on HIV infection and Drug misuse which led to enlightening other members with the help of the Prison Governors Association on how drugs replaced tobacco as the internal prison currency and on how the substances entered from the outside. 

Back in 1963 the then civil servant head of the prison service did not  know key aspects of government policy and more recently a senior civil servant did not know about Home Office Children’s Department and Inspectorate.

My understanding how the Labour Party works in practice commenced in the autumn of 1960 when elected to the Beddington and Wallington Executive Committee at my first  meeting in what I learned afterwards was a coup by the separate Young Socialists; a story I told a man on hired London red bus to Aldermaston in 1961 who overheard a conversation between Operation Foulness prisoners,  asked if I was Labour Party member, saying on arrival he was a member of Parliament,  Frank Allaun, Salford East 1955-1983,  and to keep in touch which I did.  He became chairman of the Party, helped organise the first Aldermaston March and chaired the Labour Peace Fellowship; subsequently using one my letters in a House of Commons debate on Rackmanism housing conditions in the Twilight Zone of Birmingham which made national headlines, and the Council to offer me a job, but I was already committed to working for Oxfordshire.

My understanding of the Tory Party and International capitalism matured when attending a senior general management course in 1984 and learning that companies were being advised to move headquarters to stable states irrespective of their form of government who offered low corporate and personal taxation; and to move their production units to  such states which banned or disempowered trade union to enable the  lowest wage costs in maximation of profits. 

The support which democratic politicians given to such enterprises, design to limited control by any individual government, continues to amaze given the contempt which directors of such companies back in 1984 had for politicians, especially those they were able to buy.

Before 1984, my understanding of the scope of intelligence and surveillance was limited to the George Orwell novel and the works of John Le Carré.  At the senior general management course, the then limitations of the office and home use digital computer were explained  together with the possibilities from microtechnology, fibre optical cabling, space satellite communications and the internet,  and I also worked out the potential for the collation and analysis of intelligence data. 

It was not until studying the two 2009 editions of the authorised history of the government branch of homeland intelligence, MI5, that I learned that in 1979 Mrs Thatcher had set up a unit at number 10 to  deal with all the far right and broader labour and trade union movement supporters who attempted to work for public paid services or for public paid contractors and which involved one of the most comprehensive and effective comprehensive notification system in the western world. MI5 was required to search its databases for checks on over three hundred thousand individual applications a year. The suggested means for preventing appointments involved the information being anonymously passed to independent black listing organisations with  most well known in terms of the subsequent redress- the construction industry. It will be interesting to see if the  commitment in the 2019 manifesto for a blacklisting public inquiry is retained. The golden rule is never agree to any form of independent inquiry unless you know everything in advance likely to emerge.

The arms-length sponsoring by the Israeli government interests of the successful smearing of Jeremy Corbyn with antisemitism is but one example of how government agencies, semi-independent and arms-length private bodies and public relations agencies are now used by those with wealth to destroy individuals through a compliant, and at time conspiratorial media. Although it has become essential for Leadership contenders to display their anti-Semitism and racism credentials, it was good to see  candidates also confirm their support for the resolution of the House Commons  that the government should recognise Palestine as part of a two state solution, although president Trump appears to be putting paid to any prospect of reaching an agreement on such a basis.

All members of the next Shadow Cabinet should expect that databases will be quickly assembled collating every written and audio records, every available photograph and event diary item since their teenage years,  and programmes are now available  to analyse the information at speed.

At least one the candidates made the mistake of saying that  the first duty of any British government is the protection of the welfare of the majority of its people. This is a good socialist ideal but does not reflect  the position of those taking the oath of allegiance required by Parliamentarians, and others, whose duty is to protect the institutions of the state according the laws in operation at the time.  The rest of us are subjects expected to obey whatever the lawmakers require of us.

Because of the election night exit poll and wanting to get on with writing a book for publication, “Episodes of Coincidence and Connection,” I decided not to watch the previous “hustings” or mainstream televised debates and await to see if I was invited to Durham. I wanted to assess from what was said and who is known to be supporting  each candidate- the trade unions, the constituency parties and individual members of Parliament available on the Party’s internet site.

I also wanted to experience the reaction of the audience during the two sessions, from talking to people beforehand  and during the lunch time break. The most interesting conversation occurred afterwards with two members of the Jarrow constituency party.

Returning home, I decided to let my heart rule my head and vote for the person I believed was most likely to continue the development of the policies and programmes in the 2019 manifesto and the political reforms within the party, Rebecca Long Bailey, and put the best performing candidate on the day, Sir Starmer as second preference.

I became an admirer of Sir Keith when he negotiated the only workable compromise on Brexit in that  long meeting with all the interested parties at the Labour party conference in 2017 held after Mrs May decision to hold a general election which she believed would bring about the result which Boris Johnson achieved two years later.

The forensic skill which Sir Kier took apart the case of Hard Brexiteers and Mrs May’s attempts to compromise with the Spartans of Rees Mogg, was outstanding, and on Sunday he revealed his passion on several issues of importance and with his final “we much fight them on the beaches,” summing up in two minutes receiving one of longest and loudest receptions of the day.

Sir Kier also recognises that the Prime Minister is not the clown with no political substance caricatured in the play  “The Last Temptation of Boris Johnson,” experienced at Newcastle Playhouse two weeks ago, where the second act opens with the news that he has been forced to resign because of private life misdemeanours and political shenanigans. The mistake is confuse someone who is seeks political power without a political ideology as lacking political substance, when the evidence is of a clever and ruthless individual as his expulsion of several Party heavy weights as a warning to others of what to expect proved effective.

In play the Prime Minister is replaced Dominic Raab, a good choice in such an event, although the ambition of Priti Patel should not be underestimated. It was also a smart move of Boris to force out his main rival to continuing office, Sajid Jarvid, by the inexperienced Rishi Sunak who will implement whatever Boris tells him, having surrounded him with a new team of approved advisors and Ministers. But the idea that the Prime Minister will become  the author of his own downfall is again not to understand the power and the authority he now commands.

Sir Keir was right to  underline that Boris Johnson is a dangerous politician in terms of having the power to permanently change the NHS and Britain’s trading relationships with Europe, especially if as anticipated Donald Trump gains a second  term, with a strengthened personal mandate, and only the most disciplined and united of Oppositions, challenging every negative move will be able  ameliorate the worst of what is now likely to happen. 

My concern is not who he will bring into the Cabinet such as  former Government Ministers, Yvette Cooper, Hilary Benn, Margaret Beckett, and former Party leader Ed Miliband; continuing with Nick Brown as Chief Whip and Valerie Vaz as Shadow Leader, and at the  Durham he also committed himself to offering Rebecca Long Bailey and Lisa Nandy Cabinet positions and he is the kind of individual who will not offer positions they cannot accept. 

My concern is about the pressure he will be under to  drop some manifesto conference agreed policies to create and go back to a top down development of policies and programmes

The hotel  was difficult to reach by car, having forgotten that the Park and Ride service does not operate on most Sundays throughout year. After driving around the city trying to find how to get to the Franklin Street bank of the river, I was given direction, right then left, then fight then left  by a family party exercising their greyhounds, remembered what was said, saw the small street sign Radisson Hotel, decided against using the multi-story car park because both lifts were out of action, went under the short tunnel to see the river and the hotel. Having already learned that street parking is free on Sundays, I resisted the temptation to use the hotel car park, or another that also charged, and found one of the few remaining roadside spaces although I arrived 100 minutes before the first scheduled session.

After registration and gaining a red wrist band 033213 which I have just remembered I continue to wear I selected an aisle seat  an aisle seat with my coat, and bought, a sandwich and fruit lunch for £5  and a warmish coffee for £2, and short discussion with other early arrivals  about socialism and equality until the three candidates for the leadership arrived. I also had time to read Rebecca Long Bailey, “Why I should be the next Leader” in the printed edition of Tribune.

Not everyone stayed for afternoon session with the five candidates for the role of deputy leader whose important main role is to act as bridge between the leadership and the rest of the Parliamentary Party Westminster and with the membership parties. It is the role of the Leader and senior cabinet  member to work closely with the Trade Union Congress and an early test will be to see if the new leader also accepts the invitation to be the lead speaker at the Durham Miners Gala.

My conclusion at the end of the session is that it would be to the advantage of the Party and to Britain generally if all five candidates for Deputy Leader are appointed to leadership roles in the fight ahead. In terms of the formal role of deputy leader I decided against Richard Burgon despite his case for being the strongest in  continuing to implement the manifesto  and choose Dawn Butler  with Rosena Allin Khan second preference over Angela Rayner the third because of their gender and ethnicity, and  Dawn over Rosena because she has had Ministerial experience and is a standard bearer for Black women with Diane Abbot stepping down. All three are extraordinary individuals and the election of any will send  a message of inclusiveness and the beginning of the end of  male domination.

Although his task was an easy one a thank you is appropriate to the Moderator of both sessions,  Sunderland born David Anderson, a miner for 20 years, and then a care worker until entering Parliament as member of Blaydon from 2005 to 2017, serving as Shadow Secretaries of State for Northern Ireland and Scotland, and to the staff of Labour North East.

More than one hundred questions were submitted and despite ‘the husting’ being the 10^th of the 12^th for individual members, speakers commented on the significance of several. Speakers also impressed with their  ability to cover the subjects in the minute allocated as  if they were responding to the issues raised for the first time. Their courage and their sincerity was humbling.