Labour activist warns against blaming left-wing policies for electoral loss
Labour Party activist Umaar Kazmi put out a tweet warning against blaming Labour’s electoral defeat on its “common sense socialist policies”. He says the Labour right will predictably blame “the shift to the left under Jeremy Corbyn”. But in reality, he stresses, it was Labour’s failure to stand up to right-wing attacks within the party, and its perceived ‘disregard for democracy’ regarding the Brexit vote.
What went wrong?
Kazmi is a law student at Nottingham University and was a delegate for Rushcliffe Constituency Labour Party (CLP) at Labour’s 2019 conference. He believes that the 2017 general election proved that Labour’s “socialist policy platform” was actually very popular, as it “massively increased our vote share and our seats in parliament”. But this election, he argues:
The reality is we disregarded democracy, and democracy has now disregarded us. Whatever you think about the 2016 [Brexit] referendum, it took place, and people wanted that result implemented. That’s why they voted for the Conservatives, because they promised to ‘Get Brexit done’ while we sold out the Midlands and the North of England to satisfy remain fanatics in London.
He continues by claiming:
we also acquiesced to the concerted lies about antisemitism, which allowed the name of a man who spent his life – his life! – fighting against prejudice and all forms of racism to be dragged through the mud, while we now lose to the most openly racist prime minister in recent history.
THE FIGHT CONTINUES!
Read on...
Support us and go ad-freeDespite some saying they don't want immediate 'hot takes', many of us have been raising concerns about Labour's prospects for months. This isn't knee-jerk.
And you had better believe that the Labour Right are already planning—we, too, must plan. pic.twitter.com/zBNtoTiyO1
— Umaar Kazmi🌹#CorbynStays (@UmaarKazmi) December 13, 2019
Kazmi, who worked on Corbyn’s 2016 leadership campaign, says Labour failed to reform itself, thereby allowing “wreckers to undermine us at every opportunity”. Among the many reforms called for by people like former Derby North MP Chris Williamson was for Labour Party MPs to face an ‘open selection’ process before every election:
It's been one year since the launch of the Democracy Roadshow, where I travelled the country to speak with Labour members about our socialist programme and the need to deepen party democracy.
We should have a full open selection process for all Labour MPs before every election! pic.twitter.com/nheqSyfXv8
— Chris Williamson #GTTO (@DerbyChrisW) July 10, 2019
What must be done
Kazmi cautions against allowing the “same people who brought us to this position to assign all the blame to Jeremy Corbyn”. He says “we have to remain firm and take on these wreckers, and not let them take back our party”.
At the end of the video, he emphasises that people must not lose their resolve because “we also have to build a campaign outside of parliament over these next five years to defend the working class against this Conservative government”.
If progressive values are to have any place in the future, the one thing people can’t do is simply give up. The struggle continues.
Featured image via Twitter
Support us and go ad-freeWe know everyone is suffering under the Tories - but the Canary is a vital weapon in our fight back, and we need your support
The Canary Workers’ Co-op knows life is hard. The Tories are waging a class war against us we’re all having to fight. But like trade unions and community organising, truly independent working-class media is a vital weapon in our armoury.
The Canary doesn’t have the budget of the corporate media. In fact, our income is over 1,000 times less than the Guardian’s. What we do have is a radical agenda that disrupts power and amplifies marginalised communities. But we can only do this with our readers’ support.
So please, help us continue to spread messages of resistance and hope. Even the smallest donation would mean the world to us.
-
Show Comments
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to leave a comment.Join the conversationPlease read our comment moderation policy here.
I agree 100% here with Kazmi and seen his video clip which is a really good analysis.
The threat now from a resurgent Centrist PLP has to be dealt with , it won’t be easy but we the membership and Democratic Socialists have to continue the reforming work JC has so inspired in our PArty .
If we fail then the consequences for future generations will be dire , there will be no home or alternative meaningful party to the Tories or as New Labour was the Tory Lite version.
Yes there is great sadness at our defeat , engineered by those very same Centrists actually right wingers is a better description , with their Brexit / Remain option torpedoing our chances , but we must right now not let our guard down in our sadness .This is when the bastards in our PArty will strike hardest to try and take over . We cannot allow that and we must regroup and reafirm our drive and determination to carry on with the democratisation of the party .
To that end I fully agree with CHris Williamsons demands that ALL MPs face mandatory reselection every time . Those that oppose this are to be asked WHY ? , what do you fear !
I hope that many of our CLPs will now put forward the demand that his motion be put to and agreed at next years coming Conference in Liverpool . I know i’ll be pushing like hell for my CLP to do it !
This is the only way we , the membership , will be able to remove those wrecker MPS who engineered this defeat so successfully. We cannot allow them the power to bully , drive out , hound and expel innocent MPs and members from our Party nor can we allow them to illegitimately black mail , bully , corner our elected Leader into being forced into decisions that harm our Party .
Corbyn made the right decision in 2017 with his support for the referendum result , that all changed in 2019 with the remain driven MPS and those with an ulterior motive who pushed through the killer motion to allow a remain option in our Manifesto , that right there lost us the election !
It wouldn’t have mattered who was Labour leader. Foot and Miliband were attacked and attacked the same way with lies and rubbish. This time it was worse because this time we were stronger and we scared them. The main media is 80% Tory owned.
Without the so-called Labour moderates doing their wrecking, we’d have had a Labour government in 2017.
I don’t agree that the party failed on Brexit. The 2016 referendum was corrupt, like this election built on lies, and did not win a true majority. 3% of any poll must be disregarded as a standard error allowance. A proper referendum does not show a majority vote under 60%.
With a 50/50 split based on lies, supporting either side meant rejecting the other. We needed a new, better referendum.
Too late now. People heard “Get Brexit done”. Some did want Brexit. Many just wanted to put Brexit behind us and work on what really matters. The suffering now gets much worse as Brexit drags on for decades. Sadly people will have to suffer badly and some will die of it, so as to see the lies.
Grieve, Sleep. Think. Continue.
People like you will be music to Johnson’s ears. The infamous definition of madness.
You’ve already pretty much guaranteed 10 years of hard right Tory rule with your naive deluded agenda.. How much more misery do you want to inflict on the country rather just admit you have monumentally f@cked up with a disastrous leadership and campaign which the man on the street simply doesn’t believe.
KEEP LABOUR LEFT.
Leaving the EU has thrown politics into disarray, not by chance. The Tories have used this cleverly to box Labour in. Johnson isn’t a hard-line leaver, he’s an ambitious chancer. He would have backed remain had that got him to Downing St. Labour was trapped between its remain and leave wings but damaged by people like Watson and his “Remain and reform” theology. Len McCluskey was right: people voted leave and that should have been respected. But all the same, Labour was trapped by its two wings. The Tories are overwhelmingly anti EU.
Are we falling, as the last comment suggests, into Einstein’s definition of madness: doing the same thing and expecting a different result? No, what’s done is done. Now we have to find a new leadership and discover a new way to push for democratic equality. But we musn’t give up on the conviction that our society of obscene wealth and poverty is the problem. That would be really insane. Einstein spent the second half of his life trying to solve unified field theory. He failed, but he knew it was the challenge.
The real disaster would be for Labour to become once more, as under Blair, a pale imitation of the Tories. Johnson will fail. The voters will return. Now is not the time for faint hearts.
Disastrous campaign. You people in your echo chamber. Look at what happened. Corbyn has been slaughtered, worst result since 1935.
Maybe take some ownership of ten disaster you have now inflicted on the most vulnerable in society?
Oh for goodness sake! You correctly identify Labour’s shilly-shallying over Brexit as the reason for their election disaster.
Why bring alleged media bias against Jezza into it? Whether true or not – and the bloke presented his opponents with multiple open goals – that was irrelevant.
Brexiteers have been spoken down to over the last three years by the whole geniocracy. Either they don’t believe the dire economic prognostications or they don’t care. Either way these adults, with their own minds and opinions, chose to vote for what they wanted; twice now.