I've been a member of the Labour party for some time now, but on Thursday I finally decided to cancel my membership. I do this sadly, as I feel the party has a great and proud history, with many achievements to boast of - the establishment of the NHS, state schools and the Equal Pay Act to name but a few. Of course, there have been things to be less than proud of, such as the expulsion of the Chagossians from the Chagos Archipelago in the 1970s and the Iraq War. Nonetheless, I feel that, up until 1997 anyway, the party could boast a good history in standing up for equality and social justice.
However, the shift to the Right we saw from New Labour was, in my eyes, the beginning of the end of the party as a genuine party of opposition and as a voice for the disadvantaged in society. While I would not place myself as far to the Left as the Bennite faction of the party or the Militant Tendency, some of Blair's actions were, in my view, too far to the Right of the spectrum. Blair's tenure saw even further weakening of trade unions, the beginning of the privatisation of the NHS and the Royal Mail, too lax regulation of a self-destructive financial sector and draconian anti-terror laws and foreign invasions. This does not mean there were not some policies to be lauded: the Minimum Wage Act was a great boon to low-paid workers everywhere. However, it is hard to argue from a left-liberal perspective that Blair's tenure was a good one.
Many people thought that the election of Ed Miliband as Labour leader was going to bring an end to this era and see some more progressive policies and changes brought in. If one were to read a Dan Hodge's column or The Daily Express one would imagine that 'Red Ed' was going to march to the Winter Palace and announce complete redistribution of the wealth. But even on the more sane and less alarmist columns of The Times or The Guardian placed Miliband on the modern Left of the party, with more of a social democratic conscience than Blair.
Unfortunately, they were wrong. I joined the Labour party when Miliband and Ed Balls were making positive noises about Keynesian economic stimulus to boost growth rather than the full-blown austerity of George Osborne. There was promising talk of the reintroduction of the 10p tax rate and speeches about protecting public services. I was wary at the time that there seemed to be a lack of passion, but the party seemed to be promoting a genuine alternative to Conservative dogma.
This all began to collapse in 2013. Firstly, there was Liam Byrne calling on the party to abstain from voting against the Coalition's 'workfare' programme, which saw unemployed people being forced to work unpaid for private companies to receive their benefits. This included people who were doing positive, unpaid community work and was sometimes used by private companies as a fantastic source of cost-free, exploitative labour - as shown in
this article. Not only is this morally dubious, but it has the effect of decreasing available paid work for those looking for it, and further decreases rights in an already tough sector for workers.
Even while Ed Miliband was talking about clamping down on payday lenders, there was a marked lack of passion from party ministers when challenging Conservative policies. All too often Labour are on the defensive when answering Conservative challenges. On welfare, low-paid work and the trade unions, Labour is dancing to the Conservatives tune without calling them out on obvious lies, exaggerations and rank prejudices, while at the same time completely failing to stand up for the people it is meant to represent.
For me, all this culminated in two events in mid 2013. Firstly, Ed Balls bottled it. Suddenly, all the talk about investing to boost growth and jobs, incidentally a strategy backed by Nobel prize winning economist Paul Krugman and even the IMF, was gone. Labour pledge to accept the Coalition's spending plans for 2015/16. What choice is that for the people of the UK? Three parties pledging austerity and slashing the public sector, in complete disregard of the economic arguments of Neo-Keynesians, and, frankly, common sense. To me, that is not a sign of a fully-functioning democracy.
But, for me, the final straw was last week, with the Falkirk 'scandal' and Labour's disgraceful failure to stand up for the very founders - the trade unions. There has still been no evidence of any wrongdoing on the part of UNITE, who still deny the claims, and it has been suggested that the evidence is flimsy and minimal. The sad thing about this scandal was not the inevitable anti-union propaganda from the Right-wing press and the Conservatives, but Labour's complete unwillingness to defend their heritage and point out the vital role of unions in a democracy.
The party should not have been trying to backtrack and say how they plan to sort out the union link, and play into the image of the unions having great power in the country. In fact, they should have been shouting at the top of their voices how trade unions have next-to-no power at a time where workers' rights are being slashed wholesale, with temporary contracts, low-pay, zero-hour contracts and low-hour contracts for workers at the very bottom of the pile. I am not speculating on this: I have worked in four different retailers and every single one of them has paid below a living wage and have continually acted to cut hours, holiday and breaktimes while I have been there. Instead, not only did the party not defend them, they effectively broke the link.
The message given out last week was clear: if you are a working-class trade unionist you are not welcome in the Labour party. The party has firmly cemented itself in the centre-ground and further increased the democratic deficit in this country, offering the British public no real choice whatsoever in the three main parties, with all three of them made up of middle-class professionals pushing neo-liberal policies and continually eroding the voice of the electorate. I had thought the Labour party was offering a change. Unfortunately, I was wrong.
