I've known for some time that Alice Mahon was considering leaving the Labour Party. At Labour Party Conference in Manchester, I spent a considerable amount of time persuading her to stay and I hope my thoughts helped keep her with the Party a bit longer.
Alice is resigning for a lot of reasons. Most of which are in today's Yorkshire Post. So I won't catalogue them. The final straw for Alice was the treatment meted out to Janet Oosthuysen who won the original PPC selection in Calder Valley. It took six months for the NEC to make its mind up on the issue. Their grounds for doing so, a police caution, was blasted all over the media thanks to a scurrilous campaign led by Janet's opponents in the Labour Party. Not satisfied with that, because the NEC was still undecided , they then besmirched her name further with totally false personal allegations which were splashed in the Mail On Sunday.
Having succeeded in getting rid of Janet, there was then a re-run in Calder Valley, where Party members who supported me are now asking for an inquiry. One of my endorsers was Alice and I was proud to have her name on my leaflet. I am very sad indeed that she is going.
But I cannot , in truth, blame her for being sick of the stitch-ups, the smears, and the tactics of those whose arrogance sickens ordinary Labour Party members.
The Guardian today has a piece on the Rrith and Thamesmead debacle in which I am quoted.
I note today's Times says Georgia Gould, who works for Tony Blair's Faith Foundation, should be the candidate chosen to "send a reassuring message to Labour voters." What nauseating rubbish
People with friends in the media and other high places may think they can ride roughshod over the hopes, dreams and aspirations of those like Alice who have devoted their lives to the labour movement. The truth is that their antics fool no-one - however many strings they are able to pull. In losing Alice Mahon, Labour has lost one of its greatest champions for peace and social justice. But I'm glad to say Alice will still be my friend and comrade.
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"The LRC is an open, democratic and socialist organisation committed to the election of a Labour Government and the implementation of a fundamental and irreversible shift in the balance of wealth and power in favour of the working class and the promotion of internationalism, peace and equality."
Surely these three aims are diametrically opposed?
Alice seemed to think so.
Iraq and the Royal Mail being two that come to mind.
So why do you stay?
There is no chance at all that people with Labour Left politics - such as yourself or a younger version of Mahon - will ever be given a position of responsibility, such as an MP, in the Labour Party.
I'd even go us so far as to compare those who don't leave to a battered woman who feels she can't leave her violent partner because she 'knows', deep down, she can reform it.
She's wrong but such a person will often have very practical reasons why she can't just leave - what would she live on, where would she live?
But what excuse does any Left have to be in the Labour Party? Why do you fund and even work for that which abuses us all, including you?
Unfortunate, but understandable. Alice was the kind of MP that many dream of having.
The simple answer is yes they can ride right over people. Sadly it's taken you a long time to find out. This is not New Labour it was labour and it's been around for a very very long time.
God I've been in Labour long enough to see this happen lots of times, but yes New labour has taken it to new heights.
My MP was not even on our slate but the three people we picked Labour said nope sorry here she is, of course she worked for Tony Blair, and of course she has voted for anything our Tony wanted, and now she votes for anything Brown wants.
Gone are the days of getting picked because your the best person, now it's who you support are you a Blairite or Brownite, it gets rid of the left.
New Labour are a new animal it's not labour and it's not I'm told Tory although it does lean to the right, we are told labour died during the eighteen years in the wilderness, so I wonder what party will arise in the next eighteen years in the wilderness.
My self I've just given up and will watch from the side lines at the next election with the majority of the people who do not bother voting.
Good luck in your future, perhaps looking at joining the greens might be an answer, staying within Labours no good for you or any other lefty.
Sad to see her go, but it was the wrong decision.
I'm very sad to see Alice go but I simply don't accept the argument that everyone like her should leave. Why now? New Labour is in it's final death throes. There is still the kernel of a decent party - we see it all the time, it is not a party full of war-mongers and Poor Law wardens (whatever it's leadership might be). Of course if that kernel of a decent party can germinate into a living Labour Party once New Labour is finally dead, it won't be an ideologically-pure Socialist Party, but it might be once again a party that does more good than harm, and through which socialists can forge achievements quite impossible in the wilderness of atomised purity.
I understand why Alice left. But it doesn't change my view that it's important to stay and fight.
we stay because their is no room outside the Party
anyway its our party
if the left outside the labour party could have taken off surely it had three or four attempts in Scotland
and the result was ???
having said that I have been a great supporter of Alice
the Party is no different as it was under the right wing leadership before
its the party and the party locally thats important
the people outside the Labour party keep their hands clean but meet in telephone boxes
So the Tories no say they will
Cut spending on Schools, Universities and cut nurses and teachers pay
nolonger the nasty party then
I agree with the sentiment that those who have dedicated their lives to labor deserve better treatment.
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