The Labour NEC's decision to only back a fresh referendum in certain circumstances will alienate huge numbers of supporters.
The Labour NEC’s decision on Tuesday afternoon – to only back a referendum under certain circumstances – is a staggering disappointment to Labour members like me.
The feeling is one of not having been heard. Not having been heard when socialists from across Europe make the argument that continued membership enables the Corbyn project.
Not having been heard when a million people marched in the streets just weeks ago. Not having been heard by a leadership that promised that policy would be made by us, the membership.
Jeremy Corbyn swept into his office on promises of democratising the party. I voted for him, twice; I campaigned for him in Plymouth last year in the local elections. I want the same Britain that he wants; a democratic socialist country governed for the many, not the few.
Yet the decision on the basis of which my party is campaigning in the EU elections is not being taken by the membership; it is taken by those who claim to represent us. They actually don’t.
Take Lara McNeill, the NEC representative for Young Labour: in a blog post yesterday – posted just after she had retweeted a meme which claimed that the Communications Union’s rejection of a second referendum was “quality socialism” – how, exactly? – she made claimed that “it is clear that the electorate’s desire to honour the 2016 referendum result is hardening rather than dissipating.”
In fact, the number of those who thought the UK was wrong to vote to leave, rather than right, at close to an all time high. Remain now has a consistent lead in the polls, with the lead among those who think the decision to leave the EU being wrong having grown to as much as eight points in recent months.
And the overwhelming majority of young Labour members, voters, and activists backing a fresh referendum. Yet McNeill supplies no positive evidence for her claim. It’s not what the statistics say – and not what I hear from local party, Momentum and activist meetings.
She also claims that it is the role of the NEC to decide which parts of established policy to include in the manifesto, not “turn existing policy on its head.” Fine – but a public vote on any deal was voted for by Jeremy Corbyn and the vast majority of the front bench on April 1st. Were they making up policy then?
If we are to be a party whose policy is decided by its members – remembering that our conference motion states that the government shouldn’t be afraid to put its deal to the public – we should be holding the Labour party to the same standard.
If we can get a deal with the government that satisfies our red lines – then why should we be afraid to put that to the people?
My party must remember that any deal agreed in the talks with the government will be looked at by Boris Johnson or Dominic Raab as worth less than the paper it’s written on.
Rule number one of Labour party politics – don’t trust the Tories. They have done everything they can to hurt, undermine and punish us. Whatever deal May strikes will be ripped up by the next leader in line to the Tory throne. The Tories don’t care about workers rights, the environment or the labour values that we fight for at the ballot box, at hustings or on the doorstep.
If you forget what it’s like to lose the support of your young and active base because you believed in a broken Tory promise, I suggest you ask Nick Clegg how he felt on election night in 2015.
Backing a Kyle-Wilson amendment again in Parliament is now the best option for us.
Young people could create and make a Corbyn government – but they can also become politically homeless at the drop of a hat.
Out are the old ties of lifelong party loyalty; in is the new comparative politics, with young people fluttering every election. In order to see the inside of Number 10, Corbyn will depend on pro-referendum activists. He mustn’t forget that.
Cathleen Clarke is Mobilisation Officer at Our Future, Our Choice and is a member of Momentum.
9 Responses to “Dear Corbyn: If you fail to challenge Brexit, you will throw away your support”
Peter hack
Well the bloody tragedy that is Brexit marches on; lets start from the beginning Tom Sacold and remember Corbyn’s (utterly beyond witless) response to the Referendum result to “immediately invoke Article 50 and set the 2 year clock running ! Not that 52% is barely a majority to move the 48% and any “Momentum” for such a major shift of policy after 50 years of industrial integration might require some “thought” or even as with Devolution a 60/40 majority; no its rabbit in the headlights time “Article 50 Now” ! And as with Salisbury Corbyn’s painful lack of depth is revealed pitilessly before the world and there he is still unable to articulate the clear advantages of the European Union or, on the other hand, the reforms that he would wish to implement on its flaws ? Melechon was at Conference what came of that re reformed EU vision? Absolutely beyond nothing ! Meanwhile 250 firms have left for Amsterdam, 1.5 trillion of bank assets has relocated into the EU (along with Rees Mogg and the owner of Ineos to Monaco) and FT reports that asset mangers are moving out of sterling while investment in UK based car manufacturing collapses and “Big Pharma” Leaves ! Universities report that it will be decade “to recover” and continent wide science co-operation is trashed ; goodbye to the ESA etc etc! An entire generation waits for a lead on the multiple deceits and corruptions of the Leave campaign or some articulation that the country is split asunder ; but all Corbyn can muster is “The Referendum must be Respected” ! A generation is lost to Labour while the woeful pretence that UK’s 2% of global trade can somehow “manage” outside the 56% of trade dominated by the USA/EU/China at a time of a tarriff war and massive constriction of global trade and potential recession because Donald Trump has shot his mouth off!!………………………….Retire Jeremy Corbyn please. You can’t bloody smile; I am thankful that you moved us on from the Blairites but now just bloody GO ! If you can’t see that a whole generation is begging for a lead that the EU has been outstanding on environmental and human rights policy and that outside it with a massive debt and ageing population and small land mass we are totally fxxxed and isolated when intra EU approval rates are 70-90% ……………..Retire and let Emily Thornbury have a go !
Andrew Nichols
I gave up my Labour membership a few months ago as it is obvious Corbin is facilitating Brexit. I will now after much thought take my vote elsewhere and not come back
KC Gordon
Thornburry !!!! – she of the scorning white van St. George flag picture ! – well there is one vote we wouldn’t get.
David Johnson
As a lifelong Labour voter (with nose pinched shut during the bliar warmongering years) the ‘wrong answer vote again’ crew need to remember how many of the whole heartedly left wing True Labour folk recognise the EU to be the corporate funded corporate favouring anti-democratic charade that it is.
It is possible that there are Labour voters who believe the EU to be socialist and democratic in nature (perhaps because of the word ‘Union’ given how little other reason there is once you look at the rulebook) but it’s fairly unlikely that they will vote right wing in resentment at an escape.
However there are also many of us who believe in true socialism and have understood the structure and inherent nature of the current EU system, we see a truly left wing UK government, once freed from the corporation favouring EU rulebook, to be one of the few hopes left to the human race.
Without the potential to act outside the stricture of a pro privatisation and anti socialist brotherhood a future Labour government loses much of its magical charm. Is the last chance democratic battle still worth fighting if our leadership are shackled to a corpatocracy?