This is not the party I came into politics to represent. Our movement is rooted in trade unionism, solidarity, democracy and social justice. But these values have been increasingly sidelined
Kim Johnson is the Labour MP for Liverpool, Riverside
Sir Olly Robbins’ appearance before the Foreign Affairs Committee last week should trouble every single one of us who cares about the integrity of public life. What he revealed was not simply a lapse in judgment or a momentary breakdown in process, but something far more corrosive: the unmistakable fingerprints of Peter Mandelson at every stage of government decision-making.
Robbins spoke of “an atmosphere of pressure” emanating directly from Downing Street – urgency, haste and political force applied to rush through Mandelson’s appointment as the UK’s Ambassador to Washington. It also emerged that No.10 secretly tried to line up an ambassadorial job for Starmer’s former aide Matthew Doyle. These weren’t minor procedural shortcuts. They were the deliberate bending of systems that are meant to protect the public interest, not the ambitions of a narrow political clique. His testimony laid bare a culture in which insiders pull the strings, processes are moulded to suit personal networks and scrutiny becomes an inconvenience rather than a democratic safeguard.
A toxic culture has been allowed to flourish at the very top of our party and our government. Many warned that Mandelson’s return would herald a politics rooted in secrecy, elite influence and quiet manipulations behind closed doors. This week’s developments confirm our fears. We have a closed world of advisors – unaccountable, unchallenged and uninterested in the labour movement that built this party – exerting pressure for outcomes that serve themselves rather than the British public.
If this happened in any of our own workplaces, those responsible would be out of a job before lunchtime. Yet instead of accountability, we have had defensiveness. Instead of transparency, we have had evasion. And instead of leadership, we have had silence.
The timing of these revelations – days before the local elections – only reinforces their significance. Robbins’s account sits on top of a wider pattern that has become impossible to ignore: poor political judgment, weak scrutiny and a party machine that has concentrated power in the hands of a small inner circle. Too many decisions have been warped by internal factionalism rather than guided by the needs of working people. Processes designed to protect the public have been replaced by a culture of gatekeeping and leadership has grown far too comfortable with the influence of wealth, big business and media power.
This is not the party I came into politics to represent. Our movement is rooted in trade unionism, solidarity, democracy and social justice. But these values have been increasingly sidelined. In their place, we have seen an elite-driven political project take hold – one that shows little connection to the communities our party was built to serve.
We’re repeatedly told that “the adults are in the room.” But if this is what leadership looks like – if this is the standard being set at the top of government – then No.10 doesn’t need tinkering around the edges. It needs gutting from top to bottom.
We must now face an uncomfortable truth. Too much of our current direction has been shaped by people whose primary loyalty is to Westminster’s networks of cronyism and not to the labour movement. Responsibility for that culture sits squarely with those who lead it. Keir Starmer’s position becomes more untenable by the day, not because of a single appointment mishandled, but because of the environment he has allowed to grow and fester around him, and his refusal to betray those at the heart of these decisions – the same people he owes his job to. The upcoming locals may well prove to be the moment when members, supporters and voters say that enough is enough.
But reducing this crisis to personalities would be a mistake. What Robbins revealed goes further than the product of one man’s influence alone. It is the culmination of a leadership style that centralises power, suppresses dissent and increasingly treats grassroots voices as an inconvenience. This moment must be about more than swapping out one advisor or distancing from one fixer. It must be about recognising a systemic failure – a captured culture that prioritises the interests of the powerful over democratic accountability.
That is why I am joining the growing calls for a full, independent investigation into Labour Together and the networks of control lingering around the party. The recent revelations about illegal stitch-ups in Croydon, using the discredited Anonyvoter system, are another reminder of just how widespread this cronyism runs in our party.
Democracy at the heart of the party, and the heart of the country, has been deeply compromised by the actions of Mandelson and McSweeney. We cannot rebuild trust without a proper reckoning, and we cannot ask the public for power when we refuse to examine our own.
But an investigation is only the starting point. We need a fundamental reset of purpose and direction. We must return to its core values as the party of working people. Our mission is not to doff the cap to money markets or court the approval of speculators. It is to fight for communities that have been ignored for far too long.
People are crying out for action on the cost-of-living crisis, redistribution of wealth and the rebuilding of our public services. A wealth tax should not be a taboo topic – it should be at the centre of a credible plan for change.
Above all, we must acknowledge where we’ve gone wrong. You cannot renew the Labour Party by removing one fixer while protecting the culture that enabled him. A fresh start is essential.
In communities like mine in Liverpool, people cannot endure another generation of broken promises. Labour must be Labour again – rooted in the lives of working people, accountable to its members, and unafraid to challenge injustice, even when it originates within our own ranks.
If we fail to do that, we won’t only lose elections. We’ll lose our soul.
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