The resignation of Angela Rayner from her posts as deputy prime minister, housing secretary, and deputy leader of the Labour Party, prompted a stream of commentary in the national press and on social media. Among those who ventured to offer an opinion were the MPs of the Labour Left: and despite Rayner’s miserable record of treachery and careerism, they were pleased to celebrate her, and toss salutary criticism aside1. This is not the first time that these MPs have worked, wittingly or not, to mislead the people: an examination of their remarks on public affairs reveals that deception is their steady line of conduct—honesty, the exception—in respect of their assessment of Starmerism, and of the right-wing of the Labour Party.
Before coming, however, to our principal subject, we cannot avoid devoting a few words to the circumstances of Rayner’s resignation, and what they tell us of our institutions. The ostensible cause of her resignation was a report prepared by Sir Laurie Magnus (Bart), the Independent Adviser on Ministerial Standards, and a former financier, appointed in 2022 by Rishi Sunak. The Independent Adviser is tasked with supplying impartial ethical guidance to the Prime Minister on matters related to the Ministerial Code, which outlines ministers’ duties and the standards of conduct they ought to maintain. Sir Laurie found that Rayner’s failure to pay the correct rate of stamp duty land tax, on the purchase of a property in Sussex, constituted a breach of the code, because she had neglected to uphold the “highest possible standards of proper conduct”. And thus, Rayner resigned. This, indeed, is a brilliant specimen of public virtue!—that is, to anyone who has plugged their ears, and averted their eyes, to the cries and corpses produced by Israel’s ravage of Gaza.
It may seem, to the uninitiated reader, a remarkable contradiction, that a government complicit in genocide—the crime of crimes—would employ an ethical adviser, and follow his recommendations. But ethics, in the broad sense that it is wrong to starve children to death, to reduce cities to rubble, and to torture and rape detainees, is not what our government has ever had in mind. Ministers prefer to continue sending arms to Israel, to train the soldiers of its barbarous army, to host its military and political functionaries, and to refuse either to impose comprehensive sanctions, or to support criminal investigations into Israel’s conduct, as they have done in the case of Russia’s war in Ukraine. The ethics intended, whenever the government uses the word, have a much narrower sense: Palestinians, of course, are pre-subtracted from the moral reckoning, such that their suffering, whatever pitch of horror and despair it may reach, has no influence upon the judgment formed of ministerial conduct. Our official ethical guardians do not trouble themselves with the superficial woes of those “human animals”2 (Yoav Gallant, the former Israeli defence minister, and fugitive war crimes suspect wanted by the International Criminal Court). The underpayment of stamp duty, in the at once depraved and deranged moral calculus of the ruling class, has assumed a more sinful and odious character than the aiding and abetting of one of the worst crimes of our century.
This calls to mind another observation, of the greatest importance. Each class has to itself, in any class society, its own peculiar moral code; and every class, whose interests are opposed to the interests of humanity at large, and the cause of its emancipation, is compelled to reason, so that the service of its sinister purposes becomes virtue, while any attempt to interfere with the gratification of its desires is vice. It is necessary, therefore, always to be vigilant, to avoid applying the false measures of the oligarchy in our estimation of political conduct, even as their influence spreads this spurious morality into every corner of our social and cultural life. The ethics of the Socialist movement, on the other hand, are the ethics of humanity, where every person counts equally, and where an injury to one is an injury to all. Readers will forgive us this digression, in view of our duty to present these recent events in the most clear and revealing light.
Rayner and opportunism
To return now to how Labour Left MPs deceive the people: upon Rayner’s resignation, the stalwart Labour Left member for Leeds East, Richard Burgon, published this statement: “Angela has taken the decision to stand down but can be incredibly proud of her role in delivering the biggest upgrade in workers’ rights in decades through the Employment Rights Bill.”3 Burgon went on to call for a free and fair Labour deputy leadership election. Omitted was any mention of the real political history of Angela Rayner—her betrayal of the Left—her loyal submission to Sir Keir’s dictates. Omitted, too, was the true nature of the Employment Rights Bill, and the critical view the working class ought to adopt in relation to it.
Rayner was, at one time, a loyal member of Jeremy Corbyn’s shadow cabinet: she was thought to have left-wing inclinations, and, in a deplorable error characteristic of that organisation, Momentum even endorsed her for deputy leader when she stood in 20204. Once she had attained her office (at the expense, we might add, of the real Left candidate—Richard Burgon!) and tasted ambition, she conformed with remarkable flexibility to Sir Keir’s reign.
She had already, like her old running mate, the hapless Rebecca Long-Bailey, signed on to the Board of Deputies of British Jews’ ten pledges5. The Board, which proclaims itself “the voice of the British Jewish community”, demanded that Labour “Adopt the international definition of antisemitism without qualification” and use it “as the basis for considering antisemitism disciplinary cases.”6 Of course, as might be expected of an organisation that has stood unflinchingly by Israel, even as it commits genocide, the Board supported the IHRA definition as a means of suppressing censure of Israel’s crimes: the definition, apart from being poorly written and theorised, has appended to it a list of examples designed to shield Israel from accurate and justified criticism. Thus, Rayner proved at the outset her readiness to adapt to the circumstances that followed Corbyn’s downfall.
But that was not all: she continued to mould her conduct into a shape fit for Starmerism. Upon the release of the EHRC report on antisemitism in the Labour Party, and the suspension of Corbyn from the party in its aftermath, Rayner joined the chorus of voices lamenting the report’s (weak and flimsy)7 findings: “It’s a day of shame for the Labour Party … the findings were stark … we have to do everything we can to restore the trust between the Labour Party and its members and the Jewish community.”8 Corbyn responded to the report with the banal observation that the party’s political opponents had exaggerated the extent and severity of antisemitism in Labour: Corbyn had, among other things, been accused in the media of wanting to “reopen Auschwitz”9. But the truth was politically incorrect, and inconvenient to Sir Keir’s grand project of cleansing the Labour Party of this antisemitism virus. Hence Rayner spoke out against Corbyn: “I’m just deeply, deeply upset by the circumstances and really upset that Jeremy wasn’t able to see the pain that the Jewish community has gone through … Jeremy is a thoroughly decent man. But as Margaret Hodge said in her piece he has an absolute blindspot and a denial when it comes to some of these issues … Myself and Keir have said quite categorically that we will accept the recommendations of the report…” and thus she persisted in talking nonsense10.
Not content with having indicted and disavowed her former colleague as he was thrown out of the party, she now turned her sights on ordinary left-wing members, who had begun to call for the whip to be restored to Corbyn. He had, after all, faithfully served Labour for decades. Some members had even been so insolent as to suppose that they should have a right to debate the EHRC’s findings, and should not be prevented from partaking in such discussions by party functionaries11. Our brave deputy leader once again jumped into the fray, and instructed members to “get real” about antisemitism: “I feel really, really angry actually that there’s been scenes like that in our CLP [constituency Labour Party] meetings. If I have to suspend thousands and thousands of members, we will do that … you know, we have debates but there’s no debating what the EHRC said … What Jeremy said in response to the EHRC report was totally unacceptable.”12
At the same time that Rayner declared her hostility to the Left, she kept her silence on Sir Keir’s lies and fabrications; she followed the party into government, became a minister, and acquiesced in all the attacks upon the working class, whether in the shape of cuts to benefits, support for Israel’s onslaught, or increasing the defence budget. One leaked memo, where Rayner advocated, among other things, increasing the rate of corporation tax on banks, was the only trace of the naive hopes that some sections of the Left had hung upon her13. Thus, she climbed the ladder to office; then she fell; and she had no difficulty turning her back on the workers of this country and the world, to get the place she desired.
What was the cause for pride in this despicable record? Why did John McDonnell consider her departure “sad”14? Why did Nadia Whittome celebrate Rayner without a word of disapproval, saying, “Angela can be proud that her legacy includes the biggest expansion of workers’ and renters’ rights in a generation”15? Why was the least honesty entirely missing? As we said before, to our knowledge only Clive Lewis produced a statement containing a reasonable assessment of her career, even if it was free of detail, exemplification, and clarity16.
As to the Employment Rights Bill—which, as we have seen, was uncritically celebrated—it is a typical see-saw measure, a compromise between Labour’s link to the trade unions, and its fealty to the British capitalist class. It is almost superfluous to say that this compromise favours the stronger party—the capitalists—and denies workers the power that they need to organise effectually for the promotion of their interests. The bill, besides, was subject to continual amendment and weakening as Labour pursued its consultations with business, and sought to prove itself a reliable pilot of the oligarchical ship of state.
The original draft of the New Deal for Working People from 2021, as described in Labour’s green paper17, said that Labour would “establish Fair Pay Agreements across the economy” to be negotiated through sectoral collective bargaining. Labour reneged on this commitment, as it is accustomed to do, and now collective bargaining will only cover adult social care workers and school support staff. The bill leaves untouched the Thatcherite legislation of the 1980s, which was designed to smash the power of the workers’ movement. Pledges to ban zero-hour contracts and to give workers protection from unfair dismissal from day one have been cast aside18.
In the words of two expert commentators, Keith Ewing and Lord Hendy, the bill’s content is “characterised by broken promises and missed opportunities”; trade unions, they say, have “been let down once again. Almost every promise on major issues covered by the Bill has not been honoured, while gaping holes remain in our increasingly complex labour laws to ensure that many workers will still be denied basic rights.” Their judgment was that, although the bill addresses certain abuses, and grants workers more individual rights, it will not lead to any significant change: the bill “is likely to make little difference” to workers’ standards of living and job security19. This is to be expected of the Labour Party: this is its class character. But instead of an exposure—instead of honesty—we have our Labour Left MPs celebrating this grand “upgrade”, this shining “legacy” of Rayner.
Labour Left literature: a mist of error.
John McDonnell, one of the titans of Corbynism, has played his own peculiar role in misleading the people, for the proof of which, one need only peruse his Guardian articles. Despite his employment of often bitter language, McDonnell’s political judgment and understanding, as they unfold in his writing, are deplorably weak.
In his article “Starmer and co are trashing Labour’s legacy. We must take back control of our party—before it’s too late”20 McDonnell rightly said that Sir Keir “dropped virtually every policy promise he made … in favour of a mealy mouthed politics”; but he still hoped that circumstances would impel Starmer to change course; that the Left and progressives would then stand ready with an “alternative strategy”; and that Sir Keir, chastened by unpopularity, and seeing the wrongness of his ways, would embrace the Left and their programme.
Now McDonnell confesses, admirably, that he was mistaken: “What I didn’t appreciate was that once elected, the Starmer government wouldn’t just be an administration of timid reform, but would rapidly instigate a series of policies that drove a knife into the heart of what I believed Labour stood for when I joined the party.” But this miscalculation—this error—is itself very instructive: it implies not only that McDonnell failed to grasp the nature of Starmerism, which is defined by the repression of the Left, and could never be expected to turn toward it, when it had the choice of turning further Right; but McDonnell’s misjudgment also implies that he does not understand the history of the Labour Party itself.
The perfidy of Labour governments, and their inclination to disappoint the radical (and even mildly progressive) sections of the workers’ movement, is an inseparable element of the history of the party. One must study that history very inattentively, not to realise that successive Labour administrations have been apt to plunge into imperialist wars, to battle the trade unions, to spy on the workers’ movement, to make cuts to services, and, in a word, to breach their commitments. The great tendency of Europe’s left-wing parties has been to move rightward since the 1970s. Yet McDonnell persuaded himself, somehow or other, that Sir Keir’s Labour Party would respond to Britain’s crisis, and its own unpopularity, by moving Left.
He then informs us that “Labour was founded to eliminate poverty and secure equality”, and proceeds to censure the “incompetence and callousness” of the government (later he calls it “inflexibly incompetent”) in cutting benefits, opposing the abolition of the two-child benefit cap, accepting the largesse of wealthy donors, etc. We have already intimated that the history of the Labour Party is not so simple as McDonnell implies: to say that Labour was founded to attain objectives that it has continually failed to attain is merely to pose another question: why has Labour’s history in government never matched the lofty tones of its rhetoric?
The answer, we can be sure, is not mere incompetence: there have always been Left critics ready to provide an alternative programme. What McDonnell effaces, by his account, is that the workers’ movement has historically been riven by conflict, and that this conflict has been marked by profound differences of principle and ideology, which cannot be reduced to the standard of competence and incompetence—the aptitude of ministers, or its scarcity. The priorities of Sir Keir Starmer and co.—their objects—are not the objects of the Socialist movement; and the competent discharge of their duties does not mean the emancipation of the workers, and thence humanity. On the contrary, they measure their success by how well they govern on behalf of capital, by their fiscal stringency, by their “responsible” approach to foreign policy—all while public opinion, and the polls, are seen as a nuisance to be managed, preferably by ever more concessions to Britain’s Right, now chiefly represented by the Reform Party.
Had McDonnell discarded the juvenile vision of Labour’s old “golden age”, and undertaken to study the party scientifically, the conduct of the present government would not have come as a surprise to him: it would have seemed a logical result. All this should induce Labour Leftists to reconsider their theory of politics.
In another of McDonnell’s articles, on the fiasco caused by Labour’s welfare bill and the party’s austere position on disability benefits21, we find yet more claims apt to mislead the people and the workers’ movement. McDonnell laments what he terms “the immense lack of judgment of the party’s real decision-makers, the team in the leader’s office, fuelled by their overweening arrogance.” Labour “misguidedly thought disabled people would … be an easy target” but they “totally miscalculated”. The tenor of this language, the reader will notice, is to imply error on the government’s part, rather than any deeper cause of misrule.
Our writer goes on in the same vein: Sir Keir lacked “sufficient political nous to put his foot down before things got out of control”; he failed to “demonstrate this essence of leadership and exert control over his officials and the chancellor.” In other words, we are not to say that Sir Keir and co. subscribe to certain principles, and have their own objects and interests, which induce them to act as they do; we are to throw the blame on lapses of judgement, not, indeed, by Starmer himself, but by members of his office. This is not only a poor explanation, which, as before, effaces the conflicts within the workers’ movement and the Labour Party: worse, it is a form of pardon for Sir Keir, to say his advisers originated the scheme, like the trope of the good king seduced from his obligations by silver-tongued courtiers.
McDonnell persists in this tone, as he alleges that Starmer is afflicted by “poor judgment, absence of leadership and a sheer lack of understanding of what the Labour Party exists for”. Doubtless Sir Keir has a great number of weaknesses: but are deficient personal qualities really a tolerable explanation of the party’s political direction? Is everyone around him, in the cabinet and his office and the civil service, equally devoid of the virtues of judgment and leadership? Is there nowhere Starmer could turn, if he wanted better advice, or wiser guides? Such difficulties are not impossible to remedy, particularly with an enormous state apparatus at one’s disposal. And yet the Labour Party pursues the same bad measures, commits the same “mistakes” again and again.
Is not the more plausible explanation that Sir Keir and co. are not devoted to the interests of the British people, but to the interests of a distinct class, whose objects happen to be diametrically opposed to those of the people? Is not British society divided into classes, and have not governments of all colours persevered in the gratification of the capitalists’ desires, at the expense of the workers? But these are matters which McDonnell does not venture to raise.
As to his other notion, that Sir Keir does not understand what the Labour Party is about, it is founded on precisely the same historical misunderstanding that we mentioned earlier. It is not that Sir Keir, or his entirely dominant faction, do not understand the Labour Party. They are the product of the experience of that party, and its historical evolution; they are the inheritors of a legacy, of the right-wing of that party, and of Blairism; their conception of the party is not locked in the golden age fantasies of “Old Labour” which McDonnell holds dear; and thus McDonnell is unable to understand them, except by saying, that they do not fathom Labour’s “true” mission (the one it has never carried into effect, and tried to frustrate by purging the Left whenever it could). McDonnell rightly opposes the party’s repressions and calls, to his credit, for the restoration of democracy in Labour; but he either cannot, or will not, produce an accurate critique of Starmerism, the Labour Right, and their class character; he conceals these matters from view by availing himself of words like “incompetence”, and “poor judgment” and “miscalculation”: and thus he misleads the people.
In a more recent article, McDonnell appears in the garb of an elder statesman, and kindly tells the government how it might escape from its troubles22. Labour must “stop making ludicrous political decisions that are systematically alienating section after section of our core support”; it must listen to supporters, party members, councillors and MPs, and remake itself as “a truly representative broad church”; Labour must “stop dancing to Farage’s tune, stop aping his policies”; it must enact an ambitious budget to reduce the cost of living; and, predictably, we are told: “We desperately need a Labour government that behaves like Labour. That lives up to its traditions. That truly reflects the best of our country’s culture.” We need not repeat our previous observations—this piece displays the same tendencies, most strikingly, the cultivation of delusions regarding Labour, what it is today, and its history: the bitter facts appear to be too much for McDonnell. This series of articles, though it illuminates many important truths, and indicates an earnest moral concern for the fate of the oppressed, is yet tainted by unfortunate misrepresentations.
McDonnell is not alone in writing in this discreditable manner. Bell Ribeiro-Addy, the MP for Clapham and Brixton Hill, who unsuccessfully stood for deputy leader of the Labour Party as a Left candidate, wrote an article for the Guardian in the same pitiful style: “I’m proud of our party’s traditions, but I fear that we’ve lost our way”23 (this expression will recur, with its implication that misgovernment by the Labour Party is always the consequence of some strange, repeated, elusive wrong-turn). Although she is right to oppose Labour’s repression of the Left, and the alteration of the party’s procedural rules to make it virtually impossible for the Left to recover, she at the same time contradicts herself when she writes that this is “deeply concerning, not because it is about one faction or another, but because it denies our members the open and democratic debate that makes our party strong.” But debate in the Labour Party, as in any mass party, takes place on factional lines: such has been the character of all the party’s purges, as Ribeiro-Addy well knows. It seems that the purpose of this remark is merely to draw attention away from factional conflict, as if questions of democracy and debate can be separated from the freedom of different factions to express their opinions. She then resorts to a number of weak phrases: Labour’s good measures “have been drowned out, as the party appeared to put a higher value on silencing the left than on developing more policies that meet people’s needs and counter the far right.” Why appeared? Is it not a fact that silencing the Left is a Starmerite priority, and that serving the people is a distant second to the service of capital? Ribeiro-Addy then undertakes to speak through the mouths of ordinary members and voters: they are “disgusted by … the carnage in Gaza”; “they” are “angry about what they see as the British government’s complicity in genocide”; “They also see a willingness to meet Donald Trump’s demands for higher military spending at the cost of public services.” But why this distance, this talk of perceptions, instead of a forthright exposition of the reality of Labour’s programme? Ribeiro-Addy does assail the government’s “relentless cuts to welfare, military escalation and a refusal to tax the wealthy”, but she is unable, as is typical of her tendency, to trace the causes of these policies, and the motives which actuate the leaders of the Labour Party. We once again detect less than candid remarks about the party’s pandering to Reform and Faragism, when she writes that the “narrow focus on Reform UK … risks pulling us further into adopting its rhetoric and policies”—risks doing so, as if this march rightward is not already in progress. Labour, we are told, “needs a radical change of course”, but this radical change, as the reader has by now grown tired of hearing, merely amounts to restoring Labour to its mythical past: Labour’s “proud tradition” is to stand up “for solidarity and equality”; she is making the case “for Labour to get back to its roots”; the party can “become more Labour” by “unapologetically standing for justice, equality and the people who need us most.”
Similar rhetoric is employed by Jon Trickett, the Labour Left MP for Hemsworth, who, though he attacks the government and ruling class with laudable asperity, still falls into the clutches of pleasing illusion: “the Labour government has lost its way … we are facing an existential crisis”; our rulers, he says, are “Short-sighted and unable to see the roots of the crisis or the alternative paths that might be taken”24. Labour has deviated from the right path, by which is meant, the path of Labour as it exists in the imaginations of Labour Leftists, rather than the path that is evident in the party’s history, and which springs from its class character, and the balance of political forces in British society. And then, again, we have the ascription of government failures, not to interests, not to the structure of British society, not to the oligarchical constitution, but to intellectual weakness—a deficiency of wisdom—a lack of vision.
Our study of the literature produced by the Labour Left in this period of crisis has brought to light several common errors:
First, Labour Left MPs are disposed to polish the careers of opportunists such as Rayner, and even to present what they regard as tolerably good legislation, such as the Employment Rights Bill, in a far better light than is warranted.
Second, these MPs do not attribute the misrule that the Labour government has overseen to the state of its interests—to an analysis of the different classes in our society, and their relative power—to the structure of the state and the constitution. They prefer, instead, to attribute bad government to incompetence in its various shapes: poor judgment; misunderstanding; deficient courage; deficient creativity; deficient foresight; and so on.
Third, it is the consistent practice of these MPs to promote vulgar delusions respecting the history of the Labour Party, its ideals, and its “natural” or “genuine” identity. What are, in fact, their own political principles—as admirable as they may be—they convert into the “true” soul of the Labour Party itself, even if their tendency has not steered the party for most of its life. If Labour is supposed to be actuated by the quest for equality, solidarity, justice, then we are led to the incongruous conclusion that Labour has never realised its ideals—has never manifested its true goodness in government. MacDonald, Attlee, Wilson, Callaghan, Blair, Brown, and now Sir Keir—none of them were true Labourites—none of them comprehended the real soul of the party! Such is the mode of reasoning that our Labour Left members of parliament employ: the Labour Party is not to be assessed, as other institutions, by an impartial accounting of the good and evil it has done; its real character is not thus to be ascertained. No: its goodness resides in the heaven of transcendental justice and solidarity, in alleged (if forgotten) principles; its badness is nothing more than deviation from the virtues consecrated by the Labour Left.
Consequences of delusion
We have sufficiently exposed the disposition of the leaders of the Labour Left to mislead the people, and the workers’ movement; but it remains for us to examine the consequences this deception, all of which are profoundly injurious to the cause of Socialism. In the first place, an effective workers’ movement can only be founded on truth: to liberate the people, we must clear away all the obstacles which stand before the development of a scientific understanding of society—of the classes that compose it, of their interests, and of the fallacies and sham pleas the ruling classes employ for self-protection. Such an understanding is nothing other than class consciousness: the correct appreciation of the workers’ interests, and who opposes those interests—a correct judgment of who are the friends, and who the enemies, of their emancipation. In so far as Labour Left MPs succeed in persuading the working class that abject opportunists are respectable politicians; that the Labour government is merely reactionary and repressive owing to a series of regrettable blunders; that the essence of the Labour Party is pure and salubrious, even if it may fail to shine through the party’s actual programme—in so far as Labour Left MPs succeed in spreading these delusions, they hinder the development of class consciousness, and thus the development of the whole Socialist movement. They not only fail to promote the growth of that consciousness—they actively and perversely undermine it; they throw sand in the eyes of the working class, and delay the arrival of Socialism.
A corollary of this observation, we regret to say, is that these MPs, by their obstruction of the progress of Socialism, give aid and succour to the far Right, which can only be beaten back by a powerful workers’ movement, armed with the correct principles and objectives. They do not, of course, assist the far Right willingly: they speak out against it wherever they can. But they equally do not perceive that their propagation of falsehoods and errors opens a door to the far Right, as it were, constructively, because they inhibit the development of the only political force that can stop it.
The same consideration applies to the victims of imperialism: to put an end to their sufferings requires us to put an end to the class structure that gives rise to imperialism; that is, to overthrow the capitalist oligarchs, who are the final beneficiaries of war and exploitation. It once again follows, therefore, that to the extent Labour Left MPs thwart the growth of class consciousness and the Socialist movement, they thwart the struggle against imperialism; that is, they delay the liberation of the oppressed, and thus expose them to needless misery. We repeat that these MPs do not act intentionally to hurt the victims of imperialism—they often oppose imperialist measures with commendable warmth. But though their intentions are good, their actions are nonetheless pernicious.
Another result of these MPs’ conduct, much less detrimental than the rest, yet worthy of attention, is that they discredit themselves in the eyes of all the most informed and active sections of the workers’ movement. This has, to a great extent, already happened: to mock the Labour Left, useless as such mockery may be, has become a sort of pastime among many Socialists; and these MPs would do well, in view of the burgeoning movement represented by Your Party, to reconsider their strategy and tactics, if they desire the least trust among the devoted Socialist layers.
If MPs cannot tell the most elementary truths from inside the Labour Party, then the Labour Party can no longer serve as a tool of Socialist progress, because to build Socialist power is to merge the theory of Socialism with the workers’ movement. An MP who cannot advocate the theory of Socialism—who cannot expose the state of British society, its political parties, its classes—is useless from the point of view of our end. They may, no doubt, make worthy contributions to specific struggles, but they will never be able to play any great part in the abolition of capitalism and its replacement with a new order. It follows that any MP who does desire to play this part, cannot be a Labour member—to fulfil the mission of a tribune of the people, they must assail all the manifestations of oppression in our society, and they must not exempt any section of the ruling class, including the Labourist section, from their censure. This is the line of conduct that a Socialist representative must follow; and it seems that Labour Left MPs are incapable of doing so.
It is not to be affirmed that these Labour Left MPs act as they do because of some deep malice in their psychology, or some other personality flaw. They have often stood at the forefront of excellent causes, for which they deserve much praise. But we are, nonetheless, impelled to observe, that the state of these MPs’ interests, and their intention to remain Labour members, induces them to bend the truth—wittingly or no. However high their intentions may be—however noble their self-conception—they are hurting the cause of Socialism, and all those who would benefit from Socialism in consequence.
References
- An exception was Clive Lewis MP, who upon Rayner’s resignation wrote thoughtfully of the corruptive influences to which MPs are exposed. ↩︎
- https://www.aljazeera.com/video/newsfeed/2023/10/9/israeli-defence-minister-orders-complete-siege-on-gaza. ↩︎
https://x.com/RichardBurgon/status/1963950193872977936 ↩︎- Momentum’s method of proceeding at the time is instructive as to its contempt for democracy: members were asked the yes or no question, “Should Momentum follow the NCG recommendation to endorse Angela Rayner as the next deputy leader of the Labour Party?” See https://labourlist.org/2020/01/momentum-backs-long-bailey-and-rayner-after-members-ballot/. ↩︎
- https://bod.org.uk/bod-news/board-of-deputies-reacts-to-keir-starmer-victory-in-labour-leadership-election/. ↩︎
- https://x.com/BoardofDeputies/status/1216290591442722816. ↩︎
- See JVL, How the EHRC Got it So Wrong (2021). ↩︎
- https://labourlist.org/2020/10/angela-rayner-says-corbyn-has-absolute-blind-spot-on-antisemitism/. ↩︎
- https://www.declassifieduk.org/weaponising-anti-semitism-bringing-down-corbyn/ ↩︎
- https://labourlist.org/2020/10/angela-rayner-says-corbyn-has-absolute-blind-spot-on-antisemitism/. ↩︎
- https://labourlist.org/2020/11/rayner-says-thousands-of-labour-members-may-be-suspended-from-party/. ↩︎
- Ibid. ↩︎
- https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cnv116qqqyjo. ↩︎
https://x.com/johnmcdonnellMP/status/1963940692582920292 ↩︎- https://x.com/NadiaWhittomeMP/status/1963982901780926605. ↩︎
- https://x.com/labourlewis/status/1964002273555566741. ↩︎
- https://labour.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/09/Employment-Rights-Green-Paper.pdf. ↩︎
- https://www.ier.org.uk/comments/employment-rights-bill-yet-another-missed-opportunity-for-workers-rights/. ↩︎
- Ibid. ↩︎
- https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/may/28/labour-keir-starmer-legacy-take-back-control-john-mcdonnell. ↩︎
- https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/jul/02/labour-government-welfare-bill-democracy-party-election-john-mcdonnell. ↩︎
- https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/sep/03/labour-starmer-government-john-mcdonnell. ↩︎
- https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2025/sep/09/bell-ribeiro-addy-labour-deputy-leadership-contest. (Emphasis added) ↩︎
- https://tribunemag.co.uk/2025/09/will-the-labour-left-please-stand-up. ↩︎
