Your Party - Should we all just get along?

The announcement of the formation of Your Party on the 24th July was met with a huge rush of support, a rush of support that far outweighed the expectations of a lot of people including myself. Like many I signed up almost as soon as I heard the announcement. As it currently stands between 750,000-800,000 people have signed up to the mailing list. It would be ridiculous for anyone to suggest that all who signed up here will join officially, however what is clear when it is formally launched it will be a sizeable political force.

Whilst I was initially taking aback by the level of support that Your Party attracted, now the dust has settled on the initial launch it is easy to see why. A few months ago, my youngest son came rushing home from his friends house, it was the middle of the day, he told me that a man was drunk and being rude. I pressed him on what was said and I will stay with me forever.

 The friend he was playing with just happened to be of Arabic descent, she would have be roughly 11 years old at the time along with her younger sister who I believe would be around 6 years old. Eventually I was able to get some sense from my son, the man had been shouting at the two young girls along with their mother in their own front garden, calling them filthy c*** that should go back to their own country! I rushed around their without a thought, by the time I had got there though, it was all over.

Sadly, this story is far from unique, nor is it new, what is new though, is the frequency that things are happening, that there are those who feel so emboldened, that its acceptable to hurl vile abuse at small children, that its acceptable to protest outside hotels housing asylum seekers to intimidate them, that in my own community, after reports of children being followed, this quickly turned into a search for black men out at night. There are people openly saying, without any sense of compassion, they hope people fleeing persecution drown in the English channel.

The normalisation of this behaviour, is in part down to the rise of Reform, but this only tells part of the story. Reform have risen not in isolation, they have risen to prominence first under the Conservative government, because Labour offered no opposition of worth, then further under a Labour government as they simply acted as a continuation of the tories. Not only did they continue to implement further austerity, they more importantly continued the narrative that immigration was the problem and they would act hard on immigration. A sick and twisted political move on the part of the Labour right wing, but even if you remove the moral element out of it, not a particularly good tactical move, if you acknowledge immigration is the problem and pledge to address it, you will never do as good a job at addressing it as reform, so they are asking people to vote reform.

The rise of Reform on the electoral field, coupled with the demonstrations all over the country with larger numbers that previously possible, including a demonstration in London with an estimated 150,000, alongside the general change in attitude in society, has happened not by accident. This is a direct result of a vacuum on the political left, Labour do not even nominally hold this space any longer.

Of course the scapegoating of migrants and the associated racism are not the only factors which explain the immediate support for Your Party. One of the first acts of the Labour government was to go after the most vulnerable and attack disability benefits, Food banks were normalised in the sixth richest country in the world under the decade and a half that the conservatives were in power but continue to be equally necessary under Labour, austerity continues unabated, the world is watching on with a televised genocide in Gaza, and the Labour government is not only complicit but has criminalised  those protesting against this and we are sleepwalking into an irreversible climate catastrophe.

So in retrospect, I can see why I was wrong and Your Party attracted the numbers it did. Not only that there is huge enthusiasm from a huge variety of people, those who have been in labour at one time or another, those from disparate left groups, those completely unaligned like myself, and those who are entirely new to politics in anyway. With local groups springing up organically all over the country.

They honeymoon didn't last long at all and it seemed that it had all come crashing down, though in the days that have followed it looks like things are somewhat back on track, but this is where I think I diverge from the dominant opinion, or at least the opinion of what appears to be the loudest voices.

The dominant view of all onlookers appears to be either 'they just need to get along' or 'they are both as bad as each other' or some combination of those views. This take on events is understandable to a certain degree, the left does have a very deserved reputation of splitting over meaningless things, however disputes are not always meaningless, and I don't think this one is either. 

 Whilst neither side at the top of Your Party has acted well in the last few days and for that both the Sultana and Corbyn camps should be held to account. Its important to also look beyond the immediate actions that took place and what was the motivation behind their actions. 

A bit of background is required to explain this, I don't think a Your Party without Corbyn would have been possible, he retains is mass appeal and support from a huge section of society from his time as Labour leader, it was a freak accident that he was able to become leader, Nevertheless Corbyn was a breath of fresh air, a principled fighter for ordinary people, one of the very few opposition voices all throughout the New Labour years. Many joined or rejoined Labour during his leadership, he was able to hold a mass audience that no other politician could. He gained a higher real vote than labour leaders either side of him as a result, but it also went so badly. That was largely down to Corbyn's own weakness, despite his steadfast commitment, he does not like to rock the boat, he was unwilling to combat his critics, backed down on mandatory re-selection, which could have transformed Labour for the better, he was ineffective at best in combating the slurs of antisemitism. In short he was (and is) just too meek and mild mannered.

  That analysis of Corbyn is important, because it takes us to where we are currently. There is a lot that I like most people, do not know the details of, but it appears that discussions for a new party have been going on behind the scenes for quite some time, to the point for a lot of people, including myself, the eventual announcement of a new party, was no longer a surprise as so much had happened leading up to it. However it does seem like a distant memory now, but the announcement of Your Party was sped up by leaked announcements for Zarah Sultana. 

This was also the main feature of the latest spat, Zarah Sultana and those in her immediate circle acted to roll out the membership structures immediately, Corbyn's camp seemed hesitant to hand over the reigns before so much was sown up, this is where the meek and mild Corbyn, comes into his worst, because it appears he is prioritising an alliance with the MP's of the Independant Alliance, ahead of a member led party, scandalous in reality, not simply for the democratic reasons, but also many of those MP's are not really that left hence the problems.

What followed was farcical, Corbyn's camp reported a data breech, and Sultana responded with legal threats, both sides acted reprehensibly in this instance, neither came out looking even reasonable, and both should withdraw their respect complaints immediately. At the time of writing Sultana has announced she will no longer be pursing legal action, I am unable to verify if Corbyn has done the same.

Zarah's Sultana's immediate reaction to pursue a legal route to resolve this in my view, shows a huge political weakness on her part, it is good to see she has now been talked down from this avenue. Whilst both sides acted appallingly, I do not think it right to equate these as equally bad. Sultana was attempting to open up the party to the membership, has since signed and shared a position which argues from just that. Corbyn was trying to slow this process down. So when we we look at the issues at hand and put aside the methods being used, Zarah was right all along.

For many the dispute at the top came as a complete surprise, but for many others, disputes like this were obvious, even if the methods utilised were not anticipated. Some have been put off from being involved in Your Party as a result, though from what I can see, that seems largely to be those on the periphery who are likely to return in the future, those who have begun to organise in the proto-groups have largely carried on, though now with a greater understanding on the need to take ownership of the fledgling party, to engage in the debates, to shape the party now.

For me, whilst not in ideal circumstances, the events that took place have resulted in a net positive effect, it has brought the differences out into the open to varying degrees, it has shown the need for a member led party and increased the view that we should engage in the ideas that will shape the type of organisation we build. I was recently at a local Your Party meeting we a very prominent participant stated "There is more that unites us than divides as and we shouldn't focus on what divides us" Now whilst it is certainly true there is more that unites us ideologically than that which divides us, but it is precisely because of the events that happened subsequently, that at times we do need to discuss what we disagree on.

We have a chance now though, to create a culture where it is perfectly valid and acceptable to disagree, let's normalise this, Create a culture of discussion, debate & disagreement, as this will help us build a mass party of struggle. 

Should we all just get along? Absolutely not, let's discuss and debate our differences openly, only this approach will allow us to build a mass party of struggle to combat, racism, austerity, genocide and climate catastrophe. We should co-exist, getting along is desirable but not necessary. Pretending we do not have differences or those differences are meaningless will in reality be crippling, it will stop of building a party of resistance and we will not be successful, but as Zarah Sultana and Jeremy Corbyn both said - There is no other choice.