So it turned
out that no one has launched a new political party – on the contrary – seven relatively
insignificant Members of Parliament have left the Parliamentary Labour Party to
sit as “independents” – with funding via a company that one
of them registered more than a month ago. They won’t face the same requirements
for transparency or probity as a Political Party (and their website domain name
is registered
in Panama!)
The “Gang of
Four” who founded
the Social Democratic Party (SDP) a generation ago were former Government
Ministers. Today’s seven don’t even begin to compare – and the implausible
narrative which they have tried to advance to justify their departure from the
Party has begun to unravel
immediately. Fifty years before the SDP six Labour MPs resigned to form a “New
Party” – what happened
to that?
Of course such a
political initiative in the here and now could do our Party political damage
(if it does become a Party) if they stand in marginal seats and try to split
our vote – but I think we need to keep a sense of proportion about this.
Labour is
running roughly level
with the Tories in the opinion polls at the moment – and that is in the
context of the enormous surge in support for the Party during the 2017 General
Election campaign, which provides at least some grounds to believe that – given
the chance of an election campaign – we could beat the Tories in a General
Election now.
In Brighton and
Hove, many activists are out and about getting on with campaigning for a Labour
majority on the Council, inspired by the mass engagement of Party members in
the process of developing the manifesto which will guide a socialist local
authority. In the world away from Westminster, Labour offers hope to our people
who need it.
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