Labour’s Civil War: Which Side Are You On?

“The most disgraceful thing about this coup to remove Corbyn is, it’s a class coup. It’s a coup to remove a leader who has the interests of the working class at heart, and to replace him with someone who has the interests of neo-liberalism, pro austerity, wealthy multinationals and landowners at their heart.”

The above words from Nadia Ermilova put perfectly into perspective what is at stake in the current Labour Party crisis. When Jeremy Corbyn won the leadership contest last September, it was a victory not just for Corbyn himself, but for the movement as a whole and, here in the North, also for his chosen campaigners, Ben Sellers and David Stockdale.

Councillor Stockdale’s stock went up, if you’ll pardon the pun, yet the man himself all but vanished from the political scene. He was widely expected to take on a leadership role on Newcastle’s left and to help consolidate the Corbyn victory. Beleaguered leftists looked to him for support against the counterrevolutionary Blairite forces who still hold much of the local Party structure in their grasp. Yet it appears that David may have stretched himself too thin, and the many people complaining about missed appointments and unreturned calls are actually a testament to his value to Newcastle’s left. It also has to be mentioned, to his credit, that he has continued to serve his constituents with, among other things, campaigns such as The People’s Post Office and successfully blocking the building of a new McDonalds. It would be unfair to hold against him that family, work or other private matters have taken precedence over politics these last few months. Nobody thinks any the less of Cllr Stockdale for needing time to himself, but it must be recognised that his absence has been felt and has led to something of a leadership vacuum on the local left.

Stockdale prominently re-entered the public eye again in March by announcing a new fortnightly column in The Newcastle Evening Chronicle. While we can forgive and sympathise with his need for personal time, what I personally find less forgivable was that his debut article attempted to smooth over some very nasty internal party politics by pretending they just didn’t exist. He wrote:

“This period of adjustment (I am being diplomatic) has created a climate within the Labour Party that the press and our opposition like to characterise as infighting.

Nothing could be further from the truth. We have a leader, we are united behind our leader and we are consistently challenging the Tories on big issues and winning.”

http://www.chroniclelive.co.uk/news/news-opinion/jeremy-corbyn-labour-leader-who-11115629

On his facebook wall, I challenged this statement in the following terms:

“David, what you have written here could not be further from the truth, as you well know, not least because several of us have been keeping you informed. I am not having you pretending that what I am going through is not happening.

The backlash against Corbyn in Newcastle East CLP in particular has been very personal and vindictive, and it feels like you are glossing over these problems. When complaints about breaches in the rules are entirely ignored, and active party members bullied and harassed out of attending their own branch, I think it is fair to call that 'infighting'.”

It would be an understatement to say that I was disappointed when David’s response was to accuse me of ‘chastising’ him and ‘hijacking’ his post, and in later discussions to accuse me of ‘revenge’, ‘lashing out’ and ‘soft bullying’. This was the man we looked to as Corbyn’s Man in the North, whom we had appealed to privately for help in dealing with bullying stemming from the Blairite camp. Unfortunately, Stockdale made a choice to publicly support the undemocratic and unconstitutional tendencies in our branches.

Fast forward to the Leadership Coup, and Stockdale appeared before the crowd gathered at Grey’s Monument for the #KeepCorbyn demo on 27th of June. He took to the mic to call on us to ‘fight’:

“We always knew this would be a fight, and it’s a fight we’re gonna win, ‘cause we’ve already won it…. My message to you is that we’ve got to keep fighting and to stand up for the things that we believe in, and if we keep fighting we will win.”

The fighting talk did not last long, soon taking a conciliatory turn towards those engaged in the Coup. Days later, on the 29th, when news came out that Newcastle Central MP, Chi Onwurah, had voted against Jeremy Corbyn in the PLP vote of no-confidence, Stockdale took to twitter to say:

@ChiOnwurah is a fantastic MP for Newcastle. Any party member who might be tempted to have a go at her now ought to stop & think #solidarity

Followed up shortly after with:

To be fair @ChOnwurah didn't ignore us, she weighed everything up & made a decision. She's been loyal to Jeremy.

This brings us back to where we came in; that this coup represents “a class coup. It’s a coup to remove a leader who has the interests of the working class at heart, and to replace him with someone who has the interests of neo-liberalism, pro austerity, wealthy multinationals and landowners at their heart.” This coup is an assault on party democracy, on socialism and on the interests of the working classes. How can we possibly say of those engaged in the coup that we should not ‘have a go’ at them? Or that they have been ‘loyal to Jeremy’? How can we hashtag solidarity with those who voted against the overriding democratic will of the Party membership?

It is clear that there exist strong friendships and relationships between Councillors, MPs and other influential figures in Newcastle’s Labour Party. That is to be accepted and encouraged for a functioning government. However, the question has to be asked, which ties are stronger - those of the Tyneside Chumocracy, or the ties of working class solidarity?

Many will remember the calls for solidarity from Newcastle figures - including Stockdale - during the leadership campaign. I cringed at the use by the left of a phrase that is literally a fascist slogan: ‘Unity is Strength’. These calls were joined in enthusiastically by known Blairites, who meanwhile spoke terms such as ‘hard left’, ‘militant’, ‘looney left’ out the other side of their mouths. That is, when they were not busy purging the membership. I always remember one particular response to that: “No false unity”.