لنستخرج كنوزا من المعرفة و الإبداع و العلم و الأفكار
There was a furore on the internet yesterday as all the people who love to tell us how irrelevant Owen Jones is, wouldn’t stop talking about Owen Jones. This was because he dared walk away from the monstrosity that calls itself the Labour Party to support alternatives. Jones might have made this decision a few years after the rest of us, but he got there in the end. He posted on Twitter:
“I just quit Labour after 24 years. We deserve better than the race to the bottom between Labour and the Tories. Labour want you to think there's no alternative. But there is.”
Jones spoke in an attached video about a new initiative called We Deserve Better to back Green and independent candidates at the next election, instead of staying wedded to the two-party system. He sent the following text to Emily Thornberry:
“I’ve always voted Labour, but this is it for me, I won’t vote for you. We all have our red lines, mine is supporting war crimes and the mass slaughter of civilians.”
Jones wrote a Guardian article, explaining his reasoning in further detail, but the gist was as follows: Labour is not offering progressive policies that would improve people’s lives, instead it’s doubling down on Thatcherism and supporting genocide. It’s not offering change, it’s offering to make change impossible. That’s what Reeves nonsensical fiscal rules would amount to.
Leaving Labour was clearly not an easy decision for Jones who has been a party member since he was 15 and whose family have been members going back generations. If you’re one of the people who think Jones isn’t espousing Labour values and you are by backing Starmer, you might want to reconsider.
I didn’t want to make Jones the central focus of my article, but this is going to be unavoidable because he has given us a perfect opportunity to explore centrist hypocrisy, as well as future options for socialists and the anti-war movement.
Some socialists have criticised Jones on the basis he has been imperfect over the years, and I’m not going to argue they’re wrong. For example, he called for the resignation of Jeremy Corbyn in 2016 and 2017, although he later changed his mind and backed him. In a Medium article, he once wrote:
“My passionate and sincere view is Jeremy Corbyn should stand down as soon as possible in exchange for another left-wing MP being allowed to stand on for leadership in his place: all to stop both Labour and the left imploding, which is what is currently on the cards.”
The fact Jones writes for the pro-establishment Guardian is problematic, and possibly explains the weak stances he’s taken, but the flipside is it gives him the opportunity to reach the kind of audience we can only dream of. He could therefore argue it’s a necessary evil, given the seriousness of the issues we face. After all, no one could accuse him of being weak on the Gaza genocide - he has been one of our strongest voices.
I’m not the type of person to point out the flaws of people on the left or do infighting because I think it‘s counter-productive. I have criticism of pretty much everyone on the left, including myself! My position is that if people are correct on the biggest issues, I am prepared to stand alongside them. This is why I would support both Owen Jones and George Galloway - two men who really don’t like each other - if it meant stopping a genocide or achieving structural change. Both of these men are significantly better than Sir Keir Starmer on the major issues, regardless of their flaws.
I prefer not to focus on rehashing old arguments because I care more about the fact Jones is on the right side of the two biggest issues of our time: the urgent need for structural change and the need to stop the genocide our government is complicit in. Those two issues go hand in hand, of course, and everything else is secondary to them. If they’re not your overwhelming priorities, why are you involved in politics?
These issues are showing us who is real and who is fake, who is a genuine activist and who is a wannabe influencer. Some have been willing to take a hit to their career prospects to make a principled stand and others have taken the easy path of refusing to challenge power so they get TV appearances.
I don’t want to turn this into a personal attack on anyone, but it’s relevant to point out that a prominent influencer called Marina Purkiss was one of the people leading the attacks against Owen Jones. To be fair, she wasn’t doing it in an aggressive way (she did say she respected him), but the result was a barrage of abuse aimed at Jones from all the people who say how irrelevant he is. You know the types, the ones who love to tell socialists to leave the Labour Party and have an aneurism when they actually do.
Purkiss tweeted:
“I have a lot of respect for Owen Jones… But I cannot get behind his call to arms to split the left of centre vote. Sure, Labour leave much to be desired. But anything that could lead to another four more years of Tory rule is a risk we don’t want to be taking.”
Purkiss seems like a pleasant and intelligent person, but she comes across as one of those who got into politics as a career move. She is the type who will say she wants change and do everything she can to protect the power structures that prevent change without realising what she is doing. The type whose understanding goes no deeper than “everything bad is the fault of Brexit” and who in 2019 actually told people to, rather than Labour (who were offering a people's vote!)
In other words, Purkiss did what Jones is doing now because Brexit was a red line for her and Starmer’s support for genocide isn’t. I’m not trying to portray Purkiss as a terrible person because I’m sure she isn’t. What I am saying is she clearly has not spent enough time thinking her positions through and this is why it’s hard to take her politics seriously. Say what you want about Owen Jones, but he is a man who keeps himself informed.
I would hope that support for genocide would be a red line for every decent person. I would have hoped that when the Labour leader endorsed the withholding of food, water, medicine, and electricity from a civilian population that led to children starving to death, and showed no contrition, that would be the reddest of red lines. After all, if starving children to death is not a red line for you, what the hell is? We’re talking about the worst crime a human being can commit.
Purkiss is extremely angry the Reform Party is standing candidates who she describes as “pro-Russia” so how can she not take issue with a Labour leader who is pro-Israel and says he is “Zionist without qualification”? Clearly, the loss of Palestinian lives is not a red line for Purkiss in the way the loss of Ukrainian lives is. The thing is, I don’t actually think this is out of badness on her part. I think she is mad about Russia because the media told her to be mad and she is confused about Israel because the media told her to be confused. I think this applies to many people in this country.
Purkiss accuses Jones of splitting the left vote, but he’s not doing anything of the sort, he’s asking people to vote for socialists whereas Purkiss is asking people to vote for conservatives. Labour is offering a more efficient Thatcherism - and efficient Thatcherism is not better for the working class, it’s actually worse. It will take us further in the wrong direction. It will do more harm.
If Purkiss is genuinely concerned about a divide on the left, she could use her sizable following to push for change. The bare minimum she could demand is a new Labour leader, someone in the middle of the Corbynistas and the Starmerites. She could insist genocide support is a red line and that she can only vote for a Labour Party that changes for the better. She could say she’s only willing to vote for progressive policies and not for a continuation of austerity. She could say that if Labour can’t offer the smallest compromise, we should focus on building alternatives, but she doesn’t because whoever wins the next election, it will have no bearing on her life.
Purkiss, who married a professional footballer who became PFA chairman and who works as a marketing manager as well as running a successful podcast, is insulated from Labour’s planned continuation of austerity. She doesn’t need to pressure them to change because she will always do well under Thatcherism, but at least she can feel better about herself by voting for an alternative that is no alternative at all.
I dare Purkiss or any of Starmer’s supporters to name a single policy from Labour that would benefit the working class. I’m guessing they wouldn’t because in the unlikely event there is a single policy left, there is a 99% chance Starmer would U-turn. If they tell people to vote Labour because of X policy, they will be made to look stupid, which is why they have to focus on nonsense like “get the Tories out” and “don’t split the left vote”. These people make about as much difference as the people who abstain from voting. They’re doing politics without doing politics.
A common accusation is that the left doesn’t compromise, but this is simply not true. The left compromises every time we get offered a compromise. It’s all we ever do because it’s all we can do. While we would love to round up landlords and drive them into the sea, we understand that’s not realistic, but sadly, we are not offered a compromise that would allow us to round up some landlords. There is no attempt at compromise!
A compromise from Starmer would go something like: “Look, I can’t round up landlords for you, or nationalise energy and public transport, or give you a universal basic income and universal free school meals, but I can nationalise water like every other country on earth, and give you that new deal for workers I promised.”
You think every socialist in the country wouldn’t jump on that meagre offer? Of course we would! And it’s the type of compromise someone on the soft left like Andy Burnham would be willing to make, but Starmer isn’t offering compromises. Starmer knows full well it makes perfect economic sense to nationalise our utilities and public services, but he pretends the argument against nationalisation is an economic one because if he didn’t, he would be exposed to the truth: that he’s been corrupted.
Starmer is doing everything he can to ensure structural change can never happen, including backing the Tories’ authoritarian bills that crack down on dissent. He even called the move for the police to keep lists of activists and brand those with the wrong political views as extremists “sensible”. You know why? Because he doesn’t represent us, he represents the vested interests that are making a killing. The goal is to silence us, but centrists don’t notice the censorship because they will never be in the firing line. In other words, they are no threat to the establishment. They are, in fact, protectors of it.
Tony Benn tried to warn us:
“If the Labour Party could be bullied or persuaded to denounce its Marxists, the media would demand next that it expelled all its socialists and reunited the remaining Labour Party with the SDP to form a harmless alternative to the Conservatives.”
Labour is now the harmless alternative to the Conservatives. Hilariously, one Starmer supporter told me he is voting Labour because the ruling class doesn’t want him to vote Labour! I told him if he believes that, he doesn’t understand the ruling class because they absolutely want him to vote Labour. They want him to have the illusion of choice, the illusion that he’s fighting the status quo so that he doesn’t actually fight the status quo. This person didn’t understand he was being played, although to be fair, I got the sense he was young and might learn in time. Once upon a time, I thought Tony Blair was on my side and I learned through years of homelessness and two illegal wars he never was.
Sir Keir Starmer becoming prime minister would make as much difference as the Tories changing party leader - and it would amount to the same thing.
If you want to achieve short-term change, you have to gain leverage over Labour, and you don’t do that by guaranteeing them your vote. You do it by withholding your vote and, as a bare minimum, placing conditions on it. You do it by increasing the vote share of the people who espouse your values.
You do it by growing alternatives so that five or ten years from now, you have a viable alternative and the country has a genuine chance of escaping Tory rule. This is what We Deserve Better is trying to do.
Centrists won’t do that because they don’t actually want change. They want the illusion of change and the comfort of everything staying the same. If you grew up in a middle-class bubble, you have no business lecturing me or anyone from genuine poverty, and if you’re gen Z and for some reason you support Starmer, I’m afraid you’re too young to understand the Labour right will be no different to the Tories. I’m sorry to say you will be finding out the hard way. When you do, we will be waiting for you.
