Starmer won a decisive victory over rule changes (Pic: Chris Boland)
The Labour left suffered a landmark defeat at their partyâs conference on Sunday.
The conference agreed to give party MPs more power to stop a left wing candidate ever standing for the party leadership again.
It is a big victory for Labour leader Keir Starmer in his drive to crush the left and marginalise party activists. And it was union leaders who handed it to him.
Labour left group Momentum said the change was passed because delegates from the Unison union voted for it. This tipped the balance in favourâoutweighing the fact that almost all ordinary Labour Party members had voted against it.
In the debate, party members said Labour MPs wanted to deny them the chance to vote for a candidate they support.
Michael Stone from Battersea said the change showed Labourâs leadership have âan astonishing lack of faithâ in the partyâs membership. âWe are the people who are out there campaigning for Labour,â he said. âWe are the people who get the MPs elected.
“Let us give control of the Labour Party to the members of the Labour Party who are on the ground, not living in some ivory tower.â
Candidate
And Megan Clarke from Warwick and Leamington CLP said, âThe leadership may have called this to limit the ability of getting a left leadership candidate in the future. But this is not about left and right.
âThis is about disrespecting the rights of hundreds of thousands of members and affiliate members who live in the communities that we want to serve.â
The successful change to the partyâs rules increases the number of nominations from MPs a candidate needs to stand in a leadership election. This benefits the right as most Labour MPs oppose the left.
Shabana Mahmood MP said Labour leaders need âa sufficient base of support in the parliamentary Labour Party and the last few years have taught us that this is crucial.â
Thatâs because Labour MPs had spent the years of Jeremy Corbynâs leadership working to undermine and sabotage him.
The few right wing party members who spoke were even more explicit. Sean Reilly from Ynys Mon said, âIn 2015, if the threshold was slightly higher we could have avoided that entire antisemitism crisis that stained the Labour Party for six years.
âThat makes these rule changes very much worth it in my book.â
Samantha Wentworth from Bexleyheath and Crayford called Corbyn supporters a âpoison.â
âOver the last few years I became very disheartened with the Labour Party,â she said. âIâve seen the poison seep into the partyâmembers of this party who shouldnât really be members of this party.
âGo off and join the Socialist Workers.â
Right says âWe are the mainstream nowâ
Right wing Labour members feel theyâre finally on the front foot again for the first time since Jeremy Corbyn was elected leader in 2015.
At a rally by right wing faction Labour First on Sunday afternoon, organisers and fixers encouraged their supporters to keep turning the screw on the left.
Luke Akehurst, another NEC member and leading right wing organiser, celebrated that more right wing delegates were elected to conference.
âThatâs what has given Keir Starmer the confidence to come forward with these rule changes,â he said. âFinally we are winning, and because of that Keir Starmer has put himself in a better position.â
Lloyd Duddridge, an organiser for the right wing faction Labour to Win, said, âWe asked you to stay and fight. You did, and now we are winning that fight.
âThanks for staying, thanks for fighting. Rememberâwe are the mainstream now.â
Now, after their victory on Sunday, the right is determined to go even further. âTodayâs rule changes are about 10 percent of the rule changes we need to see,â Labour MP Patt McFadden told another right wing rally on Sunday evening.
âWeâve got to turn the page on what happened over the past five years.â
Motions
Meanwhile, left wing group Momentum tried to encourage its supporters that all was not lost. In an email, it said the left had won some motions at conference, including for a âsocialist Green New Deal.â
But even then, it said activists still had to âkeep building the pressureâ for those to even appear in Labourâs manifesto.
Its plan of action is to slog away over âthe next few yearsâ trying to elect more left wing MPs, more conference delegates, and inside unions.
But many left wing members themselves see a bleak future.
One Labour activist, who didnât want to be named, told Socialist Worker, âThe right are on the front footâthey feel emboldened. You can see from this drive around the party leadership vote.â
He added, Itâs difficult for the left in the Labour Party at the moment. A lot of us have been searching our consciences on should we stay or leaveâwhatâs the right thing to do? I decided to stay in because I think we have to fight for the Labour Party.â
But, he said, the party machine is clamping down on left wing members. âI was expelled for posting a picture of a red clenched fist and a photo of a demonstration that included lots of different placards, including Socialist Worker ones. They said this showed support for a rival organisation.
âAfter legal help, I was reinstated. But I know of members who are changing their names and even wearing disguises on Zoom meetings. Thatâs how it is in the Labour Party at the minute.â
Concessions by the left were important
A right wing campaign smeared the left as antisemitic for its opposition to Israel (Pic: Guy Smallman)
Labourâs conference also showed how the partyâs left has been silenced by accusations of antisemitism.
Starmer and the right made sure they won a vote for an âindependentâ disciplinary process.
This was a key demand of the right who claim that Labourâs previous left wing leadership interfered and mishandled complaints of antisemitism. They say Corbynâs welcomed and tolerated antisemites in Labour because of his opposition to Israel and support for Palestinians
In set piece speeches, right wing MPs Ruth Smeeth and Margaret Hodge spoke as if it was now a plain fact that Labour under Corbyn was riddled with antisemites. In fact, the number of antisemites in Labour was vanishingly small.
Hodge, who has said she views opposition to Zionism as a form of antisemitism, said, âNever again can we become a hostile environment for Jews.â
And Smeeth said, âToday we need to send a message to the vile racists and bullies who thought that our party could become a place for Jew hate.â
The underlying message was that anyone who opposed them would be guilty of supporting antisemitism.
Almost every speaker was in favour of the change. Only two delegates spoke against.
Hannah Dadd from Thornbury and Yale said, âIt should be stressed that decisions that this body will be expected to take will be inherently political.
âWhat are the limits of acceptable debate in the Labour Party on a range of sensitive issues? What are the appropriate standards to expect of the state of Israel?
âAre the scope of the partyâs positions on these matters to be determined by HR managers?â
Yet many more left wing Labour members were angry that the vote had passed with barely any dissent.
In a meeting organised by the left wing group Jewish Voice for Labour, some complained that organisations such as Momentum hadnât prepared them to oppose it. Momentum instead focussed almost entirely on trying to defeat Starmerâs change to leadership elections.
Ambush
Oneâwho didnât want to give her nameâtold Socialist Worker, âIt was an ambush. No one knew this vote was going to happen.
âIâm in shock,â she added. âIt was a very menacing atmosphere.â
One member told the meeting the atmosphere on conference floor was that âIf you were opposing the new disciplinary measures you were antisemitic and racist, and it would be very difficult to get up and speak.â
Another, Peter, said, âSo many of our members feel they canât speak out because they will be accused of antisemitism as well.â
The silence of the left on the conference floor shows the success of the rightâs strategy of demanding constant apologies from Corbyn has been successful.
With every apology and concession Corbyn made to their accusations of antisemitism, he gave ground to the idea that the left is to blame for antisemitism.
Rather than arm left wing members with the arguments to defend the right to criticise Israel, he gave the right the stick to beat his supporters with.
This not only made it harder to challenge the right, but also to criticise Israel.
Yet left wing Labour members have found that when they do stand up for Palestine, they can force the right to back down. Before conference, party officials tried to stop Young Labour from hosting a meeting with the Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) because it was âcontroversial.â
Yet Jess Barnard of Young Labour told a PSC meeting on Sunday night how she stood her ground and forced the official to back down.
Now party members are pushing for the conference to back supporting sanctions against Israel, in a debate set to take place on Monday morning.
Source: Socialistworker.co.uk