Open Letter to the Parliamentary Labour Party

Dear PLP

I am a pensioner - one of the poorest in Europe. I have been a member of the Labour Party for most of my working life. I am not nor ever have been a member of Momentum or Progress or Militant or Tribune or any other subset of the Labour Party (unless you count the Co-operative Party of which I am Branch secretary). I am one of the countless footsoldiers who have canvassed and leafleted and door-knocked and stood in the rain at sad High Street stalls and, more recently, liked and shared and retweeted on your behalves throughout many many local and national campaigns.

Here’s the essence of my message to you. Show a little respect.

Many many of us, out there in the dark winter weather of the recent election, strongly supported Corbyn/McDonnell and what we considered to be the well crafted and sensibly costed Manifesto they steered into being. You may have your own views about the Manifesto, but there isn’t very much evidence to suggest that any of you are much more intelligent than any of us.
You may also have your own views about Corbyn/McDonnell themselves, but many of us, including myself, have met and shook hands with these guys and liked the fact that they listened and liked what they had to say. There is likewise no evidence to suggest that any of you are any better able to assess character than any of us.

My point is this. By bad mouthing Corbyn/McDonnell and/or the Manifesto, you are not only bad mouthing us, but you are also insulting our intelligence.

And for what purpose? We are all grieving at the terrible outcome of the election, but how is insulting our intelligence going to improve things? Corbyn/McDonnell have, as anticipated, already done the honourable thing and fallen on their swords. What more do you want? What satisfaction can there be in kicking someone who refuses to kick back? You may want to “distance yourselves” (presumably to please the corporate media), but you are also distancing yourselves from us. I don’t think I am alone in saying that any potential “leader” who panders to that media by opening with character assassination of the previous incumbents will immediately lose my support.

My advice would be to hold fire on the “I told you so” and simply get on with the job, as we are all now having to do, of deep and considered analysis pointing to strategic recovery without the abandonment of key principles.

Neither you nor we can, at this point, be absolutely certain about what went so badly wrong. Our respective intelligences will draw us towards some highly subjective preliminary conclusions (see mine here if you can be bothered), but no one, despite all the trumpeting posturings, can have any real grasp of an objective truth. There can be no doubt that there is a desperate need for in-depth analysis, but how can any intelligent person possibly think that pre-empting that analysis with trumpeted posturings to the corporate media will improve things for the party? They, the corporate media, are loving it of course and, if personal aggrandisement with the added possibility of advantage in the upcoming leadership race is what you’re after regardless of the damage to the Party, then you’re no better than the idiot Johnson.

If I were in your shoes, I would be supporting the dedicated party workers in their grief. Many of us still feel devastated and demoralised. Why antagonise and attack? Why indulge in hindsighting and gloating? The “healing” that even the idiot Johnson has acknowledged is required nationally, is also needed internally. Do something. Address this. It’s not all about you. Help us. Come out to the constituencies and thank us for our efforts. Stop telling us that you know all there is to know. Listen to us. Accommodate us as we vent our anger and frustration and hurt.