The Labour splinter group cannot stop the skulduggery inside the party
sir – There are marked differences between those who split from Labour to form the Social Democratic Party in 1981 and yesterday’s opportunistic dissidents.
Owen, Rodgers and Williams (Jenkins was no longer a member) left because they believed a separate Labour Mark II, cleansed of Trotskyite infiltrators and bungling trade union interference was all that could prevent successive Thatcher landslides. Only the Falklands war proved them wrong – as Kinnock and Blair well knew when they were to push through the very reforms (and beyond) they’d accused Owen of being a “traitor” for suggesting in 1980.
Yes, there’s now the issue of party members embracing anti-semitism under a thin veneer of “Palestinian solidarity”. But Labour’s “problem with Jews” has long lain squarely with allowing members of hard-left cults – especially Socialist Workers Party thugs – to be Labour members too when it suits them because, as in 1981, it has a shortage of activists (as opposed to passive members) which Momentum has only partly addressed.
As long as the electoral system ensures that those outside the two all-britain political “brand names” that matter – Labour or Tory – haven’t a snowflake in Hell’s chance of success, they will continue their skulduggery within them.
Apart from Luciana Berger, whose treatment by Labour has been an utter disgrace, the defectors are archcareerists affronted by the removal of their “right” to automatic reselection.
But if Jeremy Corbyn repeats the mistakes of Kinnock in dedicating ludicrous amounts of party resources to exterminating the upstarts ahead of beating their common enemy, the end result for Labour will prove the same – a decade in the electoral wilderness.
Mark Boyle
Johnstone, Renfrewshire
sir – Have we at last found seven politicians with integrity?
David Bacon
Rotherham, South Yorkshire sir – The Independent Group as the name of the departed Labour MPS is a misnomer if I ever saw one. As they would forgo independent selfgovernment by abdicating responsibilities to EU bureaucrats, their choice of name is a contradiction.
Eddie Hooper
Gravesend, Kent
sir – Chuka Umunna and friends, on leaving the Labour Party, are asking for a second referendum to reverse the clear mandate of the British electorate to leave the EU. But they are intent on denying their constituents the opportunity to reverse their decision to elect them in 2017 with manifesto commitments to leave the EU.
Chris Dobson
York
sir – Footage of the huge car crash at the Daytona 500 race would provide a suitable background to the next Labour Party political broadcast.
David Bedford
Bury St Edmunds, Suffolk