The left talk about comradeship and solidarity as if that is what the left is built on. But as soon as we disagree, people often get nasty, aggressive or patronising. I’m seeing this again over The Unite General Secretary election.

The left is not a homogenous group and we will inevitably back different candidates. There is an understandable body of opinion that only one candidate from the broader left should run to reduce the risk of a Coyne win. The people of this view are growing increasingly frustrated with Howard Beckett supporters who want their man in the race. Beckett supporters, myself included, are energised with hope and optimism. We still believe in political upsets and know nothing would upset the establishment more than a Beckett victory.

Maybe we should be more pragmatic. Be sensible. Stuff our hope and optimism back down and support someone else. After all, they are all good candidates. Yes, maybe we should. But shouting at us to do that won’t work. Telling us to get some sense won’t work. And likewise, Beckett supporters need to be conscious of the fact other candidates have good left credentials. They might not put the fear of God into the establishment in quite the way Beckett does, but they will fight for their members and they are not Coyne.

What I’m trying to say is this – until the left learn to debate and disagree in a comradely way, and I include myself in this, they should stop using the word comrade. They should stop brandishing the word solidarity as if that’s that the left is built on. After every disagreement, we should come out stronger, not weaker and more divided.

Beckett supporters should not be shamed for being optimists who believe in change from taking risks, and the one candidate advocates should not be shamed for being pragmatic and feeling anxious a divided left slate could herald a Coyne win. Tell people why you feel a certain way. By all means make your case as strongly as you can muster. Just don’t shame or belittle others for not agreeing.

A dog is not just for Christmas and a Comrade is not just for when we are all on the same page.

Back in the dark post General Election days of 2015 when Labour had just suffered its second defeat in 5 years, there was a group of people within our own party who could barely conceal their delight over our loss. For them this represented a Golden opportunity to take our party back to the unequivocal right. In those pre Corbyn days, Ed Miliband, or Red Ed as the red tops liked to call him, was too left wing for these people. His policy on the Mansion Tax and Non Doms was the politics of envy and it had stopped us winning a resounding victory. Of course many of us knew this was bollox. What lost us the Election was an uninspiring, incongruent manifesto that was neither fish nor fowl. Less Red and more an ugly shade of fuscia. For every inspiring policy there was an establishment appeasing policy to cancel it out. Our voters just stayed at home.

This was the start of Corbynism, a story of a political earthquake we are now all familiar with.

Fast forward to 2019 and Labour are facing their fourth defeat in a row. The same figures who were gleeful in 2015 are even more gleeful now. We took the party resoundingly to the left and look what happened. Our worst defeat since 1935. There was a strange blip in 2017 that they need to airbrush from History but aside from that, it’s absolutely clear a right wing Labour leader needs to come and save the day.

Except they are wrong again and here is why.

We have entered an era where anti establishmentism is on the rise. The reasons for this are many and too complex to go into right now but suffice to say this growing movement without structure gave us the shock result of Trump, Brexit, Corbyn and now a Tory majority in 2019. I am anticipating a lot of raised eyebrows at this list. However whilst Trump and Johnson are as establishment as they come, they did a better job of framing themselves as anti establishment than either Hilary Clinton or Jeremy Corbyn in 2019.

The key difference between Labour in 2017 and in 2019 and the very different vote shares they received, is not that the media were kinder to Corbyn in 2017, or the PLP more united. It was our Brexit position and what that represented. Our adoption of a Referendum policy made us the establishment party with a safe, often condescending message. We were telling the voters what they really wanted when they voted leave and offered to save them from themselves. In this new establishment context, all the smears against Corbyn took on a new twist. In 2017 they just added to his anti establishment appeal. Even the PLP coup probably added to it to a lesser extent. But by 2019, with Labour now firmly framed as an establishment party, these smears only had a negative impact. Moreover, Jeremy’s reputation as a man of principle and serial rebel whose word was his bond, lay in tatters.

Huge mistakes were made by the leadership to get us to this point, but being too radical or socialist was NOT one of them.

Once we’d condesended millions of leave voters in key marginals whose votes we desperately needed to have a hope in hell of gaining power, the jig was up. Thousands of us warned this would happen and are now the least surprised that it has. Its been like watching a slow moving car crash we’ve been powerless to stop.

When we agreed to a General Election, I knew we’d lose. I told my husband I wouldn’t watch the exit poll because it would be like 2017 in reverse, with a worse result than everyone was expecting. The energy in the campaign was marred by the fact thousands of activists were convinced we were going to lose because of our new, and wholly detrimental establishment credentials. Jeremy knew it too. He tried to hide it but those of us who knew his personal agony over this, couldn’t help but sense it.

In this context our policy announcements became seen as a series of bribes to convince leave voters to forgive us. But if we couldn’t be trusted to keep our promise to respect the referendum result, why would anyone trust us to deliver any of our manifesto?

Not that Respect the Referendum result activists worked any less hard in the campaign. Quite the opposite. The sense of impending doom became a big damage limitation operation. Negativity was parked for false optimism and tireless campaigning either online or off. We wanted to be wrong. We wanted to eat humble pie and we’d have savoured every bite. We wanted a miracle.

We didn’t get one. To add salt to the wound, the primary architects of our defeat are lining up to vie for the reigns of leadership. Instead of them eating humble pie, they are airbrushing away uncomfortable truths to give themselves the best chance of victory.
And many members are happy about that. They too pushed for the party to become an establishment, Remain party and its too painful to accept that had any part in our defeat. So the most ardent Remainers on the right of the party blame Corbyn for the defeat and those on the left blame the PLP plotters, the press and dodgy postal votes. Both are coalescing around Keir Starmer because he is cleverly steering clear of criticising Corbyn or our manifesto, whilst being seen correctly by the party right as a person with more right wing leanings who will cave into the establishment pressure to drop the most radical aspects of our manifesto.

But Sir Keir Starmer is not the answer.

He is the very epitome of an establishment figure and it was he, above all else who successfully framed us as an establishment party. And that’s why we lost this General Election and will lose the next one with him as leader. If Labour don’t tap into the growing mood and clamour for anti establishmentism and fill that space with radical policies and radical ideas, we will be out of power for a generation.

A posh sounding lawyer/Sir from London with slick suits and slickly produced promotional videos who refuses point blank to recognise any of the primary reasons we lost this last General Election, is NOT the leader our party needs. And the same is true for any leader who fails to understand the key reason for our defeat.

As the saying goes, if we don’t learn from our mistakes, we are destined to repeat them!

I totally get why leave voters are angry with the Labour Party right now.

In the last General Election, Labour pledged to respect the EU referendum result. In the intervening two and a half years the Labour Party has changed it’s position on brexit. A combination of pressure from the grassroots, in conjunction with pressure from remain supporting MPs, has resulted in a policy to hold another referendum on any deal, including one that has been negotiated by our own party.

Feeling betrayed, leave voters are planning on casting their votes for leave supporting parties. Unfortunately this General Election is not another referendum. A vote for the Tory Party is a vote for more cuts to public services, more poverty, more inequality, lower pay, and most importantly it puts our NHS at grave risk.

The Labour Party is not a remain party, whilst it might seem that way to some. It has struggled with the best position to take on brexit. Thousands of labour members fought against the adoption of a public vote, alongside leave respecting MPs like John Trickett and Ian Lavery. Jeremy Corbyn, the leader of the party, has stated publicly his decision not to campaign on either side in a future EU vote, choosing instead to act as an honest broker who can implement the referendum result and then try to bring our country back together.

In the event of a future vote, I will campaign for leave, and I voted Remain in 2016. Many labour members will do the same. I beg all leave voters who are considering voting conservative or brexit party to punish labour, to please think again. Instead of treating this General Election as a second referendum, treat it as the General Election it is, with all the long term policy repercussions that go along with it.

Better to vote in a Labour government that will increase your wages, improve your work security, build council homes for all, save our NHS, free young people from student debt, clampdown on tax dodging, invest in infrastructure, nationalise our utilities, adequately fund our public services and vastly improve the lives of the majority of people in this country, than sacrifice all those wonderful things to treat this General Election as another Referendum. Then, if Labour win, you can vote leave in the Referendum we plan to hold. You might well resent having to vote again, and I get that, but better to resent voting again with more money in your pocket, more happiness and security in your life and that of your loved ones, than get the Brexit you crave under Boris Johnson (which Farage claims isn’t even Brexit) but miss out on all the good things that will come your way under Labour. Not ideal I know, but not too shabby either. For example under Labour:

Public sector workers would get a pay rise of 5% – an average of £1,643

16-18 year olds will get an average £3,497

18-20 year olds will get an average £5,986

21-24 year olds will get an average £4,485

Workers 25 and over will get an average £3,444

Unfortunately, to punish labour for it’s policy on a confirmatory vote, you have to punish yourself, your family, your friends and your community too. So please, I beg you, park your anger long enough to vote labour on December 12th. Hold your nose if you have to, the way I held my nose and voted Labour under Blair when I’d grown deeply disillusioned with his leadership. Think of it as punishment for a Conservative government who have failed to deliver brexit in 3 long years because of splits in their own party. Think of it as a punishment for a Conservative government who are using brexit to divide the working class who they have shat on for 9 long Years. Think of it as a punishment for a Conservative government who are responsible for 130000 deaths due to needless austerity. Think of it as a punishment for a Conservative government who called this general election confident in the knowledge working class voters would be so blinded by brexit they would vote against their own interests and those of their loved ones.
Think of it as a way of proving to a cocky Conservative government that you know full well whether they deliver brexit or not, you will never benefit from it because their party only represents the interests of the wealthy few.

This is my first experience as a delegate at Labour Conference and I’m really enjoying it. However today is the day I’ve been dreading. According to media speculation – often wrong I know but often right too – today is the day Conference has a show down over Brexit. The thought of it puts a knot in my stomach. I don’t like conflict at the best of times, but I like it even less when the conflict is between comrades and allies and no one knows for sure what the best outcome is. I also know my opinion on this puts me on the fringes of the membership, or so I’m told. I’m a Remain voter who believes the outcome of the 2016 EU Referendum should be respected. In my own personal experience as a so called ‘influencer’ on twitter, a lot of Labour members agree with me. As do a lot of voters. However the majority of Labour members at Conference disagree. I only have to glance around at the proliferation of Red bags, adorned with the slogan, ‘Labour can stop Brexit’ to know that.
However there is someone of some weight who does agree with me and who has, like me and many others, had to suck up the party’s move towards an ever more Remain position, and that is Jeremy Corbyn.

Our current position is to negotiate a Labour Brexit deal if we win a GE, and then put that deal back to the public in a Referendum against remain. Despite my antipathy towards a further Referendum, I can live with this position. A lot of Leave voting members can live with it, albeit with a fair level of disappointment, and naturally Remain supporting members can live with it because it offers them a good shot at reversing Brexit. And that’s why I believe we should stop here and not move any further toward a Remain position exemplified by MPs like Emily Thornberry and remainer members who want to commit our party to campaign for Remain against a Labour negotiated deal, a position that is roundly and understandably mocked by Brexiteers whenever it is discussed because it casts doubt that any future deal will be negotiated in good faith.

Jeremy Corbyn has put it on public record that his personal preference is for the party to remain neutral until we at least know what a Labour deal looks like, and then hold a special conference to decide which option to recommend. He clearly wishes to be a neutral figure in any event and possibly give MPs the freedom to campaign as they see fit.
This is dismissed as a fudge, when really it is the only unifying position on offer, especially now the Lib Dems have thrown their weight behind revoke. The fact its the only position that can hold the disparate Brexit factions in our own party together is a sign of what it can achieve in a General Election. Whether voters voted Leave or Remain, they can just about live with our offer on Brexit. Add to that a list of exciting, life transforming policies and we can bring our broken country together. But if we take one more step towards Remain and we disenfranchise our leave voting members and many people like me. Polling shows that positions on Brexit have hardened in the country. In my view the Remain campaign should bear some responsibility for this. Many Labour voters get frustrated with Tory voters and privately grumble about the way they ‘believed the lies, voted against their own interests etc’  but never make this the foundation of their campaign to win them over because they know it would have the completely opposite effect and alienate them forever. Unfortunately the Remain campaign have patronised Leave voters publicly and without considering the impact this has on those voters. In contrast Jeremy Corbyn has never talked down to or patronised leave voters. He not only knows that’s a counterproductive thing to do, he just doesn’t look down on anyone. That’s why we need our leader to lead our party on this. His skills as a natural born peace broker must be utilised. His well proven political wisdom will lead us to a GE win. I just hope Conference stands by him.

Dear Tom Watson

A significant number of Labour Party Members have experienced ever growing disgust over your determination to represent your views as our own over Brexit, when in truth, the membership has very complex and diverse views on this difficult subject. To claim with certainty that you speak for us all, is both disingenuous and wrong and alienates those of us who do not share your views. It is also hypocritical. You did not care how the membership felt about Corbyn’s leadership back in 2016 when you urged him to resign, but now suddenly, it’s the most important thing to you.

Many of us who are working tirelessly to ensure we achieve a Labour majority at the next General Election, fully understand and endorse the position of the Leadership over Brexit, which is to respect the 2016 EU Referendum result, whilst minimising disruption and harm to our economy. This is indeed the only position which can bring unity to our fractured society. Most of our constituencies voted Leave in the EU Referendum, which includes target seats which we need to win. It is wrong to extrapolate anything significant from a protest vote at the European and Local Elections. However, it is worth noting that we suffered as much, if not more in these leave areas as our remain ones. The Lib Dems were due a bounce back anyway after being out of Government for 4 years, but this bounce only restored them to the percentages they achieved in their pre-Coalition past. One of the likely reasons we have lost support over Brexit, is because many MPs like yourself, refuse to put the case for our sensible compromise position.

For many of us, this is a strong issue of principle. We are a democratic Socialist party, and as democrats, we do not believe in cherry picking which votes to accept. If we become the full blown Remain Party you aspire to, we will be just another Metropolitan Liberal Party that holds leave voters in contempt. Boxing ourselves into this position will leave us fighting for the votes of the 48% who voted Remain, between at least 3 other parties.

There is no other party which has put forward a sensible compromise position on Brexit, and we believe we must not sacrifice this position based on unreliable analysis at a very unpredictable time. We claim to be the party of the many, however that claim will sound hollow to the 52% who voted leave if we become an ardent remain party as per your wishes. Even if we did not feel genuine concern that a full blown remain position would cost us a General Election, which we do, we are sure it is not the right position to take on principle, and will lose us support in our Northern Heartlands, in the way we lost Scottish voters in the New Labour era. You take these voters for granted at your peril, our peril and the peril of millions of ordinary struggling people who desperately need a radical, transformative Labour Government.

Jeremy Corbyn is coming under growing pressure to back your chosen position. We advise Jeremy to resist this pressure. For many of us who did not support a 2nd Referendum under any circumstances, we were prepared to respect the policy voted through at Conference to call for one as an option under very specific circumstances. This has now shifted to calling for a 2nd Referendum on any deal, and you want a further commitment from Jeremy to commit to campaign for Remain should this circumstance arrive. We absolutely feel this is not the right position for the Labour Party to take. Labour are not a Leave or Remain Party. We should not take sides as if this is a football match. It is a nuanced, complex problem which requires a very nuanced and complex solution. We must resist all pressure to be seen to take sides, now or in the future. To do so would alienate millions of voters, and destroy their trust in us, possibly forever; something the populist right would no doubt capitalise on, as they already are.

A 2nd Referendum is fraught with danger. As soon as you get into a discussion with people over which options would be on the ballot, the disagreements start. It will tear our country apart all over again, and should never be viewed as an easy or desirable option. We must do, and be seen to have done, everything in our power to avoid this toxic scenario. Jeremy Corbyn recognises the dangers and toxicity involved in holding a 2nd Referendum, and we thank him for doing everything in his power to avoid one.

We support his leadership and position on Brexit 100% and urge you to stop claiming to speak for us all. You do not!

(If you want to sign this letter please add your name and  CLP in the comments. I will add as soon as possible. Thanks!)