In June 2023, Neal Lawson was served notice by the Labour party that his 44-year membership could be terminated over a retweet supporting cross-party progressive cooperation.
Almost 18 months later, he was informed by email that he had been found not guilty. In most ways I matter not a jot: "I was probably being used as a more high-profile example to warn others off such abhorrent behaviour."
Writing in the Guardian, he asks why this is happening - he is one of many Labour members to be 'tried' in this way - and what it says about Labour’s deep purpose and culture.
His answer?
Labour, and now the government, is run by people who lost control of “their” party to Corbynism and feared they could never win it back. Through audacity and cynicism, they did so. They now want to ensure it can never be lost again. They are fixated with control. Internally, “opponents” are excluded by the rulebook or are encouraged to self-exclude because of the party stance on Gaza or the winter fuel allowance.
Externally, the urge to control is pure managerial technocracy – a philosophy that says these are chosen people who have the skills and the insights to order, plan and deliver a better world for us, to us. We, so the thinking goes, will be grateful and will vote for them again. At a deeper level still, it’s a politics rooted in too much ego – and therefore reveals a lack of confidence in themselves and their project.
He notes that the Greens are now disciplining party members for cross-party cooperation, and says "the Liberal Democrats are hardly a shining example of pluralism". He doesn't give any examples to support the latter point.
His conclusion is surely right:
All this is at odds with an electorate shifting far beyond lifelong party loyalties. Voters have never been more volatile, while our party system has never been more tribal and rigid. Something is going to give.
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