On both the right and left of the Labour party, one article of faith has always seemed to be set in stone: the idea that you can pursue progressive dreams using no end of skulduggery and nastiness, and never worry about the contradictions. Whether they have been Blairites, Brownites, disciples of Jeremy Corbyn or servants of Keir Starmer, a certain kind of Labour high-up has always thrived on a loathing and mistrust of their internal enemies, and a drive to seize control of the party machine. What this entails is always the same: manic apparatchiks – men, usually – stalking around party offices, desperately trying to fix the selections of parliamentary candidates, and dispensing off-the-record briefings about whichever figures are deemed ready for liquidation.
But on this score, as Boris Johnson causes yet more Tory chaos and Labour’s chances of leading the next government solidify, the current leader and his team seem to be in a league of their own. First came the withdrawal of the Labour whip from Corbyn. Just over a week ago, Jamie Driscoll, the elected mayor of the North of Tyne area, was kept out of the running to lead the new north-east region, with no official notification of why, or any right of appeal (the reason given to the media is his appearance at an arts event alongside the film director Ken Loach, expelled from the party because of his membership of the proscribed organisation Labour Against the Witchhunt, which claimed that allegations of Labour antisemitism were “politically motivated”).
For the past year, meanwhile, less high-profile stories have been piling up about exclusions from parliamentary shortlists and meddling in local parties. As evidenced by the Driscoll and Corbyn cases, the people around Starmer often frame what they are doing in terms of rooting out antisemitism. But they also fill their “due diligence” charge-sheets with an array of other alleged transgressions. In doing so, they not only cheapen their case, but point to one inescapable conclusion: that what is going on is also about squashing anything and anyone deemed either too leftwing or in any way disobedient.
There is no inconsistency in supporting Labour’s newfound intolerance of anti-Jewish prejudice, while also wondering why unrelated – and completely trifling – accusations are also cited, again and again, and boggling at a party so neglectful of both due process and consistent standards. Behaviour flagged as problematic has included liking tweets by the former Labour policy chief Andrew Fisher and the Green party MP Caroline Lucas, and giving an online thumbs up to the Occupy movement, which faded away a decade ago. In Milton Keynes, the reasons given by the party for excluding a would-be parliamentary candidate included liking one tweet by Nicola Sturgeon saying the Scottish first minister had recovered from Covid-19, and another that called Starmer a “prat”.
A newly recruited Labour activist in the Cornish seat of Camborne and Redruth was contacted about past tweets expressing favourable opinions about senior Green party politicians – and not just ruled out of the local candidate selection process, but expelled from the party (“Kafkaesque insanity,” she said, not unreasonably). For others, whatever the talk from party insiders about the need for “competent and professional” candidates, there have been only the lightest slaps on the wrist: the white leader of Barking and Dagenham council, Darren Rodwell, joked at a black history event that he had the “worst tan possible for a black man”, but remained on a local parliamentary shortlist after being cleared of any wrongdoing, and is now a confirmed Labour candidate, recently heard suggesting that people should be evicted from social housing if their children do not inform on people who commit knife crime.
Now, as looming boundary changes entail a new burst of selection contests, the stories are multiplying. In south Wales, for example, two sitting MPs had to recently undergo a selection contest for a new constituency spanning the current seats of Merthyr Tydfil and Rhymney and Cynon Valley. The result was nothing if not predictable: Starmer’s shadow Wales minister, Gerald Jones, defeated the leftwinger Beth Winter, who says the contest was “bulldozed” through in a fortnight, with no in-person hustings. Like Driscoll, she says she will be “taking advice and soundings in the days ahead about my next steps”, but the machine grinds on.
Beyond the eternal battle between Labour’s right and left, the other thing that seems to incur the wrath of people at the top is members and activists being friendly towards other parties. In the Cherwell district of Oxfordshire, the results of May’s council elections meant that the local Labour party could have formed a coalition with the Lib Dems, Greens and local independents, but negotiations apparently fell apart after an intervention by the party’s national executive committee, handing power to a minority Tory administration.
In the home counties borough of Hertsmere, meanwhile, the local party is still awaiting the NEC’s decision on whether or not to approve its deal with the Lib Dems, while Labour’s regional office has suspended two local activists from paid jobs in the party organisation, and withdrawn the party membership of two others. Their alleged crime, which they strenuously deny, is organising an “unauthorised electoral pact” with another party – in other words, trying to maximise Tory losses.
In Westminster, there is one other element of the leadership’s behaviour: a briefing culture whose toxicity is increasing fast. Recent targets of Labour’s whisperers have included the shadow home secretary, Yvette Cooper, her cabinet colleague Ed Miliband and the Greater Manchester mayor, Andy Burnham. “Whenever I go out there with something positive, the negative Westminster briefing machine somehow flicks into gear,” says Burnham. Many Labour people seem to be miserably keeping their heads down, in case they, too, come to the attention of people who could yet bring their political careers to an abrupt end. It all feels like the opposite of the collective determination and excitement that ought to be cohering as the next election approaches, and prompts one obvious question: if things are this ugly when Labour is in opposition, what will happen if it actually takes power?
When he ran for leader, Starmer claimed to believe in exactly the kind of politics that he and his people now appear to be set on destroying. He wanted, he said, to nationalise utilities, scrap tuition fees and put up income tax for high earners; at around the same time, he was filmed assuring Driscoll that he wanted to “unify the party”, stop its factions “taking lumps out of each other” and create “an environment in which people can respectfully disagree and come together”. It is hard to keep up with someone so surreally changeable. But he and his people seem to think they can act with complete impunity, on the basis that anyone who wants a change of government will soon have to put their X in the usual box.
Put another way, it is only our crooked electoral system that endows Labour with its political monopoly, and gives the fixers and apparatchiks their power. A lot of people in the party seem to understand that – which is part of the reason why last year’s Labour conference voted to transform politics by embracing proportional representation. Starmer and his people, as you may recall, indicated that the decision would be ignored, and returned to the business at hand: command, control, and a kind of power so cold and cynical that you sometimes wonder if it has any content at all.
John Harris is a Guardian columnist
