My sympathies to Neal Lawson (After 44 years, Labour moves to expel me. And my MP and activist friends are asking: who will be next?, 30 June). He is passionate in his beliefs and has worked long and hard to drag the Labour party into the 21st century. If he is correct in his analysis, it demonstrates the fatal flaw in party politics. It is all about winning, not about principle, country or people. In the interests of winning, any behaviour is justifiable. Neal laments the apparent end of a “broad church” Labour party. Sadly, there can be no such thing in the UK’s polarising political climate.
Political parties are a 20th-century construct and no longer fit for purpose. Only a politics of principle and consensus can meet the challenges of this era. I’ve been a political activist since the 1980s – first with the Green party and then, since 1991, outside the party system. Civil society is where the solution lies. We need a national conversation about what kind of country we want to be, and to remind the politicians that they work for us. And we pay their wages.
Lyn A Dade
Twickenham, London
