Turnthepage

Poetry and politics

[seanrobinson-blog]

The Speech Corbo Needs to Give

The people of Great Britain have spoken. 52% have opted to leave the European Union. I was bitterly disappointed to know that the communities of Britain were going to suffer from the political and economic turmoil of leaving the EU. But it is time to accept the result of the referendum, and look to a future where the Labour Party works to rebuild the communities of Britain.

The Parliamentary Labour Party has also spoken. They want Tony Blair to come back and save them from doing any hard work. They are living in the past. A past before the Iraq war, before the expenses scandals, before the financial crisis and the bailout, before the destruction of Tory economic lies and austerity. Before Britain woke up to the con of the elites who have controlled politics for too long.

These MPs do not realise that the communities of Britain have cried out for something new. They have told us in this referendum result that they are fed up with the management class of politicians that the elite spit out every 5 years.

The 172 MPs who voted against the will of the Labour Party, against the needs of the country, and against my leadership, have chosen the past. And they are supported by their new best mate David Cameron.

These MPs have chosen a country where the communities of Britain serve the economic elite, rather than a country where the economy serves the communities of Britain.

They have made their choice. They have chosen to ignore the democratic will of the British Labour party, and display the Westminster arrogance that has failed the communities of Great Britain for too long.  They have made their choice and chosen the past.

They have chosen to opt out of the work of rebuilding the communities of Britain – preferring their favourite pastime of political infighting. They have made their choice and chosen the past.

We do not have time to indulge their tantrums, their side show. We are looking forward. If they wish to return to work alongside myself, the Labour Party, and communities all over Britain - they will be welcome. But there is crucial work to be done now, rebuilding the communities of Britain, and I will not be distracted.

The Labour Party will lead Westminster in a new era of radical humility. Communities will lead the way. Tory Party Economics has destroyed the communities of Britain. It is time for the real people of Great Britain to lead to the politicians, not the other way around. The Labour Party will serve. We are ready to get to work.

The New Labour Elites can squabble over the party if they want. I am its leader, elected a year ago with the biggest majority in history. If they want to face me in an election: bring it on! We’d be happy to make trouncing them an annual event!

But until then I have work to do. Not some self-centred scuffle over the party, but real work rebuilding a country. Rebuilding communities that have been let down by the political classes for 40 years. Let down by Tory governments and the neo-liberal dinosaurs who wish to snatch the Labour Party from its members! They can shirk this work if they want to continue their squabbles.

In the meantime I will be travelling the country, to local labour party offices, to do two things.

Firstly, we will establish a new movement within the party. Labour Communities. We will re-empower local labour parties, and other civil society groups, to organise their communities and campaign for change.

Every party activist will become a Community Organiser. We will establish a pyramid training scheme to help them continue the work they already do - strengthening their communities. Successive neo-liberal governments have failed Britain’s Communities.

So all local people will have the opportunity to get directly involved in rebuilding their own communities from the ground up, with Labour Party support. We will follow these communities and act in accordance with their demands. This party organisation will be responsible for equipping every LLP with skills and resources of community organising. This means going to communities and asking them what issues they want to be tackled locally, and then helping them to bring the community together to campaign for change. We will work with anyone, and do whatever we are asked.

Every Activist a Community Organiser.

We will serve the communities of Britain, and help them to rebuild.

The Labour Party under my leadership will lead politics in a new era of radical humility. Britain’s Communities will say what they need locally, and we will get to work alongside them.

And then, as Prime Minister in London,  my government will pass laws that will support these local needs. Redistributive economics that serves the people - not the Elites. Investment in communities, all over Britain - not just in the South East. Investment in public services, not selling them off to our mates.

The people of Britain are not fools. They see these dinosaurs squabbling in Westminster when they should be working - be assured that we, the Labour Party, will be in government soon enough, and we will do whatever it takes to re-empower Britain’s Communities and rebuild this country.

And as we tour Britain, we will fight intolerance and racism at every level. It is the child of broken communities – communities that have been broken by Tory Economics. They have failed to help communities deal with the challenges that come with immigration. Immigration is something which can make us stronger, which can be wonderful, which makes us who we are as a country. But it is something that broken communities have not been helped to prepare for under neo-liberal governments. We will help British communities to rebuild to fight intolerance.

Lack of work, lack of social cohesion, these are the fault of Tory Economics – of the policies of the neo-liberal Elites, who do not care about Britain’s communities. Many communities are angry, and I am angry too. But the enemies are not immigrants, but those neo-liberal elites who destroyed our communities whilst in government.

Whilst Tory Party politicians were squabbling in the Oxford Union, trashing restaurants or posing for photos in top hats and tails, I was working hard for communities in Britain.

I have worked for the people of Britain, whatever colour their skin, whatever passport they carry, all my adult life.

Rebuilding Communities. Defending against prejudice. Democracy.

That is what I am about, and that is what the Labour Party is for in the unknown 21st century. That’s what it been all its life, since its birth in the neglected industrial heartlands of Britain.

We, the true Labour Party, are ready to get to work.

Working hard together with all people; working hard for British Communities.

Let the lazy, arrogant elites squabble in Westminster, looking into the past.  We will see them again, when we are in government in the near future.

The people of Britain have demanded a better future.

Now we, the Labour Party, will get to work rebuilding Britain.

[seanrobinson-blog]

Rich, educated, London-based friends: you are the elite that caused this - stop grieving and start serving those who have been marginalised for too long

Márgarét, áre you gríeving Over Goldengrove unleaving? Leáves like the things of man, you With your fresh thoughts care for, can you?

Gerard Manley-Hopkins, Spring and Fall

Britain will leave the European Union. This decision was taken by a slim majority of mostly older, mostly working class, mostly rural, mostly white and mostly English & Welsh voters. And my rich and middle class, London based friends are not at all happy.

In the last twenty-four hours, I have seen and heard a great deal of vitriol directed at those ignorant or reckless or racist voters, those foolish prejudiced souls, who knew not what they were doing.  One friend wrote that she had “never felt more detached from the rest of the country”.  Lots expressed the sentiment that they’d “like to leave the UK” and many others earnestly shared E-petitions, one demanding that parliament refuses to go along with the outcome of the vote, another that London secedes from the rest of the UK.

One can understand the anger and the hurt. For the first time in our lives, a major political decision was decided against our will by a political class to which we do not belong. As John Harris describes in this excellent article, it was mainly those without money who voted to Leave - people me and my friends, part of the most privileged group in society, hardly ever encounter. It is these people who know just what it is like to see major political decisions taken, again and again, against their will and without their consultation. They have seen their communities run down, and money and power flow to London and abroad to the European Union. As industry has withered, and trade unions with them, they have witnessed a political class develop which absolutely excludes them. And my friends and I are part of this exclusive and privileged elite.

Instead of deriding those who voted Leave as racists, or patronising them as fools, instead of attempting to overturn their will in a show of complete disregard for democracy, and instead of threatening to leave the UK, like bankers who don’t like the tax rates, we as the elite should be practising radical humility at this moment. We are not going to be the ones who suffer because of Brexit - we are the privileged elite, face it, we  are not the ones who ever really suffer. We need to follow the will of the seventeen million, four-hundred and ten thousand, seven hundred and forty-two people who voted to leave the EU. Why did they do it? Not racism, or idiocy - but because they wanted to “Take Back Control,” as their slogan proclaimed. We must give up some of our precious power for once to those who knowingly (they aren’t idiots) risked worsening their economic situation because they wanted to have some power over their lives and the world they live in. This vote was about people power, or in other words, it was about democracy.

*

On one level, this vote for democracy was exactly what it said on the tin - it was about reclaiming decision making power from an undemocratic and out of touch European Union, which failed to serve people’s interests. It aimed to return power to a national democratic structure, which is better understood, and which, as a nation and as individuals, to which we have more direct input than we do to the EU.

But clearly this was also about more than the EU. In his victory speech, Farage said:

“this will be a victory for real people, a victory for ordinary people, a victory for decent people. We have fought against the multinationals, we have fought against the big merchant banks, we have fought against big politics, we have fought against lies, corruption and deceit.” 

The EU, then, is just one example of an institution that concentrates power in the hands of a distant, out of touch, internationally minded, well-off, big-city based, managerial class, who run the world - and arrogantly assume that they know best.

We must acknowledge that the control people feel over their own lives, the feeling that they can influence the world they live in, things which we rich and educated take for granted, has slipped away since the 1980s. The decline of working class communities; the sustained attacks on Trades Unions; the professionalisation of politics; the control of politics by financial services - all have diminished the possibility for poor people to play an equal part in our democracy.

A malaise set in in much of the UK some decades ago, as John Harris describes:

“a terrible shortage of homes, an impossibly precarious job market, a too-often overlooked sense that men (and men are particularly relevant here) who would once have been certain in their identity as miners, or steelworkers, now feel demeaned and ignored. The attempts of mainstream politics to still the anger have probably only made it worse: oily tributes to “hardworking families”, or the the fingers-down-a-blackboard trope of “social mobility”, with its suggestion that the only thing Westminster can offer working-class people is a specious chance of not being working class anymore.”

There’s little work; there’s little community; there’s no high street; there’s no money; there’s no religion. In England, unlike in Scotland, where the Leave vote was low, there is not even an obvious unifying identity to be proud of. And there’s no way to change things, because the political class has little understanding or respect for the concerns of people affected.

* 

Taking back control is all about respect. The great political theorist, Jeremy Waldron, taught me that a key justification for democracy is respect for all people. We will always disagree and often fail to understand each other’s points of view, but democracy should ensure that the opinion every member of society is assigned an equal level of respect. Everyone’s opinion, everyone’s sense of justice, everyone’s desires, everyone’s hopes, everyone’s ideologies, are judged equally valid by this system of government, grounded in respect for all. This gives all people an equal status in making decisions about society.

But the control of politics, economics and culture by the elite has undermined democracy, respect and equality of status. The country is run by the rich, educated and London based. Yes, everyone has the vote, but until Thursday people in England never had the option of voting to reclaim power from this elite. All major political parties are led and funded by the elite; culture is controlled by the elite; businesses are run by the elite. The only real choices available in each election in England have been various kinds of control by the same privileged people. And this elite, of which my friends and I are a part, have either passively or actively contributed to the utter lack of respect for people without money and who live outside of London.

We can see this complete lack of respect in the response of members of my social group to the vote. Those who voted for Leave are derided as fools, condemned as xenophobes or patronised as ill-informed pawns in a Conservative leadership campaign. I could not believe how many of my friends sent round a petition demanding that a second referendum be held - which has now topped 100,000 signatures. What better illustration could there be of a lack of democratic respect, than the demand to re-run the plebiscite, until the plebs give the answer we want?

The arrogant assumption from almost almost all my friends, is that they themselves know better how it would affect those who voted to Leave, than those people themselves. The stories trending of the Leavers who said they didn’t realise we would actually leave, are patronising comfort for the rich Remainers, who want to feel smug. It allows them to say “I told you so”, to those foolish Leave voters who don’t have any money, and so presumably any access to the facts. This is exactly the absence of respect which is the problem with our elitist culture.

The economic consequences of leaving will be serious, and will fall hardest on those without education or wealth. But this does not mean that those who voted to Leave were ill-informed or misled. It means that, due to decades of marginalisation, disrespect and lack of control, Leavers were willing to risk what economic stake they had in society, for the chance to snatch back some power from that elite, an elite to which me and my friends belong.

*

My friends, leave your arrogance and righteous indignation aside. Stop blaming and deriding those who voted to leave. Get a grip, and dry your tears. You are not the victims.

Instead realise that for years you have been part of the privileged class who benefited from inequality whilst excluding half of England. You have been happy for half the country to be economically excluded as long as it meant you could be confident of a graduate job. You have not cared that malaise has set in in communities all over the country, because in London you can live behind your gates, be chauffeur driven everywhere you go, and order Pho to your door from your smartphone.

You are still the ones with the power, my friends. For the first time in our lives, the opportunity was given to the working class to clutch back control from the elite, which includes both EU politicians and ourselves : the rich and educated and London based. Do not feel smug that you are so liberal and outward looking - that is a luxury of your comfortable situation, and your confident place in the world.

It is not time to condemn; it’s not even time to merely listen: political leaders came out in force to say that, after this referendum, we need to listen to what the voters are telling us. But that is not good enough any more. It’s time to find some humility and some respect and to follow the working class who have been excluded for too long. If you are left-wing, then know that our role now is to use our privilege and power to support this working class movement, not to try to lead it.

Friends, for once a political decision has not gone in your favour - the people who have been excluded from your privilege have reclaimed a little control, some democracy and some respect. It is time to release your grip on power, time to stop grieving over your little loss, and time to let others lead.