Yesterday, I received a gushing email from Sarah Hayward and Keir Starmer, respectively leader of Camden Council and MP for the borough. They sought to elicit my support for Owen Smith and came up with the usual “more in sorrow than in anger” waffle against Corbyn. So I thought I’d ask them a few questions:
Dear Ms Hayward and Mr Starmer,
I agree with your stance against Tory rule. However, I consider your hostility to Mr Corbyn self-serving, dismissive of the wishes of your constituency and the CLP (whose recent vote went 274/196 in favour of Corbyn) and ill-founded. Thus far, no one has been able to articulate any convincing reason for why Mr Corbyn is allegedly “unelectable”, as you and your cohorts keep repeating, and to say that you “simply do not believe“ that Corbyn has the requisite qualities is bunk. The fact of the matter is that it makes you look like advocates of New Labour’s failed “Third Way“ which neither I for certain nor most Labour Party members, apparently, want.
The underhand tactics employed by the NEC highlight the entire point. They waited until Mr Corbyn had left the meeting in question, then raised this entirely new point (notably omitted from the AOB items) and voted on it without the Labour leader present. Then when they forced the issue to go to Court, they spent party members’ contributions on an appeal to get those very members’ wishes stifled. If you cannot see how that looks to members of the Party, such as myself, and how it makes those against Corbyn look, then you suffer such lack of judgement that you ought not to be representing the members—which, de facto, you are not in any event.
I invite you kindly to answer these questions plainly and very specifically:
You talk of the great successes of Labour under the Blair/Brown leadership, but you singularly fail to point to the disastrous policies that they pursued with such vigour—leaving apart the Iraq debacle, the fact of the matter is that Mr Blair transformed Labour into a slightly milder version of the Tories. That people are sick of this is evident from the popularity of Mr Corbyn and his return to the Socialist roots of the Labour party.
Frankly, I consider your conduct shoddy, shabby and unbecoming to the role of MP. I realise you are fighting for your jobs and your political lives, but that is not what you are supposed to be doing. You are supposed to be representing and fighting for your members and for the people of Camden, and they plainly support Mr Corbyn over Mr Smith. If, as is plain, you cannot and will not represent your members then you ought to resign forthwith.
As I have written to you before on this matter, Mr Starmer, without the courtesy of a response, I imagine I will get no response to this email either. If so, then it simply serves to reinforce my point.
Yours sincerely
Jolyon Patten