Democracy – not for me?

In 2017, I was the candidate for Labour here on the Isle of Wight. One day I may share some anecdotes, but to be honest, John O’Farrell got there first, and he’s much funnier than me. Since the election, I’ve been the main spokesperson for the CLP, and since June last year, the Chair, trying to maintain our profile in the local media, and to keep the Tory council and Tory MP honest. Or at least as honest as Tories get. If Theresa May were to go for another walk and call an election, then I may well throw my hat into the ring to be considered as Labour candidate once more.

 
I may not be selected by the CLP though. They may choose someone else to try and topple the Tories.

The last two years have not been without difficulty. I’ve been the target of some fairly horrible abuse from some individuals on social media and email. Nothing which would make an actual MP bat an eyelid in terms of quantity, obviously, but when someone publicly calls you “a cancer”, your first reaction isn’t “oh well, at least it’s not as bad as what Jeremy Corbyn gets”. We’re all human. Except Jacob Rees-Mogg. Although there have been some threats, they’ve been relatively unthreatening threats, if that makes sense: I’ve not taken to checking under my car. Nonetheless, it’s fair to say I haven’t had this much anglo-saxon directed towards me since the last time I refereed a rugby league game.

 
Some of that abuse, and rather more non-abusive criticism, has come from local Labour Party members or supporters. It turns out that, in a church as broad as the Labour Party, sometimes people on the far side of either aisle aren’t so much singing out of time with each other, but are warbling different hymns altogether. Throw in intensely emotive issues like the anti-semitism storm last summer, or binary identity politics like Brexit, and trying to adopt a nuanced position can, rather than introducing the harmony you intended, instead quickly see you adding a third discordant tune to the two clashing songs already shattering the stained-glass windows, much to the irritation of both sides.

 
I’ve had criticism for being too dictatorial. I’ve had criticism for not directing people enough. I’ve been criticised by Remainers for being insufficiently enthusiastic about stopping Brexit, and by Lexiters for being too critical of Brexit. Some of the Labour Right in the CLP assume I must be an idiot because I voted for Corbyn. Some of the Left assume I’m a Blairite because, well to be honest, I haven’t quite cracked why for that one, but I’m sure they have their reasons. Some would oppose my selection because they would prefer a different person, even though they also like me. Some might support my selection just to stop a different person, even though they also dislike me. It is, as many have said, a funny old game.

 
Now the picture I painted above suggests a party riven with tiny factions. But actually that’s not remotely accurate. Or perhaps I should say that for much of the time, the various factions rub along well, united by more than they are divided. In 2017, I campaigned alongside Lexiters and Remainers who were both equally enthused by the manifesto. I count amongst my stronger personal supporters, local members from the Marxist Left and Blairite Right, and all points inbetween.

 
In my experience, CLP members from across the spectrum are quite capable of disagreeing about a range of issues without considering any of those issues to be a red line which prevents them from supporting whoever they think stands the best chance of getting a result for the Party as a whole. I count myself amongst those pragmatists: if Nye Bevan or Clem Attlee were reincarnated in Ryde and joined the local CLP, I’d vote against myself to get them selected.

 
Nearly all members hold it as an article of faith that the ultimate goal is to kick out the Tories, and to install a Labour government, and nearly all of us will swallow personal dislikes, policy disagreements and tone-deaf hymn-singing from the other side of the aisle, in order to elect any Labour MP who is working towards that goal. If that means supporting and campaigning for someone as candidate when you really wanted someone else, then so be it. I was aware in 2017 that some people would have much preferred a different candidate, but those same people still put in a shift to support me in that campaign, and some of them have even been won round to my dubious charm. Well, I like to tell myself that. Don’t disillusion me.

 

 

Some members will swallow political views they dislike, as long as the result is more likely to be a Labour government – for many on the left, that describes the entire period between 1997 and 2010. There are many current Labour MPs who are not particularly sympathetic to the politics of either the leadership or members, yet few have faced motions of no confidence, because their members will accept their lukewarm enthusiasm for socialist politics as long as they are seen as working hard to bring about a Labour government.

 

 

Some members will swallow opposition to the party leadership as long as that opposition comes from a political perspective with which they have sympathy, which explains why Jeremy Corbyn himself survived the Blair years. It’s also why plenty of MPs who have criticised the leadership’s stance on Brexit have gone unchallenged by members, because most members tend to have sympathy with more pro-Remain views.

 

 

Where members tend to draw the line, in my experience, is when a representative is seen as both politically unsympathetic and not helping to obtain a Labour government. If an MP ever crosses a line to be seen as actively helping to prevent a Labour government, then members will almost always move against them. If one looks at those Labour MPs who have faced motions of no confidence – and it is a relatively small number – one finds that it is inevitably the case that they not only have serious political differences with the leadership, but they are seen by members as making a Labour government less likely through their public provision of ammunition to the hostile media and the Tories.

 

 

That’s the explanation for why some members in some CLPs are tabling motions of no confidence in their MPs. But ultimately, whether you believe MPs such as Chris Leslie are damaging the party or not, is irrelevant.  Whatever the reasons, whatever the accuracy or otherwise of the motives of the CLP members, one thing is very clear to me: they have the right to choose whether I’m the person who represents them, as chair, as spokesperson or as candidate.

 

 

If they decide they don’t want me any more, and would prefer to select someone else, then obviously I’d be disappointed. I might even be hurt. I may think the decision unfair (you’d hope so, because if I thought it was fair, then why would I be standing in the first place?). But they do have that right. Because ultimately, they ARE the local Labour Party, and I’m not standing as an independent, but as a Labour candidate.

 
That seems to me to be an unarguable principle. Labour candidates can never be separate from the CLPs they represent. And if those CLP members choose candidates based on personal preference, political alignment, ancient Balkanesque blood feuds (this is the Isle of Wight – memories go back a long way here), or just because they don’t like the candidate’s dress sense (yes, I have taken flak for that), then that is their right. The moment we start telling them they can’t, or shouldn’t, exercise it any more, then we’re no longer a democratic party.

 
That principle, it seems to me, applies whether I’m an aspiring MP or an actual MP. It’s particularly important in our broken electoral system, which guarantees hundreds of MPs jobs for life in safe seats. If an MP doesn’t have to work to be re-elected in a constituency which weighs one party’s vote in tons and the other in grams, and they don’t have to work to be reselected by their CLP, then who are they actually accountable to? How do we get rid of any candidate or MP in a safe seat? To suggest that we can only kick them out if they are actually convicted of a crime seems to me to be setting the bar rather low in terms of our expectations of accountability.

 
Which is why I am so uncomfortable with seeing MPs attacking members for tabling votes of no confidence. It’s my CLP’s right to select their representative. They don’t owe me their loyalty no matter what I do. Rather, I owe them MY loyalty, because I am the beneficiary of their work and their votes in selecting me as candidate.

 
I’m even more uncomfortable with suggestions which I’ve seen from MPs that tabling such motions is “bullying”. It is not bullying to disagree with someone. It is not bullying to say “we don’t want you to be our representative any more”, as long as that is done in a clear and open process, and without personal abuse. Those who would support a different candidate at the next election are not bullying me, they’re exercising their democratic right. If I believed my own right to remain in position no matter what, trumped others’ right to remove me, then I’d have lost sight of what democracy is.

 
It’s also wrong, and deeply unfair, to see the conflation of any abuse which a candidate may have received from any quarter, with any attempt to deselect them or express a vote of no confidence. The fact that I’ve received some fairly unpleasant abuse from some members doesn’t negate the right of all members to choose someone else. Nearly all those CLP members who would vote for a different candidate here have never been abusive towards me. The idea that they should be criticised for exercising their right to choose someone else, because another member once abused me, is ridiculous. Even if members voted against me for their own reasons in a vote of no confidence put forward by an abuser, then that would still be their right, and it would not make them abusers themselves.

 
Those MPs who criticise CLP members because motions of no confidence, or reselection, are tabled or passed, are thus completely out of line. Ironically, in so doing, they make the case rather well for those who believe some MPs are contemptuous of their local party members, or even of the party membership as a whole. Little would make me more likely to vote FOR a motion of no confidence than if I were to have a candidate who criticised members for the act of exercising their right to call one – even if we sat on the same side of the church and sang the same hymn in perfect harmony. Democracy is my non-negotiable. I can put up with a lot, but I can’t put up with a candidate who believes they shouldn’t be accountable to the members who gave them their position.

 
It is an arrogant and contemptuous position for MPs or candidates to attack an entire CLP for simply having members who dare to suggest they might like to choose to a different representative. It is even worse when MPs accuse those CLPs of having malign motives, or of “bullying”. Even if some members did have malign motives, it would require a majority to pass a vote of no confidence. Do we really have MPs arguing that a majority of any CLP – hundreds or thousands of individuals – are motivated by malignancy?

 
The only correct response to a motion of no-confidence, or an attempt to deselect, is to politely contest it. If it happens to me, then I would set out why I believe I deserve to retain the confidence of local members. An even better approach would be to avoid having the vote of no confidence in the first place (or at least to be confident that such a vote would never get a majority), by treating as many local members as possible with the respect they deserve, and by representing their views effectively. MPs in particular benefit from the advantages of a high profile, paid staff, the deference which often accrues to any kind of authority or incumbency, access to the media, and experience of politics. If they can’t retain a majority of their own local party members willing to support them, then in what sense do they deserve to continue to represent those party members in elections?

 
To make a case that local members should not exercise their right to express their views is to demand an exemption from all accountability to the party. It is to state that the MP owes no loyalty or service to the members who selected them, campaigned for them and are represented by them. In which case, it is an argument not to be a Labour MP at all, but to be an independent. Which is fine, but don’t expect Labour members to support you – they would rather have a Labour MP, thanks.

 
I see all over social media this morning, Labour MPs taking to social media to condemn a CLP for the fact that some members have tabled a vote of no confidence. I have seen that motion conflated with abuse. I have seen it ascribed abhorrent and malign motives. I have seen multiple demands for solidarity with the MP in question (although not solidarity with the members of the CLP).  What that comes across as is a privileged parliamentary group demanding that members should shut up and accept what they’re given, without question, and with no expectation of accountability. If they don’t shut up and accept what they’re given, they will be deliberately labelled as abusers, racists and cranks in a hostile media by MPs whose voices are far louder than ordinary members. That’s so very wrong.

CLPs will contain many hundreds, or thousands, of members. Some will support a vote of no confidence. Some will oppose. Some will be indifferent. Some motives will be factional, some personal, some tactical and, yes, some malign. But whatever their reasons, no matter how much I may or may not agree or disagree with their motives, they have an absolute right to express those views. It is my responsibility – if I want to represent my CLP in any post, from bottle-washer to MP – to retain their confidence. If I don’t, or can’t, then democracy demands that I accept that decision and allow them to choose someone in whom they do have confidence.

 
The best defence against motions of no confidence is not to attack your members, or to complain about “bullying” or to demand an unchallenged job for life in which members serve your needs irrespective of your contempt for them. It is to retain the confidence of your members.

 

If you can’t do that – if I can’t do that – then we deserve to go.