Join a political party
I enjoyed this post, called “Single issue campaigning is no substitute for party politics” by Tory Convert at Conservative group-blog Once More.
In particular, this first paragraph has the ring of recognition:
The other day a friend of mine asked what I’d been up to recently, and I couldn’t answer without mentioning various political activities. She said to me baldly: “I could never belong to a political party”. I noticed an insinuation in her response that this was a morally preferable position.
I’m not sure I agree with the entire thrust of the post: I think we (political parties) have more responsibility for the situation where young people are incredulous at the idea of joining a party than Tory Convert admits. I also think we have a very real responsibility for making ourselves attractive and relevant to them, and not just expect them to beat a path to our door: they won’t.
But in my heart I’m applauding this section:
My advice to any young person who has a passing interest in politics, but doesn’t like the idea of besmirching their conscience by committing to a party, is: hold your nose and get stuck in. You’ll learn how to be a team player, make loads of new friends and be challenged by ideas which may actually have consequences for the lives of people you know. Don’t imagine that firing off the odd activist postcard or email for Amnesty International is any substitute.
(although, of course, unlike Ms Convert, I’d like them to join Labour!)
What’s the point? Why join a party where members have no influence over policy and whose leadership despises the party’s values and membership?
Because the values are right and the record in government is good, for the most part? Because you care about your local area and know what a Liberal Democrat / Tory (delete as appropriate) administration would do to it? Because rather than sitting on the sidelines, you can roll up your sleeves and be part of making Labour our party again?
But the values aren’t right and record in government is not good: and it is certainly not possible both to maintain that it is, and to talk about “making Labour our party again”. If the record’s good, why would you need to?
As for the stuff about Tory/Lib Dem administrations, forget it. Most people - and I mean, here, natural Labour supporters and well-informed ones at that - can’t slip a playing card between the record of Labour local authorities and those controlled by other parties. There was a time when that wasn’t true, but that time isn’t now.
Say that to Labour people and they turn into robotic speak-your-statistics machines, as if we just didn’t realise what Labour was doing for us. But we do, because we’ve been watching. For years. And to tell us there’s some sizeable difference simply insults our intelligence.
As for sitting on the sidelines, do me a favour. There are many productive ways to employ one’s time, but canvassing for a party of privatisers and union-bashers isn’t one of them.
Cheers Antonia - always flattering to know that even a political opponent thinks you’ve written something vaguely interesting.
TC
> privatisers and union-bashers
That’s a fair summing-up of Labour’s 8.5 years in government? You say you know all about what Labour has been doing, and yet the first things that come to your mind aren’t, say, unemployment, public service funding and reform, or more rights at work. Nope, it’s privatisation, the word that’s meant to strike fear into our hearts.
public service funding and reform
That would be PFI and the dismantling of comprehensive education?
You can make all the claims you like - the only people you convinve are yourselves. There’s reasons - may reasons - why all the ex-Labour voters don’t vote for Labour any more and if you want to stick your fingers in your ears and play “la la la we can’t hear you” then go ahead.
Here’s a little exercise though. Imagine yourself, fifteen or even ten years ago, being given a list of the current government’s policies and being asked to guess what party they belonged to. Anybody who answers “Labour” is a liar.
Which kinds of cuts through all the crap, really.
Use of the private sector to build something new, that wouldn’t have been so easily affordable when paid upfront by the exchequer, does not represent privatisation. Is use of the private sector a sin? I’ve no doubt there have been brief periods in our history when that was thought to be true, but thankfully rarely, and certainly not now.
Real it may be, but the problem with the “hidden army of Real Labourites” argument is that the group has cemented itself to the moral high ground and made it impossible for current pro-Labourites to say their own piece, because they must all be “in denial” or sell-outs, intellectually bankrupted, morally compromised, or blinded by adoration for TB.
Going back 15 years, would I have expected Labour to run on its current platform? Probably not, because as someone for whom ideology came first, things like PFI (or indeed anything containing the word ‘private’) would have seemed horrifying. I don’t think the principles that matter have really changed, though my views on all sorts of issues have evolved.
Which is a very positive thing.