Meeting held on Monday 19th July 2021
Seven people were present. Apologies were received from 10. We welcomed a new member.
We were at a loss to see why Starmer, whose says his project is to unify the Labour Party, has (we are told) decided to ban four ‘extreme left’ organisations, most of which none of us had heard, from the party. He was clearly concerned to further distance himself from Corbyn and and the supposed ‘antisemitism’ of those who criticise Israel. But the effect would surely be to divide, rather than unite, the Party.
But other parties too are riven with division. Greens most recently over ‘trans rights’ and Tories on many issues. Tories appear, however, to handle the press more effectively. Or is it just that the press are always predisposed towards the Tories? We found it hard to understand why the public do not see through the lies of the prime minister. Perhaps the deeper problem is that the public are not concerned too much with his lying: he is, after all, ‘one of us’. But how is it that such an Eton educated upper class individual can claim to speak for the masses when he has no experience of how most people live? Like Trump, he claims to be ‘of the people’ but is clearly not one of the people.
With the predominance of such populism, we wondered whether Starmer was not populist enough. Was this an aspect of his lack of leadership? There followed a discussion of various past leading politicians – eg, Atlee, Brown, Blair – in an attempt to ascertain what might be effective political leadership. Perhaps it is not a fixed quality or set of qualities but is rather determined by the particular circumstances at the time. If so, what then are the qualities for leadership in our present context of climate catastrophe and inequality? ‘Moral authority’ was suggested, as was a need to localise political decision making and make greater connections with people ‘on the doorstep’.
Such priorities could lead to a clearer articulation of the kind of society that we wish to work towards. The is the aim of Compass which, originally a pressure group within the Labour Party, has for some years drawn together the Greens and other ‘progressive’ groups to formulate ‘The Good Society’. This has led, more recently, to the their support for some form of PR and cross party collaboration. This, it would seem, is the only way we are likely to get rid of the Tories. But while a recent poll suggest that over 80% of Labour Party members support such initiative, the leadership still resists and local attempts to collaborate are prohibited (or kept ‘under wraps’ as has been the case in collaboration in Derbyshire Dales District and Higher Peak Constituency).
The next meeting will take place on 16th August.