I know we are all fed up but I just wanted to say this because I’ve seen on social media some have said they are thinking about leaving Labour or have left already. I get that, we have been fighting for what we think is right for a long time and it’s been hard work. Now Jeremy Corbyn is standing down and we are all weary.  Sometimes all we need to do is step back and have a recharge. I’ve done that a few times and it can work wonders. But  I wanted to share my perspective on why I think leaving would be a huge mistake.
The idea of leaving Labour to start another party might seem appealing especially at times like this. But the reality is it puts you straight into the fringes and nowhere land. There have been countless attempts to start another party left of Labour and they have all failed and failed dismally. There’s plenty of left parties out there already and they have never set the world alight. Recently there’s been Left Unity and Respect. Bit further back to the 90’s the Socialist Labour Party. Recently there have been a couple of alliances the Socialist Alliance and TUSC both with various left parties. None of them have made any headway. The only major success has been George Galloway’s two Elections wins as an Respect Mp and that had at least something to do with him being a ‘name’.  If you go further back when the ILP disaffiliated from Labour in the 1930’s they had a big membership but soon faded into obscurity and the fringes eventually of course coming back to Labour in the 1970’s.

Even if you look at it the other way the right wing split off the SDP  formed in 1981 after some initial success and some backing from the right wing press had to eventually merge with the Liberals or risk obscurity.
I also speak from a little personal experience. A long time ago I was in Militant in Coventry in the Dave Nellist era and when I first come back into politics in 2012 I went to a couple of Socialist Party (as they are now) meetings. I quickly came to the conclusion that it was only going to be through the Labour Party that we could achieve mass Socialist change. Think back to what the Labour Party was like in 2012 and it will give you a glimpse of how hopeless being on the fringes felt to me. But joining Labour then still felt like a massive thing with Blair and Iraq in my recent memory. But I was encouraged by what I was seeing on Facebook in those days and I felt some change was in the air at last. Although many on the left scoffed at the idea then I began to think that Labour wasn’t a lost cause for Socialism. So it was in the winter of 2012/13 that I decided to  join Labour and the rest is history so to speak.

This little history lesson shows the Labour Party for all it’s many faults is the only game in town as far as left political parties that can get into Government. Many have tried to make a breakthrough but the odds are stacked so far against them. We would be fooling ourselves to believe otherwise.

A major thing we have to grapple with as Socialists is how pure can we be to get into power balanced with how much we have to compromise? I have always thought that many times in the past we have compromised too much.  But also I realise if we are too pure it can be self defeating as well because we can back ourselves into a corner that keeps getting smaller. I have always put it like this. We all have to compromise in life and that is what a political party is all about. But if we go too far down this watering down compromising route we actually lose the essence of what we are and what we want to achieve.
My point is we are so much stronger than we were back in 2012-2015. Yes things have gone wrong but I truly believe Socialist change is only going to come through the Labour Party in the UK. I thought that then and we are so much stronger now than before Corbyn became leader. In some ways when we elected JC we did it the wrong way round.

So yes I get people are demoralised, depressed, frustrated, hurt, angry and upset. I am too. The last 4  and half years are starting to look like they have been a waste of time. But they haven’t been because we the left are still in the ascendancy. But just think about this if many of us do leave they will have been for nothing and it will play into the Blairites hands. Two of our Socialist heroes Tony Benn and Dennis Skinner did what I’m going to do. They stayed in the party through the battles of the 80’s, the take over of the Blairites in the 90’s and fought and kept the left wing beacon burning. That’s what Jeremy Corbyn did too. Being a Socialist in the Labour isn’t easy but I still believe it offers the best path open to transform our country.

Yes the Labour Party will need a push from the outside too but it needs the mass left membership we have now to drive it. We have lots of battles ahead and it’s going to be very tough. So if you’re thinking of walking away I totally get it. But please think carefully. We need all of us.