Dear Labour Party,
We, the members of Cambridge People’s Assembly against Austerity, are collectively writing this letter to you because we believe that you have betrayed Labour’s values and no longer stand against austerity. The impact of austerity has had far reaching negative effects on all parts of our lives and those of people across the country.
Together, we are disabled people, NHS staff, teachers, self-employed people, retired NHS workers. In all of these capacities, we have been let down by the Labour Party which should be standing in solidarity and fighting for the best interests of ordinary people and for their public services.
In this statement, we outline some of the key reasons why, as members of an anti-austerity campaign group, we can no longer support the Labour Party, and have decided unanimously to resign our memberships.
Education
It is clear that the education system is broken. It is underfunded and unjust, severely lacking in resources and services. Ofsted is not fit for purpose and teachers are currently in dispute with the government over pay and funding. Students from marginalised backgrounds such as working class, non-white, disabled or with special educational needs are facing more oppression and injustice than ever due to a reduction in services and a system which requires everyone to conform to some kind of white, middle-class ideal.
The Labour Party has no vision around education. It offers no promise of reform, no radical policies to address the current injustices and to start fixing this broken system, it is simply accepting the status quo, with a few tweaks around the edges.
During the first year of covid, the Labour Party backed the government’s decision to keep schools open during a period of extreme risk - a decision which was later revoked by the government due to its dangerousness. This denoted significant bad judgement on behalf of the Labour Party.
Throughout this stressful and dangerous time, the Labour Party made no effort to fight for ordinary people. It was clear that Labour did not value or support our students, teachers and support staff and with its current lack of vision and promises, it is clear that this is still the case.
NHS
During the first year of covid and until recently, the Labour Party consistently backed the government's reckless policies which initially caused many thousands of preventable deaths, especially amongst the elderly population in residential care.
Successive Conservative governments have been underfunding, outsourcing, selling off and mandating the cutting of clinical services, with a view to ultimately establishing a two tier health system, based upon the american model of care.This is currently being introduced by stealth, without public consent, in part, through the creation of localised integrated health boards upon which private companies will be eligible to sit and influence the awarding of contracts to the private sector at the expense of the NHS.
Eventually, individual health care will be determined by commercial / financial imperatives ahead of clinical ones. Private health insurance will become the norm for those who can ill afford it and for those who can't, a basic, limited service will be their only option.
The Labour Party knows the threat that the american based model poses but has done nothing to oppose it and indeed the Shadow Health Secretary has made it be known that he very much wants the private sector to be utilised, which will mean an increasing syphoning off of NHS funds into the hands of private corporations, a process which has already started under the Conservative government.
We believe The Labour Party should be committed to restoring a fully funded, universal, comprehensive, publicly delivered national health service and that its current position is a total betrayal of ordinary people and their health needs.
Protests and Strikes
As a party set up as a voice for working people, the Labour Party’s attitude towards strike action over the last year or so has been appalling. Labour should be standing with strikers, recognising the power of so many workers coming together to demand change but instead, it has consistently criticised their actions. Trade unions are a fundamental backbone of the Labour Party and yet the party has forbidden front bench MPs to attend picket lines, sending a clear message that unions and strikers do not have the support of the Labour Party which has abandoned its roots and responsibilities.
The party has criticised other forms of protest, for example, calling for injunctions and police crackdowns on climate activists, thus siding with the government and, implicitly, the fossil fuel industry. Protest is what has brought us the rights that the Labour Party was founded upon and for it to not acknowledge this is utterly shameful and a betrayal of everything upon which Labour has always stood.
In May 2023, the Public Order Act was rushed through parliament. It builds on the Police, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act 2022 and adds significantly more severe sentences for disruptive protests. Despite this bill contravening the European Convention on Human Rights, Labour has failed to commit to repealing the bill, using unclear and inconsistent messaging. Labour should be proactively advocating for the rights of ordinary people, and instead, it appears to be supporting further restrictions and penalties. Strikes and protests take place when ordinary people feel there are injustices. Historically, Labour has been the party of the people, rather than the wealthy elite and should be supporting the grievances of those who are striking or protesting, instead of supporting the Tories in shutting down these expressions of discontent.
Ideological attacks and culture within the party
The Labour Party under Keir Starmer has been characterised by a culture of fear and toxicity targeting those on the left, with the leadership embarking on a factional war against left wing members. Jess Barnard, Jeremy Corbyn, Crispin Flintoff and Ken Loach are just a few high-profile examples of a huge number of members who have been targeted, suspended and/or expelled under Starmer, invariably using either spurious or no evidence to support the expulsions. The leadership’s use of antisemitism as a factional weapon has led to the expulsion of many left wing Jews – ironically, Jews are now five times more likely to face antisemitism charges than non-Jews. The only Jewish member of the new cohort elected to the NEC, Naomi Wissborne-Idrissi, has been expelled.
As exposed by the Labour-commissioned Forde Report as well as the Al-Jazeera documentary series ,The Labour Files, other forms of racism have been left unchallenged, leading to disaffection particularly among Muslim and Black members. Apsana Begum, the first hijab-wearing MP, received no public or private declaration of support from the leadership after enduring a campaign of domestic abuse which led to what she describes as vexatious claims of housing fraud, which were later thrown out in court. Neither did the leadership respond to Apsana’s request for her trigger ballot to be suspended, as a duty of care towards her as a survivor of abuse. Apsana could be a valuable asset in building back trust among Muslim voters disaffected by the current leadership – we are angry that Starmer does not see Apsana's needs or those of the Muslim community as a whole, as priorities.
We are angry that under Starmer, Labour Party members have been forced to watch as democratic gains made under the leaderships of Corbyn and indeed Milliband have been reversed. The Party seems to be afraid that its members, whether on the “radical left”, the “soft left” or indeed any faction other than the ultra-right wing clique currently controlling the party , may force it to adopt – heaven forbid! – progressive policies. Accordingly, we have seen an increase in the percentage of PLP nominations needed for leadership candidates to get onto the ballot paper, narrowing the ideological choice available to members – who the leadership appears to not trust to select the “right” (pun intended) leader. Additional hurdles have been put in place to stop Constituency Labour Parties proposing rule changes at conference. These are just two examples of how the leadership is trying to restrict democracy and debate within the party, to prevent transformative change in the country.
Increasing racism and social conservatism
Labour has increasingly tried to out-Tory the Tories when it comes to social issues. Recently, Starmer described the Conservative government’s draconian policy on small-boat crossings as a “step in the right direction”, whilst also saying that there is “so much more that needs to be done”. We have seen increasing flag-waving from Starmer and the shadow front benchers, with multiple union flags forming the backdrop to statements and policy announcements and the national anthem being sung at party conference for the first time. Similarly, Starmer dismissed the vital efforts of migrants within our NHS, saying that the NHS is “recruiting too many people from overseas”. If voters want Tory policies, they will vote Tory. When the most vulnerable in society are under attack, the right and responsible thing to do is to stand with them in solidarity. We are disgusted that the party places ill-judged political posturing ahead of the rights of refugees and other migrants. Polling shows that the majority of Britons oppose the government’s immigration agenda – why not take advantage of this and make the case for a humane and progressive immigration policy?
In the 2021 Batley and Spen byelection, which Labour narrowly held, Muslim voters – who make up a significant proportion of the electorate in that constituency – expressed disaffection and alienation from the Labour Party. After the election, the Party resorted to Islamophobic tropes, with a source saying that Labour had “lost the conservative Muslim vote over gay rights and Palestine”, and celebrating that Labour had built a new coalition based around 2019 Tory voters. Muslim voters are a core part of the Labour vote, and Labour needs to hold on to them to win elections into the future – the party must do this by representing their interests. The Muslim Association of Britain said: “There seems to be an attitude that Muslims have always voted Labour, so they’re always going to”. The results of the 2021 Batley and Spen byelection clearly show that this is not the case.
Transphobia has also gone unchallenged, with prominent front-bencher and Shadow Health Secretary Wes Streeting MP being allowed to espouse transphobic views in the media and Rosie Duffield MP receiving no reprimand for her ongoing public transphobia, despite calls from many for her to have the whip removed. We heard nothing from the leadership when, in 2021, Charlotte Nichols, then shadow women and equalities minister, was pictured handing out leaflets clearly carrying a racist anti-GRT message. In fact, we never hear the leadership speaking up for the GRT community, in spite of the fact that the community has come under the biggest attack for decades, in the form of the Policing, Crime, Sentencing and Courts Act.
We are sick of the leadership’s reactionary cowardice when it comes to standing up for minorities and marginalised communities. It’s time Keir Starmer stood up for equality and social justice.
Failure to adopt the kind of radical policies needed
We are living through a series of interconnected crises – the climate crisis, underpinned by the ecocidal inaction of successive global governments, including those of the UK, the cost of living crisis, underpinned by years of austerity and a health crisis triggered by covid but underpinned by Tory privatisation and underfunding of the NHS. These crises are all linked by exploitation within the context of neo liberal capitalism, and it is clear that radical policies are needed to tackle these crises collectively and meaningfully. Until Labour commits to such policies, we must turn away from it and stand instead in solidarity with those who are experiencing these crises first hand. We stand with people who cannot heat their homes or feed their families, with those whose communities are falling apart due to climate breakdown, those who cannot get the care they need from the NHS, disabled people, people on strike, marginalised communities and everyone else who has been abandoned by the Labour Party.
Yours sincerely,
Members of Cambridge People's Assembly Against Austerity who have resigned from the Labour Party