Expelled and suspended members organise to fight back
Labour members suspended or expelled from the party under the bizarre, Stalinist regime being imposed by the party’s leadership against support for former leader Jeremy Corbyn have formed a group to coordinate their attempts to fight back for democracy in the party.
Labour in Exile Network (LIEN) has been set up after a draconian, probably unlawful and potentially antisemitic purge of chairs and secretaries of local parties, simply for fulfilling their duty to local members and allowing them to debate (and usually pass) motions supporting Corbyn or condemning Keir Starmer’s decision to interfere in the disciplinary process by withdrawing the Labour ‘whip’ after a right-dominated panel of National Executive Committee (NEC) members followed independent legal advice that there were no grounds for the suspension of his membership imposed by acting general secretary David Evans.
Norman Thomas, who was chair of South Thanet Labour until he was suspended for allowing a motion, said:
What is happening in the Labour Party is nothing less than a purge of supporters of Jeremy Corbyn. LIEN has been formed to help people fight back. Our new group will be a vital network for those who continue to fight for democracy and socialism in the Labour Party; for those who have been unfairly suspended or expelled in the last five years and those who have resigned from the Labour Party in desperation at the party’s direction of travel under Keir Starmer and his unendorsed general secretary.
LIEN is preparing what it calls a “Plan for Change” in the party, which it says aims to make the party more democratic, protect the right of members to debate issues of their choice and radically overhaul the party’s disciplinary procedures – and to ensure a review of the cases of members who have been unfairly suspended or expelled will have their cases revisited with a view to reinstatement.
Thomas said:
The Labour Party is currently fundamentally undemocratic; our right to free speech has been outrageously curtailed, and many of our active and hard working members are being suspended for no good reason. The current leadership has launched a kind of ‘reign of terror’ in the party, ordering people not to even talk about these issues at their local meetings and suspending anyone who dares to fight back. This cannot go on.
Our aim will be to provide a model for a reformed, truly democratic Labour Party. It is appalling that the party of social justice has been so unjust and unfair to its own members. The purge has, of course, demoralised many members into resigning. We urge them to stay and fight — fight for change.
The group will hold an ‘Alternative Labour Party Conference’ in 2021 at which its plan will be debated and put to the vote.
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Labour in Exile Network (LIEN) is on Facebook
https://m.facebook.com/groups/216796496680534?view=info&refid=18
All forms of resistance are to be welcomed but I’ll wait and see what the PJP turns up – it’s not exclusively Labour and not expressly political but it does have Jeremy Corbyn – a big plus for me.
I’d hate to see the left further fragmented, factionalised and marginalised by divergent interests – my opinion is that Labour can’t be reformed from within and this network clearly believes that it might be.
I’m not blind to the irony of a self-confessed splitter arguing against further splitting by the way 😉
Just don’t nobody mention the ‘h’ word.
I know these are good people motivated by disgust at the behaviour of the neoTory Starmites toward the left as a whole – but as “the expelled” I hope they’re ready for the MSM (and “certain others”) to paint them as “proven antisemites” motivated by self-interest and wanting only to reverse their own expulsions and undo Starmite’s “good work.”
This is nothing less than a putsch of the labour party. Now Patel wants the death penalty. We have to fight all this corruption – its a pandemic.
If you are not on Facebook or Twitter how can you connect with Labour in Exile network?
Correction, we are Labour in waiting
These people would be better off putting their energies into getting a new party started. We have to ask them why would you want to be a member of a party that loathes you so much?
The past fives years has taught us that the labour party is equal to living in an abusive relationship it can’t be trusted any more, we desperately need to focus on a new party.
Anyone who are still convinced that the rot in the Labour party is effectively treatable should sign up..He and his misfits will not go away,but any Opposition to the former Opposition must be welcome.
I notice a certain someone was first in. Without any sort of protest or argument from that someone about how the party ISN’T undemocratic.
Toffee – I agree that it is disappointing that despite all the promises no progress was made during JC’s tenure towards democratising the party
really great idea if it leads to a ‘Corbynista Union’ which will fight proacively for the rights of Left wing grassroots members against the shenanigans of the Labour right, but I’m not convinced calling yourselves the Lie network is the best bit of branding ever 😉 it’ll worry SKY/FOX though
Spotted, Diogenes – Not that they’ll bother, but if they do those lazxy journos wil have something to call them now haha!!
Although anyone with any sense will realise they have the word ‘lien’ in mind for their acronym.
LIEN
noun LAW
a right to keep possession of property belonging to another person until a debt owed by that person is discharged.
It ain’t the greasy bastard’s fiefdom. It’s the membership’s party, and they should do what they have to to get it back. stammer should be told in no uncertain terms that he’s not even a custodian, nevermind should he be allowed to label himself a ‘future grandee’.
I hope they (Amongst other disgruntled & disillusioned factions) can make life extremely uncomfortable at worst, mercilessly untenable at best, for the slimeball and his cohort.
The fight needs to be from without every bit as much as from within. The BoD (for example) arent Labour but they keep sticking their oar in…
Some of this has been mentioned on here before, but for anyone not familiar with the detail of Starmer’s ‘reign’ as DPP, this excellent ‘declassified UK’ journalist has done his homework –
https://thegrayzone.com/2020/06/05/five-questions-for-new-labour-leader-sir-keir-starmer-about-his-uk-and-us-national-security-establishment-links/
“It ain’t the greasy bastard’s fiefdom” – no, it’s not.
He has no lien on or rights over any part of Labour that I know of, and I believe no right to disburse funds without the NEC’s consent – I believe he pissed away members’ contributions on a whim and the members got nothing in return.
He’s no better than a tenant stealing from the meter – if the membership so chose I believe he’d be as easy to get rid of as any other thief.
I wouldn’t even give him the charity I’d show a burglar – I’d at least throw one of those off the roof feet first.
WHY?
There is nothing left worth fighting for this cult has gutted Labour there is nothing worth struggling and fighting for!
What so we can go back to the same BS right-wing press games if they lose any power?
How does that help the country the only thing we need to fight for is a socialist party. Sod Labour they walked away from us.
Wasting your time and energy to go back to the same abuse and power games is the textbook definition of madness. Want to fight for something in Labor a split of the party is the only worthwhile endeavor left possibly. But and a huge but most of the so called left wing MP’s are spineless and won’t want to leave.
They whould rather betray the ideals of true socialist Labour party for this BS Cult of new Labour 2.0 just to stay and let things stay the same.
I am so tired of seeing the stay and fight arguments but never how you are going to remove 95% of the PLP and 99% of the back room staff? See that is impossible and as long as they are there the press bs will continue, the endless leaks and embasesments the anti semitic BS all the evil shit will continue for YEARS as you fight and lose faith anything will ever change.
Now explain how fighting for years to get back maybe to what we had with Jeremy Corbyn as leader will help first the country and then the people struggling with this?
The simple answer is it’s stupid and until like me you see the light and stop supporting this dam cult nothing will change..!
DG: So on the ONE hand you argue in effect that if we stayed in the LP – or re-joined – and managed to elect another socialist as leader the MSM et al would just restart with another ‘campaign’ of smears and vilification, and on the OTHER hand you imply that if left-wing MPs were to leave the LP and start a new party the MSM et al WOULDN’T attack and smear and demonise them. Of COURSE they would, and to think otherwise is just pure fantasy!
All those who stood in tbe way of democratisation at conference and protected Blairite MPs from democratic removal at branch level are to blame. Corbyn would only ever be sabotaged with that rump allowed to run riot, and even bowed to.
This is what Chris Williamson has to say upon reflection –
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=VU9B0gA0Kho&feature=youtu.be
Looks to me as though his total contempt for natural justice and the rulebook, means Starmer isn’t so much of a dictator but more of a cult. His idea of nirvana is North Korea, one rule for him and his acolytes the rest can do as they are told or suffer.
I joined this group (LIEN) just like I engage with all other similar initiatives, despite the fact that many of them are magnets for hair-splitters and sectarians.
I qualified early having been expelled in March 2017 before the antisemitism narrative kicked in, my crime that of being a “communist” – an accusation possessing a kernel of truth, as it could also have been levelled at Marx or Engels. Whilst, in my view, no-one should be excluded from the Labour Party on that basis I nonetheless decided not to argue the toss because an election was in the offing and I wished to man the pumps without creating distraction.
That election was a high-water mark as we now know following the litany of betrayals by the PLP, party staffers and idiot fellow travellers (some of whom are personal friends). This latter group have teamed up once again today with dyed-in-the-wool Blairite reactionaries such as Adonis, Bradshaw and Turley in alliance with people like Clive Lewis, John McDonnell, Paul Mason, and former Momentum apparatchiks Laura Parker and Michael Chessum to sign a statement pleading with Steer Calmer to oppose or abstain on the Brexit withdrawal agreement.
Right revisionists and ultra-leftists always have been two sides of the same coin and often they morph into each other
I believe it was Einstein who said ” repeating the same things over and over again and expecting different results is insanity,” yet this group which unites some of the most reactionary elements of the Labour movement with some ultra-left and erstwhile Trots. Sir Donotalot, meanwhile, though he used to belong the latter group but is now firmly part of the former, has decided that opportunism, with a strong dash of nativist backwoods chauvinism, offers the best path to the Holy Grail (power at all costs) and a way of consolidating the centrist grip on Labour. To his credit, as soon as the PV/anti-Brexit stratagem had served Sir Keith’s purposes, he ditched it.
The major problem for the British left is that it is riddled with ideological cretins and exceptionalists who believe that, for some magical reason, the British bourgeoisie will hand over power to the proletariat in some sort of gentleman’s agreement and that supra-national bodies such as the EU and NATO share some common interests with the working class.
Unfortunately I count Skwawky amongst these. Anyone who can call an ex-trot like Starmer a “Stalinist” needs to go back to school. What the Labour Party is sadly lacking is any sort of useful political education. It seems likely that members will shortly be required to undergo brainwashing sessions by zionists but any possibility of equipping members with a Marxist-Leninist world view seems remote when otherwise sensible comrades like Steve think that “Stalinist” is an insult.
For starters all Labour Party members should be asked to read the “Foundations of Leninism” (from page 71 here)
http://www.marx2mao.com/PDFs/StWorks6.pdf
or if you haven’t got enough time for that, this interview with H G Wells.
https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/stalin/works/1934/07/23.htm
Despite their best efforts to pretend otherwise, Corbyn didn’t surround himself with trots and wobblers like Mason and Jones: his inner circle consisted largely of Stalinists, Murray, Clark, Milne, Howell etc.
The Left have lost power over the Labour party in every decade back to the 1970s.
Help Chris Williamson (man, former Labour MP purged for being Corbynite) start his pure socialist new party, by joining his Resist Fest movement, which is a new party in the making, to which most ex Labour party members have joined who were Corbynite.
Google search Resist Fest Join, then select Join for the form please.
https://www.resistmovement.org.uk/join
I am Admin GREY SWANS pension campaign group into new socialist parties, and so far only Chris Williamson has published support for Grey Swans pension demands, which are based on Attlee, Harold Wilson and Jeremy Corbyn policies, that the right wing stopped Jeremy Corbyn having in his manifestos, and would have had him Prime Minister from 2017 by getting the vital Grey Vote, also utilising the expertise of the 1950s and 1960s born pension campaign ladies as the canvassers, you cannot normally reach.
Happy New Year- out with the billionaires’ Errand Boy and in with the Many