“We will therefore no longer as an organisation campaign, organise or canvass for candidates, cllrs or MPs who fail to stand by workers, do not respect picket lines and do not support trade unionists right to industrial action.”
Labour’s official youth section has tonight dramatically withdrawn campaign support for right-wing MPs – and other elected officials such as London mayor Sadiq Khan – who do not fully support unions and their members in industrial disputes.
The decision comes in a week in which Khan has been pilloried for false statements about RMT members working on the London underground and MPs have crossed picket lines set up to save jobs and pay by the University and College Union (UCU).
The group – which has faced relentless smears and attacks from the Labour right and the party machine it dominates – made the announcement in a series of tweets:
The announcement has echoes of a similar strike announced at the beginning of this year by Labour Black Socialists after Keir Starmer and other MPs failed to properly support the Black Lives Matter movement and other initiatives for black people’s rights. Momentum in Bristol is also oncampaign strike in protest at the party’s abuse of members and their democracy in the south-west.
With a collapsed membership and the departure of hundreds of thousands including those who did much of the campaigning in the last two general elections, Labour’s disastrous showings in recent elections, including a lowest-ever vote tally in the Old Bexley and Sidcup by-election yesterday, look set to continue.
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