Women’s committee member’s resignation on International Women’s Day is symbolic
Mandy Clare, a Cheshire West and Chester councillor and an elected member of Labour’s National Women’s Committee has dramatically resigned from the party, blaming the ‘hostile environment’ of ‘bullying and discrimination’ created by the current Labour regime, that regime’s contempt for women and their rights and the party’s ‘sabotage’ of her work to fight poverty. Below is her full statement.
Full Resignation Statement – Why I have made a Big Decision on International Women’s Day 2022
By Mandy Clare
I am resigning the Labour Party Whip as a Councillor and giving up my membership of the Labour Party today, International Women’s Day 2022, which also means I will no longer be a member of the party’s National Women’s Committee (NWC).
The opportunity for the meaningful social change so many of us were invested in since Corbyn was elected to the leadership only really came about through a careless mistake. Those now firmly back in control won’t let that happen again. I have not remained in the party under any illusion that there is a route back from the deliberate devastation caused by the right wing, in the lead up to the 2019 election – devastation caused deliberately by them regardless of the cost to those going hungry and cold now. These are not people who can be reasoned with or who care about others.
People like me don’t have many opportunities to gain a platform and instigate change. I had made a deal with myself that I would push my work on the Poverty Emergency as far as humanly possible within this hostile environment and that I would not shirk from the opportunity to speak up on behalf of women through the NWC. I decided that once I had reached the end of the road with those two projects and could achieve no more, I would leave the party. I have reached the end of the road on both counts.
The disciplinary system has been weaponised against me as I have refused to be intimidated and silenced on women’s rights and have resisted the many attempts to dilute my work on poverty. Some of the bullying and discrimination I have received has resulted directly from reporting, as a member of the NWC, the abuse experienced by other women. It is pretty much impossible to progress further within that kind of environment, so it is at last time for me to call it a day and I can’t pretend that it is not a huge relief.
The continual daily sabotage at the local level around my poverty work and the aggressive stifling of even the slightest dissent within the Labour Group has made my condition (fibromyalgia) much harder to deal with and has stolen away countless precious hours of time I haven’t been able to spend with my children or family. It always takes six times longer to complete a task where others are deliberately working to pull out the threads as soon as they are woven into place.
The A Fairer Future Strategy that resulted from the Poverty Emergency Declaration and which I have led on over the past two tortuous years includes alleviation, such as food, job and debt support and advice, but it goes far beyond merely regurgitating the statistics we all know, shunting people into low paid work and providing food vouchers. It looks at what the evidence tells us about how society and the economy have unfairness baked-in. It maps out routes forward that enable people to increase their incomes as well as to develop confidence as articulate leaders in tackling poverty systemically. It is intelligent and unique and I am proud of it, as well as of myself for not giving up months ago, as I have wanted to leave the party every single day.
It is a document I am proud of, albeit one that I am now likely to be airbrushed from. It remains to be seen whether it will be diluted and buried as quickly as possible, but I am glad that once in print, other councils can at least pick up and make use of some of the ideas if they appeal. It might still in time help to shift the poverty conversation on from being all about alleviation and individual behaviours and back onto unfair systems, which is where the focus should never have moved away from.
“Remaining within the party means that you have to be proud, or willing to pretend to be proud, of being part of something led by people like Rachel [Reeves]”
If we have an understanding that poverty is caused by unfair systems, rather than faulty people, it makes it much harder for Labour politicians to justify statements such as that by Rachel Reeves when appointed as Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary, now Shadow Chancellor, about Labour’s pledge to be tougher in slashing benefits than the Tories and her follow up comment, two years later, that Labour doesn’t represent people on benefits, only people in work. Remaining within the party means that you have to be proud, or willing to pretend to be proud, of being part of something led by people like Rachel. You have to believe that it can change things in a meaningful way and I don’t believe that it can or that meaningful change is even the intention of this party. I have felt ashamed and embarrassed by association. I am so pleased to not be a part of that anymore. As an Independent Councillor, I support the Resist Movement’s Manifesto https://resistmovement.org.uk
I will give a fuller account of the things I have pushed on within the Labour Party and the different ways I have been blocked and bullied in due course. You can find more of my writing and examples of my projects on my website in the meantime here
Thank you to those who voted me onto the National Women’s Committee and I am sorry that I am leaving before my tenure is up. I have reported regularly on my work as well as on some of the difficulties faced. I have taken my role very seriously and genuinely done everything I could to respond to and represent women effectively at national level and am sad to conclude that the committee itself is completely under-resourced and dysfunctional. I wish I could conclude more positively. Solidarity and thanks to those women and men, young and old, within politics, the media, the law, academia or anywhere who think for themselves and who continue to speak up for women’s rights and anyone oppressed, even when that comes at a personal cost – you are my political heroes.
Mandy Clare is a councillor for Winsford Dene ward on Cheshire West and Chester Council.
SKWAWKBOX needs your help. The site is provided free of charge but depends on the support of its readers to be viable. If you’d like to help it keep revealing the news as it is and not what the Establishment wants you to hear – and can afford to without hardship – please click here to arrange a one-off or modest monthly donation via PayPal or here to set up a monthly donation via GoCardless (SKWAWKBOX will contact you to confirm the GoCardless amount). Thanks for your solidarity so SKWAWKBOX can keep doing its job.
If you wish to republish this post for non-commercial use, you are welcome to do so – see here for more.
Her council bullied me out of my livelihood using bogus ‘gross misconduct’ charges 13 years ago.
Go Mandy Clare go. Best resignation speech I’ve read here or maybe anywhere.
The current Labour Party appears to be no more than a tiny clique of Blairites/Starmerites, with no policies, principles or honour in it purely and solely for their own interests. How far it had fallen.
Did you see that exhibition by them ALL in the house of filth. Not one has mentioned the Donbass murder campaign, ever. A plague on both house, oh yes, there just has been. Dozens died, I think. Vaxxed, masked, boosted, house arrest and still some caught it whenever it was useful.
‘When will there be a harvest for the world?’
Very well said! The Labour Party is a shell and liable to crack open sooner or later to reveal – nothing! Mandy Clare describes the events of 2019 with accuracy; Corbyn, the most exciting politician in generations was stabbed in the back. I got the vote (aged 21) in 1970 and voted Labour in every election, local and General, until 2019 when it was blatantly obvious what was going on. The election of Starner and his choice of a Shadow Cabinet confirmed my dismay and I resigned as a Member. Ever since there has been a relentless push to the Right that simply gets worse and worse. Possibly the May elections will be as much as a shock to Labour as (hopefully) it will to the Tories. There are no Labour MP’s who stand for the Left, the best they seem able do is sit tight and say nothing and dream of a revival about 2050. Meanwhile FPP allows them to reap the harvest of what MP’s are offered for as long as they wish. The only political group I could vote for now is the Green Party.
Here we go again! Hardly a day passes by without some Tory troll posing as a left-winger slagging off the SCG, as they have on literally hundreds and hundreds of occasions during the course of the past nearly two years, including ‘Paul’!
If you feel that way about them Paul, then why don’t you go forth and join one of the socialist parties and do something constructive, instead of constantly and fraudulently trying to discredit left-wing MPs.
Jeeze, it’s so damn blatantly obvious that this site is riddled with trolls and shills, and has been for several years or more, and yet Steve Walker does absolutely nothing about it, and just lets them keep churning out their anti-everything left black propaganda and repeating it ad nauseam!
I find it hard to fathom what you are pontificating about!
So, it’s everyone on here who hates what the Labour party are doing to its members and what Labour has become that are the shills and trolls?
Apart from you and the resident troll, that is. Well, yeah OK. That makes sense – not.
Netoma, given that you regularly post on here, you undoubtedly know that I have referred to Starmer and Co as fascists on more than a few occasions, and have done so because THAT is precisely what they are, so why would you try to smear me by claiming the exact opposite AND associate me with one of the most prolific shills on this site. And needless to say, it doesn’t make sense that I would criticise ‘Paul’ for yet AGAIN fraudulently denigrating left-wing MPs, and YOU somehow interpret that as me supporting Starmer. Could you elaborate?
And I should ALSO point out to readers of this site that the shills manipulate the Likes regularly, just as the Mail does in its comments section!
Three days ago ‘Holby’ posted the following falsehood, which was of course completely at odds with the reality, and yet not a single person – apart from myself – pulled him up about it. This is what he said:
Worse still – Starmer let Johnson off the fact that the Tories
were so busy enjoying the friendship of the UK Oligarchs
that they let their Russian mates getaway with
murder/attempted murder.
I posted a reply to him asking him to elaborate, but he didn’t of course, and for the obvious reason that it’s complete and utter B/S nonsense. Agreed?
Here’s a link to Holby’s comment (for anyone who missed it all), and then the comments that followed (keep scrolling down to see more).
https://skwawkbox.org/2022/03/06/feeble-starmer-lets-johnson-off-resignation-hook-because-unity/#comment-217600
Haven’t the SCG just done a U-turn on the Stop the War petition?
“And I should ALSO point out to readers of this site that the shills manipulate the Likes regularly”
Based on what evidence, exactly? Sounds like you’re sore because you never get any!
And why did they do that? Could you elaborate. Anything to do with the right-wing fascists who now control the LP?
Netoma?
To Allan Howard @3.52 So, you go off on one saying I often post on here Not true. I post on here on occasion, if I think I may have something to contribute. Others have much more to say and contribute than I do and most of it valid criticism of the now morally bankrupt Labour party. Look back over Skwaks blogs, you will find I post probably less than you.
You then try to draw in another poster (who probably contributes far more than I, or for that matter, you), namely Holby. Holby’s posts have interesting, if sometimes controvertial views, which through thoughtful and reasoned reposnses, she (unlike you, I assume it’s a she) defends her position. She does not post links to support her position, meaning you have to break the thread to see the point being made. Neither does she try to smear other contibuters. You may or may not agree with her, but that’s irrelevant.
You suggest that she never responded to you, because her post was “BS”. It could also be because further blogs superceed it and the world moves on. Or even that she has other responsibitlies which mean she cannot respond before the topic changes, but nevertheless, you have to make it about you. I think we are all grown up on here and can spot a fake when we see it. In a democracy we can all have a differing opinion. You may not like that, but grown ups make their case, not smear, obfuscate and rant. If you consider that a smear, that’s up to you. I’ve seen enough of the right not to give a tinkers any longer to what they think.
Many on here hate what Labour has become and say so. This blog is about the bullying of yet another left wing member, woman and now ex Labour member and yet you try to twist the jist of the thread. You try to move the convo away from that to something else.
So who looks like the shill or troll?
What has the Sydney Cricket Ground got to do with anything?
Wow, so Netoma is defending someone who dissembled a Big Lie. And THAT tells you ALL you need to know! And WHY on earth would you make an issue out of how often you post?! The point is that I assume you generally read the articles that get posted AND read the comments to some degree or other and, as such, you know perfectly well what I think of Starmer and Co. Your post is just perfectly typical of a shill – ie completely fraudulent black propaganda garbage from start to finish!
But well crafted of course!
“I find it hard to fathom what you are pontificating about!”
Paul, don’t worry, you’re not alone. He’s always going off his meds!
timfrom, yet ANOTHER shill (or more likely one of the secondary personas of one of them) who just happens to turn up so often shortly after I’ve called out one of the fascist shills who post on here. Yes, isn’t it funny how on a left-wing news blog just about ALL the comments denigrating left-wing MPs get lots of Likes!
And nothing to say about Holby’s falsehood I see! Does Steve Walker not give a damn about people posting blatant falsehoods on his site? Seems NOT!
Well the site hosts you, so Yes it is tolerant of all legal views, even when angrily incoherent, contradictory and from a one man fantasy! It’s free speech, something our broadcasters felt we didn’t want when they shut down RT a week ago. You would presumably shut this site down? Or carefully censor the postings? It’s certainly all the fashion in the UK!
They’re not ‘views’, they are black propaganda concocted and designed to discredit left-wing MPs in the eyes of the tens of thousands of people who subscribe to this blog, along with numerous posts making false claims about Jeremy, both whilst he was leader, and SINCE!
Oh, right, but they’re all left-wingers and Jeremy Corbyn supporters of course!!
I’m not surprised Mandy has resigned, in fact I have been waiting for it for the last couple of weeks since I was told she had been deselected as the candidate for the seat she currently holds. Another CLP had wanted to adopt Mandy as their candidate, but the right spitefully, removed her completely from the panel.
When she first put herself forward, the right wing “fixers” of my former CLP tried to have her expelled from the party after she made an innocuous remark at a meeting. They wanted to make a formal complaint against her. The then chair of my former CLP, pointed out that there was no basis for the complaint, that what they were doing was wrong, supported Mandy’s candidature and stood up to the male, pale, stale bullies. No complaint was made, as they had no basis and they had not followed proper procedures and gave no heed to natural justice. That was under the old rules and eventually Mandy stood and was elected. But the right have been gunning for her ever since.
It will come as no surprise that some of those same people knowing that we were both Corbyn supporters, later had the CLP chair removed and was instrumental in the false alegations against me.
If you are competent, left wing and a women, the Labour party has no use of you. Frankly it’s Labour’s loss.
Allan Howard @5.32
You are lashing out, making silly, hysterical accusations to reasoned comments that you disagree with. Everybody on here, apart from you are shills, trolls etc.
Do you realise how riculous you sound? Now bugger off.
I don’t feed trolls.
Nemtona – “I’m not surprised Mandy has resigned, in fact I have been waiting for it for the last couple of weeks since I was told she had been deselected as the candidate for the seat she currently holds.
Or in reality knowing that she had zero chance of getting elected in the May elections she’s had a tantrum and jumped.
The reasons given are valid enough.
You seem to think nobody’s electable if they aren’t part of keef’s nonce & tory protecting establlshment clique…. The one you reckoned people were almost fighting each other to be part of.
Further evidence that those in far more prominent positions within that party than you could ever dream of, want out, rather than in.
Toffee – It sounds like she didn’t have much choice in the matter. Although she could follow in Nellist’s footsteps and stand as a TUSC candidate. At least she won’t be at risk of losing losing a deposit like Nellist habitually does.
“Remaining within the party means that you have to be proud, or willing to pretend to be proud, of being part of something led by people like Rachel. You have to believe that it can change things in a meaningful way and I don’t believe that it can or that meaningful change is even the intention of this party. I have felt ashamed and embarrassed by association.”
OOOOOFFFFF!!
Quite possibly THE</b. best example of speaking truth to so-called power that I’ve read in any of the recent plethora of resignation speeches/letters.
Pity she’s not got the same media influence as the #noshittakingmp greasy, or the horridable mouthpiece philips.
And they know where they cram their thoughts on the subject…’cos you can bet your bottom one neither of them will back Ms Clare against the more-tory-than-a-tory reeves.
Solidarity Mandy I hope you stay in politics and stand against the Labour candidate and win. I left the LP after 30 years because like you I couldn’t stand it any longer.
Should really be the other ‘Mandy’ that’s done the off 😕
Indeed toffee, no for nothing he is known as the “prince of darkness” I never understood why during Corbyn’s leadership Maldenson wasn’t expelled from the Labour Party.
He was open in his attacks against Corbyn, the them democratically elected Labour’s leader
Maria – “I never understood why during Corbyn’s leadership Maldenson wasn’t expelled from the Labour Party. He was open in his attacks against Corbyn, the them democratically elected Labour’s leader”
Are you really advocating that members who are openly critical of the current democratically elected leader of the Labour Party should be expelled from the party?
Was Mandy one of those who put the full-page “Don’t vote Labour” ads in the press?
The other Mandy of course.
You know you have entered dystopia when you are watching a Question Time special on the BBC and not a single dissenting voice
There is no debate, no call for peace and no answer to the overwhelming threat of armageddon
Right I’m off to Cheltenham next week, sanctuary, valhalla and a sea of tranquility
Chantry House in the Gold Cup is a working man’s price
Gonna switch off from the entire shit show
Regards
I know how you feel! The current hysteria is deadly. There are plenty of hints that both sides are seeing advantages in having a show down. Meanwhile we, cut off from any media but our own, have no real idea of what is happening. We are in the realm of false flags that are themselves false flags. The situation is comparable to 1962 when Kennedy insisted Soviet missiles on Cube should be removed on the grounds of preserving America’s security which was impossible when the nukes were so close. Kennedy gave an ultimatum, (which here was 3pm one Thursday I think. I remember it well). In the event Russia withdrew the weapons before we were vaporised. No doubt they felt it wasn’t worth a Nuclear Exchange and correctly gauged that the American Joint Chiefs of Staff were advising .First Strikes on Havana and Moscow. They’d given the same unanimous advice on each occasion. the same in Korea, Berlin 1961, Hanoi and God knows where else. The chances of the US and NATO coming to a similar decision as Russia did seems very remote, yet the arguments are similar?
Doug – I’m surprised that supporting the sport of the rich and powerful isn’t against your socialist principles.
Steve H….you and I both know that Racing and the gee gees is one of the greatest addictions of the working class in Britain and around the world.Cheltenham and a day out enjoying the facilities is a World away from the back streets of working class town centres were the labour party of Blair and Brown opened up the doors of misery for the families to be exploited by the gambling misery industry
just another day in the lives of neo liberal society.that your leader represents.
Identity politics?
Doug. It’s better for your health if you never watch question time. I stopped a few years ago. There is rarely a dissenting voice on any matter. There is simply party political sniping and the odd clueless individual who has been added to the mix. On the very rare occasion that someone presents an opinion that is not approved of by our elite, they are savaged by the “independent” chair as well as by all the other panellists.
Better to listen to some music.
Solidarity Mandy. May a new vehicle/ party emerge from the train wreck that is the establishment in the party
Powerful piece from Mandy.
There are many good socialists out there which we should always remember.
Seems that HMG have confiscated Chelsea FC. The rich starting to eat themselves?
The mass of the Russian people will be delighted that one of the people who got their snouts in the trough under Yeltsin has got a small measure of comeuppance. Likewise, they’ll cheer every confiscation of yacht or private jet. And Putin won’t care. His deal with this crowd was that he would leave them alone as long as they got out of politics and, best of all, cleared off out of Russia.
Mind you, given that non-season ticket holders can’t go to Chelsea matches any more (and it may be that no away supporters can go to Stamford Bridge) I can’t see some football supporters being too happy with HMG.
P.S. When did it become the fashion to use the verb “to sanction” in the exact opposite manner to how it has previously been used? The Beeb reports that Roman Abramovich has been “sanctioned”, rather than that he has had sanctions applied to him. When I saw the headline, I assumed that HMG had approved of him.
DWP speak (From bliarite era IIRC) that has become the norm, goldbach.
Except the russkis’ sanctions (Plus tax-dodgers and expense-fiddling parasite MP’s) don’t come with arbitrary civil penalties, plus they get time to figure out how to avoid any penalty whatosever.
Unwittingly be overpaid benefits through error on DWP’s behalf = Inescapable & arbitrary £50 civil penalty + benefit sanction + 100% repayment.
Wilfully make a false claim = £50 civil penalty + benefit sanction + 100% repayment + probable jail sentence (suspended or served).
…Plus name dragged through gutter
Fiddle parliamentary expenses = slap on wrist, perhaps pay money back (Either ‘It was within the rules’ or it’s: Sorry guv, a genuine oversight’
Aggressively avoid tax = HMRC/SFO spunk £millions on court cases they inevitably lose. OR just allow the fraudsters to pay a nominal (paltry) fee instead.
No jail. No punishment of ANY sort. Get knighthood/peerage and fawningly sycophantic arslikhan from the right-wing press, including selling story of how one’s life was adversely affected by the rotten taxman.
But ‘business is business’ innit, keef? 😒
Toffee – The DWP are on the rampage again
“Universal Credit sanctions soar to 50,000 a month in ‘extremely worrying’ rise
The number of sanctions has shot from a few thousand a month to 50,000 – a similar proportion to before the pandemic – after the DWP brought back face-to-face Jobcentre appointments. And the worst could be yet to come
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/dwp-universal-credit-sanctions-soar-26255675
Goldbach I entirely agree with you and its left to the few to pick up the peices once again and build a more honest and charitable society in the midst of the anarchist of neo liberal society…..Are we forever to keep making the same mistakes and letting the working class suffer whichever part of the world we try to live in.?
As unsurprisingly predicted, by me, months back
And it’s gonna get worse. And keef & reeves will back the rags on this one too because they give even less of a fuck.
I now predict civil unrest/riots before the end of June…Especially if the weather gets hot…
I also read somewhere (Canary? I cba looking for it now) earlier today that some toerag MPs are calling for the UC uplift to be reinstated to assuage the cost of living crisis for the poorest.
As if a paltry score a week’s gonna do that come next month!
While it’s better than sod-all (IF it happens, and I don’t see it, meself) it won’t be the largesse that the heil & excess like to make out benefit payments are.
Nonetheless, I thoroughly expect to be overlooked once again. The rags simply can’t pay it to me this time without backdating the dough I should’ve got last time.
I also expect that it won’t be long before they’ll expect me to drop my caring responsibilities and get out to work.
Gotta pay back the covid moolah that went to the toerags and their mates..Don’t forget, there’s 168 hours in a week, and I only get paid for 35 of them at (far) less than NMW…So if UC claimants have to work more hours, they’ll demand I do.
God stiffen each & every single one of the sons o’ bitches
Toffee – I obviously have no idea about your personal circumstances but if it is applicable have you considered direct payments as a possible solution.
https://www.independentage.org/sites/default/files/2021-06/Factsheet-Social-care-ways-to-use-your-personal-budget_0.pdf
Social care: ways to use your personal budget Page 16
What you can’t use direct payments for
You can’t normally use direct payments to employ close family
members to provide care. Close family includes:
• a spouse, partner or civil partner
• a close relative living with you, such as a son or daughter, brother or sister
• a spouse or partner of that close relative.
However, if the local council finds that only one of these people can
meet your care and support needs, they can make an exception. For
example, it may be that you have severe dementia and you will only
accept care from your spouse. Or it may be that your first language isn’t
English and you could only make your wishes known if you were cared
for by someone who spoke your language, such as a close relative.
My apologies if I’m attempting to teach you how to suck eggs
Just read that bio labs development of chemical weapons backed by Hunter Biden in his investment in the Ukraine.Also see Facebook and Twitter calling for the murder of Putin….?Just what is the world coming to?UN asked by Russia to investigate?….absolutely depressing when we see all of planet rules on war and the behaviour of the military going up in flames.and the idea of chemical weapons I have a very personal interest in having seen my grandfather cough and bleed his life away from mustard gas..and now my grandson whos a living example of Americans illegal chemical weapons secret war on Cambodia nearly fifty years ago and we are still dealing with the legacy.Noticed that a thirteen year old blown away when plowing a field yesterday in the next town Phumi Chuckk.Land mines are all about the legacy of War…War….War and the great Saten personified in the USA war machine.