The Labour Left Podcast General Election Special with Momentum’s Rachel Godfrey Wood.
Between now and July 4th politics will be dominated by election fever. Millions of people will be drawn into political discussion and thousands of labour movement activists will be involved in the campaign to get rid of the Tories. Bryn Griffiths, of the Labour Left Podcast, spoke to Rachel Godfrey Wood of Momentum to consider how the Labour Left must get its intervention right and act to put the left in a better position for the post-election period. You can watch the Labour Left Podcast on YouTube here or go to your favourite audio podcast provider and just search for the Labour Left Podcast.
The podcast was recorded on Monday May 27th. Since that day Labour Party members have been on something of a rollercoaster ride. We have seen the expulsion of Jeremy Corbyn, our former Leader, from the Party; Labour right attacks on Diane Abbott, Britain’s first Black woman MP; Lloyd Russell Moyle was removed as our candidate in Brighton Kemptown and Peacehaven; and perhaps the most distressing moment of all for socialists within the Labour Party was the horrible brutality of the removal of Faiza Shaheen as our parliamentary candidate for Chingford and Woodford Green.
At the start of the General Election period, the Labour right was completely out of control, on the rampage and engaging in nasty factionalism against its own socialist wing. Pleasingly, by the time of the National Executive Committee on June 4th what could have been a rout was stopped. In Diane’s case a letter of support signed by six trade union General Secretaries showed the unions still have some clout within the party they created.
The loss of Faiza Shaheen and the unfair treatment of Lloyd Russell Moyle has been a terrible defeat but the mass mobilisations of the Labour left in Hackney and Chingford have shown that we are far from decisively beaten. It is a great relief that some of the more pessimistic predictions, by those such as Owen Jones, of an eve of poll cull of the Socialist Campaign Group MPs where the Labour right get the rid of the whole lot have proved to be overly alarmist. Owen may have been right about their intent but he underestimated the residual strength of those of us remaining on the Labour left.
The Labour left has not gone away and we can still have a substantial impact under a Starmer Government and that is exactly why the Labour right was so determined to attack us. To achieve our potential and respond to all this, we must act together. Yes, we are upset but, now more than ever, we need to be clear-headed and get organised.
The podcast starts with a discussion of how socialists should approach the 2024 General Election. Drawing on the precedent of the 1983 General Election, when socialists were unhappy with Neil Kinnock, the discussion turns to what we should do now that we are even less content with Keir Starmer. The podcast considers how Momentum will campaign in 2024 and most importantly focusses on how the Labour left must prepare for the post-election opportunities which will inevitably come.
It is not an easy at the moment to be a socialist in the British labour movement. Since our General Election defeat in 2019, we have suffered serious setbacks. So, we talked about two related issues that are emblematic of the challenges we face. Firstly, the treatment of socialists in Labour’s selection processes, most notably Jeremy Corbyn and Diane Abbott; and, then secondly the disappointing departure from Labour of thousands of grassroots left wing activists including Momentum’s own former Chair Hilary Schan who was a recent guest on the Labour Left Podcast.
The podcast was not all doom and gloom: we ended by mapping out a positive socialist case for staying within Labour. The Labour right is behaving more factionally than ever before so we need to get organised. Voting Labour to get rid of the Tories is a decent start but we think you need to do much more than that. We hope that when you have listened to the podcast you will be convinced by Rachel’s case for Momentum. We trust you’ll be keeping your Labour Party card and that you can see that our task ahead, if we are to influence a Labour Government’s direction, is far too big to tackle alone. If you want to get organised as part of Britain’s biggest socialist group you can join us here.
You can watch the podcast on YouTube here, Apple podcasts here, Audible here and listen to it on Spotify here If your favourite podcast site isn’t listed, just search for the Labour Left Podcast.
Bryn Griffiths is the host of Labour Hub’s spin off the Labour Left Podcast. He is an activist in the labour movement, Momentum and The World Transformed in North Essex. You can find all the episodes of the Labour left Podcast here or if you prefer audio platforms (e.g. Amazon, Audible Spotify, Apple, etc,) just search for Labour Left Podcast.
Bryn Griffiths is standing for the National Policy Forum CLP Representatives Eastern Region Division 1. He is standing as part of the Centre-Left Grassroots Alliance team and you can find all your left candidates across the country here. When the General Election is over, please campaign for all the left candidates.
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