Either the spivs and chancers go or I do

By Kit Leary

OK, so first I must start with the obligatory distancing from any of Draper/McBride’s antics. Seems pretty much obligatory at the moment, and I don’t think I want to leave myself out of this craze, lest David Cameron demands an apology from me directly for even looking at LabourList, or knowing some of the people involved.

Laurie Penny has said that she’s ashamed of the British Left because of this incident. Well, sorry Laurie, but don’t tar the genuine Left with the antics of Draper/McBride. Those muppets have nothing to do with “the Left”. In fact, their methods, their MO, are completely and utterly alien to the democratic, open, transparent traditions of debate of the Left. In place of policy and polemic, Draper, McBride and their ilk only have smears, distortions and overdriven hype.

Though I can understand why Laurie feels ashamed. I must confess to something: over the past few months, I have found myself clutching, in the one hand, my Labour Party membership card, and the other, a pair of scissors. It’s not as if the Brown Government haven’t given me any reasons to do so; the lies used to justify attempts to part-privatise the Post Office; the 0.5% pay increase for Local Government workers (OK, so the LGA/NJC is Tory-controlled but they’re claiming instruction from Brown’s Government); the bailing out of fat cats and the schoolboy cowering over Fred The Shred’s pension – they’re just a few things which have ticked me off in the past few months – and that’s putting it lightly.

Let’s not beat about the bush or be nice here. Derek Draper must be fired by Labour and must be fired by Unite, his bankrollers. And I don’t just mean “fired” as in “fired from his job”, but “fired” as in, “fired from a cannon into the heart of the Sun.” At the very least, he should be booted out of the Labour Party for bringing it into disrepute. Again. The fact that New Labour didn’t learn from their last Draper experience – when he bragged to investigative reporter Greg Palast that he only cares about “stuffing hundreds of pounds per hour into [his] bank account” or words to that very effect – speaks volumes about the goldfish memory spans of the Labour Party bureaucracy. At the very, very least, he should be publicly, and humiliatingly shunned, and his photo be given to the security guards at Labour HQ, to be barred from ever darkening their corridors again.

But it’s not about Draper as an individual. Politics, of any stripe, always attracts spivs and chancers, both of which describe Draper succinctly and politely. If there were a genuine difference between the two main parties, and if there was a genuine internal life in the Party, where debate and discussion were encouraged just as much as leafleting, and the Byzantine structures were abolished, giving power back to the CLPs and unions, then people like Draper would find it harder to push their shysterism on the Party, and we would actually reflect the desires and aspirations of working people. A win-win, then.

What would happen, though, if we continue to develop a culture of deceit, spin and smears? Just look at UNISON, the union which represents public sector workers (people who are, in theory, “grassroots Labour voters”). UNISON can accurately gauge support for the Party by those who pay into the Affiliated Political Fund (the “Labour Link”, as opposed to the General PF, which makes no political donations). Wanna take a guess at how many of UNISON’s 1.4 million members pay into the APF? 70%? 50%? No. It’s a mere 33%. Only a third of the people – many of whom have genuinely benefited from a Labour government – only a third of them feel that Labour speaks for them and that they want to put their money where Labour’s mouth is.

Time to cut the crap. Either we have a discussion about the ideas which will win us the next election, or I’m off. And apres moi, le deluge.