Why I joined the Labour Party

By Alexander Garcia

Benjamin Franklin, that little known American politician, polymath and founding father, said ‘lost time is never found again‘, but I seem to have have stumbled across a clock full that I’d long since misplaced. I’m making up for it at least: after years of thundering criticisms (bordering on insults), toward some of New Labour’s errant policies, and going well beyond that threshold towards others, I’ve finally taken the once unthinkable step of joining the Labour Party.

I have spent nearly a decade as a proud independent, arguing against the egregious invasions in Iraq and Afghanistan, and other geopolitical interference; the lack of affordable housing; the lack of banking regulation before, during and after the global financial crisis; the curtailment of civil liberties and human rights; the growing financial inequality; and many more of the illiberal and indefensible errors of New Labour. But, despite these glaring and unforgivable mistakes, I always held the party’s core beliefs in high-regard, even if I could never morally justify financially supporting the leadership.

Whilst I hated some of the actions it had taken, and still do, it was still the party, after 18 years of ideological neglect, that fixed the roofs of the NHS hospitals – regardless of whether the sun was shining or rain was falling; the party that built schools and improved education, despite ridiculous claims to the contrary, after years of careless disregard; the party that dramatically reduced crime; and the party that introduced the minimum wage, amongst many other proud achievements. There were core successes, as well as the evident failures. The foundation – the membership – was still a force for good. That failure isn’t with them.

The Labour membership, being so distinct from the Labour leadership, meant that the party never really did have a totally rotten core. It’s harder to deny, however, that the surface – the leadership – once gleaming with superficiality, had grown lacklustre; so irreparably smeared and smudged that no amount of Campbell’s or Mandelson’s special ‘brand-polish’ could make shine. Not any longer.

Those days are dying and, with the narrow rejection of a David Miliband inspired continuation of New Labour, the lacquer of deceit and self-interest that era introduced is now peeling away, and along with it the mistakes of the outgoing Blair and Brown eras. Even from my previous position on the outside, it started to feel as though the rebuild was already afoot. I want to be a part of that.

This time, though, it’s not dictated from the top down by a messianic leader, but from the core support upwards: surely the necessary basis for any successful movement. I decided that, if I wanted to see a change in the way Labour progresses, I had to play a part by constructively dissenting from the inside, rather than, as I felt necessary at the time, by destructively throwing rocks from the outside; I needed to play a part in the rebuilding of a party that I tried to knock down.

This rebuild is in its infancy, and now is the time to have an input. That’s why I joined Labour only a few days ago. Not because of the fresh, if not totally new, figures of Ed Miliband, Ed Balls, Yvette Cooper, Andy Burnham, et al., intelligent and astute though they are, but because I feel I’ve got a chance to shape the Labour Party’s future in some way, be it big or small.

One thing seems sure: we’re not going to be able to build a New Generation of the Labour Party solely on the back of an opposition to cuts. It’s right to resist the foolhardy ideological slashing of the Conservatives and Orange-Book Liberals, and it’s right to point out, as Johann Hari recently has, that it’s an outright lie to suggest that there’s no viable alternative to cutting the flesh of society to the bone. It’s a ruthless canard to place the blame of debt and deficit, as Chris Huhne ignorantly asserted, on Labour’s ‘spend, spend, spend’ policies. Using those lies as justification to make unmandated cuts must be wholeheartedly and vigourously resisted.

Regardless of these pressing issues shaping our present political landscape, we must also look to the future. If the leadership’s tactic is to tempt disaffected Lib Dems – and it’s a fine tactic, they had nearly seven million voters last time around – then it’s going to take a more pronounced change than just an anti-cuts stance, no matter how cogent our arguments are.

It’s going to take a disassociation with New Labour’s authoritarianism to attract them, and not just because it’s politically savvy to do so, but because it’s right. I don’t expect everybody to agree with my liberal stance on prisons and drugs – no matter how hard the evidence – but surely most can agree to denouncing ID cards and DNA databases; to speaking out against child detention, control orders and other infringements on civil liberties; calling, like Owen Jones, for detailed enquiries into weapons sales to despotic regimes; and, importantly to Liberals and Labourites alike, to showing a dedication to better promoting the equality of women and the members of the LGBT community.

To push the Conservatives into the shadows of British politics, things have to change. The Labour Party is in a malleable state; it can and must once again be shaped by the will of its members. That’s why I support the attempts at ‘refounding‘ Labour, that’s why I have finally joined the movement, and that’s why I hope, if you haven’t already, that you will come and stand in solidarity with those not only valiantly resisting the cuts, but also those trying to learn from mistakes of the past and build on proud and hard-fought successes. There really is no more time to lose.