Factional operators have undermined Labour in government, the Compass director has argued.
Neal Lawson, director of the progressive campaign group Compass, has accused key people at the top of the Labour Party – including the prime minister Keir Starmer and his chief of staff Morgan McSweeney – as ‘killing Labour’. He made the comments in a highly critical article for the New Statesman.
Lawson’s central argument was that the people currently at the helm of the Labour Party have become obsessed with internal factional warfare which has stifled debate, dissent and differing opinions within the party.
In the article, Lawson wrote: “What is different about now is that those who tightly control the party machine do not recognise the validity of other views and work not just to be the dominant voice in Labour, but the only voice. Those who do not share their highly particular and rigid perspective are not viewed as opponents but enemies. In attempting to control Labour they are killing Labour.”
Later in the piece, Lawson argued the party should be “robust in their differences, but certain that the real enemy is without, not within,” before concluding: “Labour is dying because it’s being denied the oxygen of debate and difference. It is time for the party to breathe once more.”
Lawson also argued that having people whose primary skills are in factional organising at the top of Labour has meant that the party has been ill-equipped for government. He wrote: “Their success at being faction fighters, the determination to eradicate all their enemies has left the government with none of the bandwidth or the culture to think through how you run a complex economy and society. Not least who you run it with.”
Lawson’s intervention comes despite the Labour Party on Friday restoring the whip to four MPs who had it suspended for ‘repeated breaches of discipline’ in July after they had voted against the Universal Credit Bill.
Chris Jarvis is head of strategy and development
Image credit: Simon Dawson / Number 10 – Creative Commons
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