Love Lost For Labour. To Renew Or Not To Renew My Membership? That Is The Question - James Forsdyke

I joined the Labour Party at the age of 14. I am now 18 and have just received a letter regarding the renewal of my membership. After serving 3 years as a local forum delegate, of those 2 years as a disability officer, I am concerned that the vision of the party I thought I had joined was largely illusionary. 

That is why I am pondering the question:

To renew or not to renew my membership? 

The world is changing, and politics and technology are at the forefront of this. Emotion has overtaken reason and debate has started to be replaced by insult matches. Reason and emotion are equally important, but society is beginning to favour the latter. Certain trains of thought are beginning to reject logic outright. I write this because I want to defend the rights of everyone to take part in discussions and debates. I would much rather be contributing to discussions on climate change, poverty, education or equal opportunities, but those discussions are meaningless when certain ideas and stances are excluded from the conversation. Unfortunately, the Labour Party seems reluctant to have these open discussions and has strayed off course from its original message, and unless moderate members take a stand, the consequences will be titanic. 

Over the course of my time as an officer, I gradually came to understand from my wider reading that both conservatism and socialism are necessary to aid the functioning of society. A creative mind can aid adaptation in times of crisis, a conservative one can make sure a project runs its full intended course. Individuals will rightly differ in their opinions and should not be expected to agree on everything. 

It was during my A-Levels when I first heard about ‘wokeness’ and ‘postmodernism’. After much analysis, it suddenly hit home that such theories all reject the intrinsic value of freedom of speech, expression and debate. As interesting as I found it to learn about and pick apart, I was also disturbed by the illiberal nature of these theoretical ideologies. 

Having cerebral palsy, I have always had to adapt. In part, this fuelled my ability to link ideas together, construct criticisms and hopefully contribute to positive change for the future. These abilities helped me obtain an offer to study a Philosophy, Politics and Economics degree at Oxford. Disability as a social construct may comfort some, but to me, it disregards the real individual impact of it- positive and negative. 

In the same way, other critical theories are guilty of assuming that those who they claim to represent should, or do, have the same opinions as every other constituent member of said group. Black conservatives or classical liberals (most notably Calvin Robinson) are lectured on their ‘whiteness’ or called a ‘coconut’. JK Rowling has been called a TERF (i.e. trans-exclusionary radical feminist) and threatened for expressing concerns about women’s rights. Maya Forstater only recently won a tribunal appeal after being sacked for her gender-critical views. It seems that many members of the Left too easily conflate certain types of speech with actual harm, especially when it suits the strangely conformist agenda that seems to dominate the Labour Party hierarchy. If the Left continue to abandon the valuing of creativity in favour of mindless conformity then the influence of the Labour Party will continue to lose electoral traction with voters. 

The party has abandoned equality of opportunity and freedom of debate, now insisting that all those who voted Brexit or disagree with taking the knee are racist. Obsessing over equity or equality of outcome compromises equal opportunity and goes against the true Labour message. 

Now, some significant and powerful members feel perfectly justified in comparing the working classes to gammon, or telling many how they should think, ignoring any value in a diversity of opinions. I am not against discussions surrounding race, gender, disability or culture, but all views must have representation. Lived experience is not a ‘fact’ but should be a perspective open to criticism like any other viewpoint. As someone who has, mostly, left of centre leanings, I feel as though no party truly represents my views. All sides are too busy squabbling to see any kind of non-partisan common humanity. 

It is for this reason that I recently asked myself whether or not I should renew my membership. Can the party be steered towards the centre? Would such effort be wasted? I am excited that GB News is attempting to start a more sensible national conversation, but I am awaiting the rise of a political party willing to do the same. The worrying thing is that the party and wider Left wing narrative seems to place people into a binary category of ‘virtuous’ or ‘evil’. Debate seems to be anathema to the most influential people in the Labour Party. 

After much consideration, I have decided to renew my membership for another year. I do not think that the majority of members would support cancel culture, but the people who seem to rise to the top are not challenged on these issues. It is important for members to speak up, because the Labour Party is important and needs to stay relevant. 

I believe that it is essential that the Labour Party, if it wants to survive, needs to recognise the importance of both the individual and the collective, rather than solely the latter, otherwise a new political force must rise and aim towards a truthful and honest discussion. U-turns should not always be looked down upon and compromise must be encouraged more often. There needs to be a strong centre-Left force within our political system, otherwise, an equilibrium between creativity and tradition cannot be reached.