Don’t resort to gutter politics

JVL Introduction

We repost two recent contributions which take a look at the degradation of our political language.

In the first Barry Gardiner, Labour MP for Brent North, expresses his dismay at the attack ads Labour recently launched against Rishi Sunak (see images above) and spells out the negative effects of this style of politics.

“I don’t know how anyone can feel good about humiliating their fellow human being. If political debate is to be more than a brutal slugging match of abuse, oversimplification and cheap slogans, then we must learn to respectfully disagree with our opponents – and that applies equally to those within our own party.”

In a separate Twitter thread, Ben Sellers reflects on how allegations of antisemitism against the left have degraded our political culture more generally.

Political dishonesty has always been there, but with social media today it is “endemic, instant & addictive”. There’s a temptation to respond in kind. Sellers urges us not to:

“It destroys any chances of building a coherent, open, democratic left which is able to deal with disputes & arguments in a comradely way.”

26 April: And you might enjoy this new Private Eye cartoon

By dehumanising the opposition, Labour undermines its own credibility

If political debate is to be more than a brutal slugging match of abuse, oversimplification and cheap slogans, then we must learn to respectfully disagree with our opponents.

Barry Gardiner, The Independent, 15 April 2023

‘We need to give hope to our country, not sling mud’
(Labour)

Attacking the prime minister is exactly what any leader of the opposition should do. The attack should be about their policies: pointing out failures, broken promises, their complete lack of vision for our country. There’s no shortage of material. It should not seek to dehumanise them as monsters who don’t care about sexual assaults on children.

In war, dehumanising the enemy is a common strategy. It is a bad strategy. It is what leads to human rights violations. In politics, the strategy is just as flawed. There may be people in politics who are genuinely evil, setting out deliberately to ruin the lives of others.

Rishi Sunak is not one of them. His policies have ruined lives, but that is because he’s wrong, not because he is evil. If we blur the distinction between policy and person, we descend into the gutter. Child abuse is a sickening crime, not an instrument to be weaponised against a political opponent.

Tactically it’s also a mistake. It potentially undermines Labour’s own credibility. If people don’t recognise the monster we paint, they will not believe our valid criticisms of his policies. We are strongest when setting out the facts: rock bottom conviction rates, 7 million people on NHS waiting lists, the spiralling energy costs and half a million children needing food banks.

I don’t know how anyone can feel good about humiliating their fellow human being. If political debate is to be more than a brutal slugging match of abuse, oversimplification and cheap slogans, then we must learn to respectfully disagree with our opponents – and that applies equally to those within our own party. Our arguments will emerge stronger through democratic debate, not through a climate of fear where uniformity is substituted for unity.

It is depressing that the same dehumanisation finds an echo inside the Labour Party – stopping the former leader from standing as a Labour candidate. The strategists rightly want to show that “the party has changed” but seem to be frightened by the monster they themselves have painted.

If any member has broken the party rules, let them be disciplined. But transparency is crucial. To cast aside due process is wrong. To simply say we believe that a person’s candidacy is not in the best interests of the party is a new and subjective test. In fact, it is no test at all.

Labour’s election gurus should ask how a successful political strategy can rely on constantly reminding the voter of how unelectable their party used to be?

We need to give hope to our country. Families have seen wages cut, housing and employment become insecure, the NHS failing both children and grandparents. Against Conservative austerity and decline, Labour needs to share an optimistic vision of the new jobs and better quality of life that a green industrial revolution will bring. New technologies that Labour will harness to work for everyone. Labour has that vision. Dehumanising people only distracts from it.

Barry Gardiner is a Labour politician and the member of parliament for Brent North

A Ben Sellers Twitter thread
22nd April 2023

I’m pretty sure the deployment of antisemitism allegations against the British left in the period from 2015 onwards will be discussed by historians in the future. And unless history also goes down the sewer, it’ll be discussed more objectively than the present. (1/14)

Apart from wading through the distortions & the political game-playing to establish the facts, something else they will surely have to consider is what it’s done to our political culture. I want to explain what I mean by that, because it’s important for the left too. (2/14)

Everything I say is entirely separate from the battle against antisemitism in real life – which is serious & must be combated through political opposition & most importantly, anti-racist education. The tragedy about its weaponisation is how that work has been relegated. (3/14)

First thing to say is that it’s more than allegations. As the #LabourFiles documentaries show (please watch them), what we’ve seen is a whole architecture of political targeting, harassment, defamation & silencing. While ugly, we have to accept it’s been hugely successful. (4/14)

Those documentaries showed the pain & injury caused by this campaign, especially on an individual level. But multiply that by thousands, tens of thousands & all of the fall out that goes with it, and you get the true impact on our politics & our political culture. (5/14)

The deployment of antisemitism allegations by the right of the Labour Party is one of the most effective political campaigns of all time. It was successful because it understood the vulnerabilities of the socialist project it opposed & because it had no boundaries. (6/14)

It also understood that, in an age of social media, perception is key. Facts, evidence, integrity are pretty much irrelevant when you can defame someone, or a group using half-truths, guilt by association, slurs & outright lies with impunity. (7/14)

Of course, that dishonesty in politics has always been there. People have always been lied about, movements defamed. Only now, it’s blown up. It’s endemic, instant & addictive. The ease with which people can be marginalised or destroyed is incredibly powerful. (8/14)

And this is where the model used by the right of the party to destroy the Corbyn project is so corrosive. Because for those seeking short-cuts, who don’t want to do the exhausting work of political argument & persuasion, there’s an easier way. Just nail people. (9/14)

This is also why this is an issue for the left as well as the right. Social media, great though it has been, has made us lazy thinkers. Not all, but a significant portion of us have learned from the antisemitism example & are deploying something similar ourselves. (10/14)

This won’t be immediately obvious in the heat of political battles, exactly because it has become a political culture, a normalised way to *do* politics. Years ago, I could see this coming – especially in the way parts of the left were identifying others as ‘cranks’. [See (see Sellers’ 2018 LabourList  article The dangerous language of ‘crankery’ on the Labour left ](11/14)

The whole point of that was to create a centre & a periphery of the left around Corbyn. It was a power play. There was no engagement in the issues, just a manoeuvring to hold off a larger, ‘Corbynista’ group that might want a say. It was lazy & destructive. (12/14)

We have to reject this kind of political culture – a model created by our enemies. Because further down the line, it destroys any chances of building a coherent, open, democratic left which is able to deal with disputes & arguments in a comradely way. (13/14)

It won’t always be easy. It’s so much easier to nail people based on who they follow or what they said when they were 16. But it’s about integrity & socialists should do integrity better than the Labour right. Only we can break this addiction to the politics of the gutter (14/14)