Julia Bard’s letter of resignation from the Labour Party

JVL Introduction

Julia Bard, a leading member in the Jewish Socialists’ Group and a founder member of JVL has just resigned from the Labour party where she has played a prominent role over many years.

Hugely appreciative of the many party members she has worked with and come to know as friends and comrades, and particularly of her MP, Jeremy Corbyn, she draws attention here to the abandonment in recent years of the party’s previous humane and egalitarian principles and policies.

Most devastating to her, as a Jewish person, in the party’s capitulation on issues of migration and racism, a party that claims to be rescuing people like her – who have faced and challenged antisemitism all their lives – from antisemitism.

She intends to engage in “more productive and useful political work” outside the party.

Letter to Islington North Constituency Labour Party

Julia Bard, 7th October 2023

I’m writing with great regret to tell you that I am leaving the Labour Party. I have a long and growing list of reasons, which add up to a catalogue of destruction being wreaked on the humane and egalitarian principles and policies that members have thought about, debated, agreed and acted on over many decades.

We are familiar with the litany of heartless and regressive decisions made without reference to the membership over the last three and a half years. We all know that, even while Jeremy Corbyn was leader, officers of the party who had no respect for him nor for his popular mandate from a huge majority of the membership, were a law unto themselves, suspending, expelling and disciplining members without reason, due process or recourse to challenging the decisions. And this has continued, not least directed against our exemplary, hardworking and principled MP himself.

In the wider picture, summary decisions by the party leadership range from ditching renationalisation of public services to undermining the trade unions in their bitter fight for liveable wages and decent conditions; from burdening students with a lifetime of debt to punishing children by retaining the two-child benefit cap; from encouraging profiteering corporations to pick over the remains of our formerly world-leading NHS to outbidding the government’s vicious, racist attacks on migrants.

When life expectancy in Britain is falling and a million children are sleeping on floors, when desperate migrants are left to drown and households are too poor to pay for food and heating, when thousands of people are living on pavements in our cities, the Labour Party is metaphorically joining the revellers who spit on them as they pass by. What a contrast to Jeremy Corbyn, who never passes a homeless person without talking to them and helping them, and who they treat with contempt while having the chutzpah to demand, in the latest orders handed down, that members “[l]isten to others’ viewpoints, participate inclusively, challenge appropriately…” and “always act in an appropriate and respectful manner to others.”

Most devastating to me, as a Jewish person from an immigrant community – whose grandparents all came here escaping from persecution – is the inhumanity and racism directed at migrants, refugees and those with migrant and refugee histories. The party I have supported and worked and campaigned for is callously threatening to close borders, pandering to racists and fascists, turning a blind eye to hatred and viciousness at every level, from street thugs attacking asylum hostels, and police threatening, beating up and killing ethnic minority citizens, through to the illegal and hate-filled policies of a government in league with far-right, racist, antisemitic regimes across Europe and the rest of the world. All the Labour Party has said is that the government’s policies on immigration are chaotic, inefficient and cost too much. This is not opposition and it’s not humane.

And this is the party that claims to be rescuing people like me – who have faced and challenged antisemitism all our lives – from antisemitism. Enough has been written, spoken and reported on about this cynical use of antisemitism to taint good people, and the terrible damage it has done to the genuine struggle to protect and defend Jews and Jewish communities. I will just add one personal note. In November 2020, almost three years ago, a number of Jewish members of Islington North Constituency Labour Party wrote to Keir Starmer as the leader of the party and as MP for a neighbouring constituency, outlining concerns and asking for “a friendly and constructive Zoom meeting” with him to try to jointly address the alarming rise of antisemitism in this country, and across Europe, the USA and other parts of the world. We never received a reply from the party leader who is now ordering members to  “listen to others’ viewpoints”.

Worst of all, though, and the reason why I can’t stay in the party any longer, is the fact that any mechanisms for changing policies have now been dismantled, ignored or trashed. While I thought there was even a remote possibility of reintroducing some humanity into the party, I was prepared to try to achieve that alongside some dear friends and comrades, including Jeremy Corbyn, who have spent their lives working to make the world a better place. The rule book which, despite its inadequacies and lack of coherence, was predicated on democratic norms, is now irrelevant. The party is being run by factional dictat focused on driving out the merest hint of egalitarianism or social justice, and any element of democracy has been or is being excised. What has frightened me most is the ease with which members have retreated into, if not total silence, an accommodation to this threatening regime.

I have huge respect for everyone who is staying to fight on for humane values in the Labour Party, but for me, the tipping point has been my realisation that all channels of communication upwards, from the members to the leaders, have been cut.

There is no shortage of work for us, uniting our ethnic, local, cultural and other communities against rising racism and fascism and for a vibrant, resourceful and strong multicultural world, defending workers’ rights and challenging poverty, fighting for housing and public services for all, and challenging corrupt, unelected governments that are destroying not only our lives but our precious planet.

Fighting a losing battle in the misnamed Labour Party, from absurd diversions at branch level to bitter and destructive actions from the most senior structures is – I believe deliberately – undermining this increasingly vital and urgent work. I think that I will be of more use if I devote my time, energy and skills to more productive and useful political work, where I can be true to my principles and beliefs, and make a difference.

I will very much miss being part of Islington North CLP, where I have done my best to contribute to the work of my ward and the constituency party, and have made good friends who I greatly respect and enjoy spending time with. I will continue to do everything I can support Jeremy Corbyn as my MP, a valued comrade and a good and trusted friend.