The final straw for another Labour member

You might remember that I wrote to you in 2021 and 2022 as an ordinary member of the Labour Party with suggestions for achieving the party unity you once claimed was important to you. Sadly, you have not taken on any of my suggestions. In fact, you seem to have decided instead to do everything you can to split the party.

In my first letter to you, I said I would remain a member as I did not want to give the enemies of optimism in the party the satisfaction of my resignation. Well, time has moved on and this is my letter of resignation. Last Sunday was my 70th birthday and life is too short to spend it supporting “your” party, as you insist on calling it. I no longer wish to give those party officials the satisfaction of receiving my membership fees, counting on my activism at elections, and expecting my vote.

Last year, you said that if I didn’t like the changes you have made to Labour, “the door is open and you can leave”. Thank you for opening that door – I shall be following hundreds of thousands of decent people through it.

When I first voted, Harold Wilson was leader of the party. I have voted Labour under every leader since then, but I cannot vote in a general election for a party led by you.

There are so many reasons why this is the case, so what was the final straw?

Was it your refusal to condemn Israeli aggression and call for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza?

We have been appalled by the horrendous scenes from Gaza on our TVs every night. The very least we should expect from a leader of the Labour Party, especially when that leader is a “human rights lawyer”, is condemnation of genocide. Instead, your response to this humanitarian catastrophe has been pathetic. Seeing your deputy Angela Rayner oppose BDS in the Commons was stomach-turning. A party that takes the side of the oppressor and not the oppressed is a party to which I have no wish to belong.

In the week in which Israel stood accused of genocide at the International Court of Justice, current and former Labour MPs visited Israel’s president “on a solidarity mission”. Did this have your support? Or did you instead back Jeremy Corbyn as Labour’s representative when he did the decent thing and attended the shocking hearing in The Hague?

Was it your determination to destroy the NHS?

The NHS, Labour’s greatest creation, is on its knees, and the Tories are working to break it completely. Labour’s most urgent task is to restore the NHS to its founding principles and eliminate private providers. Every pound taken in profit is a pound of the public’s money that is not being spent on healthcare. It took Labour just three years after the Second World War to create the NHS from scratch. One term should be more than enough to reverse its privatisation. Yet Wes Streeting seems determined to do the opposite, praising and encouraging the private sector’s draining of NHS resources, and I CANNOT support him.

Was it your discriminatory and offensive treatment of Jewish members?

It’s now in the open: it is widely understood that anyone who is seen to support the Palestinians is likely to be labelled antisemitic by Israel’s cheerleaders. It is nothing to do with antisemitism – everyone can now see the “Labour antisemitism scandal” for what it was: an attempt to shut down criticism of Israel’s oppression of Palestine. You removed the whip from your predecessor Jeremy Corbyn because he said antisemitism in the party was exaggerated, yet you know he was speaking the truth. Unless you – yes, you, a member of that shadow cabinet – were part of a secret conspiracy to reopen Auschwitz and end the existence of Jews, as was ridiculously yet seriously suggested by Labour’s enemies before the last election, it was an obvious exaggeration.

You said you would root out antisemitism from Labour, yet the party under your leadership has disproportionately targeted Jewish members for harassment and disciplinary action. Some Jewish members have died without clearing their names and others have had to resort to legal action against the party. There can be no sight more sickening than non-Jewish members of the party accusing Jewish members – many elderly and with a lifetime’s experience of delivering antisemitism education – of being antisemitic.

The Forde Report, which you commissioned, registered disappointment that the party refused to engage with Jewish Voice for Labour’s antisemitism education programme (I can personally vouch for its excellence). Instead, the party appears to have specifically targeted senior JVL members with accusations of antisemitism. I hope you feel suitably ashamed.

Was it your duplicity in the selection of local parliamentary candidates?

You said during the Labour leadership election that “the selections for Labour candidates needs to be more democratic and we should end NEC impositions of candidates. Local Party members should select their candidates for every election”. This has not been happening, has it?

In my constituency, Calder Valley, there wasn’t even a longlist for local officers to consider. The party imposed a three-person shortlist on us. Three brilliant local candidates, two of whom were graduates of the party’s Future Candidates programme, were barred from putting themselves in front of members of their own CLP. One of them, a senior Labour councillor, had nominations from three affiliated unions, each one of which, according to party rules, should have put him automatically on the longlist.

This contempt for local members reflected a pattern of behaviour across the country. When did you decide you DIDN’T believe in local democracy after all?

Was it your attitude to immigration?

You and your shadow home secretary, Yvette Cooper, have a shocking approach to the vital issue of migration. This country desperately needs ambitious, skilful people to move here and grow our economy, yet the Labour Party begins every debate from the position that immigration is undesirable. When the deputy leader of the Greens feels bold enough to describe you – yes, you, Sir Keir – as “a Nigel Farage tribute act”, I think it’s time to have a good look at yourself.

Was it your U-turn on supporting foreign military aggression?

In 2020, you told us the UK should not slavishly follow the US military. You said you would agree to military action only if it was deemed legal, had clear strategic aims, and had been agreed by the House of Commons. Now you support the bombing of Yemen, despite that action failing all the above tests – and probably in the knowledge that it will do more harm than good. Another pledge broken. Do you have any unbroken pledges left?

Was it even my new Labour Party membership card?

It might seem trivial, but it cannot have been accidental that the new (and unwanted) card that recently dropped through my front door resembled, with its union flags, a membership card for a far-right party. One-time Labour MP Oswald Mosley went on to found a British fascist party. Is your Labour Party going the same way?

Or was it simply that Labour under your leadership offers this country no hope?

After nearly 14 years of Tory rule, this country is desperate for change. Even Boris Johnson realised we were tired of pointless “austerity”. Yet you are determined to continue with that failed Tory approach to the economy. Inventing “fiscal rules” and pretending you don’t understand how public money works is no excuse. You insist you are going to depend on “economic growth”, and it seems that is your only economic “policy”. But constantly saying you want the fastest growth in the G7 will not make it magically happen. Do you seriously think no other government has ever had that ambition?

After the Second World War in 1945, Labour was elected on a wave of hope. The British economy was dire after six years of war. That didn’t stop Clement Attlee’s ambitious government creating the NHS and a radical, and enviable, welfare state. It’s time you showed some of that ambition.

So which of those was the final straw? I guess the truth is probably that all of them were. Your leadership has been abysmal. Even Tony Blair recognised the importance of offering hope – and wasn’t stupid enough to encourage members to leave the party. He was a far smarter politician than you will ever be.

Some members have urged me to stay in the party. The consensus is that, even if you win the next election, you are unlikely to survive a full term, so I should stay on to elect a better new leader. Sadly, given my local experience, I see little prospect of any opportunity to vote for a leader I would really want.

The tragedy is that although many members have left, there are still good people in the Labour Party. Some are doing excellent work on local councils, making a genuine difference, and I wish them well. If they are doing important work, I will continue to support them locally, but my conscience does not allow me to remain a member of “your” Labour Party.

I used to be proud to be a member of the Labour Party – now I feel only shame. Today I am letting go of that shame.

Yours, in fraternal comradeship,

Nick Jenkins

Calder Valley CLP