I am a new Labour member. I joined in December and I tried my best to make us win the election. I knocked on dozens of doors, i walked hundreds of miles, I delivered thousands of leaflets to a massive expense of my time and my family; I was proud to do so. What I am witnessing though, in the last few weeks is terrible and is coming close to disgusting.
What I have been witnessing is the politics of fear and negativity. Labour members with great standing and history attacking other candidates. Instead of us having a debate about politics and what we want the party to be and look like, we get infighting, with abuse, personal attacks, and no substantive competition of ideas. Candidates are happy to attack others' policies as old ideas to old problems, advocating for new solutions to new problems yet offering none. Candidates are trying to fight on the 2010 election platform instead of offering a holistic, comprehensive vision for 2020 and beyond.
Worst of all is MPs declaring that they will not support the democratically elected leader (Yes, Mr Danczuk I am talking about you) and candidates saying that if Corbyn gets elected they will not serve in the Shadow Cabinet like some stroppy teenagers who didn't get to go to a nightclub on a school day and are sulking in their bedrooms! GROW UP!
How dare you declare that if you lose you will not support the new leader? We had one sore loser, David, that instead of staying on and helping his brother and his party win the election, he resigned and left. He showed what was important to him and it was not the Labour party and the people of this country. We do not need any more people like that.
You are Labour MPs representing your constituents as well as the millions represented by your party. If you wanted a different leader, you should have stood for election and if you did, you should have won. If you cannot win this election how do you expect to win a national election? You are at the top of a democratic party founded upon and heavily dependant on its member base. If the member base chooses its leader, I expect and demand you support them wholeheartedly. If you do not, I expect you to resign from the party. The mistake of MPs not supporting Ed Miliband and undermining him at every opportunity must not ever happen again.
This is the biggest democratic election the Labour party has ever had. Every member and supporter has one vote and all votes are the same. We have captured the mood of the public (which we failed to do at election time, in case you hadn't noticed) and a lot of people are coming to us, registering as supporters. These people can turn to members, increasing our power as a party. We now have 610,000 members, affiliates and supporters joining us. The numbers are staggering and we should be immensely proud of this.
We should not be negative and advocate for the election to be stopped because some may have joined to cause mischief. We are alienating new members with such language. If any Conservatives have joined, let them be. Write their names down and in 2020 I expect a poster that says "These Conservatives agree and support with the Labour values. Do you?"
The Conservatives are not rejoicing in the prospect of us electing Corbyn. The Conservatives are rejoicing in the fact that we tear ourselves apart at a time when unity is required. At a time, when IDS dares declare that he is building the welfare system of the future instead of admitting he is robbing the welfare system of a future, we have a number of Labour grandees calling the leading candidate unelectable. If I was George Osborne in 2020 I would put posters up across the country with Tony's and Alan's face on saying that "They thought Corbyn was unlelectable. Why would You vote for him?"
This is the biggest Labour election of our generation. We have captured the minds and heart of the public with thousands joining the party. We should celebrate and capitalise on this and build a future on it. We are attracting voters again that deserted us to go to UKIP, SNP and the Greens. Let us welcome them back. Let us stop the negative politics and the infighting.
We are better than that.