And Then They Came for the Soft Left

In The Gulag Archipelago, Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn talks about Stalin's terror as a slavering beast with a life of its own. Originally directed at real and imagined opponents in the Soviet bureaucracy, it became an occasion for officials to settle beefs, or acquire a slightly nicer apartment. If that meant innocent people ending up in a camp or the basement of the Lubyanka, that's too bad. The idea of the terror building its own independent momentum and not stopping after meeting its objectives are not dissimilar to the purges that have gripped the Labour Party for the last year. Having successfully excluded so-called undesirables from selection long lists, and deselected a smattering of left wing Labour MPs, what happens to the purge now? Why, it finds new victims. This time from the soft left.

Neal Lawson wrote on Friday that he's under suspicion and could find his membership of 44 years terminated. His crime? Being in favour of progressive alliances. His argument, which is well trodden and well known, is that while the right are more or less united in the Tory party the "progressive vote" is split between Labour, the Liberal Democrats, and the Greens. In the circumstances of First Past the Post, it makes sense for these parties to have an alliance - whether open or a touch more discreet. Neal's crime was not to call for a vote against Labour. Which is a big no-no and warrants automatic expulsion. Instead, he welcomed an alliance between the Lib Dems and the Greens in Oxford as an example of the sort of understanding progressive parties should come to. Unfortunately, this is the backyard of Luke Akehurst, self-styled witch-finder general and arbiter of who passes the not-at-all politically factional "due diligence" tests for CLP shortlists. He says Neal is facing charges because he's backed an lash-up designed to unseat Labour councillors. Which is a creative interpretation of the progressive alliance argument.

This does involve some ancient history. Akehurst has long opposed Neal's organisation, Compass, because of its fondness for other parties. He's not the head honcho of Labour First for nothing. In 2011, Compass effectively decamped from Labour to admit members from anyone from any party, which made it "illegal" in the party. The organisation was also the route through which one Chuka Umunna found his way into the Commons, so perhaps Akehurst's antipathy wasn't entirely unwarranted.

But the significance of their move against a well known soft left figure hasn't been lost on anyone. On Twitter, Zoe Williams said that she felt betrayed by the Labour Party and Keir Starmer for this authoritarian step, especially after the liberal and pluralist noises he made during the leadership campaign. Earlier this month, John Harris twigged that bad things were happening and waded into print about the stitching and the authoritarianism. And, perhaps surprisingly, adding his voice to the rising criticism Jon Cruddas - who only briefly and somewhat tangentially associated with the left - wrote for this Sunday's Observer, saying "Labour is now kicking out people like Neal for upholding the democratic, pluralist traditions that created the party and lie deep within the its history. It is a disgrace." And he hangs the blame for the control-freakery on the "stale undemocratic faction who now runs the party". In other words, our friend Luke Akehurst and, by extension, Starmer's backroom boy Morgan McSweeney and the Dear Leader himself.

This situation was bound to happen. At the beginning of his leadership campaign, Starmer's "big tent" scooped up the soft left and a good chunk of the Corbynite membership, including luminaries like jolly old Paul Mason, Momentum's Laura Parker, and left-friendly wonk Tom Kibasi. But there at the heart of the operation was Labour First's Matt Pound and significant private donations Starmer refused to unveil until after the contest. While the MPs most associated with Labour First demonstrated their lack of nous by backing Jess Phillips and then Lisa Nandy, the organisers who do the hard yards in the party knew who their best bet was. And that should have been all anyone on the left needed to know. When he entered the Leader's Office, it was clear Starmer had no idea about how to run a voluntary party or, for that matter, formulate a political strategy. In came the consultants to advise on policy and structure, but it soon became clear that organising on behalf of the leadership could not be contracted out. That responsibility was devolved to Labour First, and they wasted no time making the party safe for Wes Streeting's future leadership candidature. A lesson for the left that if you don't make your revolution permanent, the counterrevolution won't be so reticent.