IF YOU’RE NOT IN IT, WE CAN’T WIN IT
We all know someone who has dropped out of the Labour Party in recent times, fed up with New Labour’s occupation of Iraq, the selling of arms to dictatorships, attacks on civil liberties, proposals to renew Britain’s nuclear arsenal at huge expense – in short, the complete abandonment of any ethical dimension to our foreign policy, making it practically indistinguishable from that of the neo-conservatives around George Bush.
Now is the time to ask them to rejoin the Labour Party. Tony Blair is going within the next 12 months, maybe sooner. When he does, there will be a contest for leader of the Party. Gordon Brown will run, as may some of the more prominent Blairites. We need anti-war campaigners, civil liberties campaigners, trade unionists and progressives to join the Labour Party and help us make sure that there will be at least one anti-war candidate. A candidate who will withdraw British troops from Iraq and break with the dangerous and morally bankrupt foreign policy of George Bush. A candidate calling for the closure of Guantanamo Bay and an end to British collaboration in CIA rendition flights to countries where suspects can be tortured. A candidate opposed to the renewal of the Trident nuclear missile system. A candidate who will at all times call for the observance of the Geneva Conventions. A candidate who will stand up for civil liberties and who will not scapegoat minority communities.
We must argue with those comrades who have left the Labour Party that they have a choice. They can accept that there is no alternative to a coronation of Gordon Brown, a continuation of the same old unpopular policies and a probable defeat for Labour at the next General Election. Or they can rejoin the Labour Party and help us change its disastrous course. The Party leadership and its media friends may be against us, but we have on our side policies that are actually very popular both within the labour movement and the public at large. So ask them to rejoin now. Remember Tony Benn narrowly lost the deputy leadership in 1981 by less than half of one per cent, even though nobody thought he could come close at the outset! Now is the time to redouble our efforts to recruit comrades into the Labour Party – its only members and affiliates of the Labour Party that will be eligible to vote in the Labour Party leadership election.
LAtW has produced our own Labour Party recruitment leaflet that makes clear our commitment to peace – supplies are available from the LAtW Office, price is dependent upon quantity, email [email protected] or phone 020 8943 6597 for more information.