Those of my many readers (not only in this country but around the world) who are Labour Party members will be aware that we’ve just been offered a new loyalty oath to sign. Well, not an ‘oath’ as such but a “newly enhanced Code of Conduct – Member’s pledge”:
We have updated the Member’s Pledge to remind all our members that the values of honesty and decency, and maintaining high standards in public life, must be fundamental to everything we do in the Labour Party.
Who exactly ‘we’ is isn’t clear, although Anneliese Dodds assures us that “[t]he new Member’s Pledge is endorsed at the highest levels of the party … [by] Keir Starmer, Leader of the Party, David Evans, General Secretary and Johanna Baxter, Chair of the NEC”. Nor are we individual members being invited to sign it as such, just to “read and embrace” it. That said, if (having read it) we don’t feel moved to clasp it to our collective bosom, we may be out of luck with regard to continued membership of this great party of ours:
By following this Code, I will help to ensure an inclusive, safe and constructive environment within the Labour Party.
I understand that if found to be in breach of the Labour Party’s codes of conduct, guidelines, policies and procedures on online and offline abuse, and if I fail to treat those I encounter with respect and courtesy, I will be subject to, and may be sanctioned in accordance with, the rules and procedures of the Labour Party.
It’s messily worded, but I think what that’s saying is that Labour members may be sanctioned if they fail to treat people respectfully and courteously or they are found to be in breach of the party’s codes of conduct – including the Pledge.
So what’s in the pledge – what are we going to get booted for not doing? Here’s how the Pledge opens:
I pledge to act within the spirit and rules of the Labour Party in my conduct both on and offline, with members and non-members and I stand against all forms of abuse.
I commit to treating all those I encounter with respect and courtesy whether or not they are in the Labour Party or a member of the public.
Seems fair enough, really. And specifically?
Whilst I am at Labour Party meetings, on the doorstep, in a campaigning environment, on social media or in any Labour Party gathering, I will:
- Listen to others’ viewpoints, participate inclusively, challenge appropriately.
- Conduct reasoned arguments and not talk over others.
- Use constructive criticism consistent with Labour’s values.
- Always act in an appropriate and respectful manner to others.
- Take care to use appropriate, non-offensive language.
The devil’s in the detail – these formulations about ‘appropriate’ language and acting in an ‘appropriate’ manner are particularly broad – but, again, this doesn’t seem particularly unreasonable. I think my only question would be whether talking over others, criticising destructively, acting inappropriately etc are enough of a problem in the Labour Party to need dealing with in this way. The inclusion of social media in the list of settings where members need to behave themselves is also rather odd, particularly given that there’s no stipulation that members need to behave themselves online when they’re representing the party. This raises the spectre of the dreaded disciplinary social media trawl, and of members being expelled on the grounds that they called their local councillor a c**t on Twitter in 2004. But trawling Twitter won’t be possible once Musk has got it locked up, and in any case fewer people calling other people c**ts on social media would be all to the good.
So it’s hard to object too strongly to the main body of the Pledge. But then we come to the final commitment:
Finally, I will not organise to drown out the views of others recognising the unfairness this creates.
There are two ways of looking at this. One is to read it literally and conclude that the Labour Party has gone to the trouble of banning the practice of organising people to heckle and shout down their opponents within the party – to which the only possible response would be Really? That’s our problem?
A less literal – perhaps less naïve – reading would be that the key word here isn’t ‘drown’ but ‘organise’. Any time a group of people arrive at a Labour Party meeting already intending to vote a certain way, and knowing that they all intend to vote that way, it could be argued that they’re aiming to “drown out the views of others”. Think of the individual members who have come along to hear the speakers and make up their minds on the night! How are they going to feel if, when they’ve said their piece about a proposal they’ve only just heard about, somebody gets up and attacks the proposal knowledgeably and in detail, and in the same terms as the person who spoke before them? They’re certainly going to feel that their views aren’t being heard. And how did the members of that group get to be so knowledgeable – indeed, how did they know that they were all going to vote against the proposal? They organised, that’s what they did – they organised, outside the meeting, with the intention of winning the vote by making ordinary members of the party listen to them. In short: they organised to drown out the views of others (presumably not recognising the unfairness this creates).
If I’m right about this it’s something of a cynical master-stroke: no more messing about identifying which organisations are incompatible with the aims of the Labour Party and who’s involved in them, just ban the lot of them; ban them for organising. Nor will this only apply to Momentum, or to the (numerically tiny) left entryist organisations of the old school; scraping together contact details for left-leaning members in a party branch, then inviting those people to meet in a pub, will be grounds enough for ‘sanctioning’ everyone involved.
If I’m right about this it’s going to ramp up the exodus of the Left, which had slowed to a trickle recently; indeed, it’s going to become impossible to remain in the Labour Party while taking part in any kind of factional activity, unless it’s a faction that supports the leadership. (Which, ironically, were just the factions that were having a hard time of it, only a few years ago.)
In short, if I’m right about this Anneliese Dodds – together with Keir Starmer, David Evans and that arch-opponent of factionalism Johanna Baxter – have just proscribed the Labour Party opposition. Any Labour Party opposition.
I only hope I’m not right about this.
Workers’ Playtime 