The Rabbit Manifesto

There is an element of despair in remaining a member of the Labour Party.   The leadership campaign is utter vanilla, entirely without life.   The Tories always have more exciting and contested leadership battles, that’s a given, but this is tediously vanilla.

I have been a party member for donkey’s years.  Always on the left.  I stood for parliament under the leadership of Michael Foot and was an enthusiastic supporter of that 1983 manifesto which was famously described, by Gerard Kaufman, as the longest suicide note in the history of politics.    I worked full time as a union organiser, for the lowest paid public sector workers, and I voted for Corbyn as leader, so I reckon my perspective for any criticism of what’s going on is not unreasonable and my credibility fairly strong.

It was Brexit that lost us the election and I will go to my grave questioning how on earth representatives of Labour and senior trade union negotiators endorsed a policy of going in to negotiate a better agreement and promising in advance of the agreement, not to recommend it and to  campaign and vote against it.   But it won’t be Brexit next time, for the party seems intent on making itself entirely irrelevant to the mass of working people.

It seems to be now a party of minority interests.   Almost any lobby group can get the leadership and the conference to agree to their agenda.   They are given equal status to the trade unions, special considerations for elections, their agendas or manifesto’s become unquestionable elements of the long term aims of the party.

It is perhaps most evident in the decision to endorse the manifesto of the Labour Trans Activists which, in its way, is far more damaging to electoral success than the spineless adoption of the manifesto of the British Board of Deputies.

I am fairly sure that if you were to invent an entirely new “radical” or “progressive” or “liberal” lobby group within the party that you could be confident that its aims, its agenda and its manifesto would be eagerly taken up and pledges of support and adherence  signed by the leadership contenders and every other virtue signalling member of the house of commons. 

For example, the Labour Campaign for the Freedom of Domestic rabbits.     Why not?    Rabbits should be freed to roam on the downs of Surry and the dales of Yorkshire;   taking a rabbit out of a hat should be made  a hate crime;  the police should be trained for a special unit to enforce a prohibition on the sale of chocolate bunny rabbits at Easter (the bunny squad?);   Jewish rabbits should have their own field; Muslim rabbits should be permitted to wear the hijab.   The campaign will have its own “union” banner emblazoned perhaps, with the campaign’s slogan, “Hope for Hoppers” and be invited to take part in the Durham Miner’s Gala.    There could be reserved seats on the NEC.

Perhaps that’s enough, although I am conscious that no provision has been made for Lesbian and Gay rabbits; it’s a sensitive issue for the rabbit community and perhaps it can be addressed later.   One hop at a time comrades, one hop at a time.

I will await the outcome of the leadership election and will remain a member on self-identified probation period for a while longer to observe how it goes.   But to be honest, its going to be difficult to watch the party lose its way, it’s going to difficult stay in the party.