Letter to an anti-Corbyn Labour MP

Following an email sent to Coventry North East Constituency Labour Party (CLP) members by their MP, Colleen Fletcher, a member of that constituency posted a response on Facebook. Here are some extracts from his response:

Dear Colleen Fletcher,

I've just received your 'CLP Summer Report'. Finally Coventry Labour Party sends us word concerning the state of the economy and the Labour leadership row. Unfortunately I do not share your sentiments concerning the future of the Labour Party nor do I appreciate reading your disparaging remarks about Jeremy Corbyn ...

For the last seven years I have worked as a prison officer and for a period of eleven years previous to this I was a sailor in the royal navy. Neither of these professions are known for harbouring 'Trots' or 'far left loonies' I think you will agree. I work very hard in the prison, it can be a dangerous and frustrating career. I have always worked very hard and never asked anyone for anything. Yet here I am financially in a state of ruin and with my mental and physical health in decline due to work-related stress.

I am not alone in this piteous state of affairs. Unfortunately In modern Britain today my circumstances are all too prevalent. The state of the working class I feel is a direct result of a cruel and callous social experiment called 'neoliberalism'.

Both the Labour and the Tory neoliberals have espoused an ideology that has ... ripped apart the public sector institutions. Neoliberalism has also ravaged and polluted the natural world and put more people than ever into poverty and destitution.

Yet you and those like you, feel that with his staunch humanitarian beliefs Jeremy Corbyn is the problem? Do you really believe that we the working class are stupid?

We, the supporters of Jeremy Corbyn, are not a 'cult', neither are we 'rabble', 'dogs', 'bullies' or 'thugs', but we do understand that for people in power to use these inciting and hateful words denigrates us ... We will however not be silenced and we will continue to speak out against tyranny, gerrymandering and false propaganda. We stand for traditional Labour Party values, for freedom of speech and a fair and democratic society.

Even if you remove Jeremy Corbyn from the Labour Party you will not win because a Pandora's Box has been opened and the oppressed and downtrodden will rise up and carry on the fight! Jeremy Corbyn is the symbol or conduit of our will, he is not our Messiah, with or without him you will still have a fight on your hands that you cannot win. We are the many, we are the silent majority, slow to anger and impossible to appease when we are whipped into action.

I and many like me believe in a Labour Party with a strong socialist ethos, a Labour Party that respects and protects the natural world and the inhabitants of it. We want the Labour Party of Keir Hardie, Clement Attlee, Aneurin Bevan and Tony Benn. Not a divisive cabal of corporate parasites and con merchants! We shall have a truly socialist party or we will insist that those who plot and connive against us go off and form their own party.

I look forward to the re-election of Jeremy Corbyn, unsullied from the attempts to discredit him and his followers. I look forward to the de-selection of those that have gone against the majority will of the Labour Party, but most of all I look forward to a new grassroots movement and MPs that serve the people, not the corporations.

I hope that I have made myself perfectly clear to you and that you now understand why I, a hardworking son of Coventry, will be opposing you and any other local Labour Party MPs that share a message of pro-austerity, pro-neoliberalism and the subjugation of a full and open democratic leadership of the Labour Party.

Donate to the Socialist Party

Finance appeal

The coronavirus crisis has laid bare the class character of society in numerous ways. It is making clear to many that it is the working class that keeps society running, not the CEOs of major corporations.

The results of austerity have been graphically demonstrated as public services strain to cope with the crisis.

The government has now ripped up its 'austerity' mantra and turned to policies that not long ago were denounced as socialist. But after the corona crisis, it will try to make the working class pay for it, by trying to claw back what has been given.

The Socialist Party's material is more vital than ever, so we can continue to report from workers who are fighting for better health and safety measures, against layoffs, for adequate staffing levels, etc.
When the health crisis subsides, we must be ready for the stormy events ahead and the need to arm workers' movements with a socialist programme - one which puts the health and needs of humanity before the profits of a few.