Labour MPs understand that splitting our party risks giving power to an undeserving Tory party for the foreseeable future. Unchecked Tory rule, almost certainly dominated by the extreme right of that party, will be devastating for our public services, NHS, schools, economy and for the manner in which Brexit is completed.
There are deep divisions in our country that have festered for many decades and culminated in the decisions of 17 million people to vote to leave the EU. Whatever the outcome of Brexit, those divisions will still be there and will need addressing.
Only the Labour party has the broad reach within the left-behind communities of our towns and cities to take these issues on and bring our country back together. In walking away, politicians cast aside the deep and historical roots the Labour party has built up over generations in communities across our country. They have turned their backs on our huge membership, the trade unions, the cooperative movement, the socialist societies and Labour’s enormous power base in local councils and through metropolitan mayors, including Sadiq Khan, elected on the biggest mandate for a single politician in our country’s history. These bonds are enduring and no new party can create them overnight.
We have been here before and heard predictions of the collapse of the two-party state, the breaking of the mould and the hunger among the public for change. What was really on offer was the same old politics, with the same old political elite trying to rebrand themselves and it’s the same today. The irony of their claim to be fresh is that Jeremy Corbyn, of all of the leading politicians, is the one who is the disrupter, truly capable of breaking the mould.
The policy statement issued by the seven former Labour MPs at their press conference on Monday is offering a “back to the future” prospectus. A rerun of the same mismanagement of a financial system that left so many behind and will do so again. Arguing for more of the same will not put out the fires of discontent that became an inferno in the referendum. It will just leave them raging. One MP who was a minister under Tony Blair described their policies to me as “far to the right of New Labour”.
Is that the change that the country needs right now? A dose of the same old tired thinking cobbled together so that a small bunch of malcontents from across the political divide can justify being in the same room. The truth is that the only issue they have in common is Brexit. Those communities that voted heavily to leave feel that they have not been treated fairly by the political elite over a long period of time. If you are in the “shit-life syndrome” of low pay, unskilled work and benefits, it only underlines the iniquity of your situation when politicians are telling you the economy is fine. The system that allows the already wealthy to accumulate more wealth while the dispossessed get left behind cannot be allowed go on. Capital has got to be made to work for the common good.
There is no doubt that Tory austerity poured petrol on the fire and forced Brexit over the winning line. The 2013 welfare reforms cut the incomes of working households in the most deprived areas by nearly half, while in the more affluent areas the impact was negligible. Eight out of 10 of the areas with the lowest average incomes voted leave.
Many of those areas were represented by people who very recently held many of the most powerful positions in the government. Yet despite having MPs with their hands on the levers of power, these communities felt so let down by the political elite that they voted overwhelmingly to leave the EU.
Our country is as divided economically as it is over Brexit. Weakening the opposition to the Tories is only going to make that situation worse. I know many feel frustrated about Labour’s strategy over Brexit, but we must all respect the wide and varying opinions from all sides of the debate held by people within our Labour movement, including party members and those who traditionally vote Labour. Without our supporters there is no party.
I have always defined myself as on the traditional Tribunite left of the Labour party. It is a vantage point from which I have watched many of my colleagues who emerged on the left of the party, suddenly pop up on the right. Currently it is often the other way around. The Tribune Group of Labour MPs is the steadying hand that is at the heart of what Labour stands for. We have been meeting regularly and developing ideas and policies to help ready our party for government.
Now is not the time to walk away from the Labour family. Now is the time to unite to reassert our traditional Labour values and ready ourselves for the election whenever it comes. We cannot throw away any chance of winning. If that is staying and fighting then I’m staying and fighting, because it is a fight that only Labour is equipped to win.
• Clive Efford is the Labour MP for Eltham and a member of the Tribune Group of Labour MPs
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