Why the Corbyn-haters are targeting AWL

In the last two weeks, a number of socialist activists connected in some way to the Alliance for Workers’ Liberty have been expelled from the Labour Party. This comes after other such expulsions late last year.

The new expulsions include Jill Mountford, chair of Lewisham Momentum and a member of the Momentum national steering committee, and now the editor of Solidarity, Cathy Nugent.

Jill’s expulsion letter arrived when she out was canvassing for Sadiq Khan for mayor of London. She is well known in the local Labour Party and her expulsion has provoked widespread outrage, not just on the left. Cathy is women’s officer of Goldsmiths University Labour Club.

As well as those who are or have been linked with Workers' Liberty, or are said to be or have been linked, other left-wingers have expelled or excluded from Labour. But since Jeremy Corbyn was elected leader we have been the main target of the “Compliance Unit”. Not because Corbyn and McDonnell support such expulsions, of course - in fact McDonnell has spoken out against them - but because the Compliance Unit is in effect a right-wing factional body not subject to any democratic accountability.

Why have Cathy, Jill and others close to Workers’ Liberty been targeted? Expulsion letters from the Compliance Unit have varied, but this is what they told Cathy and Jill:

"It has been brought to our attention that during your current period of Labour Party membership you have been closely involved with and supported the Alliance for Workers Liberty. Although AWL de-registered as a political party... it remains a political organisation the programme, principles and policies of which are not compatible with those of the Labour Party..."
(emphasis added)

So the charge is retrospective. There is no due process: the "sentence" arrives before the charge.

And, most interestingly, the target is now not any organisational breach, but political ideas. These comrades have been expelled because they are fighting for a militant, class-struggle labour movement and for socialism.

The AWL’s Marxist ideas are in a minority in the Labour Party and labour movement. But then so are the ideas of the Blairite officials driving the witch-hunt against us. Their neo-liberal, right-wing, explicitly pro-capitalist ideas and policies have never been popular with Labour members, and are now in a small minority.

The difference is that we proceed with arguments, debate and education, whereas their preferred weapons are bans, administrative suppression, the right-wing press. They cannot defend their shameful record – of joining the persecution of migrants, say, helping the Tories justify austerity, or initiating privatisation in the NHS – in discussion.

With Labour Party members or trade unionists who are honestly convinced that the right of the Labour Party is correct on issues, we want to have a comradely discussion. The problem with most Blairite zealots, and particularly those at the top, is that they do not want to discuss.

That is not primarily because they are unreasonable people; it is because they have no loyalty to the labour movement, and do not want the labour movement’s interests, concerns and democracy to disrupt their relationship with official society. "Labour" multi-millionaires like Blair and Mandelson are extreme cases in point.

From the point of view of the Blairs and Mandelsons and their dwindling number of acolytes, we are dangerous, not because we want to disrupt the labour movement but quite the opposite – because we want to strengthen it. They hate us for the same reason they hate Jeremy Corbyn and the whole movement behind him; but their administrative police feel we are easier to target, at the moment.

What surely alarms the witch-hunters is not just general support for socialism, but our agitation for the labour movement to revive itself and fight militantly for the interests of workers and oppressed people on every front – in official politics, in workplaces, unions and strikes, in communities and on the streets, and in the battle of ideas.

That is what the Alliance for Workers’ Liberty exists to do, and that is what we and our friends in the labour movement and left will continue to do, regardless of this persecution. For every person they have expelled, more in the Labour Party have been persuaded to help us, work with us and join us.

If you want to stop this witch-hunt so we can unite to take on the Tories and the rich; if you want a Labour Party and labour movement that fight on every front; if you want to fight against capitalism and for socialism – read our literature, discuss with us, work with us.

More:

• "Scrap the Compliance Unit", says John McDonnell
• Liam McNulty reinstated
• Expelled from the Labour Party for thought-crime?
• Labour Party advertises for new witch-hunter
• Many interruptions, one struggle: interview with Jill Mountford, Momentum steering committee member expelled from the Labour Party