Former Labour AM has application to rejoin the party rejected
A former Welsh Government Minister who represented Rhondda for the Labour Party for 13 years has had his application to rejoin the party rejected.
Leighton Andrews received a message on 24 March saying that his application had been rejected because the voted for the Green Party at the European Elections last year.
His Labour Party membership had lapsed in March 2019 and he said that he had voted Green because of Labour’s “failure to deal with antisemitism and its hopeless dithering on Brexit”.
Leighton Andrews, however, said that he suspected that the reasons for the rejection had more to do with his refusal to vote for Rebecca Long-Bailey in the Labour leadership election.
‘Trawling’
“I’d been wondering for two months why my promised membership card hadn’t arrived. I explained in a New Statesman article on 9 March that I hadn’t had my membership card or ballot, and I would be voting for Lisa Nandy then Keir Starmer if I did,” he wrote on his blog.
“The only conclusion I can draw from this is that I am being excluded for making it clear two weeks ago that I wouldn’t be voting for the Corbyn continuity candidate.
“The Labour hierarchy has been trawling round to find excuses to strip Labour membership of longstanding supporters like Alastair Campbell and Trevor Phillips, both of whom I count as friends, with far more urgency than they acted on anti-Semites.
“My membership matters not a jot in the current crises the country faces. Labour’s inability to forge a broad, popular movement against a government destroying democratic norms matters enormously.
“Labour needs all the friends it can get – but as we know, some people are happier in a cult of the like-minded, not a broad popular movement.”
Leighton Andrews was the AM for Rhondda between 2003 and 2013 when he was defeated by Leanne Wood, who was Plaid Cymru’s leader at the time. He had served as Education Minister and Minister for Public Services.
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Labour is fast becoming a fringe cult, the product of a by-gone era whose values are archaic, forged in prejudices of the age it was born in. It’s ideologies do not belong to our time.
Let us then turn from their ancient class-war beliefs to the liberty of a future without their chains.
He said he’d voted for the Greens. Disloyalty to the tribe is the sin for which there can be no forgiveness!
In fairness, it’s not just Labour. The Tories are no different; not hard to guess the response were Mr Farage to seek membership of the Conservative party, even now that it’s wholly adopted his agenda.
And I suspect the response from Plaid would be much along the same lines in the improbable event of Neil McEvoy applying to be received back into their fold.
Can you imagine the Labour party ever making an election pact on issues to keep our economy working by having close relationships with other European nations by our membership of the EU. Can you imagine them working with the Green party in the interests of a cleaner and healthy environment. Or the Liberal democrats to get a fair electoral system, or a federal system and state delegate replacement to the House of Lords. Plaid Cymru WILL work with other progressive forces in the interests of the Welsh people. The current system is monopoly capitalism by the bankers supported by politicians… Read more »
I would like our future state to run health, water, power, rail. I would like enterprise to be free and supported by state start up funds and universities. You view is possible, but very sophisticated for our time. Good luck, though.
Health, wellbeing, emergencies and infrastructure projects where competition and choice cannot apply should be administered by public accountable bodies as close to the local communities as possible.
There is a balance to be made and should not be decided on ideology.
I don’t really see why he wants to rejoin Labour when they seem much the same as they’ve always been. His statement “…some people are happier in a cult of the like-minded, not a broad popular movement.” will be taken as meaning he doesn’t think Labour is a broad popular movement and is a cult of the like-minded. Not exactly the way to make them want him back! Perhaps he should forget about party politics and just do the right thing according to his conscience. He’ll feel less stressed and sleep better! Right now it just looks like sour grapes… Read more »
Leighton’s biggest contribution was exposing Carwyn’s despicable treatment of Carl Sargeant. Strange how he omitys to refer to that dreadful sin. His comparing the rejection of his membership with lack of action on anti-Semites is far fetched, but shows who he wants to align with. It implies he’s happy with the penetration of Labour by zionists, and with the exclusion of Chris Williamson for implying Labour has gone too far in pursuing critics of Israeli repression as “anti semitic”. He states Lisa Nandy is his choice as LP leader, when Nandy bid for (and won) the Jewish Labour Movement vote… Read more »
Your knowledge of the diverse (!) lines of prejudice that operate within the Labour Party is useful in that it reinforces the view that the “party of the people” is way past its break up date. Multiple cults all trying to out-do each other in how far removed they are in relation to the real and immediate needs of our communities. The entire shambles constructed out of various pro and anti Jew/Zionist/Israeli/ Palestinian/Islamist/Shia/Sunni segments with newer layers of LGBT and transgender mjlitancy looks like a marriage of convenience designed only to compete for, or hang on to, power. Sadly the… Read more »
I think it’s quite possible that the reality check imposed on everyone by Covid-19 will contribute to kicking identity politics and political fadism into touch. The political issues that will remain intact in Cymru once the pandemic has been controlled will be: public or private control of natural resources; the promotion of genuine business as opposed to the chimera of tourism; the demographic strengthening of the Welsh language; Welsh ownership of Welsh land; greater or lesser wealth-distribution; and the future polity (status quo, status quo ante, greater devolution, or independence). Any party that chooses instead to tie its colours to… Read more »
What can we in the indy community learn from this? What is to be done?
YesCymru faced its own challenge when ‘leannite’ Plaid Ifanc elements organised to try and exclude Dr Dilys Davies from the executive committee. Like the Labour zionists, they bombarded her twitter account and banged in complaints that her professional views on women=female go against YesCymru’s constitution. . The committee failed to defend her but took it through their disciplinary process as this required them to give all complaints a hearing. They quietly dismissed the complaints, then proposed a rule change passed by the recent AGM. The Committee is empowered to dismiss politically-motivated fabricated complaints in future. We need Welsh media to… Read more »
A career politician rejected by his former constituents. Someone with an inflated sense of his own self importance whose disloyalty and rule breaking are well evidenced and now thrashing around like a drowning person.
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