Prominent Welsh left-winger denounces Starmer as he quits Labour after 35 years

Martin Shipton

One of the most prominent left-wing members of Welsh Labour has resigned from the party after 35 years, denouncing the direction it has taken under the leadership of Keir Starmer.

Darren Williams, who heads the PCS union in Wales and co-founded the Welsh Labour Grassroots group, said in a letter to Sir Keir: “After 35 years’ continuous, active Labour membership – including time spent on the National Executive Committee, the Welsh Executive Committee, the National Policy Forum and as a Cardiff councillor – I have cancelled my direct debit today, as I can no longer bear to remain in a party that treats its members, representatives and voters with such contempt.

“I have witnessed some pretty unedifying behaviour by various party leaders over the years but you have outdone them all. Your abandonment of all the pledges on which you originally stood for the leadership was shameless enough but you have proceeded to water down policy commitments on green investment and workers’ rights, among other areas, while failing to take a clear moral stance against the Tories’ inhuman attacks on refugees and migrants or against Israel’s genocidal onslaught in Gaza.

“And all the time you have persecuted decent socialists, suspending, expelling, driving them out of the party and besmirching their reputations, all to show that you have ‘changed the party’. Well, you have certainly done that: rules are bent and broken on virtually a daily basis, democratic decisions are ignored or overridden and candidate selections are routinely stitched-up.

“Developments over the last week have finally convinced me to give up on the party to which I have belonged for almost my whole adult life. Constituencies like my own, in Cardiff West, have had your stooges foisted upon us as candidates – people with no connection to local communities – while you have treated the likes of Diane Abbott, Faiza Shaheen and Lloyd Russell-Moyle, who have been a credit to Labour, in the most despicable fashion.

“I’m sure that, even if you read this, you will be completely indifferent to my resignation, or even pleased to see the back of another troublesome leftie, but the fact is that long standing members like me are continuing to leave the party in their droves – or, at best, sitting on their hands – when you still need us to knock doors, deliver leaflets and keep the party functioning.

“It looks virtually certain that Labour will comfortably win the general election and the overdue expulsion of office of the awful Tories will be something to celebrate, but my concern is that this opportunity for lasting change will be squandered because you lack the moral and political courage to deliver the radical reform that is needed to improve people’s lives – and seem determined to alienate and antagonise so many of Labour’s natural supporters along the way.

“I hope that you start to listen to the concerns that must surely be reaching you from people like me, before it’s too late.”

Facebook

Mr Williams also posted a message on Facebook which said: “I’ve been feeling increasingly demoralised for some time but, until the last few days, I intended to scale down my activity but retain my membership. Recent events, however, have convinced me that I need to make a clean break with a party whose leadership increasingly treats its own members, its representatives and sections of its presumed electorate with blatant contempt.

“I should say that I’m not starry-eyed about what Labour was like before the current leadership. I know my history and I’ve been involved in enough internal battles over the years to understand that Labour’s never been socialist and that policy climb downs and democratic deficits are nothing new.

“Nevertheless, I’ve always understood that, given Britain’s electoral system and political culture, as well as the party’s relationship with the organised working class, it was essential to be inside the party in order to contribute to any realistic chance of progressive change.

“So, I’ve campaigned in every election for Labour candidates – some more impressive than others – and was briefly a Cardiff councillor myself. Most of the friends I’ve made over the last 30 years are people I’ve met through the party, or at least with whom I have party membership in common.

“With Labour almost certain to win office in a few weeks’ time, probably with a comfortable majority, I should be feeling excited about the political prospects for the years ahead. Certainly, the overdue expulsion of the awful Tories will be something to celebrate, and there are aspects of Labour’s platform – on public transport and energy, in particular – that will bring benefits if they are delivered as promised. But everything Keir Starmer has done since becoming leader makes me pessimistic about the chances of an incoming Labour government standing up for ordinary people once the pressure is on.

Ruthlessness 

“But it’s the ruthlessness of the party’s internal regime under Starmer that has been hardest to live with,” he added.

“Hundreds of hard-working activists and dozens of principled politicians – beginning with Rebecca Long-Bailey and Jeremy Corbyn – have been traduced, disciplined or even expelled on the flimsiest pretexts, to appease Labour’s media and establishment critics,’reassure’ floating voters and show ‘Labour has changed’.

“The party’s own rules have been bent or broken on virtually a daily basis, democratic policy decisions (e.g. in support of electoral reform) have been dismissed and selections have been routinely stitched-up. Of course, much of this has been seen in the party before, but even under Blair there was some residual respect for consistent rules and accountability and the leadership’s left critics were simply marginalised, rather than purged.

“Good comrades will say that we should just keep on fighting – they don’t call it ‘the struggle’ for nothing – and I would have agreed with them until recently, but we all have our limits, which are as much emotional as analytical. And in the last week, we’ve witnessed some of the real leading lights of our movement – Diane Abbott, Faiza Shaheen and Lloyd Russell-Moyle – be attacked and humiliated, following on from the similar treatment meted out to the likes of Beth Winter, Jamie Driscoll and, of course, Jeremy Corbyn.

“At the same time, a whole series of MPs, including my own, have conveniently announced at the last minute that they would not be standing again, allowing the leadership to parachute in its preferred candidates. Here in Cardiff West, we have been gifted a Starmer apparatchik with no ties to the city, or south Wales, with no meaningful input from local members.

“So I’m out. I won’t be joining or campaigning for another party but will concentrate my efforts on my ‘day job’ with the union for which I am so proud and privileged to work. For the time being, in fact, I think that positive change is more likely to come via pressure from trade unions and other progressive forces in civil society, rather than from political parties. But in the long run, we desperately need electoral reform at Westminster, so that it will be harder for party leaders to take ‘their’ voters for granted.”