Portsmouth author and socialist activist Pete Adams campaigned nearly every day in the 2017 and 2019 general elections for Stephen Morgan. He got to know Stephen and liked him, but he now suspects he was deluded.
I’m a 74-year-old grandfather hailing from a large London family and have lived in Portsmouth some fifty years. I love and care about this city. I am a socialist and one of hundreds if not thousands of Labour Party members labelled an anti-Semite for making supposedly anti-Zionist posts. Many scholars and experts argue that the two should not be conflated and it has now been judicially ruled that anti-Zionism is ‘a protected characteristic under the Equality Act 2010’. I am waiting for apologies from both Keir Starmer and Stephen Morgan.
I was angry about my mistreatment by Labour, especially as the evidence unfurled showing how the party oligarchs actively sabotaged Corbyn, enabling the Tories to win in ’17 and ’19, and wreak their havoc. I witnessed hope, especially in the young people who turned out to campaign for Stephen. This hope was crushed. For a career politician, Stephen clearly never cared about this; whereas the young people will never forget. Stephen clearly was comfortable with my being expelled without even an apology, a phone call or a thank you for my help; these factors give you the true measure of the man. He lost my vote. I am, however, proud to say that I campaigned for Jeremy Corbyn when he stood as an independent in the last election and defeated Labour. Corbyn is a statesman and a true grownup.
I would not make a good politician if we judge the politicians of today on loyalty to party or leader and regurgitating Yes Minister mandarin talk. I stand up for my principles and expect my politicians to do the same. In this way Stephen has not measured up; he’s not a grownup.
Stephen Morgan became the first ever Labour MP for Portsmouth South and is now in his third term. How has that gone? We should judge him on his record of serving the people of Portsmouth and we should assess his performance in opposition, when he supported giving British military personnel immunity from prosecution for war crimes and abstained on the controversial ‘Spycops’ bill. Now he’s in government, should we judge him any differently? If you vote for government policies, you are standing up to be judged, regardless of your constituency record.
Labour won a landslide in the summer because the British people wanted rid of the evil Tories. A government with such a huge majority could radically transform this country for the benefit of the many. But based on the first 100 days, has the lesser evil turned out to be a greater evil? Starmer’s Labour is cruel and repressive, selling arms to a genocidal state, raiding the homes of journalists, making pensioners cold and vulnerable and imprisoning protestors. It is subservient to its donors, which include business tycoons and the Israel lobby, which has given Labour MPs £280,000 (our Stephen has been a recipient of this largesse too).
We elect our leaders trusting they will make decisions in our interest; country before party, people before party – and not for their sponsors or for personal preferment. Does Stephen back a shockingly authoritarian and thin-skinned PM because he kicks out those who criticise him or his policies? Where is the debating chamber? Where is free speech? Where is political courage? Where are the grownups?
Whenever he votes for more violence and austerity, Stephen shows he is on the wrong side. He’s never been seen on a picket line to support our nurses, our junior doctors, our rail workers, our telecoms employees. If Labour is no longer a party of protest, as Starmerites have put it, then it must be the party of appeasing the leader.
Stephen has no moral compass when it comes to the genocide of the Palestinians. Silence is no excuse. His voting record on Israel is grim, according to the Palestine Solidarity Campaign. He did not support the International Court of Justice ruling or motions calling either to ‘end the siege of Gaza’ or for ‘Israel to be held accountable for war crimes’. As a member of Labour Friends of Israel and a recipient of Israel lobby cash, this is no surprise. His limited public comments on the issue have included the usual bromides about the need for peace, but, just like his boss, he has not called Israel’s action a genocide, and is quiet on its violent attacks on Lebanon, Syria, Yemen and other neighbours. The Morgan vocabulary is also bereft of words and phrases such as land grabs, ethnic cleansing, colonialism, apartheid and war crimes.
Can he not see that these actions create tomorrow’s terrorists? In the time I knew Stephen I never sensed he was a warmonger. I was wrong. Crocodile tears and faux handwringing will not cut it. Cotton candy pleas for a ceasefire are worth nothing without stopping arming and funding Israel. Failing or refusing to do this does not make you a grownup.
Stephen was elected twice on the coattails of Corbyn, even though throughout that time he kept his name on a petition calling for Corbyn to step down as leader. I take little pleasure in seeing the party taken over by cuckoos with the socialist backbone members kicked out of a workers’ nest. The establishment have their result and now Starmer is paying his sponsors back with no consideration of the people of this country. As a junior minister, Stephen must be held accountable, if not now, then at the next election. Starmer is the second-worst ever rated PM after 100 days. These are not the grownups.
Epilogue:
Labour, Orwell’s nightmare, still monitor my social media. What scares them? A pensioner, desperate to get back for my grandchildren all that I had growing up, free education, fully public NHS (no privateer bloodsuckers), transport that we made fun of but that worked, electricity, gas, water, was all ours and worked. When you elect a Labour government this is what people should expect, but it is not what we are getting. Stephen started off well, but as he has climbed the greasy pole of political ambition I fear he has succumbed to the party-and-leader-first malaise. We had fourteen years of austerity and we cannot tolerate more. We do not need millionaires and corporations funding our country to later bleed it dry. The UK and USA are hated for their support of genocide. When revenge is visited upon us, what will you say Stephen?
Final question: Is Labour under Starmer, and this must include Stephen, ethically bankrupt, presiding over a period of moral turpitude? The Left is always on the right side of history and in my view, that makes them the grownups.
Find out more about Pete Adams’ books here.
Picture courtesy of Pete Adams.
