The avoidance of being seen as 'political'

 As I've mentioned a fair few times on this blog in recent weeks, my partner Owen is standing for Parliament, as an independent candidate for the constituency of Monmouthshire. I encouraged him to do this because of his extremely popular disability rights campaigns in the area, and to support the ongoing campaign to stand left-wing independent candidates more generally (since my last blog, I've learned of a few more who are doing this in Wales).

I'm really enjoying this campaign - I've never done anything like this before and I have no idea of Owen's chances of winning, but I am meeting a lot of people on doorsteps who say he's a breath of fresh air when compared to the establishment politicians. We're going out canvassing pretty much every day, interacting and swapping ideas with various other independent candidates who are standing around the UK and there's a really enjoyable vibe of just doing something and trying to get something achieved. But it's also forced me to confront something else, something I've been aware of for a little while - the idea of being 'political' is quite often avoided in polite society.

'Don't talk religion or politics' is something you're told whenever you're in polite company. When I was at University, if I was ever invited out with someone, it would often be followed with, 'But please will you not spend all evening going on about politics?' Talking in too much detail about politics is, for some reason, considered to be quite rude. Social media has thankfully broken down that boundary a little, and made it more possible to leave comments on things. I think this is partly because online it's easier to back your statements up with facts - if you feel you don't know in much detail what you're talking about, it's possible to do a quick Google search and check before returning to the conversation, in a way that in person you just can't do. I know that I personally feel a lot more informed about the world as a result of my social media activity, and I know a lot of other people do too. I also think that this is a big part of the reason people feel uncomfortable talking politics in the first place - that they're worried about looking stupid in front of someone they perceive as knowing more than them.

But it's more than that. Campaign groups that very specifically exist to create some kind of societal change take pride in advertising themselves as 'apolitical'. The chef Jamie Oliver described himself as not being political in campaigning for children to get better-quality food in state schools. The film Filth: The Mary Whitehouse Story features a scene in which conservative activist Mary Whitehouse (played by Julie Walters) insists that her Clean Up TV campaign at the BBC is 'not political (I have no idea if the real Whitehouse ever said this, but even if she didn't the scene is still indicative of what people understand 'political' to mean). And as the partner of someone standing for Parliament, I've found that people I work on campaign groups with are slightly hesitant to talk about this. For example, I'm quite heavily involved in anti-war, pro-Palestine activism, and although many of my fellow members have been excited and supportive of Owen's Parliamentary campaign, it's been suggested that it's probably not a good idea to talk about it officially through the group, even though Owen is one of the very small number of candidates who is unequivocally calling for the state of Palestine to be recognised by the UK. This is again, in the interests of not wanting to be 'political'.

I should make clear that I don't say this to criticise anyone who tries to avoid looking too political. If they believe that their campaign is better-served by not giving any politicians any kind of support, I respect that decision. However, I think it does raise the question of why that is? I believe that any action that tries to change anything is, by its very nature, political. I would say that every single example I've given is of people who were trying to change the political status quo, something I regularly try to do myself. I think if you're doing something political, I don't see why it's a dirty thing to be upfront about that.

We talk about politics as if what happens in Westminster, in Holyrood, in Brussels or in the White House is completely separated from our own day-to-day lives. But in reality, they're completely inextricable. We get to exercise a vote every few years that in reality means almost nothing in the grand scheme of things, and then the politicians take it upon themselves to act in whatever way they see fit, irrespective of what general people actually want. The only way to make any kind of impact on that is to behave in ways that are unashamedly, uncompromisingly political - if people don't act in political ways, politicians with great power will never take action that people want or need.

Just on a personal level, I view nearly every conversation I have as being somewhat political. This is why I struggle if I'm ever asked not to talk politics, because the way I live my life every day is a reflection of my views on the world. A conversation about the weather becomes a conversation about the climate, which becomes what we're doing to our planet and the ecological emergency. A conversation about what I had for breakfast becomes a conversation about my diet, which is built around the views I hold regarding food production. This is why I tend to say, 'If you don't want me to talk politics, it's probably better if I don't come at all', because this is the person I am and I don't feel I can make that commitment, or that anyone would be better off if I did.

Particularly when canvassing, the nature of who people are planning to vote for inevitably comes up. I don't probe if someone doesn't want to talk about it, but I find it fascinating the number of people who invariably consider their voting choice to be as confidential as their bank PIN. I would understand this if we were living in a police state where you could be harassed or arrested for voting in the wrong way - but we are not. I actually believe that were we able to have more of a conversation about who we're all going to vote for, we'd be able to discuss these matters more openly, come to understand what people feel and and why. I think that very few people, even if I fundamentally disagree with their opinions, have views that I actually would not understand. If we could share that with each other, I believe we'd be a more politically healthy society, and that this would be a good thing.

There's another thing that makes people disapprove of constant political discussion, and that is that people find it boring. My question to that is: why? Why does a discussion about the way we live and function bore you? The answer is quite simple: because it's been made boring. Everything about the way politics is conducted in the UK is designed to be really dull. When we watch politics on the television, we see boring men in boring suits, sitting in boring rooms and using boring words that a lay person might not understand, and more often than not they're contravening people's human rights. There are some states where the force of the military keeps people from engaging in politics. In the UK, they don't bother to do that, because the subject is made to sound so dull that not enough people try to engage in it in the first place. Although, I do think this is changing. The tightening of laws regarding protests, the introduction of photo ID at polling stations and various other things, are all designed to suppress political engagement, and the reason it's being done right now is that people's living standards have got too low. Simply making it boring doesn't work so well as it used to, because people are actually looking to have these conversations.

I'm very torn as to whether to be optimistic or pessimistic at these developments. There's valid reasons to be both, but I am on the whole an optimist, and although I disagree with the suppression of political action, I think it's a good thing that people's increasing willingness to engage is frightening the establishment powers enough that they're taking these measures in the first place. I really hope that by the time they start suppressing people, the genie is already far enough out of the bottle that it will stay out, and people will continually want to engage. It's just a real shame that it takes things getting so much worse in the world for that to happen.

At hustings, Owen typically attends wearing a jumper and his signature hand-knitted beanie hat. He stands out amongst the establishment politicians he sits next to - but I've heard a lot of people talking about how refreshing it is that one of the candidates actually looks and acts like a human being. Let's see how it goes.

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It is an embarrassment to see who is standing against the Labour Party

 This evening, along with my partner Owen Lewis (independent candidate for Monmouthshire), I attended an online talk by the Transform Party regarding the various independent candidates standing against establishment politicians at the coming UK General Election. The meeting was really just to bounce ideas for campaigning, fundraising and getting decent media coverage. I think it's probably better if I don't say who else was there as I don't know if every attendee would be happy with that being on record, but I will say that it was a really interesting meeting and actually reassured me about a lot of the things we're doing in Owen's campaign.

Shortly afterwards, I caught the end of the televised debate between the various political parties, around about the time the representatives were giving their closing statements. Deputy Labour Leader Angela Rayner asserted the oft-repeated line that 'Keir Starmer has changed the Labour Party' (they never seem to want to go into detail about exactly how, do they?) Green Party co-leader Carla Denyer aptly responded, 'Angela's right, he has. He's changed it into the Conservative Party.' I've worked with Carla on political campaigns in the past, I have a lot of respect for her and I think she's right - this is exactly what Keir Starmer has done (I wrote in my previous blog about how similar the Labour Party's campaign feels to the Conservative one from 2017.)

This is why there are so many left-wing independents planning to stand at this election, and why they're all keen to link up and support one another. It was acknowledged at the meeting that because of the First-Past-The-Post system we aren't particularly expecting that many to win, although we are cautiously optimistic that at least some will, and hopefully that will lead to more coming in at the following election. But something has occurred to me about these independents that I think is significant in a way that is separate to their likelihood of getting the seat. For the Labour Party, the specific kinds of people who are challenging it as independents should be one of the greatest embarrassments they've ever seen.

Here are some examples of who is standing.

Jody McIntyre in Birmingham Yardley, challenging Labour's Jess Phillips

I'm starting with this one because it really excited me when I found out about it. Jody McIntyre was one of my earliest political inspirations - I remember, from back in the early days of the Con-Dem coalition, the way that Ben Brown on the BBC tried to humiliate him when a police officer violently pulled him out of his wheelchair at an anti-austerity demonstration. During the interview, Jody conducted himself with great decorum, revealed that he actually wasn't capable of moving the wheelchair by himself, and asked quite reasonably how in those circumstances he could possibly have been believed by the police to be a threat.

Since then, I've often wondered what happened to Jody McIntyre and what he went on to do, as I hadn't seen his name mentioned anywhere - until now. Jess Phillips is a member of Labour Friends of Israel, although she's quite good at talking the talk about Palestine and appealing to the significant number of Muslim voters in her constituency. Personally, I've always found her to be quite problematic as a politician - I will always remember how, on the night of the 2019 General Election, she appeared on TV laughing and joking and clearly delighted with the result, before realising the cameras were on her and quickly shifting her facial expression into one of sadness.

The fact that a severely disabled human rights activist, someone who has been abused for his disability in the past, and someone who has campaigned for the human rights of Palestinians for fifteen years, is standing against one of the most well-known Labour MPs, should shame the party.

Andrew Feinstein in Holborn and St Pancras, challenging Labour leader Keir Starmer

Andrew Feinstein is from South Africa, and is from a Jewish background - he's actually the son of a Holocaust survivor.

Having been persecuted for his anti-apartheid politics throughout the 1980s, Andrew served as a member of the South African National Assembly from 1997-2001, under President Nelson Mandela. In 2001, he resigned in protest against corruption from within his party, moved to the UK and has since fought corruption in various areas from the heart of London.

I've written a fair bit about Andrew's campaign on this blog, because it's been one of the few things that I've really felt motivated by in politics over the last few years. I'm not the only one either - I think his decision to challenge Keir Starmer for his seat is one of the main things that has prompted other independents to stand. I've also met Andrew personally - he came to do a talk near where I live in Abergavenny earlier this year, I found him so inspirational and he was one of the earliest people who encouraged Owen to stand.

I said earlier that Labour never wants to go into detail about how it has changed - but if pressed on the matter, politicians will trot out that they've done an amazing job dealing with anti-Semitism. I don't think this is true at all. On the contrary, I think Labour has made anti-Semitism far worse. Labour's attitude makes anti-Semitism inextricable from opposition to the state of Israel - and when the state of Israel is committing war crimes on the scale that it is, that has serious consequences for any and all Jewish people. Jewish people have also regularly been suspended and expelled from the Labour Party on the grounds of anti-Semitism. To be clear, I don't believe it's impossible for Jews to be anti-Semitic, just as I don't believe it's impossible for women to be misogynistic, gay people to be homophobic or black people to support white supremacy. These are offensive and unacceptable views, and should be called out irrespective of who expresses them. But if people in these groups were regularly and consistently accused of these things, that would concern me greatly, and it concerns me greatly how hard it is to be a Jewish socialist in the Labour Party - far harder, from what I've seen, than being a non-Jewish socialist.

I don't know how well the campaign for Andrew is going, although I've been advised by friends working on it that there are a lot of people in the constituency who are very interested, and that the kind of voter Keir Starmer is trying to target with Labour aren't the types of people who generally live in Holborn and St Pancras. But in some ways, I think that isn't really the point. For the son of a Holocaust survivor, and a personal friend of Nelson Mandela, to be challenging the Leader of the Labour Party for his seat - a leader who has built a major part of his campaign on tackling anti-Semitism - is probably the greatest humiliation the Labour Party could experience right now. This is the case irrespective of how well Andrew Feinstein actually does.

Owen Lewis in Monmouthshire, challenging Conservative Secretary of State for Wales David TC Davies (marginal constituency, Labour putting a lot of resources into it)

This last example I've shamelessly chosen just because Owen Lewis is my partner, and I therefore know the details of this one inside out. Owen is a popular local campaigner, particularly on disability rights. Before I knew Owen, he worked for many years at Tudor Street Day Centre, helping adults with learning difficulties and mental health problems get the best out of life and achieve as much independence as possible.

The campaigns started when Owen learned that after closing its doors in 2020 due to the pandemic, Tudor Street Day Centre had not re-opened, leaving the local disabled community without their much-needed services. This campaign is still ongoing; it's been hugely successful so far, with great support from the local community (I think the Day Centre would have been knocked down for housing by now were it not for Owen's efforts). Nevertheless, it has still not re-opened. Owen set up a local community group, run by volunteers, to replace the services Tudor Street Day Centre used to offer - this project has proven to be a real lifeline for some of the most vulnerable people in town. Nevertheless, it could be better. The building it runs from, whilst good in some respects, is not equipped for people with some of the most severe disabilities. The continuing goal, which keeps getting kicked down the road, is to get Tudor Street Day Centre re-opened.

On this campaign, Owen has dealt with MPs, prospective MPs and councillors of all descriptions and political persuasions. Some have been more helpful than others, but the end result is the same - Tudor Street Day Centre has still not re-opened, and the message is sent out to the local disabled community that their needs are not the priority for local politicians. Owen has therefore built his election campaign around the rights of people who are disabled, elderly, unwell or vulnerable in some other way. Sometimes people interpret this as being a single issue campaign, but it is not. In every political decision that is made, some people are affected more than others, and those who are affected more tend to be in more vulnerable groups. Owen's work is aimed at redressing this balance - making sure that on every policy the next Government enacts, from climate policies to addressing the ongoing situation in Palestine, the rights of every single person are considered, right down to those with the quietest voices.

This one is slightly different from the other examples I've given because it's a Conservative MP Owen is challenging, rather than a Labour one. Nevertheless, the local council is Labour-run and it's a seat the Labour Party is particularly keen to get. Owen (and I) would love to be able to support Labour in this election. But we don't feel that their values will cause the most vulnerable people in the community to get their building back. To be fair to the local Labour candidate Catherine Fookes, she was actually very kind and encouraging when Owen told her he was planning on standing against her. We have nothing against her personally as a candidate. But we do have a lot of things against the Labour Party's position on disability rights - not just because of the Tudor Street Day Centre campaign, but because of Labour's track record, how in the past people who couldn't work due to disability or illness were vilified, how when she was Secretary of State for Work and Pensions Yvette Cooper (now the Shadow Home Secretary) decided that disabled people were fit to work if on a single day they could lift an empty cardboard box and put it back down again.

As Owen's partner, I can testify to the fact that he has no personal political ambitions. He is doing this purely for the local community, because he does not believe that disabled people will be safe under any of the other candidates. For a party that is meant to be for the people to have one of its most marginal seats challenged by someone who does not trust that they'll protect the most vulnerable people in our societies is an absolute disgrace.

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The candidates I've mentioned aren't the only independents standing. But it points to a general point about how Labour doesn't know what it actually stands for. It doesn't have any concrete ideology that is different from the Tory one. I wish it did - I wish we didn't need all these independents standing and had a party we could trust to get behind. Nothing summarises this more than the party's current slogan. In 2017 and 2019, the slogan was 'For the many, not the few' - this was something we could actually get behind, a recognition that for too long politics had only served the super-rich. This has now been replaced with the single word 'Change'. To be clear, this does not mean a change in anything to do with the current political status quo. It only means a change in the people doing it. The Labour Party motto may as well be 'It's our turn now' - it would mean exactly the same thing.

These independents, whether or not they win any seats, are the opposition now. We have to recognise that, because Reform and Nigel Farage are out to position themselves as the opposition. They are not the opposition. They are merely capable of framing themselves in anti-establishment rhetoric. In reality, they come from elitist backgrounds and in power would behave in exactly the same way as the Conservative Party, and unfortunately now, the Labour Party.

One interesting thing I have observed is that of the independents that I'm aware of, Owen is the only one standing for a constituency that isn't in England (if anyone knows of any others, please do tell me!) Naturally, left-wing voters in Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland tend to have their own parties to support - but these parties still have flaws, and I'm very interested to see how this movement will extend to the devolved nations. Hopefully, Owen will play a part in that.

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Keir Starmer's election campaign feels almost identical to Theresa May's

 In 2017, then Prime Minister Theresa May called a snap General Election, in spite of the fact that in the year she'd been in Downing Street she had repeatedly insisted she wouldn't. She claimed that the reason was because she felt that she'd be more able to negotiate a good Brexit deal with the EU with a bigger Parliamentary majority - but it's generally agreed that the real reason for her decision is that she was miles ahead in the polls at the time. The UK media had given her a ten-month-long honeymoon period, the Leader of the Opposition Jeremy Corbyn was generally seen as being unelectable and having just triggered Article 50, she was expecting to absorb all the people who'd voted UKIP in the 2015 election.

I remember very clearly the day I learned of the 2017 General Election, and I almost had a full-blown panic attack. Everyone was saying that the Tories were primed for an absolute super-majority, and I believed them. I believed that Theresa May would be in power for a very long time, that Jeremy Corbyn would be removed from the Labour Party and we'd lose any hope of ever going forward. But it didn't work, for two reasons: 1) Jeremy Corbyn did a much better campaign than anyone was expecting, and 2) Theresa May proved herself to be robotic, dull and quite embarrassing to watch. In the end, although the Conservatives were still the largest party, they lost seats whilst Labour gained them and this was generally considered to be the Waterloo for Theresa May. (Of course, in 2019, my fears about 2017 did come true, albeit with Boris Johnson rather than Theresa May - this was the worst day of my life.)

One of the things that always strikes me about 2017 is how quickly Theresa May managed to dive-bomb in popularity. At the beginning of the campaign, the belief that the British public would adore her was to such an extent that their campaign materials had 'Theresa's Team' written on them instead of 'Conservative Party'. Her rhetoric was all about her as an individual rather than about the party - the phrases 'If I win/lose seats' and 'We need to strengthen my hand' were heard constantly. But within a few short weeks, suddenly she was a public laughing stock, and even staunch Tories were talking about how unrelatable she came across. Having spent several years perfecting her image as a professional and reliable head-teacherly-like figure, when she had the spotlight on her it became apparent that she was hideously out of her depth.

The reason I'm talking about this now is that when I watch Keir Starmer campaigning for Labour, I can't help but get déja vu. Like May, he's cultivated his career more about looking like a safe pair of hands than what he actually stands for. His appearance is designed to look authoritative, but not in a way that's too scary. But it's more than that. Much of Theresa May's rhetoric is now being repeated by Keir Starmer almost verbatim. On the 'missions' section of the Labour Party website, the first subheading is 'Strong, stable and secure foundations'. In 2017, one of Theresa May's greatest embarrassments was the constant repetition of the phrase 'Strong and stable' whenever she was asked a difficult question. This isn't the only time Starmer has repeated May's own phrases - a few months ago, Starmer told local councils that there was 'no magic money tree', again echoing May's words in 2017. This is not only repetitive, but it is also nonsense - as we saw in 2017, Theresa May managed to find £1bn within a single day to bribe the DUP into supporting her in Parliament, and I have no doubt that Keir Starmer would do exactly the same if he was in that position. The proverbial magic money tree exists, and politicians shake it constantly whenever it benefits their own careers.

Earlier this week, Keir Starmer came to my hometown of Abergavenny. Whilst he was here, a group of Palestine campaigners confronted him about his lack of enthusiasm for an immediate ceasefire. Keir Starmer ignored them and wouldn't stop to talk - his priority was purely to talk to Labour groups who already supported him. This is much the same as what Theresa May did - May even went as far as arriving by helicopter to remove the remotest possibility that she may be confronted by anyone who didn't support her. May also attracted controversy by refusing to debate Jeremy Corbyn on television, instead sending various colleagues to represent her. Starmer isn't going quite as far as that, but this excellent video explains how he's refusing to debate anyone but Rishi Sunak, meaning the smaller parties are likely to be locked out of TV debates. This is effectively the same thing as when Theresa May refused to debate Jeremy Corbyn - Jeremy Corbyn would have given her a tough ride and proven himself to be a more effective orator, whereas Rishi Sunak is not going to fundamentally challenge Keir Starmer's mission statement because they both essentially believe in free-market capitalism. Like May, Starmer is refusing to debate anyone that he's worried might say something he can't easily come back from.

There's a reason why Starmer and May are so similar to each other. It's because neither of them are particularly interesting politicians, they are both extremely weak at thinking on their feet and the entirety of the mainstream media is behind their campaigns. Behind the scenes, each of them has had conversations with their senior advisors where they've been told, 'This election is yours to lose, you'll be promoted as the safe pair of hands, so in the meantime just stick to the people who already like you and don't do anything embarrassing.' If you try to say anything interesting in an election campaign, you run the risk of being called out by someone - so the solution is to do nothing of note whatsoever and wait for the other side to screw up.

But, as similar as Starmer and May are to each other, there is one major difference. Theresa May was a sitting Prime Minister campaigning against a Leader of the Opposition who had a great amount of empathy, and was capable of relating to ordinary people on their level. Keir Starmer is a Leader of the Opposition campaigning against a sitting Prime Minister who has been abjectly awful and expects to lose. Theresa May had someone giving her a decent fight, and made it easy for them. Keir Starmer has no one like that, and therefore has an advantage that Theresa May didn't have. For that reason, I really have no idea how this is going to turn out for Keir Starmer and Labour - I don't believe that their success in this election is guaranteed at all, but on this occasion that also raises the question: 'If it's not them, then who?'

At this election, unless you happen to have an unusually good Labour MP like Zarah Sultana, I urge all voters to veer away from the major parties. Neither of them will offer anything in the way of positive change. My partner Owen Lewis is standing in the Monmouthshire constituency as an independent candidate, and most of my campaigning will be for him to win this seat. Ideally go for an independent, but if you don't have a good independent standing, a good idea is to go for the Green Party, or Plaid Cymru if you're in Wales or the SNP if you're in Scotland. Remember - in 2017 Theresa May did a deal with the DUP when she lost her majority. The only way to get decent change is to control the options Keir Starmer may have to do a deal with.

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