Thread by @shaunjlawson

Infighting in the Labour Party is, sadly, one of its oldest traditions. Tearing each other apart is what the left has always done best - to the delight of the Tories, who've always taken full advantage.

1930s. 1950s. 1980s. 2010s. It's gone on and on. It's in our nature it seems

It's sad. It's such a waste, but I don't think it'll ever change.

Many times, I've commented on here about just how venal so many MPs on the Labour right have seemed in recent times. I don't understand how these individuals became so powerful.

Many of them became alarmingly distant from their constituents; many of their constituency parties became, well, rackets frankly.

At the heart of much of this was Progress: a party within a party. Which in my judgement, has contributed enormously to this mess.

I have next to no time whatever for Progress and its 'ideas' (assuming it has any other than 'the left is evil'). I don't think Progress even understand the first thing about Blairism: which for all its many flaws, was at least optimistic and did help an awful lot of people.

Progress' dreary centrism is a quite massive part of the reason why Labour collapsed in Scotland. It was no surprise to me to hear Jess Phillips still parroting the same discredited drivel about the SNP. Progress have been doing that for years and years.

A lot of people don't understand that Corbynism wasn't just a response to a failing economic system. It was also a grassroots response to a hollowed out party which had ceased to be a genuine movement altogether. Which is where, of course, Momentum came in.

Momentum excel at galvanising people: spreading the message, getting it out there. However, that they - another party within a party - also seem to have played a strategic role in the election campaign isn't OK. The antagonism between left Labour and right Labour just gets worse.

Increasingly, I'm starting to view both organisations as mirror images of each other. Neither is altruistic; both seem to be about power and control for themselves. I'm finding that very, very depressing - because Momentum especially could do so, so much good.

And just as I noted with mounting disbelief how many Progress (and Co-Op) MPs had nothing in common with ordinary people - especially poor and working class people - I'm starting to get the same suspicions about Momentum.

I spent much of last year noting how many of my followers were in the most appalling circumstances. I kinda assumed that applied to much of the Labour left: that we're angry because we KNOW what the Tories have done, to some of us, many of our loved ones and friends.

But imagine for a moment that you were on universal credit, living in awful accommodation, barely able to survive at all. The idea that you'd care so much more about who leads the Labour Party than getting the Tories out is ridiculous. You'd be frantic to get them out, period.

The same must apply to so many others in horrific circumstances. They need a Labour government desperately. It's life or death for plenty of them.

So here's my issue. How many of those in Momentum are in those circumstances? How many of those on the online left are in them?

If the answer is 'not many', then those not in such circumstances trying to dictate to others who MUST lead the Labour Party isn't just wrong. It's disgusting.

My politics are, always have been and always will be anti-Tory. Period. The Tory Party are my enemy.

They wreck lives constantly. It's what they've always done and always will do. Yet that so many on here apparently are more antagonistic towards the Labour right, the Labour centre or the Labour left boggles my mind. It's reprehensible.

Progress types going around calling anyone on the Labour left 'Trots' or 'cranks'.

Momentum types going around calling anyone not on the Labour left 'centrists' or 'sell-outs' or 'war-mongers' or 'imperialists'.

Will you all just look at yourselves?

Literally the only reason I bore everyone to sleep on here so much is because I want - I'm desperate for - a Labour government. I am terrified for the future of the UK without one. Many loved ones of mine have suffered appallingly because of the Tories.

Out there, in real life, the general public couldn't give a damn about these ridiculous labels. But it DOES give a damn when it sees its only potential for salvation tearing itself apart again and again. And much of it thinks "what a bunch of angry, self-righteous dickheads".

If our priority is not, at all times, holding the Tories to account and defeating them electorally, we don't deserve to be in government.

If we keep obsessing with this factional, sectarian nonsense, we don't deserve to be in government.

And if there's people on here who aren't affected by the Tories being in government, whose lives aren't wrecked, who are insulated from these horrors, yet who have the absolute brass neck to attack so many others for not doing what they demand, shame on them.

The above applies to both Labour left and Labour right; to Progress and Momentum. It's not about your petty fiefdoms and your over-sized egos. It's about HELPING THE BRITISH PEOPLE.

That this even needs saying at all tells its own story, frankly.

I don't care if people think I'm on the Labour left, Labour centre or Labour right.

I don't care about these stupid labels: people trying to compare socialism to Stalinism or other people demanding we all take some socialism purity test.

I care about getting the Tories out.

And if that isn't your first priority, wake the hell up and make it so. Before the UK turns into an authoritarian one-party state.