Thread by @shaunjlawson

Yesterday, I discussed how powerful narratives are. But the thing about narratives is: we all use them to make meaning of our lives and the world.

Very many on the left have a (mostly, factual) narrative about recent years too. This thread tries to put myself in their shoes.

That's something I should've done far, far, far more of. It's just that Twitter really doesn't allow it.

Please keep that in mind if you complain about the length of the thread. Detail requires length, nuance, subtlety even; and cannot be explained in 280 characters.

The context here isn't just of a literally, intellectually and philosophically bankrupt Labour Party in 2015. It's of a political system which had been failing many millions for decades on end... and had simply abandoned them altogether.

A political system in which trust began to completely collapse after we went to war in Iraq on a lie. A lie for which horrific numbers of Iraqis paid with their lives.

A context, too, in which Labour accepted the very austerity which killed hundreds of thousands.

"Politicians? They don't care about us. They're all the same".

The 2015 leadership contest revealed the most staggering lack of ideas, vision, moral clarity about absolutely anything. Except in one man. Jeremy Corbyn.

Through his vision, his ideas, his lifelong career of standing for the weak against the strong, he was what the Labour Party is *supposed to be*. And that inspired people. Millions of them.

Suddenly, a hitherto moribund party became the largest in Western Europe.

That meant energy. That meant critical funds, at a time the Tories were trying to break the union link with Labour altogether. Above all, it meant HOPE. For so many previously disenfranchised. Now, finally, someone was speaking up for them and their awful lived realities.

Yet the Parliamentary Party had become so disgracefully detached from those lived realities that much of it opposed Corbyn... from day one. It didn't give a damn about party democracy at all. The contempt it showed was extraordinary.

The media, meanwhile? Misrepresentations, lies and smears were already all it was interested in: aided and abetted by Labour MPs who should've been ashamed of themselves, but frankly couldn't have cared less about their constituents or the membership.

The message from them was "pay us your subs and shut up, you Trots! You cult! You are the little people. WE ARE THE IMPORTANT ONES HERE".

All of which culminated, of course, in the chicken coup. Which was wholly anti-democratic and which failed totally.

The lack of judgement the PLP displayed in supporting Owen Smith - a man who isn't even a household name in his own household (if "Owen Smith" is the answer, what was the question?!) - only underscored why Corbyn had won in the first place.

These people were utterly clueless.

And their own behaviour was a quite massive part of why Labour was so far behind in the polls.

- MPs slag Corbyn off daily

- Media reports their briefings

- Public thinks "this party is a joke and this leader is a joke"

- Tories go 20 points and more ahead

- Rinse and repeat

Fascinatingly, when the public was exposed to Corbyn close up during the 2017 election campaign - and crucially, when the media focused on the laughably awful Tory campaign - it realised what we already all knew. That he's a kind, gentle, decent man.

And that the only 'threat' he posed was to:

- Tax dodgers
- Buy to let landlords
- Billionaires
- A corrupt, mindbogglingly dishonest media
- A bankrupt, failed system which had helped cause Brexit

Yet all this time, as the public grew to like and admire him, sections of the Parliamentary Party were actively working against him.

They were taking members' (many of them very poor) money, and putting it into helping the Tories win. Vile. Unconscionable. Unforgivable.

We'll never know if that made the decisive difference or not. I'll always believe, though, that if the election campaign had gone on for just one more week, Labour would've formed a government... and who knows where we'd be as a country now?

Over the rest of 2017, Labour pulled clear in the polls. This set off panic not just among the Tories or the right wing media... but on the Labour right. Everything they had believed for so long was now in huge question; what would become of them if real democracy was allowed?

So now, their behaviour became more and more venal, more and more in bad faith, more and more utterly shameless... and the media was only too happy to lap it all up. "Divided Labour". "Labour in crisis". And then... "Corbyn is an antisemite and Labour is antisemitic".

The claim that someone who helped stop a Jewish cemetery being bulldozed to the ground; and tried to help Yemeni Jews while almost the entire rest of the PLP refused to help them is an 'antisemite' is, and has always been, utterly disgusting, monstrous nonsense.

Nonsense that was amplified. And amplified. And amplified some more. By Labour MPs with no such lifelong record of anti-racism but who hated Corbyn and everything he stood for.

Electorates do not vote for divided parties... and these people always knew that, and counted on it.

On it went, to Brexit. On which Corbyn's position was continually lied about and wilfully misrepresented by a deranged media and again, by Labour MPs: more interested in defeating Corbyn than in stopping Brexit.

Their attitudes helped bring about Tory Brexit. For shame.

Tory Brexit: meaning either a pathetically thin deal, or no deal at all. Enabled by these saboteurs: none of whom will be affected in any serious way by the consequences. Unlike their poor constituents.

And sure: Starmer himself played a major role in pushing Labour towards Remain. I don't hold that against him because the membership and Labour voters were both very heavily pro-Remain - but of course I understand why others do.

The combined impact of all this - especially a lying, dystopian media which openly ignored purdah rules - was to paint a kind, gentle, decent man of peace as some sort of terrifying, evil ogre.

See this from Laura Pidcock about her experiences.

medium.com/@laura.pidcock…

This was Britain through the looking glass. In which black was white, wrong was right. In which hysterical nonsense was amplified deliberately by the media to terrify British Jews - and Corbyn's efforts to keep the country together were ridiculed too. By liars and idiots.

That election campaign was like watching a bunch of lemmings leading the UK off the cliff to becoming strawberry jam below. As we've all seen throughout this year, as a corrupt beyond belief government lays waste to the country. Killing 75,000 people, with plenty more to come.

But that Labour MPs - LABOUR MPs - had participated in this and willed it on is beyond disgusting. I often wonder how many of them sleep at night.

Then came the exit poll. The most almighty punch in the gut to everyone who'd believed in a better future.

Many responded in the days and weeks afterwards with something approaching grief. Corbyn had inspired them EMOTIONALLY; they were completely committed to what he represented.

Yet for the crime of standing up for them, he'd been destroyed. By horrific, horrible people.

Then came the leadership campaign. In which Starmer comprehensively out-manoeuvred and out-flanked Long-Bailey by pledging to hold the party together, and maintain Corbyn's policies (the 2017 ones, at least).

Since when, he's done...

... Um.....

... Er.....

.... Crickets....

Where are the policies? Where is the vision? And why, when push comes to shove, does he ALWAYS seem to punch not right, but left?

Even, of course, to the extent of mostly supporting this rank shower of a 'government' during the pandemic.

Give the Labour left something to support, something to get behind, and they'll back it! Instead, it's been boring process and Parliamentary procedure; and abstentions on issues which matter, hugely.

"Moral cowardice", thinks the left, with plenty of justification.

Worse: much of it thinks we're right back where we started. In which members should pay up but not be heard; in which, yes, tons of members are walking away; and in which the Labour Party stands for nothing and believes in nothing. Other than riding roughshod over hope, that is.

Now, is that what I personally believe? No. Far from it. But can I understand why so many DO believe it? Yes, absolutely. These are people whose lived experiences tell them to believe it too: they were failed by Labour again and again. "Fool me once, shame on you..." and all that

In politics, narratives are all-important and perception is nine tenths of reality. Starmer has to appreciate this. Starmer has to reach out. His treatment of Corbyn has instead poured petrol on the flames.

If he doesn't reach out, people will draw their own conclusions.

If the investigation into the leaked report does not result in suspensions and expulsions for vile racism and misogyny, people will draw their own conclusions.

If opposition to this government isn't much stronger, people will draw their own conclusions.

If there's no vision and no ideas in terms of policy - when we have 10 years to save the planet, and counting - people will draw their own conclusions.

And me, amid all this?

I've been far too harsh, outrageously harsh, in how I've interacted with so many on here since the election defeat. That's partly a Twitter thing and partly a Shaun thing.

But we cannot ever win unless we unite. Unless we ALL reach out and listen to each other.

Politically and philosophically, I'm actually somewhere *in between* Corbyn and Starmer. I bet loads of us on here and among the membership are, in fact.

And yes: just as there's a narrative on the left, so there also is on the centre-left. And in the centre too.

Those narratives and perceptions matter too. One person's truth is not another's. With Twitter always adding to the sense of chaos and misunderstanding.

But I'll say this to finish. The people I've talked about in this thread are NOT a cult and are NOT 'cranks'.

THEY JUST WANT SOMETHING BETTER.

Though curiously enough, enthusiastic supporters of Starmer *also* JUST WANT SOMETHING BETTER.

The difference lies in how people think we can get there.

Those who are pissed off think there's no point now, because Starmer doesn't represent change.

Those who support him think that change only comes bit by bit, step by step. By eating an elephant one bite at a time; not all in one go.

I agree with the latter group. But that doesn't mean I don't hear the former group or realise what they mean at all.

Uniting the party is a colossal task. But good grief: Keir Starmer at least has to *try*. And there's little evidence of him doing so at this point.

Over to you, Keir.

And to everyone, with whatever politics, within or even without this movement whose heads I've bitten off over the past year, I'm sorry. 😳😳😳

My behaviour will always say much more about me than it does about you.