Labour’s Membership: Britain’s public fighting for the NHS

Since 2015, 100,000s of members of the British public have joined the Labour Party to fight against the damage being inflicted upon Britain by the Tories in government. Dismissed as ‘Corbynites’, ‘Trots’, ‘dogs’, ‘Nazis stormtroopers’, ‘loony Lefties’ and worse, these ‘ordinary’ members of the public have had to fight to keep the party leadership that they had democratically elected, who they believe offers the best opportunity to fight the Tories. Within Labour, Labour’s membership have had to fight against the remnants of the New Labour experiment that the wider electorate had rejected in 2010 but who still clamour for power.

What have these 100,000s of the British public been fighting against?

• The cynical destruction of the NHS and wholesale siphoning off of public spending, from public services to privateers.
• The failed economic strategy of Austerity that has seen Britain slip ever further in the rankings of the world’s economies and which has introduced shameful attacks on our society’s most vulnerable.
• Diminished worker protections, job insecurity, falling wages, increasing household debt, and increasing in-work poverty.
• The housing crisis.
• Sleaze, cronyism and unaccountably in politics.
• Media corruption.

Attacks against Labour’s membership persist, not least of which through attacks directed towards the Labour leadership who are championing not only the issues that matter most to the membership but, also, the influence the membership have within Labour to direct Labour’s policies.

Labour succeeded in the 2017 general election because the membership hit the streets and spoke to their communities, bypassing the media portrayals of them. Instead of seeing ‘loony Lefties’, the general public met people just like themselves, with the same concerns and aspirations.

The Tories are a disaster in government, parasites that are visibly destroying institutions like the NHS and denying people basic dignities by forcing increasing numbers to be reliant on foodbanks to feed their families. I would propose that the word of 2017 should be ‘foodbank’. The British public have been joining the Labour Party because they see it as a real means of fighting against the disaster that the Tories are in government, a way to influence a political party to fight for the issues that they believe in.

It says much for the resilience and strength of commitment that those who joined Labour to redirect its leadership towards righting the wrongs and failings of the Tories in 2015 have withstood the ridicule and scorn thrown their way. What these people have been fighting for and warning of has unfolded rapidly for the general public to see in the Tories’ disastrous ‘brexit’ and the Tories’ NHS crisis.