by Sam Dale
“Unity is our watchword,” says Jeremy Corbyn on his campaign website as he sets out his plan to heal the party after a bruising leadership contest.
On the site he has a “unity statement” and calls on members to sign the pledge that aims to bring the party back together after months of in-fighting.
“The leadership election should be conducted with one thought in mind: our objective is to be a united party focused on winning the general election and campaigning across the country, day in day out,” he writes.
He has also penned an article for the New Statesman claiming the party must unite after the contest is over and how he’ll do it if he’s leader.
By way of example, he insists the main reason the party lost in 1983 was because it was divided.
“The Labour left was fighting a passionate but often inward-looking campaign for party democracy and several figures on the right of the party spent much of that election denouncing the manifesto,” he writes. “It’s no surprise we lost.”
It is astonishing to read these words coming from the pen of Jeremy Corbyn. And astonishing he can do it with a straight face.
If only we were more united then there is nothing we can’t achieve, he seems to argue.
This is hypocrisy.
No Labour MP has been more disloyal to party leaderships in the last 30 years than Jeremy Corbyn. It is ridiculous for him to now ask the party to unite behind him.
As is now well-known, this is a man who has voted 537 times against the party whip since 1997.
He has been more than happy to stand on the Labour ticket to help get elected in his Islington constituency but treats voting with the party in the Commons as an optional extra.
This is not just immense disloyalty but partly cheating the people of Islington who elected a Labour MP standing on the party’s manifesto.
If he wants to vote however he pleases then he is free to stand as an independent. He can not have the support of a party machine behind him and the luxury of simply ignoring the manifesto.
There are lot’s of examples, but here’s just one.
In May 2005 Corbyn stood as a Labour candidate. On 21 June, Corbyn and John McDonnell were the only two Labour MPs to vote with the Conservatives against the Racial and Religious Hatred Bill. A key plank of the manifesto they both stood on a month earlier.
As we know, he voted against the party whip on the Welfare Bill last month during the leadership election.
That allowed reams of newspaper columns to be written about Labour disunity over welfare. Voting with the leadership and most of his Labour colleagues was the unifying option, which he now claims should be the “one thought in mind”.
Outside the Commons he has been a constant critic, marched against Labour policies and cheered the election of Respect’s George Galloway in Bradford.
It is a bare-faced cheek to appeal for unity when you have a record of constant, unrelenting opposition to the party leadership.
The only thing Corbyn has been loyal to in the last 30 years is himself and his own political ideals, certainly not the Labour party.
We can not always get exactly what we want. Belonging to a party means serving an institution bigger than yourself. It means compromise and sacrifice.
Corbyn has shown no desire to do either for the bigger cause. He has primarily served himself and now demands others serve him.
If he wins then don’t be surprised if his calls go unanswered.
Sam Dale is a financial and political journalist