WHAT’S THE POINT OF THE LABOUR PARTY?

The Labour Party and the Parliament of Nodding Dogs

For the first time in my life I did not vote in the last general election. Not out of apathy or indifference but out of rage and frustration. Voting Labour, where my natural political sympathies lay, had begun to feel increasingly like writing a blank cheque for a political party determined to shred our civil liberties, curtail free speech, and continue to spy on our private lives.  
I have wanted to believe in Ed Miliband and that the Labour Party has changed for the better, after all this country cannot afford another five years of being governed by a party of the ideological far right. However I wake this morning with that weary familiar feeling of impotence and rage. What is the point of the Labour Party?
Yesterday saw millions of workers withdraw their labour, take to the streets and protest against this government, - an appalling cabal of millionaires who are slowly destroying the very fabric of this country. Where stood the Labour Party? Were the shadow cabinet marching proudly behind the banners of organised labour, standing shoulder to shoulder with those fighting poverty pay and crap working conditions? Were they linking arms with the representatives of a trade union movement that gave birth to the party? Well no actually, they were in the House of Commons engaged in a stitch up with the Tories and Lib Dems to steamroller through a bill ensuring the government continues to enjoy the ability to collect our personal data; plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose.*
I think I can count on the Right Honourable member
to support this bill. 

With the honourable exceptions of David Davies on the Conservative benches and Tom Watson for the Labour Party you could have replaced the ranks of MP’s with rows of nodding dogs, they would have done an equally effective job of scrutinising legislation and holding the executive to account.
As for the Labour Party, what’s the point?

*The more things change the more they stay the same.


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