Thank you Jeremy, John and Diane 

By Claudia Webbe MP 

Labour’s recently departed leadership team of Jeremy Corbyn, John Mcdonnel and Diane Abbot stood firmly for socialism against incredible pressures – and history will vindicate them. 

During this coronavirus outbreak, I am fighting on behalf of all my constituents in Leicester East to ensure the government is prioritising our public health and safety. We need a collective approach to this crisis, the biggest of our lifetimes, and one which sees a step change in how our public services are valued and funded after a decade of savage cuts. As we tackle this enormous challenge, nobody can be left behind.

Amid this unprecedented pandemic, it is understandable that the handover of Labour’s leadership was a muted affair. I congratulate our party’s new leader Keir Starmer and wish his shadow cabinet team well in a challenging historical moment. But we should also reflect on the experiences of the past five years.

The outgoing triumvirate of Jeremy Corbyn, John McDonnell, and Diane Abbott made dignified final performances. In his final PMQs appearance, Jeremy did what he always has done and stood up for cleaners, care workers, frontline NHS staff, private renters, Britons stuck abroad, universal credit claimants, and others in need of justice.

In their leadership, both in recent years and during the preceding decades when, time and again, they proved to be on the right side of history. Before they held any position of power, these three led opposition to the disastrous war in Iraq, stood up for migrant rights, and opposed cuts to welfare and the drive towards privatisation and deindustrialisation. They were the lonely but consistent voices of dissent against the upward transfer of wealth and power that has taken place since the late 1970s.

The results last December were devastating for all of us who have suffered ten years of Tory rule and know how urgently we need a radical Labour government. But it must never be forgotten that, despite an unprecedented onslaught from the entirety of the British establishment, Jeremy took us incredibly close to victory in 2017, when we secured our largest increase in vote share since 1945 and first net gains in 20 years.

That achievement — winning 40 per cent of the voting public to a socialist programme — was remarkable. And we must look to it when asking questions of how we move forward as a party. The 2019 election was largely a Brexit election. We did not lose it because of our policy platform, which was popular and progressive. The shift in political debate on issues around austerity, nationalisation, investment, and public spending are evidence of this, even in the Conservative Party.

I was proud to be a supporter of Jeremy, John, and Diane’s leadership. In 2015, they took control of a Labour Party that supported austerity, capitulated to right-wing narratives on immigration, and did not offer a genuinely alternative vision for a fairer society.

Together, they have reconnected the Labour Party to its socialist routes. Thanks to their campaigning, we are now the biggest left-wing membership party in Europe — and they have inspired a generation of young people to join the political process and fight for their future. Their leadership has demonstrated to us that we don’t have to accept the unjust status quo, that it is possible to fight against systems of oppression, and that — together — we can achieve real change.

I would also like to pay special tribute to Diane Abbott. When Diane was elected as the first black woman MP in 1987, BAME people only made up 1 per cent of parliamentarians. Today, we count for a record 20 per cent of Labour Party parliamentarians and 10 per cent of all parliamentary members. While we still have much to do, we are indebted to Diane for breaking down many of the barriers facing African, Asian, and minority ethnic women in politics.

She is a true giant of the anti-racist movement. Yet the unprecedented level of vile racist and sexist abuse she has endured as shadow home secretary, which accounts for half of all online hate directed at female MPs, shows that we must all recommit to the fight to end the evils of racism and misogyny.

The present crisis has shown that the world which Jeremy Corbyn, John McDonnell and Diane Abbott have been fighting for their entire lives is not only possible, it is the only viable option to avoid economic chaos, racist reaction, and climate breakdown. The choice of our era is clear: people and planet, or profit.

John McDonnell, who has done so much to move the dial of economic consensus back towards fundamental human decency, was entirely correct with his final words as shadow chancellor in Parliament: ‘It is solidarity that will see us through this crisis, protect our community, and on which we should build our society in the future.’

This crisis has shown us how deeply we depend on one another. We will come through this as a society only through a huge collective effort. As Jeremy said in his final parliamentary appearance as leader; ‘At times like this … we have to recognise the value of each other and the strength of a society that cares for each other and cares for all.’

I hope that Keir Starmer, as Labour leader, will protect these principles of empathy, decency and the belief in our collective ability to build a better world. In an age of crises, which have decimated the political ‘centre-ground’, we on the left must not abandon the compassionate, principled radicalism of Jeremy Corbyn, John McDonnell, and Diane Abbott.

Claudia Webbe MP is the member of Parliament for Leicester East. You can follow her at www.facebook.com/claudiaforLE and twitter.com/ClaudiaWebbe