Why I resigned from the Labour Party

Earlier in the year I begged my friends not to quit after Keir Starmer was elected leader. Today I did the very thing I warned against.

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When it began to look as though Keir Starmer was going to win the election for the leader of the UK Labour Party, some of my left-wing friends and I began to worry. We worried about the dilution of our 2019 commitment to economic equality and ecological recovery. We worried about the fate of the avowed socialist MPs who had become prominent under Corbyn’s leadership, some of whom were to be offered front-bench positions and might be in prime position to be made examples of.

I didn’t vote for Keir Starmer. 2020 marks the first year in which I did not vote for the winning candidate in a party leadership race. I picked Nick Clegg (whoops, well we all have a past), Ed Millband, and Jeremy Corbyn (twice).

How could I choose Starmer after twice choosing Corbyn? After gleefully reading our 2019 manifesto, after proudly showing in my window a sign promising a government for the many, not the few? Starmer stood for none of that. He was a Corbyn-saboteur, a centrist, and as it turns out someone with no more vision for the country than a regional manager for Tesco. I couldn’t stomach…