The final election phase to decide Your Party’s collective leadership has begun. And for many, it has become a race to determine how much member empowerment and control there will be. As one candidate for Yorkshire & The Humber told the Canary:

This party and its growth and its development shouldn’t be down to what a few people—who have found themselves at the top of it before any democratic structure’s been put in place—think it should be like.

‘Open Your Party up to the hundreds of thousands of people who need it’

Chris Saltmarsh is on the Grassroots Left slate in the Central Executive Committee (CEC) elections. And while he called this slate “really diverse,” he described how everyone participating broadly shares:

A political vision and understanding for what we want the party to be.

That centres around “maximum member democracy”.

Saltmarsh explained why this is so important for him, saying:

Most people have seen the [Your Party founding] process and thought: ‘oh, this doesn’t feel like a welcoming space where I can come and express my politics and learn and develop and contribute to building this project. It feels like a space where I have to come and pick a side in a factional feud and I’m expected to care about this very detailed and, probably to most people, irrelevant stuff.’

I think people don’t want to be involved in a party where it appears that it’s the source for people to litigate these personal feuds. And I think they don’t want to be involved in a party where it doesn’t feel like they have any say.

Statistics seem to back that up. Because while around 800,000 people initially expressed interest, only about 1% actually became full members who participated in the votes at the Your Party’s founding conference. Something that deterred hundreds of thousands of people. And for many, it’s clear what that was.

Saltmarsh called for an open, inclusive culture going forwards, stressing:

We should open this up to the hundreds of thousands of people who have a stake in this party existing. If I want the party to be eco-socialist… then it’s not for me or anyone else to say that that absolutely has to be the case. What we need is a genuine democratic structure so that we can organise around those ideas openly and transparently.

Reflecting on the challenges that Your Party has faced and the possible election results, he said:

For all the demotivation that people might have, this is an incredibly important moment. And I would just plead that people – even if it’s just voting – do get involved and do participate in this. Because I think what the British left looks like in 1, 5, 10, 20 years really could be quite different, depending on how this election goes.

Whatever the outcome, though, he believes there is democracy in Your Party and there will still be space for people with differing views to make their cases.

Your Party or the Greens?

Saltmarsh previously co-founded Labour for a Green New Deal. And because he believes climate politics is ‘a question of justice, inequality and oppression’, he thinks it’s important to bring:

an environmental or climate perspective into left spaces, but also a kind of socialist politics into climate spaces

The wealthiest 10% of people in the world have been responsible for the overwhelming majority of global warming. And while richer countries do the most damage, the poorest countries suffer the most as a result of climate breakdown.

Saltmarsh isn’t in the Green Party, however, because he thinks an explicitly socialist mass organisation on the left is necessary. And while the Greens are already “up and running” and have a leader in Zack Polanski who’s “clearly very skilled at communicating”, he said:

A cynical interpretation would be, it’s like a really good Instagram account.

While asserting that communication is definitely important, he also thinks Your Party is about taking “a longer view” than just elections. Its mission, he stressed, is to:

build in communities, to organise hundreds or thousands of socialists in any given town and city, not just to win elections when that’s expedient but also to coordinate campaigns, to raise consciousness, to build socialism through social infrastructure.

That means building a “collective political life” in communities, with things like:

socialist schools, where members and supporters come along and learn about socialism

And it means having a party where, from the beginning, members agree on a socialist, anti-imperialist platform.

“An incredibly important moment”

Saltmarsh isn’t the only person who thinks the CEC elections are “an incredibly important moment”. Because the Canary has interviewed a range of candidates who want a member-led party that breaks with top-down, personality-driven politics.

Candidates have emphasised the importance of transparency, accountability, and a collective leadership that focuses on solidarity, bringing people together, and empowering as many people as possible. This message has shone through from everyone who’s spoken to us.

There absolutely have been questions surrounding accountability and transparency during the founding phase of Your Party. And whether you think this messy start was avoidable or unavoidable, countless members and candidates want that to change, and hope the CEC elections will help to overcome these challenges.

If you’re a Your Party member and you want to vote:

1. You need to log in on the top right of the party’s website.
2. On the Your Party Members Area page that will pop up after logging in, you will see “EVENTS” on the right hand side. Below this, you will see “VOTES AND ELECTIONS”, and two options: “CEC Election – Public Office Holders” and “CEC Election – [the name of your local section of the party]”.
3. If you click on each of those ‘CEC Election’ links, you’ll be able to see the candidates and their statements. You then need to put a number next to all the candidates you want to support (1 being your favourite, 2 your second favourite, and so on).

Featured image via the Canary

Recently, Rory Stewart argued that western politicians are “impoverished” on their lofty annual salaries of £93,904, attempting to excuse their corruption.

He ignored the generous expenses MPs claim from taxpayers, and critics have condemned what they view as a blatantly self-interested attempt to provide political cover for corruption. Since then, the Canary has spoken with Andrew Feinstein for his take on corruption in the UK government, the disgraced Mandelson, and his response to Rory Stewart.

Feinstein is a former ANC member alongside Nelson Mandela and has built his career fighting corruption linked to the global arms trade. He also challenged UK prime minister Keir Starmer in the Holborn and St Pancras constituency during the 2024 general election. His experience gives him a unique perspective on corruption.

And unsurprisingly, Feinstein was far from impressed at Rory Stewart’s desperate defence.

An existential moment in human history

Recent revelations involving Mandelson and public figures connected to the convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein have exposed a sprawling web of corruption among powerful men. This elite group of politicians and royal family members have used women and girls, trading them around the world to serve their nefarious, self-interested agendas. Their actions reveal a disturbing pattern of exploitation at the highest levels of power. The extent of their abuse continues to outrage the global public.

Rory Stewart’s remarks compound the damage, showing disregard for the severe harms ordinary people suffer.

Here’s Rory Stewart describing MPs as being on “low incomes”.

Their basic annual salary is £93,904, putting them in the top 5% of earners.

There’s a nuanced debate to be had about MPs’ pay, but describing them as “low income” is an insult to those who really are. pic.twitter.com/2qE8fYn1sJ

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— James Hanson (@jhansonradio) February 4, 2026

Andrew Feinstein — ‘From the belly of the corrupted beast’

Our own Joe Glenton recently gave his take on Rory Stewart’s desperate attempt to defend the indefensible, writing:

The average wage in the UK seems to be about £30,000. The mathematical geniuses among us will notice that that is…. quite a lot less than what MPs get paid.

It’s almost like Roderick James Nugent “Rory” Stewart – a humble Oxford educated one-time tutor to the future king of England, former army officer, and imperial governor of a province of Iraq – hasn’t got a fucking clue what he is talking about.

When we put Rory’s defence of ‘impoverished MPs’ to Feinstein, he responded with:

So that tells you everything you need to know about Rory Stewart, whose podcast, of course, is co-hosted by a war criminal in Alastair Campbell, who enabled Tony Blair’s extreme war profiteering and lied in order to get Britain into the invasion of Iraq. So I take that comment as coming from the belly of the corrupted beast.

To think that a political class, an MP, earning £94,000 a year before expenses, and as we all know, claim ridiculous expenses, is frankly an appalling insult to the vast majority of people in Britain. And if that’s what he thinks is impoverishment, then he needs to get his head out of the sand or out of the fancy restaurant he spends his life in and actually understand how many people in Britain are living right now.

Because in Rory Stewart and Alastair Campbell’s Britain, we have more billionaires than at any time in this country’s history, while more families are having to use food banks to feed themselves than at any time since the end of the Second World War. And if he thinks the solution to that is to pay our mendacious, mediocre, corrupted politicians more money, then he’s even more stupid than I thought he was.

But at the same time, it’s important to say that I’ve experienced a totally corrupted political class in apartheid South Africa. And South Africa again now, 30 odd years after our democracy, has another corrupted political class running it. But we still managed to defeat the system of apartheid. We didn’t get rid of any of the economic problems. But simply by dint of the fact that we managed to defeat the apartheid state, it makes me think that enough committed people within a country around the world can bring fundamental political change.

We also asked Feinstein for his perspective on the importance of radical honesty and transparency in government. Referring to known war criminals and the recently exposed shadiness of Mandelson and co, he said:

Absolutely. I think we, just as responsible citizens, have a duty to expose the lies of our leaders, remembering that we elected them, that they exist because of the money that we pay to the state, and they’re ingratiating themselves and their billionaire friends and corporate donors. And I like the idea of radical truth, because if we are truthful about our political systems, we would have to admit that they are not fit for purpose and require fundamental change.

I mean in Britain as we speak, we have someone [Mandelson] who is and has been for decades incredibly powerful and influential in our politics. Not only being close friends with a convicted pedophile and sex trafficker but actually giving information to this person that is then used in this web of influence and deceit.

And all the while, we are participating in conflict and often causing conflict around the world from which again, the same elites profit. And the corollary of that is that our own democratic space is closing so rapidly because it’s the only way you can maintain such a totally corrupted system is if you reduce democracy, you reduce civil rights.

And the companies that are central to these conflicts now, the AI companies, the big tech companies, are exactly the same companies who are central to the erosion of our democracies, are central to the authoritarianism that is becoming a part of our daily lives in the US and Britain and in much of Europe. And so, by being aware of what we’re doing in the rest of the world, we’re also becoming aware of what is being done to us by our own leaders. We’re at an existential moment in human history. And if we don’t inform ourselves and challenge our political and economic elite who have become one and the same thing, we’re effectively consigning our countries to despotism. So that’s really the scale of the moment we’re in.

The agency to decide how our world is organised

Finally, Feinstein finished with a rallying cry to voters and activists across the country:

And I think that’s what we need to do. We need to realise that one of the things that the sort of late era neoliberal capitalism does is it intentionally stifles our imaginations and our creativity to make us believe there is no alternative. As Margaret Thatcher famously and evilly said, to believe that this is the only way the world can be organised. And it’s not. We have the agency to decide how our world should be organised and we need to take that agency.

Referring to his upcoming book set for release in Autumn this year, he added:

And this book [Making a Killing] is an attempt to give people the information and to propose some of the ways in which we can take agency about something that is destroying our societies and our politics. And I’m always reminded when people feel very depressed and defeated, which of course I sometimes do too, I’m always reminded of what Nelson Mandela said when he was asked how he retained hope in an apartheid prison and in very dark and depressing days.

And he [Mandela] said, because anything is always impossible only until it’s done.

And I think we have the ability, we have the brains amongst us ordinary people to change the world profoundly and fundamentally. And I hope that this book will be a very small contribution towards that.

Rory Stewart and his neoliberal ilk can consider themselves ‘told’ after this brilliant takedown from a man who makes fighting corruption his day job.

Featured image via the Canary

The boss of one of the UK’s biggest education unions – the University and College Union (UCU) – faces a hearing by statutory regulator the Certification Officer.

Whistleblowers have given evidence that Jo Grady used union resources, staff, and software to rig her own re-election. Grady won the March 2024 election by just 182 votes out of 114,310 members – 0.157% – on a 15.1% turnout. UCU union blocked any recount and would not allow candidates to attend the count.

UCU allegations

Two other 2024 candidates, Vicky Blake (Leeds) and Prof Ewan McGaughey (King’s College London), have asked the Certification Officer (CO) to order a re-run of the election. They say that O’Grady breached breached union rules and should be ordered to step down. The hearing takes place today, 10 February 2026.

UCU rules on the election of officers, executive members, and trustees expressly prohibited the use of union resources for campaigning. This includes staff, social media and email lists:

However, UCU whistleblowers came forward to the applicants with evidence that the rules had been broken. Certification Officer Stephen Hardy will review the evidence today.

Key complaints include that:

• Grady instructed UCU’s senior management WhatsApp group that “every single decision we make/thing we do has to be seen through the… lens… [of] Re-elect GS [general secretary]”.
• Grady said she would “destroy” people in the union who opposed her.
• According to witnesses, staff were repeatedly told by Grady and senior managers that their work should focus on re-electing her and that jobs were at risk if she lost. In her initial witness statement to the Certification Officer, – before WhatsApp screenshots came to light – Grady “vehemently” denied it.
• UCU’s social media accounts and mass email lists were used for campaigning by Grady, far beyond the four emails to members permitted to each candidate, including around 13 additional emails from Grady to the membership. Grady is also accused of using union property, a union contractor and union software to produce and host campaign videos.
• Candidates had unequal access to put their case to members: Grady spoke alone at events at Bristol, Aberdeen, and Northumbria, which were advertised to members using official union email lists, where other candidates were not invited.

‘Basic principle’

Under UK law, union members can ask the Certification Officer (CO) to determine whether union rules have been breached. If breaches are found, the CO can make enforcement orders to address them. Potential remedies include a declaration that rules were breached and an order to rerun an election.

Blake said:

This case is about the basic principle that union elections must be run fairly and in line with the rules that apply to everyone. Members need to be confident that union resources are not used to give any candidate an unfair advantage, and that staff who raise concerns are protected, not punished.

McGaughey said:

We are bringing this case because UCU members have a right to a union that works for them, not a union used by an incumbent to enrich herself. We are members of trade unions to improve each other’s working lives, and transform society, with fair pay, equality and democracy. The WhatsApp messages showing Grady ordering UCU staff in the middle of a dispute to get herself re-elected shows how far we must go to rebuild universities and further education for good.

For further information, or to share relevant evidence in confidence about the conduct of the 2024 election, please contact [email protected] and [email protected].

Featured image via the Canary

A leading academic on social security has slammed a new anti-benefit fraud advert released by communities minister Gordon Lyons. A brief glimpse of the fear-mongering crap can be seen here. The ad features a searchlight seeking out dishonest claimants, with a dramatic voiceover declaring:

Benefit fraudsters are being identified, caught, and prosecuted.

Ciara Fitzpatrick, who is a senior lecturer in law at Ulster University (UU), specialises in the study of social security. Speaking on X, she denounced:

…a tax-payer funded ad campaign against benefit fraud despite stats released today suggesting that allegations have increased by 40% since the publication of the names of those convicted.

She asked the reasonable question of:

…why spend thousands on an ad campaign [?] In my view, it’s an appalling use of funds.

Her first point is in reference to a move in 2025 by the Democratic Unionist Party’s (DUP) Lyons to restart the practice of naming those convicted of benefit fraud. This coincided with Lyons ramping up rhetoric. He urged people to tout on their neighbours if they suspect wrongdoing.

Fraud panic is an attempt to distract from inequality

Of course, these moves have a clear dual ideological purpose. Firstly, publicising names of those convicted, then starting a song and dance about it, inflates the size of benefit fraud in the public imagination.

In reality it constitutes a mere 2.5% of total benefit spending. There are far fewer cases resulting in prosecution. This is a more solid indicator of actual guilt. Furthermore, this directs people away from looking at much more serious cases of defrauding the public purse. For example, tax evasion is a major issue.

Not to mention diverting people from taking a critical look at capitalism itself. Our entire economic system is one big theft scheme. It is based around bosses stealing a hefty chunk of the value workers produce every day.

Secondly, asking the average taxpayer to grass up their next door neighbour is a convenient way of undermining class solidarity. See the person beside you as a potential enemy, we’re told, rather than the actual enemies faced by the vast majority. These enemies include employers who overwork and underpay us. They also include landlords who steal half our pay check, and politicians that do the bidding of both the above.

People Before Profit’s (PBP) Gerry Carroll made a similar point, saying in response to Lyons:

This is a tried and tested DUP tactic; to whip up fear and suspicion in local communities and turn neighbour against neighbour, in order to distract from the party’s own political failures on tackling poverty, the housing crisis and widening inequality.

Lyons made a speech in Stormont coinciding with the ad’s release, and boasting about the results of his change in tack:

In an early and visible sign of my intent, last year I reintroduced the departmental practice of naming those who were found guilty in the courts. Since doing so, my department has seen anonymous fraud referrals from members of the public rise to 9,857 at the end of [Jan 2026] compared with the total year end figure of 6,353 for 2024/25. It is clear that as a result of my leadership on these issues, benefit fraud is now clearly on the public agenda.

To the annoyance, I’m sure, of some in this chamber, I will keep highlighting the issue and keep it as a priority for the department.

Lyons has been demanding an increase in the department’s £16.7 million budget for tackling fraud and error in the benefits system. He claimed discussions had been ongoing with Westminster. The aim was that a portion of money recovered would be kept by Stormont. This indicates that Starmer’s stingy regime is encouraging the DUP approach.

Money for increased clampdown, but not to relieve poverty

Mark Durkan of the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP) asked what was actually being done to help people, rather than seeking further forms of punishment. He said:

While some people do abuse the system, this system itself abuses people. Tens of thousands of genuine claimants struggle with a complex, slow and punitive system where genuine mistakes can lead to sanctions, and now sack cloth and ashes too.

How much of that £16.7 million has been spent chasing fraudsters and how much has been spent to reduce the stress and suffering caused by a system that creates errors and hardship?

A reminder that, as an example of current benefits available, Jobseeker’s Allowance in the Six Counties is a pitiful £72.90 per week for those under 25, and £92.05 for those 25 or over. Despite how we are dishonestly told migrants flock to Britain for its generous benefits system, it in fact lags far behind the rest of Europe. UU’s Fitzpatrick also flagged how those on benefits are facing the prospect of discretionary support being gutted. This is leaving the most desperate fully exposed.

Online, commenters contrasted the DUP’s keenness to clamp down on benefits cheats with their lax approach to the massive fraud that took place under the Renewable Heat Incentive (RHI) scheme. That debacle saw half a billion lost, often into the pockets of big agricultural players. The DUP ignored whistleblowers drawing attention to the money being stolen.

Nobody wants benefit fraud, but we are seeing unprecedented levels of society’s wealth hoarded by the top 0.1%. Rather than a focus on reclaiming relative pennies in an already ungenerous benefits system, the emphasis should be on taking back the billions hoarded by those at the very top.

Featured image via the Canary

Nigel Farage is going after work-from-home, in a hypocritical attempt to make it look like he’s ever worked a day in his life.

🚨 WATCH: Nigel Farage calls for an end to working from home and the focus on work-life balance

“People aren’t more productive working from home – it’s a load of nonsense. They’re more productive being with other fellow human beings” pic.twitter.com/UpjNoh7ZHX

— Politics UK (@PolitlcsUK) February 9, 2026

Of course, Nigey isn’t telling us that he previously employed his wife to work from home.

Nigel isn’t telling you that his ex-wife worked from home when she worked for him.

He also won’t tell you that the majority of Reform UK roles are hybrid. https://t.co/JwNz63f690

— Reform Party UK Exposed 🇬🇧 (@reformexposed) February 10, 2026

To make matters more infuriating, Reform UK also happens to employ people who work from home.

As the Independent previously reported, Reform UK advertised for its South Central regional director as:

home working with occasional travel within the region.

Hilariously, it advertised this role online only days after Nigel Farage promised that no Reform-run council would allow anyone to work from home.

Excellent discovery by @ThisOneAgain123 to spot that despite wanting to scrap your Work From Home, Farage’s Reform are hiring their own staff with work from home arrangements. pic.twitter.com/aXRZ2PGzPI

— Tory Fibs (@ToryFibs) February 10, 2026

Farage said that people with jobs related to climate change, diversity, or anyone working from home:

all better really be seeking alternative careers very, very quickly.

Farage is leading a party of millionaires

Of course, Reform UK are not out to bat for ordinary working people. Whilst they might claim they are, what we need to remember is that the only people who benefit from office-based work are those who own the offices, i.e. rich people.

Populist announces a deeply unpopular idea.

The only people who benefit from a return to office based work, are those who own the offices.
Reform are a party for the millionaires, not the working people.

— LeftSideOfHistory (@leftsidehist) February 9, 2026

When offices sit empty, the rich lose money. And oh, what a terrible shame that is.

The amount of white-haired folks in that audience; positively giddy at the prospect of dictating how *I* should work and earn – to pay all my taxes – to fund their ironclad pension hikes and fortnightly dawdle down to the GP.
Least self-aware generation there’ll ever be. https://t.co/hcr7MrCnQY

— James (@JamesFl) February 9, 2026

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Additionally, it’s the right-wing shit rag newspapers that are peddling the anti-work-from-home bullshit. Again, fewer people on foot near offices means they lose their precious millions.

The only other people who don’t like work-from-home are those who can’t.

The only against WFH are those who cant.
I use less petrol, means I can use my lunch break to get the kids, saving me money, I dont have the shite daily conversations meaning I get more work done. I am infact more productive in every aspect of my life due to being able to WFH https://t.co/oUu8pGxaXg

— CMF (@Ohffs1984) February 10, 2026

And why have Reformers managed to pack a Monday afternoon rally to the brim? Shouldn’t they all be, erm, in an office?

Nothing says ‘people should be in the office’ like a packed Reform rally on a Monday afternoon. https://t.co/iCM5TDrybS

— Has Ahmed (@HasAhmed_) February 9, 2026

Accessibility matters

A Reform government would push even more disabled and chronically ill people into work.

Importantly, working from home allows some disabled people to hold down a job. Farage’s attempts to end work-from-home whilst also claiming to want more disabled people to have jobs are contradictory and bullshit. If he actually cared about disabled people, he would be encouraging work-from-home, or work from wherever the hell you want to, as long as the work gets done.

Farage is a hypocrite. And basically, you can’t work from home unless it serves him and his pumped-up little agenda.

Feature image via Mint/YouTube

Okay, I am sick of writing about this ‘Amelia’ AI schoolgirl now. But yet again, it appears a far-right group has adopted this fake child as some kind of mascot.

Although this time, it’s a group of women. Odd.

We’re fed up of the safety of women and girls being sacrificed for the comfort of migrant men.

WE ARE ALL AMELIA! The movement has just begun. pic.twitter.com/p7QtuPtLVy

— Women’s Safety Initiative (@WomenSafety_UK) February 7, 2026

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Why are you cosplaying as a literal schoolgirl?

You see, the issue I have with the far right using Amelia as some kind of mascot is where this avatar came from.

Amelia is a purple haired goth girl, and she wasn’t born in some racist WhatsApp group. She was created by the government to be a part of a video game called Pathways which taught kids about extremism.

Oh, and she’s a fucking college-aged child. 16 to 18 years old. Yet the amount of knuckle-draggers on the internet sexualising her is absolutely disgusting:

Amelia’s emergence over the last week was explosive, injecting a sexually charged, romantic energy into British nationalism. AI image generation enables ownerless memetic characters to be collaboratively generated faster than ever before. Amelia was the first to step through this… pic.twitter.com/NAbBxERJOw

— John Carter (@martianwyrdlord) January 17, 2026

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#Amelia #ai pic.twitter.com/yJeFEizMXU

— ASHURA (@Ashura_GG) February 2, 2026

She’s meant to be a fucking child. Yet here we see the Women’s Safety Initiative cosplaying as her and drinking a pint.

Come on girls, do better. When you put yourself under a banner of protect all women, surely you shouldn’t be masquerading as a fucking child whilst doing so?

Let’s look a little deeper at who is in that video

On closer inspection, you can see the founder and director of Women’s Safety Initiative, Jess Gill, right there in the video. And she loved it:

“Anon, why didn’t I see you at the mass deportation protest?” https://t.co/j9QjnYEwUA pic.twitter.com/W2wV53Y2k3

— Jess (@jessgill03) February 7, 2026

Bit weird.

Jess, who claims to be British but hates everything about British food, has become a polarising figure at demonstrations. I mean, surely if you’re going to attend a demo to ‘protect our women’ with the racist Pink Ladies, you wouldn’t be happy to share a space with ex-Reform MP and known wife beater James McMurdoch?

Well done to the Pink Ladies in Chelmsford today.

This brave lot are standing up for the safety of women and girls. The shame of course is that they shouldn’t be having to do this at all.

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“I’m not far right. I’m worried about my kids” pic.twitter.com/8ZlhHk1eTk

— James McMurdock MP (@JMcMurdockMP) November 22, 2025

Now you’re cosplaying as an underage teen girl and quaffing pints?

Using women’s rights for political clout

As a woman, I am absolutely sick to fucking death of the far right using women’s safety as a weapon.

I don’t get it guys. When 97% of rape claims have not even been brought to charge, why are these women playing dress up as a kid? And a goth kid at that? I thought you hated bright coloured hair?

Can we stop dressing up as heavily sexualised kids as some kind of icon and actually focus on the absolute state of policing? Rape is borderline legal in the UK now when you look at conviction rates, and it pisses me off that these far right women don’t actually give a fuck. The only time they care about women is when they’re whipping up hatred against migrants.

Using attacks against women to hide your racism is fucking disgusting.

Featured image via X

You’d think that Blairites would be wary of ex-military personnel. After all, Tony Blair unites most War on Terror veterans on one thing only: a deep contempt for Tony Blair. But this isn’t the whole picture when it comes to Labour.

In recent days, ex-special forces soldier-turned-defence minister Alistair Carns has been touted a possible replacement for Keir Starmer. Starmer is currently hanging on to power by a thread after revelations about Peter Mandelson’s friendship with serial child-rapist Jeffrey Epstein.

Someone has even reportedly registered a webpage for Carns’ leadership bid, according to the centrist New Statesman. The paper describes Carns as a “dark horse”, adding that:

Supporters believe that his background as a colonel in the Royal Marines will help Labour win back support it has lost under Starmer.

And this is the key point. It is Carns’ background as a colonel in the Royal Marines that makes him a good shout. Not his commitment to democracy, or ethics in public life, or his values. He may have all of these, but Carns is appealing to some on the basis of his military credentials. That reveals something important which well-meaning socialists may miss about the nature of the Labour Party…

Labour party’s military fetish

Carns’ main draw is the nonsensical view that a former military man could sort out Britain’s political mess.

If I even need to say it again, there is nothing about military service which guarantees someone will be a good MP. At least no more than someone being a good nurse, or binman, or, God forbid, journalist.

I mean…have we already forgotten about Johnny Mercer? And let’s not forget the track record of the British military in Iraq — an abject failure and a stain on Blair and new Labour.

But weird soldier fetishism isn’t new and often rears its head. I first noticed it with Labour security minister Dan Jarvis, a former Parachute Regiment officer who served in Afghanistan.

Jarvis’ military credentials were routinely flaunted as if they qualified him to lead the country — even during the Corbyn days. And almost always by people, including journalists, who’d never worn a uniform.

Now there are all kinds of explanations for this. I enjoy the lowbrow ones. For example, Blairites are basically fantasist dweebs who read too many Andy McNab books. Or perhaps the authoritarian nature of the military appeals to their own Stalinist leanings. Or it could be a residual sense of our own imperial history that makes some  yearn for the power and status which accompanied those times.

These might all be true in part. But I also think that soldier-worshipping holds up a mirror to the Labour Party. It reminds me of a passage in Richard Seymour’s book ‘Corbyn: The Strange Rebirth of Radical Politics‘ (2016).

Seymour asked, at a time when Labour’s future was being fought over, if the Labour Party is Marxist (we can laugh now)? Or is it, as Tony Blair said at the time, built on some sort of dusty English Methodism.

Seymour’s answer is that it was neither:

What seems to have more enduring significance for the distinctive shape and trajectory of the Labour Party is its origins in Victorian Liberalism.

This offers a far better explanation of why the party is so in love with militarism and war. It’s because the party is still operating on Windows 1870.

Seymour goes on:

In fact, whatever else changed about the Labour Party in this era, one of its abiding attributes was to be the priority it accorded to the interests of the ‘nation’, and the deference it accorded to extant constitutional arrangements and military commitments.

He adds that:

Those Labour MPs who, today, find simply unthinkable the break-up of the United Kingdom, the repudiation of Trident, and the end of the ‘special relationship’ with the United States, are in fact authentic legatees of their party’s traditions.

The truth is, Starmer and his allies, are right in their assessment that the Labour Party — a militarist party of capital and empire — is theirs by right. And with this in mind, why wouldn’t centrists get excited about Carns as a candidate?

While it might seem a little out of date, that book is worth picking up ten years on. Because it leaves you in no doubt that the Labour Party was never ours to begin with. And, in all honesty, given it is wedded to empire to the degree that it is, why the hell would you even want it anyway?

Featured image via the Canary