Labour MP Kate Hoey – once politically close to the International Marxist Group, and pictured left – denies that she is about to defect to the Conservatives. But as a general election that David Cameron now looks like winning comes ever closer, few would be surprised if one or more New Labourite does decide to switch sides.
Remember, at least three - or was it four? - Conservative MPs from the Thatcher period signed up with New Labour under Blair, with two of them picking up ministerial appointments in the process.
My guess is that no more will be coming over, and that the traffic will now be in the other direction. Funny how the one way street always seem to run from the party on the wane towards the party in the ascendancy, and never the other way round.
The early parliamentary ship jumpers are the opportunist canaries in the political coalmine, although instead of dropping dead, they get to chirp on merrily in their new home after the roof of the pit caves in on those they leave behind.
On behalf of ordinary local level activists of all affiliations everywhere, can I just request that these specimens spare us all the anguished soundbites about their gradual realisation that Party X now represents the continuity of the true political principles of Party Y, typically delivered with all the sincerity of a badly faked orgasm?
Obviously, people’s political analyses and prescription can alter over time; after all, the world alters over time. As John Maynard Keynes famously remarked: ‘When the facts change, I change my mind. What do you do, Sir?’
I have been a member of parties to the left of Labour as well as the Labour Party. But, in ideological terms, the apostasy involved is minimal. My belief system has actually changed little; it’s just that I now have rather different ideas about how it can best be enacted.
What, by contrast, can have been going on in the head of that councillor in Tower Hamlets who leapt the tall building that separates the Socialist Workers’ Party from the Tories in a single bound?
Fortunately, crossing the floor is rather rarer at Westminster than it is in municipal politics. But surely the day on which the first Blairite to see the Cameroonian light cannot be far away.
In its way, it will prove a fitting tribute to the way in which the politics cartel has rendered party identification almost meaningless.
Comments (17)
It's a really stoopid thing for Kate Hoey to do. Funnily enough her voting record is quite rebellious, so I think the idea of her defectining is a bit far-fetched.
Personally I think there are still significant differences between the parties in respect of policy. Just because their advertising uses similar language doesn't mean the product is the same. I have no doubt that the Tories will have another crack at the unions if they get back in, and they will attack public sector pensions. I don't understand therefore why people on the left want to propagate the myth that Nu Labor are just as bad as the Tories.
I don't think Kate Hooey is about to defect, I think Boris was just gaining a bit of 'glamour by association'. She is far too much Old Labour.
Old Labour? what a laugh
Hoey is a pro fox hunting loon, http://www.supportfoxhunting.co.uk/news.shtml
with some very dodgy views on the Six counties, http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200506/cmhansrd/vo051123/debtext/51123-24.htm and http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2001/aug/24/northernireland.northernireland
etc
she's a supporter of grammar schools and selection
so not much egalitarianism there
I think Hoey is just reverting to form, having gone through a period of youthful radicalisation and rebellion
if she feel that the Tories have a chance of power and that she'll get a slice of it, she might "defect", but in her heart she's already there
the only fly in the ointment is her constituency, which being inner-city wouldn't vote in a Tory
maybe she'll become Baroness Hoey, via a Tory peerage? strange but not impossible
Old Labour? what a laugh
Hoey is a pro fox hunting loon with some very dodgy views on the Six counties, she's a supporter of grammar schools and selection
so not much egalitarianism there
I think Hoey is just reverting to form, having gone through a period of youthful radicalisation and rebellion
if she feel that the Tories have a chance of power and that she'll get a slice of it, she might "defect", but in her heart she's already there
the only fly in the ointment is her constituency, which being inner-city wouldn't vote in a Tory
maybe she'll become Baroness Hoey, via a Tory peerage? strange but not impossible
links in the next comment
http://www.supportfoxhunting.co.uk/news.shtml
http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/cm200506/cmhansrd/vo051123/debtext/51123-24.htm and
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2001/aug/24/northernireland.northernireland
etc
The article is correct; the proof that such switches are prompted by personal protection (or advance) rather than profound political principle is evidenced by the fact that they are always in one direction - to the party on the rise.
It doesn't seem that long ago that my then Labour MEP, Richard Balfe was arguing fiercely with me. He was calling me a “right winger, a Trot” for questioning him about his links with Stalinists in the Co-op Party (and the New Communist Party). Someone besides me (in this Labour Party meeting) then pointed out that this was his second time as a Left, she remembered him as a Wilsonite rightwinger but also before that as originally a Labour Left in the 60s. You can guess how it ended - he died as a Tory MEP.
But what is the difference between such chancers like him and others who claim to have changed parties but not politics? Hoey doesn't claim to be a Trot, her IMG days are long ago. The descendants of the IMG have now broken with their revolutionary socialist past by going Green in the London Mayoral election - it's surely only a question of time until all their theoretical 'baggage' of 'Trotskyism' is likewise dumped by them on the other side of the barricades.
I also recall a Tribune member who preposterously, but sincerely, argued that his politics were the same as mine - he wanted a communist system but it was reforms that would bring it about. This justified all his actions, the cuts he made as a councillor - he was playing a clever 'long game' "I've gone deep deep deep". You can guess which party he is now a councillor for.
Rather an honest turncoat who doesn't really try and hide s/he's doing for the money or career than someone who deludes themselves that they are still heading for the same destination as when they set off despite their compass spinning more widely as the years pass.
ssp wrote:
Rather an honest turncoat
I think the likes of Hoey are not in it so much for the money, but the power, or closeness to it
she knows her chance of a ministerial career in next to zero, so is looking around for options
I suspect the Tories would gladly put her up for a Peerage just to rub salt in the wounds of New Labour
As chair of the Countryside Alliance, which has a front organisation called Vote OK, working in marginal seats to unseat Labour MPs, Hoey is part of a plan to bring down the Labour government so that their hero Cameron can re-legalise hunting with dogs.
These debased people will stop at nothing.
She should be thrown out of our party, she is an insult to members and supporters and a security risk.
"canaries dropping dead ... " how on earth do you sublimate your other to write that type of crap.
For fuck's sake, the Labour party is fucked, gorn, dead, deceased
Why and what now
I have no doubt that the Tories will have another crack at the unions if they get back in, and they will attack public sector pensions. I don't understand therefore why people on the left want to propagate the myth that Nu Labor are just as bad as the Tories.
Because they noticed how New "Labour" has also had a crack at the unions (ask the FBU for starters), and if not public sector pensions, they have at least attacked public sector jobs, pay and conditions. And if not that, then at the very least, because they've noticed that despite ten years of power and three landslides, New "Labour" has done sod all to reverse Thatcherism.
And Kate Hoey has long been on the Fieldite right of the party - too weather-beaten and prone to going their own way to be a true Blairite, but with them when it counts. It would not be a surprise if going her own way now took her out of the Labour Party altogether.
"Fieldite right"? Blimey, he has followers?
There may be defectors, but Hoey won't be one of them. The Labour Party "family" tends to have stronger bonds that the Tories anyway and this makes public defections less likely.
"if not public sector pensions"?!
Hello? Civil service? Local government?
"it will prove a fitting tribute to the way in which the politics cartel has rendered party identification almost meaningless"
Well, either that or the Labour Party are fast becoming meaningless.
"Because they noticed how New "Labour" has also had a crack at the unions (ask the FBU for starters), and if not public sector pensions, they have at least attacked public sector jobs, pay and conditions. And if not that, then at the very least, because they've noticed that despite ten years of power and three landslides, New "Labour" has done sod all to reverse Thatcherism."
I think you are misreading the tealeaves if you think NuLabor's failure to set out a more TU-friendly stance is comparable to what the Tories are likely to do when they get back in.
Cameron has spoken openly of wanting to cut back public sector pension provision despite the fact that this is one of the key benefits of public service. We are not talking about changes to benefits here - the Tories will close the schemes and probably replace them with money purchase. That will represent a major attack on public sector workers - a pay cut for future staff by another name.
It's suicidal to try and convince public sector workers that there's no difference between the Tories and Labour.
Actually i think you will find Field has masses of working class support, based on his no nonsense common sense' approach, i think sadly people even think his 'back to the workhouse' idea is a good one.
'"Fieldite right"? Blimey, he has followers?'
Actually i think you will find Field has masses of working class support, based on his no nonsense common sense' approach
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha.
Thank you, I needed cheering up.