THE CAMPAIGN: SIGNING OFF
‘We may encounter many defeats but we must not be defeated’ — Maya Angelou
In terms of my own application, the Calder Valley Labour candidate selection was a contest between maintaining the status quo and exploring change. The first option won by an overwhelming margin. Me and my ideas were well beaten and fairly beaten in this contest — the rules of the game were clear. Our next candidate has been selected. I wish him well and I wish him success.
I’ve received various questions and messages, some long ones, and since accountability and transparency are important to me and I’ll try to reference them here, my final post on the 2017/18 selection process.
I’m OK! (thanks for asking)
This #fail is keenly felt, of course, but I’m a committed, 41 year old, lifelong socialist and sucking up defeat has been the house speciality since the miners strike ended in ’85 (Anti-Apartheid and the poll tax campaigns excepted). Iraq was particularly hard, as was the 2015 general election result. My love for the Labour party runs deep, it’s a brilliant, unpredictable and collectivist place. I’m not so self-absorbed that I expect it to deliver everything (or even anything) I happen to strive for as an individual.
I’m a successful working class person, weaned on a mix of low paid, long hours, sometimes dangerous, jobs and social security benefits, I’ve survived mental and physical health challenges and the police. As a grown up I became a parent and employer, touched by complex bereavements, suicide (friend + employee), childbirth emergencies and the rest. I’ve had to make honest hardworking people redundant, mortgage our home to pay salaries and negotiate many other challenges to keep our ship afloat. This set back is a manageable one, but tbh I would only recommend standing as candidate to people with a thick skin.
I’m grateful!
I had the best conversations EVER during this campaign with some brilliant people, the radical, those with big imaginations and FTR especially those who are young, working class and women.
The messages I’ve received were mostly kind and from people moved by my campaign (even a few mini-essays in there). It was an epic 13 days and it was always clear that many of the people reaching out to me wouldn’t make it to the vote. Many of them were not even Labour party members — just local people, eager for change.
I’ve been intensely political all my life, more or less every action is steeped in socialism and (most importantly for me) making socialism happen. What an amazing indulgence to spend two weeks in a state of constant political analysis with such bright, local and radical minds. I’ve learned a lot and read and wrote even more — it felt at times like the university education I never had, condensed into less than two weeks.
I’m humiliated!
Imagine the shame — so full of myself but so resoundingly pushed into last place by the community I reached out to, I was the ‘also-ran’ in a contest with more competent, respected, valued and liked candidates.
The national and local Labour party establishment, trade unions, even Momentum and Unite (I’m a member of both, the winner isn’t — ouch!) all endorsed an incumbent who campaigned against Jeremy Corbyn in the 2016 leadership election, I’d be a liar if I said this didn’t hurt.
I take my hat off to Joshua Fenton-Glynn, he’s a skilled politician and operator who had the contest sewn up before it even really started. I was outclassed, out gunned, out manoeuvred and — ultimately — also out performed on the day by Maggie Smallwood AND Taiba Yasseen — who took the contest into a second preference count, an achievement that deserves recognition.
Coming last hasn’t changed why I believe we’ve lost three consecutive general elections, but it did illustrate how very significantly out of step I am with the Calder Valley CLP and I accept and respect that.
I’m not going anywhere!
Interloper from Kent. Lol. That might be the hardest one of all to swallow. I’m not going anywhere (how would that even work — take the factory with me?). The reasons I stood were clear and simple — and they don’t translate to any other place or role. I’m just me, from here, doing my thing here, with zero aspirations to be any other kind of candidate anywhere else.
What next?
My pitch was: ‘changing outcomes requires changing processes and with that in mind, I’ve submitted to Labour’s Democracy Review, if you don’t know about it, you should — it’s massively important and designed to make your voice heard (it’s 100% online and inclusive — so work, childcare etc or just not feeling confident is no barrier 😉).
At our hustings we played out a 20th century rulebook in a 15th century church, it was an event of considerable beauty, history and majesty but I believe it lacked the 21st century inclusivity required to engage and inspire our own members — less than 20% of them were there to cast a vote – let alone the wider electorate.
Labour’s democracy review is an unprecedented opportunity to explore ‘how our hugely expanded membership becomes a mass movement which can transform society’, the wideranging scope covers the fundamentals of how we function as a party (including elections) with a view to making necessary updates to keep us relevant and powerful. Get your skates on — the next deadline 23 March 2018. We can do this!
Then what?
I’m a working class socialist who broke the mould by getting off the shop floor and into the boardroom. I don’t want to ‘speak better’ or ‘read more’ or ‘communicate a more nuanced understanding of local issues’ or ‘do some training’. I want socialism — a high technology, forward thinking industrial strategy that unleashes human imagination and empowers working class people and minorities everywhere. I also want to remain a ‘normal’ person, who knocks about with regular people, I’ve never be a big networker in the Calder Valley Labour scene and that isn’t set to change. My focus and instinct has always been to be myself and support working class people and minorities wherever I can. I’ve achieved a lot in this respect and it’s what I’ll be continuing to do in future.
For clarity, I’m 100% certain the opportunity to stand in Calder Valley will never occur again for me. Either Joshua Fenton-Glynn will prove himself capable of winning a general election contest (obviously this is the absolute best possible outcome) or a kick-ass, unstoppable, local, younger, tech savvy, working class woman from the left of the party with local campaign experience and the ability to communicate with voters here will come forward. I’ve spoken to several who ‘almost’ applied and I’m certain that at least one of them will bridge the confidence gap next time. I’d always support a candidate like this over myself, not least (but definitely not only) because I believe they’d be more successful.
Will I get more involved in CLP campaigns?
Like many Labour members who aren’t active in local campaigning, I work very long hours. My job is a brilliant but intense one (our factory didn’t build itself). My ‘offer’ was to give up half of my work life immediately, then all of it to make the campaign a full time one. This offer was a genuine one, but it was rejected and the result means that I’m now back at work. I fully appreciate that a lack of local Labour campaign activity is seen as lacking commitment to the cause, it’s been explained to me a number of times.
I’m leading a project to connect what we manufacture at the factory in Mytholmroyd with design and construction industries across the world using BIM (Building Information Modelling). This kind of technology + investment is the cornerstone of John McDonnell’s industrial strategy to rebalance the UK economy. It’s how we’ll deliver decent jobs and growth for working class people in Calder Valley, defeat the Tories, negotiate the end of Trident with trade unions and fund manifesto commitments to the NHS, education, welfare state, the arts, environment and beyond.
Calder Valley is a mostly working class constituency built on manufacturing and engineering. The average age here is 45, 70% of adults don’t have a university education and 92% of workers are in the private sector (a pretty stark contrast to the hustings crowd — right?).
Few members saw ‘jobs and economy’ as a priority at the hustings and none of the questions selected by officials were related, but I think this is set to change. The Tories campaign hard on the economy and it’s (unsurprisingly) the main thread of the brilliant ‘For The Many, Not The Few’ manifesto. Doorstep campaigning on the NHS, education, housing, social care and beyond are VERY important, but I’ll never stop banging this other drum. I believe that taking on the establishment and winning — from rolling back NHS privatisation to ending our involvement in unnecessary foreign wars — is hinged on proving Labour’s vision and ability to make the UK economy work for the many, not the few.
I’m in a fairly unique position as a sucessful business owner, investor, manufacturer, exporter, employer and committed life-long socialist. Harnessing technology to improve the lives of working class people in Calder Valley is what me and my partner Sophie have been doing here for years. Keeping this side of my life relevant and credible might have cost me votes among local members on the day (lack of local doorknocking chops was the most common reason members gave for not voting for me) but I believe it’s set to become more relevant in the future, not less.
My career also gives me a solid grasp of the ever changing world of 21st century technology, this also didn’t win many votes on Feb 3rd, but that doesn’t diminish my belief in it’s importance in the ongoing fight for socialism.
The next general election will be the most important of all our lives and the local elections in May are the warm up for that. Every Labour person in the country will do what they can to achieve victory and I’m no exception.
Gratitude
Thank you for having me in the selection process. I wasn’t successful but that does not mean my campaign was without value. I engaged with some truly brilliant people (inside and outside the local party network) and am genuinely grateful for the opportunity I was given by the CLP. It’s an exciting time for socialism. Change is coming.
