Labour, Parliamentary Socialism & the Gaza debate. A crisis of political legitimacy
It may seem very much beside the point given there is a genocide in progress in Gaza, but the debate on it in Parliament on 21st February underlined an important point about Starmer’s Labour
A row has broken about because while in the Commons process it was an SNP opposition day, where the party can raise its own issues for debate- and did so with a motion calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza-in reality it appears that the Speaker Lindsay Hoyle was prevailed upon to also call a Labour motion. This called essentially for a qualified ceasefire dependent on Israel agreeing to it
Labour has its own opposition days- a lot more than the SNP- but has not used them to raise Gaza.
The context here is the opening section of Ralph Miliband’s Parliamentary Socialism (1961). He noted that of those parties ‘claiming socialism to be their aim’ Labour is one of the most dogmatic not about socialism but about the Parliamentary system.
He notes ‘its leaders have always made their devotion to that system their fixed point of reference and the conditioning factor of their political behaviour’
Starmer of course has ditched any pretence of socialism and got rid of most connections to social democracy too. By prevailing on the Speaker to, how shall we say, innovate on Parliamentary processes, he has now moved away from the other pole of Labour’s politics- a fixation on the rules of Parliament.
Of course the Tories play fast and loose with these frequently. If Labour also does, as Kevin Ovenden has pointed out on social media, a crisis of political legitimacy is increasing
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