Message of support to Chuka Umunna – from Shalom Lappin

Dear Mr. Umunna,

Shalom Lappin 

I am writing to express my support and my gratitude for the strong, principled stand that you have taken on recent developments within the Labour Party. I am a longstanding Labour supporter, but I find myself unable to endorse the Party under its current leadership.

I feel politically disinherited, and deeply discouraged by the current political situation in the UK. To the right we have an incompetent Tory government driving the country head first over the cliff of Brexit. The Prime Minister’s inability to provide intelligent direction in these difficult times leaves the country adrift, and at real risk of serious economic and social chaos. She has allowed herself to be held hostage by rabid Euro Skeptics pursuing a Trumpian agenda of anti-immigrant prejudice and reactionary economic policies. To the left we have Labour in the hands of Corbyn and his dismal band of 1970s ideologues, promoting a bizarrely regressive neo-Soviet politics. It is replete with howling purges of independent voices, and the sewage of Stalinoid anti-Jewish racism. In the centre the Liberal Democrats languish ineffectually, thoroughly compromised by years of collaboration with Tory austerity policies and assaults on the welfare state.

In this grim landscape the presence of a progressive social democratic alternative is achingly absent. You and your colleagues from the traditional moderate core of Labour are badly needed. I fear that saving Labour from within is now a lost cause. Corbyn and Momentum have succeeded in harnessing the energy of young, well meaning activists, with no sense of political history, for an assault on the democratic left. They have become an unwitting Red Guard in the hands of his functionaries, supplying the shock troops for his destruction of Labour as a party of radical democratic reform. Should the moderates and the independents in the Party remain, they will be systematically isolated and jettisoned.

It is, I believe, urgent that you create a party of the democratic left now rather than later. Such a party is an imperative in an environment devoid of serious political leadership. We are living in a dangerous period of instability in which the foundational norms of liberal democracy are under attack throughout the world from extremists, racists, and irresponsible adventurers of every type. It is crucial that decent, politically progressive leaders present a forceful and convincing alternative to these agents of chaos and reaction. I very much hope that you and your colleagues take on this challenge as soon as possible.

Should you embark on a the creation of a new party, I would be honoured to assist in any way possible.

Best,
Shalom Lappin, FBA, MAE
Emeritus Professor of Computational Linguistics
King’s College London