What's up with the Labour Party

I went to the protest outside the Labour Party congress along with about 60 other people. The main focus was the operation 8 terror raids and on the whole I think the protest went pretty well. However I’m not going to talk about the protest, instead I am going to give a few of my observation about the congress.

Who was there?
Fucking Yuppies as far as the eye could see. Middle-class, well dressed (hip [in that middle class sort of way] and expensive) and university educated. I didn’t see a Labour hack much under 45 that didn’t fit this description (maybe not all well dressed). The young labour members (all recruited from university) are the biggest sycophants you will ever come across. They are all obsessed with MP’s and almost drunk on dreams of getting in to parliament themselves. This group is pretty ethnically diverse and has a pretty high queer make up, but being totally middle class it is hardly representative (I have never seen so many middle class Maori and Pacific Islanders in one place).

The next biggest faction is the leaders of groups connected to the Labour Party. This is where a large part of the Labour Party’s multicultural diversity comes from, with many Maori and migrant community leaders as members. I have no idea why this is, as the Labour government has done nothing for them while being more than happy to treat those groups as scapegoats. The reasons for their membership are probably varied, ranging from being opportunist scum to really believing in the myth that the Labour Party is better than National (a myth that these leaders have been important in propagating in their communities). You could put union leadership in this category as well. Leading members of the CTU and Labour Party affiliated unions were there, making up a very small percentage of the Labour membership. But and even smaller percentage (pretty close to zero) was rank and file members from those unions. This is an important point because if you are unlucky enough to be a member of a Labour Party affiliated union (like me) you would know how much they praise the Labour Party (mostly for not being the National Party, even the most sycophantic Labour hack union official has trouble pointing out the many good things that Labour has actually done) and workers are encouraged to be involved in the Labour Party, but nobody does. Even the union delegates, who have it drilled into them how great the Labour Party is and are trained to explain it to the rest of us, don’t even bother to show up.

There are two other smaller groups that go to the Labour Party Congress. Middle aged women who look a lot like these women. They would consider themselves to be some kind of Liberal feminist, but would have never been really involved in any feminist movement and honestly believe that all advancements of women are thanks to the Labour Party. The last group are the genuinely working class members; most of this very small group are so old many of them could be founding members of the Labour Party. I overheard some of them talking about how they were looking forward to hearing Michael Joseph Savage give his leaders speech.

What does the Labour Party have to say for is self?
Very little really. Most of the media reports about the congress were on Helen Clark’s speech, which contained nothing new, a workshop on how to get away with breaking the electoral law, and a song about how bad John Key is (which is mostly accurate but could also be sung about Labour). It is really blatant how empty, shallow and just idea-less the Labour Party is (to be fair this is true off all electoral politics, but Labour is at the extreme end of this inane trend).

That is the leadership, but what about that rank and file of Labour? If their response to the protest is anything to go by they are just as lacking in political depth. Most just stared bemused or laughed uncomfortable as they hurried by. Quite a few got really angry, which brought out the totally uniformed response of yelling, “Fuck you” while giving the finger. Of the few congress goers who did engage with the protesters (a practice that does not impress me), it was done to agree with a certain point and say in a painfully condescending tone, “that there are a lot of people in Labour who feel the same way. They are just trying to change things using the party.” Are they really so deluded that they believe this? Take the Terrorism Suppression Act, legislation several people in Labour claim that many party members disagree with (a claim I don’t believe). In the unlikely event that the party leadership would let a remit calling for the repeal of the Terrorism Suppression Act to be put up at a conference, there is no way the middle class majority, with their unfounded, media whipped up fear of Maori with guns, would ever vote for it. Even if it did get past all that, the leadership would just ignore it, as they have done with plenty of other remits.


Now if you want some statistics and facts to back up my main point of the middle class-a-fication and complete disconnection from the workers and poor of the Labour party, I would strongly recommend Liberation blog.