Posted 4:14 PM by Paul
Labour Party Rocked By Double Resignation.

So, I did it today. I resigned from the Labour Party after 24 years of not particularly distiguished service. OK I was a councillor for 4 years and helped run Red Wedge the Labour Party youth and music campaign. I did my bit - but if truth be known I have not lifted a finger beyond writing a few cheques for about 4 years. But it was a wrench all the same. I used to be a believer and although I was never a Blair fan I did think he was better than living in perpetual opposition shouting at the TV.

Now my ex-party is in government and I am - shouting at the TV.

I resigned over the Iraq war. I ahve a gut opposition to being a member of a party that accepted dropping uranium tipped bombs on civilians as a legitimate political tool. So I cancelled my standing order and then rang the Labour Party membership hotline to tell them I was doing it. The website read like a Tony Blair fanzine and I waited for several minutes whilst anodine music played and a soothing voice suggested I get a Labour Party credit card and help transform Britain (but into what? I asked myself) I got through finally to a young bloke who informed me that they could not accept resignations over the phone and then asked me why I was resigning:

"Err It's pretty obvious isn't it. Iraq."

He reponded. "I don't want to be challenging but can I press you on a few points. How would YOU suggest that we disarm Iraq?"

There followed a bizarre interchange where we harangued each other and he quoted UN resolutions off pat going back to 1990. He said that they would not bomb innocent civilians and that it "is a just war". He pleaded agressively with me "as a fellow party member" to tell me why I would not listen to him. I had heard enough. They are just not listening to anyone outside the Politburo and the comfort zone of aparatchiks. My last words before saying "Look it's over I am getting off the phone" were "This is why you are losing people. You are just talking at them. Loads of spin and not much else"

Hardly Thomas Jefferson.

The young man was a believer of the one true faith. But he got 0/10 for customer care.

So that was it. I hung up and sent a confirmation e-mail asking them to delete me from thier databases. I was shaking. Annoyed and deeply dismayed. I felt grubby. I suppose it had meant more to me that I had realised. Then it hit me. I hadn't been a a member of a political party at all for at least then last 5 years. I had been an unwitting member of a fan club who even had the temerity to harangue me when I cancelled my subscription because the product was not up to scratch and the brand values had been devalued.

I had a chicken sandwich and went for a swim. I am alright now.

Then I thought about my friend Carol, an American in Paris who feels so ashamed of her Government. But she can't stop being American whereas I can stop being a member of the Labour Party.

Oh yes and Robin Cook resigned form the Government today giving one of the most moving and eloquent speeches heard within those walls for a generation. Some MPs stood and applauded him. Nobody could remember if that had ever happened before.

There are still some people with intelligence and courage out there. Saying it in a way that we never could. It makes millions of us minnows feel that we are not just ranting in the dark. Shouting at the TV.