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What future for the left?

Rather than hoping for the emergence of some new ‘party of the left,’ EMMA DENT COAD sees a broad alliance of local parties and community groups as a way of reviving democratic progressive politics

IT’S TWO years since I resigned from the Labour Party, and I haven’t regretted it for a single day.

The week my growing unease came to a head, two things happened: firstly, Diane Abbott was suspended for a maladroit comment for which she immediately apologised and corrected herself; secondly, the PM accepted hospitality from a construction company that had failed to remediate four housing blocks covered in flammable cladding, had been taken to court and fined £10 million.

My phone had rung all morning and as Opposition Labour Group leader at the “murderous” Kensington and Chelsea Council, I wrote to the PM to ask for an apology to our traumatised residents. I was severely told off, “you can’t criticise the PM!” That was IT. Within a matter of hours I had resigned from the leadership and the party, after 40 years’ membership, and since then have sat on the council as an independent. The party’s indefensible position on the Gaza genocide confirmed my action was timely.

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