Left-Wing? Join the Greens.

Via Charlotte Gore, I see Sunny Hundal has seen the light and decided to join... well, the Labour party. His reasoning, if you can call it that, is this:

But I also think there is a broader issue here. I’ve long said that lefties need to get more involved with Westminster and not just wash our hands off it when we get disillusioned. By that, I don’t necessarily mean going for political office but finding ways to put pressure on Westminster from the left.

Ah, the old entryism argument. Worked so well for Militant Tendency in the 1980's. And no doubt will work just as well for lefties joining the Labour party now.

What I don't get, though, both with people like Sunny and my self described left-wing friends who voted Labour at the last election, is how they can dare call themselves Labour supporters or members and then claim to be left-wing. Because there is nothing left-wing about the Labour party - nothing. Its record in power speaks for itself. It was responsible for the Iraq War. For the decimation of civil liberties in this country. For the debasement of democracy and the rise of spin. For the bailing out of failed banks. What is left-wing about that? Nothing. So why support them? Some sort of base tribal loyalty, where the Tories are worse than Labour, and the feeling that deep down the latter party remains in some way genuinely left-wing - even though the available evidence would (quite literally violently) suggest otherwise.

And lefties can't claim that there isn't an alternative. If you believe in left-wing politics - if you believe in socialism, if you believe in combatting climate change, if you believe a party with a truly pacifist agenda - then go join the Greens. Seriously; they are an updated version of what the left used to stand for. And they've even got an MP now, so you can't dismiss them as political by-standers. The choice is clear, the choice is stark - join a party discredited by endless compromise and a brutal yet pathetic 13 years in power, or join a party that pretty much stands for what you stand for but isn't utterly ideologically tainted. Some choice...

Of course, I can't stomach the Greens - but then again, I can't stomach the Labour party either. Yet as far as I am concerned the Greens have one big advantage over the Labour party - they are not the ideological equivalent of toxic waste. So the choice is simple: if you feel you need to be a member of a political party and you are left-wing, then either join the Greens and retain a shred of fucking dignity or follow Sunny and join the Labour party. Or to put it another way, sell your soul to the political equivalent of the devil.