DOGMATISTS, whether they come from the left or the right, are crippling Labour, and a leading academic claims their tribalism “is fatal”.
Professor Richard Murphy, co-founder of the Green New Deal, says the gross arrogance in their belief that only Labour can solve the problems the UK has is “staggering, and utterly misplaced”.
Writing on social media he said he knows he is not alone in wondering how, “if ever, we might get rid of Tory rule in England, and so the UK as it now is”.
Murphy said: “I am also far from alone in wondering why so many on the left are so determined to keep them in power.
"People want broadly progressive policy in this country. They want government to be a force for good. They want an end to corruption. The rest is detail.
"But progressives make detail, ego and power-mania based on the very base notion of tribalism that really should be alien to all the left stands for the enemy of this good."
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Murphy said the exceptions include Green New Deal group members Caroline Lucas and Clive Lewis who regularly work together across party lines and also work with the LibDems, SNP, Plaid and Northern Ireland parties.
He went on: "In the UK we have an electoral system that right now means all those of small minded, anti-social persuasion vote the same way. And all the rest, of sounder mind, spread their votes around. It’s a recipe for right wing hegemony within government. And national disaster.
"It remains a fact that those on the left can, if they wish, play party politics forever. Or they can stop doing that and actually see that to serve the interests of the country they must work together.
"One day soon, I hope, there will be a moment when Labour especially, but others as well, realise that getting rid of evil - and I do think the Tory party that we now have is appropriately described as such - requires that there be cooperation to achieve that goal.
"That day has not arrived yet. But I, and millions upon millions of people long to knock political heads together to achieve it, not to deliver a Labour, or Green, or SNP, or LibDem victory at Westminster but to deliver a united front for decency, change and hope."
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