I don’t care if someone thinks I am a Blairite, but they are simply wrong, I am a Labourite I am a socialist and I believe in socialist values.

Attlee was a Keynesian and make no bones about it, he would’ve undoubtedly been a Brownite, he believed in minimal state intervention with public spending, which he did through nationalisation, in times of need, however it was always his plan to scale back once the country was ‘back off its knees’, after rationing had ended but Attlee lost his election after nationalisation because the country didn’t want it. Hugh Gaitskell the Labour leader in the 1950s did the polling and realised it was a massive vote loser and began the process of getting rid of Clause IV.

But still, these men were still Labour. The Labour Party is a very broad church, created by a man (Keir Hardy) who wanted Scottish Independence. It was formed as a party solely to achieve that, but Hardy realised that without embracing as many factions as possible from the far left to the more moderate left, and the centre ground to win votes off erstwhile Tory supporters, he could never win an election or seats in parliament to achieve this.

The Labour party’s founding principles are Freedom, Equality, Community and Democracy, these things haven’t changed and they are still the same principles today, and all members adhere to them, MacDonald who was a career politician, and we’re now hearing from the Corbynites that the party doesn’t want career politicians. Attlee who was middle class, Oxford-educated, formed NATO and a Keynesian capitalist economist, and we’re told by the Corbynites that the labour party doesn’t want capitalist and Corbyn now tells us he wants to leave NATO or Callaghan who directly defied the unions. These men were all Labour, but now the Corbynites tell us people who believe these things shouldn’t be in the party.

So for everyone that says the Labour party should get back to its roots, they clearly do not know the roots of the Labour Party, it is a very broad church and has views from all over the centre and left political spectrum, and I am sorry if that doesn’t fit your own narrative but people seem to think that the Labour party should just believe in exactly what they believe in and anything that doesn’t fit that means they are not Labour, well I tell you now, I am as much Labour as you are, I am as much Labour as Clement Attlee, Ramsey MacDonald and all other Labour prime ministers and leader and members and supporters throughout time, and my views are allowed to be very different to yours.

And even more, I am more Labour than those people who tell me I shouldn’t be allowed in Labour for being in the centre because I don’t judge their beliefs even if I fundamentally disagree with them, we are supposed to be one family and you don’t tell your brother he doesn’t belong in your family just because you and he disagree, who knows maybe you’re the one that’s wrong.

Freedom, Equality, Community, Democracy.