Owen Smith sacked from Labour party frontbench
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The concept of "Collective Responsibility", both in cabinet and Shadow cabinet is an integral part of British politics. Owen Smith is aware of this and yet proceeded to publish his article in the Guardian, fully aware of the Labour party position on the question of a Second referendum and the position of the remainder of the Shadow Cabinet. Consequently, neither he, nor anybody else should be surprised that he has been sacked from his position. He, and everybody else, knows that the principled course would have been to resign his post, return to the backbenches and argue his views from there. However, Smith chose to remain in Shadow cabinet presumably to challenge the leader to dismiss him, thus causing maximum embarrassment to the party.
It is both annoying and infuriating when sections of the media and others, react to the dismissal of Owen Smith with the provocative and mischievous description of "Stalinist Purge". Clearly, these people have no idea of what the label "Stalinist" actually means, or perhaps more likely they are seeking to provoke public reaction to support their not very well hidden agenda of again attempting to remove the present leadership of the party.
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Of all the leaders of the Labour party to date, the tag "Stalinist" can only be applied to Tony Blair, who during his 13 years as leader, effectively controlled the party with a complete grip on power. Together with three collaborators, one of whom was not even a member of Parliament, Blair reduced the Labour party to a subordinate role to his personal ambitions by curtailing the powers of Party Conference, stifling debate within the party, amending party rules to reduce members involvement in party policy making and activities, excluding the members of his shadow cabinet (apart from the cabal of 3) from and decision making process reducing their role to just a rubber stamp body and presenting the rest of the PLP with a fait acompli without any debate. It was during this period that support for the Labour party amongst the electorate fell significantly. As many will be quick to remind us, under Tony Blair's "leadership" the party won three general elections, but even a cursory examination of the results reveal that in 1997, 13.5 million people voted Labour, falling to 10.7 million in 2001 and just 9.5 million in 2005. During the same period, membership of the Labour party fell significantly, as more and more people and voters turned away from the politics of personality and looked for an alternative which is more inclusive and more in tune with their needs and aspirations.
It is both worrying and sinister that those same sections of the media and the others who now so freely apply the term "Stalinist" to anyone who disagrees or criticises them, should be so keen to return to the days of absolute control vested in the office of one person. The school of the "Blairite" faction has been roundly rejected and discredited as membership of the Labour party now stands in excess of half a million making Labour the largest political party in Europe and at the last general election, Labour polled 12.8 million votes, only some 700,000 short of the landslide vote of 1997.
The media will grasp at any opportunity to discredit and smear the current Labour leadership and the fully justified and understandable sacking of Owen Smith, has provided such an opportunity.
The contributions from others to his departure, reinforces the view that there is an agenda behind the media attacks and the Stalinist name calling. Owen Smith had an opportunity to make a contribution to Labour policy in Northern Ireland and he has blown it for a passing moment in the limelight of Blairite ambition.
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