Pulling myself together

I have been out of active politics since January. I was overcommitted and exhausted. I needed some time to get my life back into balance and to figure out how to make a contribution without sacrificing my whole identity to a never-ending round of “crucial” but painfully unproductive meetings and actions.

It’s been a useful and educational process, and I’m glad I took a break. I’m sorry to anyone who felt let down by my abrupt departure from the campaigns I was involved in, but I was simply unable to carry on at that pitch.

After two and a half years of campaigning against austerity through the People’s Assembly, I also felt frustrated by our failure to reach beyond the usual suspects of left wing activism – people like me – and make real connections with people whose security and safety was most profoundly threatened by the onslaught of benefit cuts, rent rises, precarious employment and racist sentiment.

There was – is – something seriously wrong with our whole mode and model of activism. I think, looking back on it, that the election of Jeremy Corbyn to the leadership of the Labour Party was the thing that demonstrated this most clearly to me. Last September, I wrote:

“If anyone thinks that “we” – whether that means Corbyn’s team, the activist left, the left within the Labour Party, or any defined group of people that can agree on a course of action and carry it out – can control what happens next, they are sadly mistaken.”

Unfortunately, what happened next was (possibly) the absorption of Corbyn’s supporters into an internal faction fight in the Labour party, while the Tories mistook a battered and angry population for pawns in their own faction fight and delivered us all into the chaotic disaster we face today.

Like everyone else, I’ve spent the last few days obsessively reading about the unfolding crisis caused by the UK’s vote to leave the EU. I was on holiday in Barcelona when the result was announced – we spent Friday in a daze – looking at beautiful art works in the Catalan National Art Museum and wondering what on earth would become of our country and our continent.

This referendum result feels like a gigantic act of self-harm, akin to burning down your own community centre or smashing all the windows in your own and your neighbours’ houses. I understand the urge to turn things upside down, to dig ones heels in and say no, you can’t take us for granted any more.

But the strongly anti-immigrant and racist nature of the Brexit campaign (and, for that matter, the Remain campaign and all mainstream political discourse for the last decade) is undeniable. I am very scared for the safety of everyone perceived as “foreign” in the coming months and years.

I am not in any position to say what “we” should do next. I think the proliferation of “what next for the left” articles is less than helpful, to be honest. I’m afraid I think that Paul Mason’s excellent proposal for Labour’s strategy is wishful thinking, given the current media feeding frenzy which seems likely to see Corbyn deposed in the next few days.

What I plan to do next is to get involved in grassroots volunteer support for people who are being done over by disaster capitalism. To listen to what they need, offer my skills and challenge racism when I can. To love my family and friends and try to find laughter and joy despite our fears. These are dark times. We need to stay strong for each other.

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