In the interests of honesty and consistency, I have to agree with the hard left Labour MP Richard Burgon in his assertion that the rules devised for the forthcoming deputy leadership election, following the resignation of Angela Rayner, represent “the mother of all stitch-ups“. Just to be able to stand in the election, to quote the BBC website “candidates must have the backing of at least 80 MPs and secure that backing this week, and either 5% of local parties or three Labour affiliated groups.” The whole point of the new rules is to keep “undesirables“, as some mind say, off the ballot paper; far left cranks like … er … Richard Burgon, who helped give us Jeremy Corbyn, and a landslide election defeat in 2019. While I agree with Burgon about the “stitch-up“, it’s very much a case of pots and kettles. All the current Labour powers-that-be have done is to adopt the sneaky tactics the comrades have always used and now they are being used on him he doesn’t like it.
It is how politics works, you see. I know: I’ve been there, done it and bought the T shirt. My first political experiences were in the 1970s in the Bristol South East Labour Party constituency seat held by Tony Benn. Talk about “the mother of all stitch-ups“. The Constituency Labour Party (CLP) was totally in control of the hard left in general and the Militant tendency in particular, a Trotskyist party within the party. The CLP worked tirelessly to recruit us to Militant and promised all manner of goodies if we did, including the possibility of becoming a local councillor and even becoming a future MP. But only if we toed the line, essentially at all times. Although we were very young, we were not taken in and were ostracised from the party. I learned very early on how politics works and it’s a two-way street.
The same applied throughout my long career in the trade union movement, where nothing happened without the say-so of the powerful political factions. The entire area covering Wales and the South West of England was dominated by the hard left, except for Bristol and a couple of smaller towns and places. They controlled the machinery of power, including the ability to win elections via the union branches they controlled. No matter how good at your job you were, unless did what the hard left told you to do, you were on the outside. In order to stand for election, you needed to be nominated by branches. The lengths they went to in order to keep you off the ballot paper were astonishing, unless you were there at the time.
The relentless politicking of the comrades wears you down and eventually there comes a time when you walk away and accept the inevitable: a complete Trot takeover and that is what happened to my old union, the PCS, which is now under sole control of the hard left and because of the way the comrades have structured the union, it will always be that way. No moderate, mainstream left can ever win in that union. And the likes of Richard Burgon, who complain about “the mother of all stitch-ups” know it.
Burgon knows because he is a close political ally of John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor in Corbyn’s disastrous election-losing opposition in 2019; a man who was the parliamentary advisor to … PCS. McDonnell was literally in the room with the likes of Mark Serwotka as he led the union to the far left fringes of politics, far further indeed than McDonnell himself and as a wily political veteran he will have known full well the political make-up of the union. He attended conferences and other events with the union, too. It is inconceivable that he could not have known how the comrades has carried out another “mother of all stitch-ups” and while his good friend Richard Burgon comes across as a right idiot, the fact is that he is a graduate from Cambridge University. In other words, the likes of Burgon know the art of the political stitch-up is not something that has just happened in the Labour Party for the first time in September 2025.
So, the fact is that all sides are “at it” and it would not be unreasonable to assume that someone like me, a low-level political operator over 30 years ago, is just as bad as the other side. But if you suggested that, you would not expect me to agree with you. I am firmly of the view that the 57 varieties of Trotskyism and Marxism that operate at a high level in the labour movement have an agenda that is not the same as mine. I have always believed that the purpose of the Labour Party is to improve the lives of working people and that trade unions exist in order to protect and improve the pay and conditions of its members and that is why I was a member of trade unions throughout my working life and remain a member of the Labour Party. The comrades I came across, who control many if not most modern trade unions, have a different agenda, which is about building a political movement. Yes, at a low level the comrades serve their members, but at a higher level this is purely about politics. On numerous occasions, speaking privately (so I won’t reveal names even though one of them is very well known) hard left operators have admitted to me their true aims. The Labour Party and trade unions are a means to an end, not an end in themselves.
When I hear the likes of Burgon crying “stitch-up“, I know he is telling the truth but by the same token he is being disingenuous. The murky world of far left politics is where he comes from. All the Labour establishment is doing is exactly what Trots like Burgon do. You might not like it, but I know from bitter personal experience in the labour movement you either fight the Trots with fire, in this case by adopting their tactics, or you just let them take over.
The truth is that the likes of Burgon were more than happy with any number of “stitch-ups” for so long as it suited them. I am not saying that in this instance in particular what Labour is doing is even right or necessary, but I understand why they have done it. And frankly anything that keeps these goons out of high office is fair enough by me.
