Being right is not the same as doing the right thing. This was a lesson I learned a couple of years ago, not before time, when managing a local football team that I played for.
It was essentially a lesson about politics – that having a correct opinion about a situation is completely different to taking action that is going to have positive effects on it. Expressing a clear, honest and correct opinion can actually make a situation worse. Deciding whether or not to express that opinion is a political decision of the sort that we make many times a day when dealing with other people.
The lesson I learned as a result of the situation above was that sometimes politics has to prevail over principle. When conflicts arise between people who are ultimately looking to achieve the same ends, judgements must be made which are not going to be perfect and may well have somewhat unsatisfactory results. But they get made and everyone moves on.
Politics exist everywhere where human beings come up against each other – from the busy train station where one person makes space for another to the workplace and its formal and informal power relations. From family politics to relationship politics and office politics, to be involved in politics is to be involved in life.
The essential message is, especially concerning joining Labour, that you can’t put values into practice without engaging in the real world through political situations.
Joining the Labour party after the election in May represented a coming together of several things for me.
I joined partly because I wanted to get involved in something locally, partly because the election campaign had showed me what a political geek I was, and partly because the penny had dropped that democratic politics is pretty much the only game in town. Either you get involved or you are on the sidelines. Also it was a good time to join, with Brown gone and a leadership election looming offering the potential for a new start.
So, eight months down the line, what do I think?
Firstly I would say that it is a little strange being a member of something that is not a workplace and not a sports team. A political party is much bigger than either, with ultimately much higher stakes attached. Yet being an activist you can feel about as irrelevant and far away from real power as it is possible to be (not a bad thing).
There is an element of collective responsibility, but at the same time you are free to say and do pretty much what you like. Watching prime minister’s questions, Ed Miliband is now on ‘my’ side. He is representing me and I feel I should be supporting him like I support my favourite football team. But it is not quite like that. We are free to criticise the leadership and each other, and we do that.
What I have really enjoyed is the feeling of solidarity and of acting together amongst those who are active in the local party. Since joining, the local Labour Party has become my community. It is my gang, and my group. Where I live we have a good organiser and good cores of people getting involved in canvassing, calling members, stuffing envelopes (a very sociable activity), and delivering letters and leaflets. These people are the lifeblood of the party, and we need to do our best to make sure they are happy and bound in to it.
However, like all organisations, Labour is vulnerable to jargon and lack of transparency, with its ECs, GCs, and all sorts of other committees and obscure processes that you might never know about if you do not ask (and may regret finding out about when you do).
The positives are many though. Beyond the local, there are plentiful opportunities to learn and engage at a national level through Labour blogs, Membersnet and by following people on Twitter. Also, through events you get to meet and hear from leading politicians and other interesting people.
On a slightly less pleasant note, my contributions to Labour blogs have re-acquainted me with the various levels of internecine warfare on the Left, not to mention the existence of those who shout to get the greatest hearing.
Nevertheless, while the debates can be bitter and frustrating sometimes, that is the nature of politics. It is a messy, imperfect and sometimes disagreeable business. But so is life, and if you care about the world around you it is much better to be a part of it than be in the right but on the outside.