To all MPs of the Labour Party,
My name is William Altoft – I am a poet and writer, a father and husband, a British citizen. I am writing to you to declare my decision to never again support the Labour Party.
Under the leadership of Kier Starmer, the Labour Party has been and still is an active participant in and ardent defender of the genocide of the Palestinian people. There are a whole host of other policies, actions, and betrayals on other issues by the Labour government that are each a just and pressing cause for anger, loss of confidence, loss of trust – however, this one issue is the only thing necessary or pertinent to me in order to form this decision. This is the clear and absolute line written in the deepest, most visceral of reds.
I am not going to run through the evidence here – we all know it. Everyone within and without Labour knows it. Everyone scoffing smugly at those two sentences knows it.
Direct complicity.
Active participation.
Unending facilitation.
Duplicitous obfuscation, gaslighting, distraction.
There are members of the Labour Party who are true representatives of the people, of the good fight, and of progressive justice. Zarah Sultana and Clive Lewis, to name only two. But this has not stopped the Labour government from what it has done and continues to do – not even close, despite the absolute valour of those trying desperately from within Labour to end the government’s complicity and stop the genocide. There is simply no amount of good or right that can be done under the name of Labour that would so much as flail against the weighing of its heart on a scale that has shattered ‘neath the weight of this depravity.
This is unforgivable.
Unforgivable.
To be absolutely clear – I will not ever be voting Reform, and nor can I conceive any situation where I ever vote Conservative. But you have joined these ranks, and, to be honest, far surpassed them in my disgust. A Conservative or Reform government would have done the same as the Labour government is now – probably worse. The difference is that the Labour Party is led by a former human rights lawyer and is a party that runs on the lie of promise.
If you look at the recent election cycle in the USA, there was this almost explicit Democratic Party platform of “They’ll be worse! Better stick with us!”. Knowing that there was a significant part of their usual voter base who were finding that they could not bring themselves to vote for a party that had been and still was directly complicit and participant in an ongoing genocide no matter the looming alternative, the Democratic Party decided to stress (the undeniable truth) that a Republican government led by Trump would be even more devastating for the people of Palestine.
This is not democracy – it’s blackmail.
And it is this blackmail that has allowed ostensibly progressive or centre/leftist governments to commit to regressive, warmongering, inhumane, world-destroying policies and actions with a smug show of deceitful moral pretence, the wielding of which has allowed them to consistently bully people into voting against their soul-felt principles and deepest values. And when that has failed and these parties have lost, those voters who held fast, many of whom were understandably torn and sincerely struggled to their ultimate decision to not vote or to vote against, are shamed and blamed.
Fuck that.
When my son reaches the age where he begins to think about these things and ultimately begins to vote, I will not be telling him what to do; what to think; what to feel. I will, however, be explaining to him in full, in detail, and with great passion what exactly my thoughts are about the Labour Party, and I will be honestly and openly sharing with him my emotional and rational positions and their genesis. I hope beyond hope that he lives his entire long life without ever seeing the photos and videos, or any of remotely similar kind, that haunt that genesis. I hope beyond hope that that will be because there will be no genocide anywhere to be documented. Those images, still and moving; those sounds… They are a part of my life now. They are a part of me. They are within my mind’s eye. And the suffering they reveal makes me so profoundly sad; so painfully furious; so full of righteous, humane hatred toward those responsible.
Toward the Israeli regime.
Toward the American regime.
Toward you.
You, as a government, as a party, are to me, and undoubtedly to many others, now and forevermore, irredeemable. Some will have not yet reached this point – I do not think it will be long before they do. It is what you deserve.
Vote Labour?
Never again.
William Altoft
william altoft 