My local MP, Luciana Berger, yesterday tweeted with a handy photo of her support for the striking NUJ journalists:
“joined @bbcmerseyside staff on their picket line in the rain #nuj re#solidarity” 1st August 2011
First point. Well done. These journalists are exercising their democratic right to defend their pay and conditions in the face of cuts and Labour MPs should show solidarity.
Going back to the 30th June and a different strike, Ed Miliband made it clear that he expected Labour MPs to cross picket lines to turn up in the House of Commons that day. A clean sweep of Liverpool MPs, Luciana Berger, Steve Rotherham, Louise Ellman and Stephen Twigg all duly turned up. George Howarth in Knowsley and Helen Jones MP for Warrington North were also there.
At face value, this should have caused major ructions in Liverpool Labour. There are a great many sincere and principled people in the Labour Party – probably the majority of the membership and a great many of the representatives at local government – who supported striking lecturers, teachers and public sector workers. To give you a flavour of some of the Twitter comments the day before, the widely respected Cllr Louise Baldock, Chair of the North West Labour Party, said:
“Dear LP members and especially MPs, cross a picketline and you and me are finished #justsaying” 29th June 2011
Emotions run high on issues like this, but I’m actually not going to attack the Liverpool Labour MPs that went into the Commons on that day. You can see that this was the scheduled debate on the Liverpool Passport Office, where local MPs raised concerns about the dismissal of 14 staff and the conduct of the Identity and Passport service. Our local Labour MPs had to strike a balance between representing local people and showing support for the hundreds of thousands that were striking to defend their jobs.
But it is clear that things could have been done differently. If Liverpool Labour MPs supported the strike, they could have nominated one person to go in and represent the sacked Liverpool workers in the debate. We have to recognise that with a Conservative led government, Parliament is not going to make allowances for non-attendance due to conscience, and the working rights of a different set of people were at stake. The other MPs could still have shown solidarity on the picket line but this all presupposes that the other Labour MPs in and around Liverpool actually supported the strike. Comments welcomed to indicate whether that was the case or not.
Given that I can’t find any indication about whether Luciana Berger supported our strike action or not on the 30th June, I think it is wrong to leap to a judgement on this. However, if photos showing solidarity on the picket line are going to be tweeted and possibly used in campaign literature in future, I think we need to know the full picture and whether she supported the other strike action on the 30th June.
I want to know what my local MP actually stands for. So I’m writing to her to ask and I’ll share whatever answer I get.
