by Paul Sagar

Just under a year ago I joined the Labour Party. I will not be renewing my membership.

This is not, however, because of some ideological disenchantment. Neither is it due to dissatisfaction with Ed Miliband’s faltering start, or the Party’s lamentable response to the Coalition.

The truth is, I’ve done nothing for Labour since the 2010 General Election. I’ve not even bothered updating my CLP membership since moving to Cambridge. And the basic reason for this is that I intensely dislike political campaigning, and party-political activities.



I find knocking on doors at best boring, and at worst utterly unpleasant. This isn’t so much because I’m averse to meeting the general public, as that I’m averse to looking them in the eye and lying. Like when they say “Labour has a rubbish policy on Trident/ID cards/immigration/the 10p tax”. Or “Gordon Brown is a crap Prime Minister, I’m not putting him back in power”.

And I’m supposed to sit there and pretend that they’ve got it all wrong. Because The Party is fantastic and if it wins everything will be sunshine and kittens.

Likewise, away from the doorsteps I find the experience of party-politics pretty nauseating. The herd mentality in particular is stifling. It’s like being stuck with a bunch of football fans who only want to talk about their team and how great it is – apart from the heretics and traitors trying to ruin it from the inside, of course.

That, and the constant, compulsory mantra about how awful and evil the other teams/parties are.

The fact is, to stay active in grass roots party politics you have to enjoy this. Or at the very least, be able to engage in it whilst not contantly battling the urge to shove pins in your eyes.

Of course some people are able to so partake and nonetheless maintain good judgement, political sense and basic moral principles not determined by party policy. Don Paskini is the outstanding example here, though Chris Brooke gets a mention too. But these types are, in my experience, very rare.

But furthermore, those that go on to be seriously successful – to head local councils, become MPs, or even government ministers – have to invest enormous amounts of time and energy in this world of perma-propaganda, dogma, and tedious tribalism. So they, too, must find the entire process in some way satisfying. Or else they’d go off and do something else. Like make money, or save the whales.

Sure, these individuals will possess moral values and principles, of varying degrees of coherence and sophistication. But what drives many is the appeal of politics as a participatory activity. They do politics because politics itself is how they like to spend their time: propagandising, disseminating and tub-thumping for their chosen tribe.

Which this leads again to the conclusion that there’s something very misguided about conceiving of politics as being fundamentally an exercise in applied ethics. And that any political theory maintaining otherwise will be quite seriously deficient.