Thanks for your heartfelt email. I do not doubt for a moment that you have the interests and well-being of your constituents, the wider Party membership and the wider population at the fore of your thoughts and actions. Nor do I doubt that you are an extremely capable, intelligent and principled MP and person. I believe in you and you have my support. Thanks for working so hard, for raising and confronting so many extremely important issues and for being on the side of the many, not the few.

Like numerous others I’m feeling frustrated, disappointed and angry, certainly with the Conservatives but also with the PLP.

You are correct to say that Jeremy is not to blame for the outcome of the referendum vote. He recognises, as does any sensible person, the cogent case against the EU, not least that despite its many advantages and good works, it is a fundamentally neoliberal organisation intent on ensuring that corporatism and hyper-capitalism is enforced at almost any cost. Many people including myself are pleased that he supported the remain position but it would have been extremely hypocritical for him to have given his unreserved support for the EU, and I believe it is in part disdain for the naked hypocrisy exhibited by the political classes that caused so many alienated and disenfranchised people to vote leave: it was a clear message to the political establishment that they are sick of MPs who say one thing in public and think another in private.

The dramatic increase in Labour party membership seems to have been all but overlooked of late and it is hard to understate its importance and to not read it as an extremely important signifier. The continuing, dramatic increase is due almost exclusively to Jeremy’s election as leader. The bruising and disappointing defeat at the last general election and this surge in membership means many things, but the clearest message it sends has to be that people are sick of the indistinguishability of the main political parties. A clear majority Labour members — and almost certainly the vast majority of potential Labour voters — clearly do not want ‘Tory Lite’.

I obviously appreciate that in our country, with our voting system, elections are often decided by swing voters — some of whom are relatively unprincipled and relatively well-off and constitue a relatively selfish minority. New Labour’s policy of assuming core Labour voters would always vote Labour and swing voters would be convinced that if New Labour were good enough for Murdoch and the establishment then they’d be good enough for them was successful in terms of winning elections under Tony Blair. But its unreserved support for the free market, its weakening of worker and union rights and the manufacturing a more ‘flexible’ workforce, its deregulation of finance, its widespread back door privatisation including crippling debts for our beloved NHS, its reductions in state protection for the most vulnerable and above all the Iraq war, simply revealed how far from core Labour voters New Labour moved.

I understand the PLP’s concern that in order to win a general election these swing voters have to be convinced that they should vote for Labour. But here’s the rub: if Labour continues to try to occupy the ‘centre’ (right wing) ground, I believe it will lose the next general election and lose badly and only partly because UKIP hardly existed until 2004. Not only does Labour risk losing the majority of the membership and union support — meaning it will lose the majority of its funding and be in a position where it will have to appease powerful corporate and elite interests — but much more importantly it runs the risk of losing its identity and soul. I appreciate you certainly don’t need me to tell you who and what Labour stands for as I can see it’s in your blood.

I know Jeremy is a reluctant leader. Nobody expected him to actually win the leadership election and nobody expected him to do so by such a massive margin. He is not perfect — nobody is. But he is principled and he is relentlessly on the right side of history. He is Labour through and through.

As you state, we need a new radicalism now more than ever, and Labour has some very tough policy decisions to make: it needs to reconnect with alienated and marginalised working class people and with small and medium businesses; it needs to call out irresponsible corporate greed; it needs to emphasise solutions to global warming; it needs to convince employers and organisations to see the benefits of working with and not against unions and for employees to see the value of belonging to a union; it needs a new food and farming policy; it needs to embrace expert and professional opinion on a range of issues including health, defence, crime and education, and, which is particularly challenging — especially for Jeremy and his supporters — it needs to accept and articulate, especially in the context of Brexit, that ‘uncontrolled’ migration for everyone in the EU is no longer appropriate.

We all know the very significant benefits of migration but imagine for one minute we did build a socialist utopia in Britain with little inequality, free and universal healthcare, full employment, affordable housing, a living wage higher than anywhere else in the world and full integration of people with different identities, beliefs and backgrounds — would Britain really be able to welcome everyone? A million people a year? Ten million?

Labour needs to work hard to forge a new, radical, forward looking and long term narrative which challenges the assumptions and shakes the foundations of neoliberal discourse. It also needs to focus on the lies relentlessly put out by the establishment, including of course the mainstream media, about how Labour caused the financial crash of 2008, about how they are the enemies of business, about how a safety net is at the cost of ‘hard working families’ etc. Everyone in the Party needs to subscribe to some clear goals and principles and to articulate these clearly and consistently in key ‘messages’ — for goodness sake pay for some brilliant people who are experts in persuasive but ethical communication to get a new radical narrative out there.

To say the motion of no confidence was brought forward at the wrong time is a huge understatement. If there was someone with strong left-wing credentials who was young yet experienced, charismatic and universally liked, preferably not white nor male nor middle class, then everyone in the Labour party, including Jeremy and his supporters, would embrace them. Alas this person simply does not (yet) exist, though many from the new intake at the last general election — and I count you among them — have huge potential to become great leaders. Labour needed to wait, to calmly and determinedly reflect and get its house in order but instead the PLP chose to enter into a counterproductive and futile coup which has resulted in a profound identity crisis and which has undermined the amazing recent progress it has made just when the people needed them most.

Further, it is simply incorrect to state that Labour under Jeremy is unelectable. This mantra is speculative at best. Time and again since he became leader the Labour vote has almost exclusively been better than anyone predicted. I’m sure you’re familiar with the concept of a self-fulfilling prophecy.

Just last night a friend who is fiercely patriotic, pretty much despises all politicians yet has always voted Labour, understands anti-immigration views and hates the corporatist/financial establishment, told me he had now joined the Labour party to defend Jeremy against the ill-informed coup. This speaks volumes to me and the PLP should take note.

I’m over 50 and I fear for pretty much everyone’s and especially my daughter’s future. There is so much we now know beyond any doubt: We know large corporations have far too much influence and are only interested in maximising profit; we know global financial markets do not care one jot for people; we know the greatest institution in the world — the NHS — is on its knees and needs our help; we know the exclusive ability of banks to conjure new money and charge interest no longer works (if it ever did) to the benefit of the many; we know global warming is human made, real and devastating; we know wars are entered into far too freely for often spurious reasons; we know that there are tens of trillions of pounds hidden in offshore accounts that are just sitting there when they should be used to help alleviate the world’s problems and we know that grotesque local, national and global inequality is bad for everyone and everything. These are the things that Jeremy recognises and wants to change. It’s the first time in my life that a leader of a mainstream party has been brave enough to articulate these views and has at least tried to grasp the nettle and challenge an extremely comfortable establishment who have become bloated and complacent — Bernie Sanders is saying the same things in America. The next generation passionately believes in this emerging, genuinely radical narrative not least because it is true and devoid of self-interest: Jeremy and Bernie Sanders, despite their faults, cannot and will not be silenced nor bought and this is incredibly refreshing, appealing and should be commended not demonised.

It’s heart-breaking to see Labour imploding when it’s needed more than at any point since World War 2. For me, we are definitely at a crossroads — it’s simply now or never. Either Labour makes a stand for truth and justice and articulates the kind of future we need, or it limps on like a wounded animal, returns to relative indistinguishability from the Conservatives, embarks on yet another failed attempt to win a general election and becomes finished for at least a generation, possibly longer, possibly for ever.

It seems inevitable that Jeremy would win a leadership election by an increased majority. I therefore think you and other Labour MPs need to learn to unite before it’s too late, or start preparing for this eventuality now.

The Labour Party is a democratic socialist party. It believes that by the strength of our common endeavour we achieve more than we achieve alone, so as to create for each of us the means to realise our true potential and for all of us a community in which power, wealth and opportunity are in the hands of the many, not the few, where the rights we enjoy reflect the duties we owe, and where we live together, freely, in a spirit of solidarity, tolerance and respect.

Yours in hope and — despite the above — solidarity.

Dr Russell Jackson