Open Labour – response to the Times

We welcome the support from Labour MPs and members over the past couple of days. Our supporters at Open Labour are sad but unsurprised that the Murdoch press is trying to misrepresent our launch and make it fit their own agenda in opposition to the Labour Party and its leader.

Yesterday’s piece in the Times does not reflect our position towards Momentum, any other group, or Labour’s leadership. We have not set ourselves up in opposition to any other group, but to broaden the debate within Labour, and to concentrate the party left in particular on facing outwards.

The Times are however right to say that we want to maintain a civilised and welcoming approach in Labour’s conversation. We deplore the intemperate tones adopted against MPs right across the political spectrum within the Party in the last few weeks. We want to bring a focus on debating issues and strategy, not personalities or internal politics.

The Murdoch family and News International are exactly the forms of concentration of power we stand against.

Their misuse of power using phone hacking, leading to the closure of News of the World are ample evidence of the need to take on gross concentrations of corporate power. We will stand fast with other groups in the party against such vested interests, taking the side of the majority – people with whom the Murdoch press has little in common.