I left the left-wing of politics because I am a man

I’ve been interested in politics since the 1979 election when Margaret Thatcher came to power. I was 9 years old at the time. I wanted the Conservatives to win because I liked their blue posters better than Labour’s red ones.

I remember headlines about a “landslide victory” that suggested something significant had just happened. It excited me enough to make a “vote Glen for PM” rosette and sing “election 83, between Maggie Thatcher and me” for a few hours.

My new found obsession with politics didn’t last. Nine days later I annoyed my dad by cutting out paper cannons to signify my support for Arsenal in the FA Cup final against Manchester United. My dad thought I should give my allegiance to the Northern team, but I didn’t like United’s socks (they had a red and white stripe in them) and as the Gunners were playing in a really cool blue and yellow away kit, supporting the Southern team was a no brainer.

I also loved the Arsenal left-winger Liam Brady and spent hours kicking a tennis ball against the garage door whilst doing a running commentary…. “Here comes Brady, jinking his way through the United defence, he passes the ball to Poole, who only has Bailey to beat………and he’s scored! Glen Poole has won the FA Cup for Blackpool.”

Liam Brady and I have two things in common. Neither of us ever played for Blackpool and we are both former left wingers---only my spell on the left wasn’t a question of sport, but a question of politics.

The UK Labour Party is the only political party I’ve ever joined, though I have voted for various parties over the years, mostly for tactical reasons as I voted for the party I thought had the best chance of beating the Conservatives and getting the Labour Party in power.

In 1997, when Tony Blair told us things could only get better, I was a card carrying member of the Labour Party. I’m not sure if I ever voted Labour again. It was at some point after the turn of the Millennium that I stopped voting Labour after I discovered that the left has a problem with supporting men---and in particular fathers.

In 1990, Harriet Harman, who is now Labour’s Deputy Leader, co-authored the “Family Way” report for the think tank ippr, which said “it cannot be assumed that men are bound to be an asset to family life or that the presence of fathers in families is necessarily a means to social cohesion".

This report passed me by at the time but the general left-wing indifference towards fathers has been noted by Labour MPs like David Lammy who claims that the “same liberals who fought so hard for single mothers now give the impression that fatherlessness does not matter at all”.

Melanie Phillips, who has taken an unusual journalistic path from The Guardian to the Daily Mail, has described how linking fatherlessness to a range of social problems put her at odds with other left-wingers. According to Phillips:

“My view was backed in 1992 when three influential social scientists with impeccable Left-wing pedigrees produced a damning report. From their research, they concluded that children in fractured families tend to suffer more ill-health, do less well at school, are more likely to be unemployed, more prone to criminal behaviour and to repeat as adults the same cycle of unstable parenting. But instead of welcoming this analysis as identifying a real problem, the Left turned on the authors, branding them as evil Right-wingers for being ‘against single mothers’.”

I had a similar experience myself when I began speaking out for separated fathers who were clearly being discriminated against because they were men. When I raised this issues I would be dismissed for being anti-women or right-wing or an apologist for men’s violence against women---it was a perplexing experience at the time. For me, speaking up against injustice and inequality was entirely aligned to my left-wing values and I couldn’t understand why other left-wingers opposed me or why I could find more support for separated dads on the right wing of politics.

Jack O’Sullivan who writes for The Guardian from time to time and is (I am sure) a complete and utter leftie, has written about Labour’s failure to support separated dads. He said:

“Labour has never got to grips with the tragedies of separated fatherhood….Labour's key concern in all of this was women and, as a result, it was not interested in championing fathers' rights in the home.”

There were a few encouraging noises from Labour in 2013.

Jon Cruddas, the party’s policy co-ordinator, said that “the majority of men feel fathers are undervalued,” but not for much longer, because “Labour will value the role of fathers”. Yet, as  I wrote in the New Satesman last year, Labour has so far made no acknowledgment that the unequal treatment of fathers has been caused in part by New Labour policies.

And since 2010 when Labour lost power nationally, the party has relentlessly pursued a “pro-women” campaign narrative on issues like the recession and unemployment despite the fact that number of men in work fell at nearly 50 times the rate for women from 2008 to 2012.

This obsessive championing of women to the exclusion of men is reflected in recent political polls that show that 42% of women say they’ll vote Labour at the next general election compared with 35% of men.

So now I am one of the 65% of men who currently won’t be voting Labour at the next election and cannot see myself even considering voting Labour again until it shows a genuine commitment to develop policies around gender issues that show greater political intelligence than I did when I supported the conservatives in 1979 because I liked the colour of their posters the best.

Labour's current approach to gender issues is a simplistic "girls are good and boys are duds" way of thinking.  

To make matters worse, Labour more than any other party claims to be a champion of gender equality while actively ignoring or discriminating against men. It is this Orwellian doublethink, more than anything, that caused me to leave the left. As a man who cares deeply about the way people treat men and boys, I have no plans to go back.  

What I am committed to is finding ways to influence all political parties to think more deeply about gender issues and I hope that the conversations generated by the Year of the Male 2014 will help to make men's issues a political issue. 

(If you enjoyed this post you may also enjoy reading "Why I'm going to be called a right wing, God-fearing, biological determinist in 2014") 

IF YOU'D LIKE TO DOWNLOAD A FREE CHAPTER OF MY NEW BOOK "EQUALITY FOR MEN" JUST CLICK HERE NOW TO FIND OUT HOW.