Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer has warmly welcomed the decision of the former MP, Mike Gapes, to rejoin the party — four years after alleged antisemitism in its ranks caused him to resign his membership.
Writing in The Times on Tuesday, Mr Gapes, who represented Ilford South as a Labour and Co-op MP for 27 years, said that “after months of daily agonising”, he had been forced to tell his constituency party that he was “sickened” that Labour was now perceived by many “as a racist, antisemitic party.”
He had told local members: “Jeremy Corbyn and those around him are on the wrong side of so many issues from Russia, to Syria, to Venezuela. If he ever became prime minister, it would be a threat to our national security and international alliances.”
He had walked away from the party he had “loved and served for all my adult life”. Mr Gapes noted: “I was horrified by the state of the party. The traditional Labour values I have always held dear — of social justice, security and internationalism — had been forgotten, replaced by a purity cult that would soon enough prove itself to be repellent to the British public”.
That Mike has rejoined our party shows how much we've changed our party to face the public, root out antisemitism, support business, be proud of our NATO membership.
— Keir Starmer (@Keir_Starmer) March 7, 2023
I know there is more to do so we can change our country and deliver our missions for a better Britain. https://t.co/ymZeCamE4h
In fact, he believed, “I didn’t leave Labour: Labour left me. It also left the millions of mainstream, moderate people that make up the backbone of this country and have always been the core of Labour’s vote. It left all those who need a Labour government and all those who would prefer one. Unforgivably, it left the country at the mercy of a Tory party that has proven itself utterly unfit for high office”.
The former MP, a strong friend of the Jewish community and Israel, said he never imagined returning to Labour. But four years after his resignation, he said: “I find myself filling in my application form to rejoin. Today, I am more enthusiastic about the party’s future than I have been in years, and I am as determined to see it win, and as excited as I was when I joined first time round as a 16-year-old boy in Chigwell, Essex, 54 years ago.
He wrote that he believes the party has changed profoundly and returned to its traditional values. He said that it had been “essential for Starmer to promise action to root out antisemitism. But the way he has taken personal responsibility for chasing it out of the party speaks to the firm, purposeful leadership he has shown”.
Leaving Labour, the former MP said, “was one of the hardest decisions I have ever had to make. So, I am not coming back lightly. But I know in my heart and in my head that this is the right decision”.
Welcoming his return, Sir Keir Starmer said: “I'm delighted that Mike Gapes has chosen to rejoin the changed Labour Party that I lead.
“Like many others, Mike turned away from the Party in recent years because it no longer represented traditional Labour values. But we’ve changed and there’s no going back.
“That Mike has chosen to rejoin is a tribute to the hard work already done to change our Party: to face the electorate, to root out antisemitism, support business, to celebrate patriotism and our Nato membership, not chastise it”.
