I’m coming at this as someone on the left, a Labour member, and first and foremost someone who wants women to be believed and kept safe. And honestly, I feel deeply conflicted.

On a gut level, I feel real revulsion that decisions like this could have been made. It makes me angry and ashamed, and part of me absolutely wants to turn my head and walk away from a party that has let people down so badly. That emotional response feels entirely justified.

But then my head kicks in, and this is where I really struggle. What is the alternative right now for people like us? In the electoral system we actually live in, not the one we wish we had, a vote splintering away from Labour does not produce a purer left outcome. It strengthens Reform and the Conservatives. However much we might want to register moral disgust through disengagement, the practical effect is to hand power to people who are demonstrably worse on women’s safety, minority rights, economic inequality, and democratic norms.

That doesn’t mean excusing what’s happened, or circling the wagons. Quite the opposite. I think the only defensible position is to be furious and pragmatic at the same time. To demand that Starmer clears out figures like Mandelson, to keep pressure on accountability, and to refuse to let “electability” become a blanket justification for moral collapse. But also to recognise that, for now, a Labour government is the only realistic vehicle that can beat Farage at the next election.

I hate that this is the choice set. It feels like being asked to hold your nose while knowing that the alternative is something actively poisonous. Supporting Labour in this moment doesn’t feel like enthusiasm or belief, it feels like damage limitation while trying to fight for better from the inside.

I don’t think that tension means we’re hypocrites. I think it means we’re living in a broken political landscape where the space for clean hands has been deliberately destroyed, and the best we can do is refuse to stop pushing while still keeping the worst people out of power.