​Making Labour Friends at a Socialist Karaoke Night

Labour's conference is like a big weird family gathering, with its own strange rituals.

I witnessed one of these at Monday night's Socialist Society Karaoke, where a group of sweaty, white-shirted young Labour members sang D:Ream's "Things Can Only Get Better" – famously used in the party's super-weird but super-successful 1997 election broadcast.

They then broke into chants of "Tony, Tony, Tony". This isn't unique – the same thing happened elsewhere that night too. Apparently it happens every year.

Karaoke at Labour conference last night… And they're still loving 'Things Can Only Get Better' — Richard Osley (@RichardOsley)September 27, 2016

For the right of the party, conference has been a sombre affair, settling uneasily into a second mandate for Jeremy Corbyn, a leader they think can't win a general election. Karaoke was a way to lift the gloom. One anti-Corbyn Labour member told me that getting pissed together "is all we have left".

There were a lot of songs invested with heavy political overtones. "Common People" by Pulp was sung more than once. London Assembly Member Tom Copley AM sung "If I Could Turn Back Time", perhaps a nod to a time when Labour could win elections. Someone sung "I Will Survive" and dedicated it to "Labour as a party of government". The lyrics, "Now go, get out the door, just turn around now, you're not welcome anymore" seemed to be directed at Labour's supposed Trot infiltrators. Chants of "Tony" were countered with chants of "Jeremy".

So this was hardly an example of party unity, but it might have been a rare glimpse of a space where different factions can coexist. People on the left and right wings of the party have been heckled by their detractors at conference events, but here, Corbynistas rubbed shoulders with Blairites. One of the leaders of the "Tony" chants later led a rendition of "the Red Flag" – a socialist anthem which Tony Blair briefly banned from conference.

The rowdiness contrasted to the torpor of the conference sessions. Many of the fringe meetings involve panels where very important people, such as MPs, give their very important opinions for extended periods. When the floor is opened to questions, a lower rung of important person, such as a local party branch secretary, is likely to make a statement emphasising their importance and relevance. At one panel I sat through, there were no questions, just a series of statements invariably ending in "the bloody Tories", which were applauded despite their banality. At times it's not so much a discussion as a dick-waving contest. It's hard to see how anyone but a careerist could thrive in that situation. When confronted by the reality of politics, it's obvious how people can become so utterly disengaged from it.

Momentum's fringe, "The World Transformed", isn't immune to this mode of communication. On the other hand, they did have a session called "Pint and Politics", where an actor pretended to be a Sun reader and the audience, via an intermediary, tried to win him around to the ideas of socialism. It was agreed that arguments like, "don't you care about other people?" probably won't work. Given that the movement has been plagued by accusations that they can't even talk to people in their own party without bullying them as "red Tories", at least here they were imagining a conversation with an actual Tory and trying to engage.

If the karaoke night was anything to go by, maybe Labour needs more of the pint and politics approach. Corbyn and Momentum's politics is accused of being a 1980s cover act and the party's right is looking back at the 1990s with rose-tinted specs. At least they could both come together over the mangling of some old classics. Who's going to fight when everyone's singing Oasis?

@simonchilds13