The inevitable, and the impossible, has happened. Jeremy
Corbyn, after thirty-two years on the back benches of the House of Commons has
become leader of the Labour Party. He is part of the tendency in the party of
traditional economic socialists now considered tamed and outmoded, part of
Labour's past. As I've explained before, the Labour Party completely transformed
during the 1980's and 90's. After a series of election defeats to the
Conservatives, they decided to abandon traditional left wing ideals and become
a much more moderate, centre-left, social democratic party. They changed their
logo from the red flag to the red rose and adopted the slogan: "Meet the challenge- make the
change" at one of their national conferences. Margaret Thatcher, who
led the Conservatives through most of this period, quipped that the greatest
triumph of her career was her conquest of the Labour Party. Some in the party
opposed this change. They wanted the party to stick to its founding principles
and persevere in persuading the electorate that these principles were the
correct ones. The foremost figure in this tendency was the party's former chairman
and minister for energy Tony Benn, see: http://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.co.uk/2014/03/tony-benn-dies.html.
One of his supporters was a newly-elected back bench MP for the constituency of
Islington North called Jeremy Corbyn.
See here for
essential background: http://hpanwo-voice.blogspot.co.uk/2015/08/jeremy-corbyn-new-labour-leader.html.
Those of the Blairite New Labour former leadership are
shaking their heads and gasping in disbelief. How could this have happened?
Right up the last minute many of them were still in denial. Tony Blair broke
his corporate complicit silence to show genuine emotion for the first time in
his career and rant about how the Labour Party was doomed forever to the depths
of hell if Corbyn were made leader. This was probably counterproductive and
sealed the fate of the other three candidates. In truth, there has always been
a popular "old Labour" streak within the grass roots of the party.
While I was a rabid teenage trade unionist many people in Oxford
were involved with Trotskyism, centred around the The Militant. If you had walked through Oxford
in those days you would often see a bushy-haired callow youth selling that
newspaper on a street corner; that was me. Some of my social media friends are
Blairite Labour-supporters and they're lamenting Corbyn's triumph in a similar
way to their mentor. Tableaux of mock gravestones with "RIP Labour Party- 1900 to 2015" have been doing the rounds
on Facebook. Maybe the real reason this revolution has happened is because
there is simply no credible role for New Labour any more. The best analysis of
the Corbyn victory has come from the paleoconservative journalist Peter
Hitchens. He explains very persuasively how the New Labour Project was adopted
and mimicked so completely by the 2000's Conservative Party that there was
simply no need for it in Labour any more. Cameron is almost a face-transplanted
Tony Blair when it comes to our continued membership of the EU, foreign
constabulary wars, NHS privatization and many other policies, see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tTu3gVvm_K8.
Yesterday I was talking to a portering friend of mine who is a die-hard Thatcherite
Tory and he said: "Labour have lost it! They've gone back to the Stone Age
and elected a dinosaur!" I don't think it's as simple as that. The classic
left failed in the 80's because they were up against another ideological visionary-
Margaret Thatcher. Today the Corbynnies have simply to knock over David
Cameron, and that's a completely different kettle of fish. As Hitchens says
above, Cameron does not stand for anything; he is neither left wing nor right
wing, neither authoritarian nor libertarian, neither conservative nor liberal.
He is a political prostitute. I personally do not share a lot of Corbyn's political
views, but if I had been eligible I'd have voted for him without hesitation;
see the background link above for more details. I wonder how many of the people
who support Corbyn have not really rediscovered socialism, and are instead,
like me, just sick of the monotonous, dismal, insincere status quo? British
politics has suddenly become so much less boring! Viewing figures for Question Time and Parliament Today are going to skyrocket. It's a recurring situation
in politics; an organization has to choose between pragmatism and idealism. In
2010 the Liberal Democrats decided to be pragmatic. They sacrificed some of
their principles in exchange for being a junior partner in a crooked coalition
with the Tories. This has destroyed them; they've lost almost all their MP's
and their members are deserting the sinking ship like the proverbial rats. I've
always been an idealist and I respect other idealists, even if I don't necessarily
share their ideals. Right now Jeremy Corbyn is reorganizing the party, which
will be a big job and we're going to see a lot of changes. He has made the
brave and admirable step of not deliberately making his deputy leader a woman,
and therefore is rebelling against the Liz Kendalls of this world. His deputy,
Tom Watson, looks like a middle-aged Harry Potter. He has said dismissively: "Any shadow cabinet members who resign
can easily be replaced." This is following the eight front-benchers
who have refused to serve under Corbyn. David Cameron has Tweeted: "The Labour Party is now a threat to
our national security, our economic security and your family's security."...
This is going to be fun! I'm surprised that none of my many detractors have
spotted my mistake in the background article above. Normally these people spend
all day scouring every word I write in order to pick out my errors. I wrote: "Jeremy Corbyn is never going to be
Labour leader. The 'men in grey suits' would not permit it in a
million years. Something will happen that will change the opinion polls and
knock Corbyn off his perch. This could be a sex scandal, an accusation of
financial misdeeds. Perhaps another kind of incident whose name will have the
suffix '-gate'. Then again he might just do a Robin Cook/John Smith
and have a convenient heart attack. Maybe he will suddenly commit suicide for
no reason like Dr David Kelly. I would at least recommend him to stay well away
from Paris
4 comments:
The closet Tories of New Labour, the system servers and suckers that make up the majority of Westminster and its posses fail abysmally to read the mood of what they refer to as the great un-washed (I won't say un-brain-washed). Corbyn hasn't. The have's are massively out-numbered by the have-nots and every-day battlers...and even the have's are realising their comfortable lives are wobbling under the status quo. This new J.C. does represent hope. I don't think he's another Tony Benn or Nye Bevan but if he does stick to his guns with re-claiming what has been stolen from us (a very long list) he's walking towards trying on those giants' shoes. We'll see...but whatever, this radical change and long-missing choice is crucial to a healthy society, humanity and the world.
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