CORBYN THE RAMSAY MACDONALD OF THE LEFT

I grew up in an age when changing your political allegiance was like changing the football team you supported, unthinkable. The world is more fluid now, though I find I still carry my allegiance to the Labour party as close as any football scarf. So for me, the slow, seemingly unstoppable destruction of the Labour Party feels like a former of torture.

It is tempting to blame everything on Corbyn and McDonnell, and both are the primary culprits  and extremely malign, but they could hardly have achieved this destructive exercise on their own. For make no mistake about it all those people, primarily from comfortable middle-class backgrounds, registering to vote Corbyn back in again know that this will destroy the Labour Party as it currently exists. What they imagine will happen if, and it looks likely that he will be, is re-elected is unclear. However, if they imagine that the PLP will simply declare, “the membership has spoken, let’s embrace Corbyn’s world view and jump over the electoral cliff together holding hands,” - they are seriously deluding themselves. Of course the hard left think the solution is simple, in a word deselection. This, however, will not be anything like as easy as they think and could end up in the law courts or triggering by-elections.

That the party will split seems to me now inevitable, the enmity between the two camps now an unbridgeable chasm. The form that this split will take is unclear, the central question being how many will refuse Corbyn's leadership and how many will remain in a rump Corbyn group.
The small group of pro-Corbyn MP’s will evidence the presence in parliament of an independent far left grouping committed more to Marx than Methodism for the first time since 1945. It is likely to be short-lived.
For the rest of those committed to a liberal and tolerant social democratic project, there will be a relatively short period in which to establish themselves as a clear, distinct and coherent alternative to the Conservatives. The alternative to the establishment of such a party will be one party rule for the foreseeable future.

Of course, Owen Smith could win, in which case the game changes yet again, though Labour's problems will be far from over.

Above all this Corbyn smirks with the puritanical certainty of a witch-finder General. The Ramsay MacDonald of the left, willing to destroy the Labour Party to ‘save it’ for his brand of socialism.


So it seems we are, as the Chinese say, cursed to live in interesting times. 

Popular posts from this blog

NESRINE MALIK AND THE UNSUNG VIRTUES OF HYPOCRISY

Image
As I write this a 27 year old woman, Mariam Ibrahim, has just had a baby in a Sudanese prison, ‘the condition of the mother and baby is not known as Ibrahim's lawyer and her husband, a US citizen, had been denied access to her. Omdurman women's prison has a basic clinic, where the child is thought to have been born. Ibrahim has been shackled since being imprisoned.’ [1]   Mariam also has an 18 month old child who is also being held in prison with her. The ‘crime’ for which she is imprisoned is apostasy, for which she has received the death sentence. She has also been sentenced to 100 lashes, for the additional crime of having sex with her Christian husband. Although she has been a lifelong Christian her father was a Muslim, Sudanese sharia law forbids women to marry outside the Muslim faith, men needless to say can do as they please in these matters. Mariam Ibrahim and her husband.  Nineteen countries punish their citizens for apostasy, and in 12 of those countries...
Read more

INTERVIEW WITH TOM VAGUE

Image
Tom Vague At the top end of All Saints Road there is a refuge, an enclave in which a local Bohemian culture retains a foothold, this is the Book & kitchen , a café/bookshop with adjoining terrace. Here the bustle of the nearby market gives way to conversation, conversation in the presence of images of the recent, and not so recent, past. The past of an area that has contributed so much to the life and culture of the city. I was there to meet local historian Mr Tom Vague a man intimately familiar with so much of this history. What Tom doesn’t know about the recent history of the area probably is not worth knowing. With Tom’s energy and effort Colville Community Forum, supported by City Living Local Life, recently held a gathering at The Book and Kitchen to celebrate this rich history. February 16 6-9 Pm, with Film Screening and Readings Exhibition February 16-26 2016. Featuring 30 Classic Westway Photographs and Posters. This represents one of a number of initiatives of t...
Read more

VOLINE AND TROTSKY

Волин и Троцкого A Footnote in Russian History In April 1917 the Russian anarchist revolutionary Voline* and Leon Trotsky were both stranded in New York as the Russian revolution broke out in Petrograd , inevitably coming into contact with one another. Voline stated that he felt that the Bolsheviks, given their ruthlessness and single minded determination, would ultimately come to power. They would then begin eliminating their opponents, amongst whom of course were the anarchists; this persecution would end with the Bolsheviks shooting the anarchists “like partridges.” Trotsky was dismissive, they might have their differences but they were comrades in arms, they had different interpretations of the revolutionary process but shared the same goals. It was nonsense to speak of Bolsheviks shooting revolutionary comrades, “we are socialists, comrade Voline! So we are not your enemies….” [1] In December of 1919, whilst gravely wounded Voline was captured by the Bolshe...
Read more