LONDON LETTER JULY 2016: WELCOME TO WEIMAR

WELCOME TO WEIMAR

Images abound that summon up the current catastrophic crisis that in just 21 days have seen the political ‘establishment,’ (a word that has almost lost any meaning, so abused and misused has it been during the referendum campaign), brought to its knees.

For me, the most significant was a picture of Tom Watson Deputy leader of the Labour Party after he gave up on talks with Len McCluskey of the Unite trade union. The talks had been an attempt to deal with the impasse created by Jeremy Corbyn’s refusal to recognise the consequences of his having lost the confidence of the Parliamentary Labour Party, [PLP]. Watson knew the game was up. Days later at an NEC meeting, Corbyn seems, having been asked, to have refused to leave the room. Behaviour that would be disgraceful in a seven-year-old. So this is how a once great party, the party of Atlee and Bevin, dies, dragged into the shit by a petulant old man who has not had a fresh idea since the 1970’s. It is clear that Corbyn would rather split the Labour Party than step down. His reasoning is fairly simple he believes that he represents the authentic Labour project to bring socialism to the masses. He sees the PLP as representing liberal reformism, tinkering with an unjust and oppressive capitalism. He has, he thinks, just within his grasp the opportunity to reclaim the party for socialism. He will, of course, destroy the Labour Party.

Leader of The Corbyn Cult

In normal circumstances, the Conservative party would be in deep trouble, a wafer thin majority, and impatient Brexit troublemakers yapping like hyperactive Cocker Spaniels at her heels. It is worth remembering that an incredible 84 MP’s voted for the patently unsuitable, indeed unstable Ms Leadsom on the basis of her avowed contempt for the EU. Though these are not normal times and May has plenty of wiggle room. She is also sensible enough to know that there need be no hurry in triggering article 50. It will be up to the 48% who voted Remain to apply maximum pressure to ensure that any exit terms are put to the electorate, either in a general election or a second referendum, before that step is taken.

Britain is now more divided than any time since the nineteenth century. What the leave campaigners with their infantile demands and belief that three weeks is more than enough time to come to terms with seeing the things you believed in shattered, fail to realise are that we will all be #Brexit or #Remain for a very long time to come. And that is just one element of a set of complex political and social divisions. The old pitted against the young, London and Scotland and the larger cities of the north at odds with the rest of the UK. I have not even included Northern Ireland which is now poised upon a precipice as the framework which underpinned the Good Friday Agreement has been dismantled.

Boris Johnson 

As to the reshuffle, actually a completely new government, - so much for taking back democratic control, the stand out item is the buffoonish Johnson as Foreign Secretary. One can only wildly speculate May’s motives for appointing Boris Johnson, a man who has in his time managed to say something insulting about most UN member states, as well as many prominent world leaders, President Obama included. Caligula's horse comes to mind, though perhaps it wasn’t answering the telephone. What she has done is placed the primary advocates of a British exit from the EU precisely where they will have to deal with the mess they created. So there can be no ‘stabbed in the back’ narrative when things fall apart. No consolation for the British people of course who now face years of uncertainty, possible recession, and a further erosion of Britain's standing in the world.

Whether history repeats itself is open to question, but the period that I am most reminded of is Weimar Germany in the 1920’s. The resemblance is purely superficial of course, but there is a genuine feeling of drift and chaos, with economic uncertainty, a lack of leadership and extremists of both far left and far right, and it has now become extremely difficult to tell them apart, shouting louder and louder. The problem is however much more serious on the left. Jeremy Corbyn, increasingly the leader of an increasingly violent and vicious cult, his followers now addressing all their fury at the real enemy; no not the Tories but social democratic liberals. They rail against the so-called ‘red Tories’ with all the fury of a frustrated six-year-old. 

In the face of all this it is difficult not to be gripped by feelings of impotence, rage and grief. For myself, after over four decades of supporting the Labour Party I have joined the Lib Dems. It is not a decision I took quickly or easily and I still feel uneasy, however Britain’s disastrous exit from the EU must be opposed, and currently the Liberal Democrats are the only game in town for me as the Labour party is ripped apart. My own concerns are of course trivial in the face of so much turmoil, still to quote Auden, I feel it important to ‘show an affirming flame,’ to speak out and not be silent.

Perhaps I am being to gloomy and that things will work out better than expected. I hope so. Cabaret can be a somewhat overrated form of entertainment.