SEPTEMBER SONGS III

It seems we are set for an Indian summer, the atmosphere muggy and cloying, unusual for September. I open the window just after six to feel the cool breeze, which I experience like American air-conditioning. 
 Such mornings as these feel heavily pregnant with post-holiday projects, further education classes, DIY, the sounds and smells of return to school or university. Yet against this backdrop of the new, the fresh, there is autumnal decay. The leaves make their slow meandering journey back to the dew soaked earth, rotten fruit lies under the pear and apple trees and, for those over a certain age, the alarming feeling of time draining away. ‘Can it really be September already?'

Though this year, for me, and I think many others, something new has been added to the fears and hopes of September. We are now menaced by the prospect of President Trump, the reality of the ongoing Brexit nightmare, and, more parochially, for those on the progressive left, the slow agonising death of the British Labour Party.  

II

On the eve of the Second World War George Orwell had a dream which starkly clarified his position to the coming war, a war he had hitherto opposed. He now knew that when it came to hostilities he would support England against Nazi Germany, all of England’s faults notwithstanding. Similarly, on this day in 2001 Christopher Hitchens had a similar moment of crystal clarity. The perpetrators of the atrocities in New York and Washington represented all the evils that an open, cultured, liberal society must oppose. They were the enemy that must be destroyed.

Such moments of clarity, rare in a complex world of shades of grey and nuanced argument, can feel wonderfully refreshing, even exhilarating, as all nuances are cast aside, the enemy presents themselves in clear sight. I was a little slower than Hitchens in recognition of the full extent of the threat from militant Islam. Ironically it was participation in the famous/infamous protest against the Iraq war that began to open my eyes to the threat. For it was on that March, which incidentally I left early, that a peculiar feature of the protest had struck me, that is the alliance between militant Islam and, what we now call, the regressive left.  

As I have written about this already, and at some length, I will not go over this well-trodden ground again. However, though I have long been opposed to the regressive left it was not until Jeremy Corbyn was elected as leader of the Labour party did I have my own moment of illumination, a moment of such clarity that not only did it throw the enemy into relief it also revealed in sharp clear outline the reality of my own political position. I no longer was part of a broad Labour left but was now so detached from former allegiances that I now belonged to another camp.   

Corbyn so grotesquely represents all that is foul on the left, with his support for Hamas and the IRA whilst adopting a peacenik pose, his loathing of the USA, NATO and all Western Governments outside Scandinavia and his mouthing of the tortured formulas of the so-called Stop the War Coalition. Indeed, it is extraordinary that one man should encompass such a range of duplicity, bad faith, disingenuity and outright lies. That this man has captured the Labour party as his experimental plaything, a vehicle he is now remoulding in his own image, is truly grotesque.  If, as now seems certain, Corbyn is re-elected leader this autumn the Labour Party, as conceived and created in 1900, will be gone.

So in fighting Corbyn and his Corbynite fan club I too am filled with a refreshing clarity. For, paraphrasing Oscar Wilde, to oppose Corbyn is not only a duty but a pleasure.  

Corbyn with Hugo Chavez

In all this, I can no longer pretend that my own politics haven’t changed. Having witnessed the character of some of Corbyn's supporters demanding 'socialism' and seeing its dead hand in Venezuela, Cuba, and other places around the world, I can no longer describe myself as a socialist, libertarian or otherwise. I have come to see the virtue of stability, the mixed economy and properly regulated and policed capitalism. My passion for equality and hatred of a system still based on class interests has not changed. I still want to see a fairer society; though I now believe that this can be fought for within existing structures. I also now see the kind of society that Corbyn and his acolytes would like to create and smells reactionary and atavistic, it smells totalitarian.  
  

However, first loyalty must always be to principles, free speech, fairness, economic justice, liberty & equality, and not to party. Progressive politics needs re-alignment, a broad coalition of progressive centre-left needs to emerge after Corbyn has won. As a first step, the Liberal Democrats should be the beneficiaries of Labour’s demise. For those on the centre-left and even those, like me, more left than centre the in the short term Lib Dems for all their shortcomings are currently the only game in town. I have now joined this party.

Other movements are happening, including Paddy Ashdown’s ‘MoreUnited.UK’ movement, which might evolve into a more viable  political force as a home for Remain voters horrified by the unfolding Brexit scenario. Whatever the result of the Labour leadership contest there will be interesting developments in the Parliamentary Labour Party. If Corbyn wins by another landslide a significant group of the PLP will surely break away and form their own parliamentary group, possibly in partnership with the few Lib Dem MP’s. Things in the constituency party will get nastier still, which will see a few MP’s stand down and others chose independence.

All in all, we seem cursed to live in ‘interesting times.’