Corbyn and McDonnell’s sinister class war campaign shows the historic catastrophe in prospect

Reading some of the commentary published ahead of the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall (November 9th 1989) you would be forgiven for thinking that this great liberation was problematic in some way or even a disappointment. One writer in the Financial Times mused recently in a long feature on how the high hopes of 1989 had been a letdown.

Really? Since Communism was vanquished, and Eastern Europe freed from far-left tyranny, growth has rocketed and the prospects of the citizenry have dramatically improved. Poland’s GDP per capita has increased by close to 150% since the early 1990s. As Marcin Piatkowski of the World Bank made clear in his recent book – Europe’s Growth Champion, Insights from the Economic Rise of Poland (Oxford University Press 2018) – economic freedom and social mobility has meant that a country that has little in the way of natural resources, but an abundance of ingenious human capital, is well on its way to catching up with the West.

Problems abound across Eastern Europe, of course, as they do in Western Europe. But when compared to where the nations of Eastern Europe sat in 1989 there has been a revolution in expectations and an exciting improvement in life chances. This cheering achievement stands as one of the greatest developments in the history of Europe in several centuries. Markets are not without their problems but they work.

Ironically, just as the 30th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall comes round, Britain is having an emergency general election in which the Labour party is led by someone who definitely wanted the other side – the Soviet Union, the Communists – to win in the 1980s. Jeremy Corbyn in his youth cycled round East Germany on holiday, and once he got into parliament he never missed an opportunity to express his hatred of the West and sympathy for collectivist ideas. Today, close to Corbyn are figures who have written extensively on what they see as the tragedy of Russia’s defeat in the Cold War.

While Corbyn’s primary interest is foreign policy – and what he terms the evils of Western policy – his shadow Chancellor John McDonnell is a self-avowed Marxist whose central interest is in economics and smashing the market system. In recent years he has done a clever job attempting to rebrand himself, posing as a kindly figure in knitwear and touring corporate boardrooms to promise (don’t believe it for a second) minimal disruption if he becomes Chancellor. He has even managed to  convince a few more gullible British capitalists who have not read their history, or who don’t care, that a far left government would somehow not be as bad as it has been everywhere it has been tried.

Anyone who has read Marx’s disciple Lenin knows that those who adopt his teachings as their creed aim to ride to power on the coat-tails of a populist movement and then exploit emergencies to go much further – making what are described as “Lenin’s Leaps.” In Corbyn and McDonnell’s case they have co-opted a once mainstream party, Labour, and hope to be in power by Christmas. They hope at least to be the largest party in a hung parliament, with extensive scope for action via executive powers. The next government will appoint the successor to Mark Carney as Governor of the Bank of England.

This is not to suggest that if Corbyn and McDonnell win Britain will be transformed instantly into a state in Lenin’s image, run first by workers’ soviets and then an increasingly violent centre cracking down to impose discipline on anyone with ideas about continuing commercial activity or free expression. Britain has strong – or strong-ish – institutions. Parliament and the courts would, runs the theory, be robust in defence of liberty.

Would that be enough, though? Ultimately, often what matters most about a leading politician is the nature of their core assumptions and instincts – their worldview.

Gordon Brown was a calamitous Chancellor in the end because of his ludicrous claim to have abolished boom and bust, an attitude which left Britain unprepared for a downturn when it came. Nonetheless, Brown was clearly a patriot and in his views on markets he was a solid social democrat. His instinct when the financial system teetered in 2008 was to save it. One can argue about whether the form of rescue was wise, or whether the “too big to fail” rescues of the banks stored up later problems we are still living with today in the form of perpetual low interest rates and zombie companies surviving only with a massive pile of debt borrowed at rock bottom rates. But Brown understood that an open financial system and successful commerce are essential components of a functioning society.

What would McDonnell’s instinct be in an emergency or a crisis? It is not difficult to figure out if you study his public pronouncements since the 1980s. Give the Shadow Chancellor half a chance and he will relish taking dangerous leaps inspired by Marx and Lenin.

It was with that in mind that I listened carefully to the opening of the Labour election effort. This was Corbyn’s speech designed to frame the campaign to come.

What was most chilling was the sinister message of class war and the attempt to stoke division. While politicians make all manner of claims about their opponents, especially during general elections, this was something different, darker and transgressive.

The message was that a tiny group of rich people had all the money, or control of all the money in a conspiracy against “the many”, and they must be punished. Individual wealthy people were singled out. The creepy tone was familiar, from the 1930s.

The widespread assumption is that this will not matter in the end because Corbyn won’t win. England outside London and several other large metropolitan centres is never going to vote for Corbyn, it is said. The common sense of English people beyond the capital will prevent catastrophe.

Perhaps, but the situation is undeniably precarious. The electorate is volatile and split at least four ways. The Tories having been so cocky at the start of their disastrous campaign in 2017 are now jumpy. So it falls to Boris Johnson.

The Conservative leader is a brilliant campaigner and a winner, of course. He has only lost one election in his life and that was in 1997 when he fought the then unwinnable Clwyd South in north Wales, securing 9,091 votes (23.1% of the vote). Labour won Clwyd South that year with 22,901 votes (58.1% of the vote).

Clwyd South is now 72nd on the Tory party’s target list as the type of Labour seat the Tories will try to knock over by focusing on Brexit and so-called blue collar concerns. Win there, and in other seats like it, and Johnson could be in with a healthy majority.

The Labour majority in Clwyd South in 2017 was 4,376. It is estimated that in 2016 the seat voted 60-40 to leave the EU. UKIP did well there in 2015 and if the Brexit party goes ahead with its bizarre kamikaze effort to stop Brexit by splitting the Leave vote, by standing in most seats in Britain including Clwyd South, then the Tories may struggle. There is a narrow route, the chance of a lucky shot, for Labour.

If Boris blunders, and Corbyn gets a foothold on an issue such as the NHS, the potential still exists for a freak result in which Labour becomes the largest party and Corbyn is Prime Minister.

Johnson has a reputation as a joker, but he does seem to understand that he now has a serious responsibility not to mess up. If Corbyn did somehow squeeze in, then a leading  market economy and free society would end up with a catastrophic far left government despite all the lessons of history showing where it leads. That – and not just Brexit – is what is at stake in Britain’s most important election since the 1980s.