Jon Ashworth has unwittingly revealed the moral cowardice of Labour’s moderate MPs
Jeremy Corbyn has been damned as an electoral liability and a security risk by his own Shadow Health Secretary, Jon Ashworth. He is widely seen to be voicing the concerns that many Labour MP’s have about the party’s leadership, despite the fact they are currently working to ensure Corbyn is running the country by the end of the week.
Ashworth was recorded telling a friend that Corbyn was proving to be a massive problem on the doorstep in traditional Labour heartlands. He said: “Outside of the city seats” people “can’t stand Corbyn and they think Labour’s blocked Brexit.” On the prospect of a Labour election win, he added: “I just can’t see it happening.”
Guido Fawkes got the scoop.
Ashworth also suggested Corbyn and his team were a security risk and that the civil service is already primed to intervene to protect the country if he became Prime Minister. “I think the machine will pretty quickly move to safeguard security,” he said. “But it’s not going to happen. I can’t see it happening.”
Despite his reservations, Ashworth has been prominent in the media during this election campaign in which he is helping to try and put a man he clearly has serious reservations about into Downing Street. He claimed the party’s MPs “f***ed it up in 2016 when “we went too early” to try and remove Corbyn as leader.
Ever since the recording was leaked Ashworth has been embarrassing himself with his cowardly and dishonest backpedalling and laughable explanations. He has insisted that he was actually trying to lull his Tory activist friend into ‘false sense of security’, which is the kind of nonsense the chin stroking emoji was invented for.
On BBC Two’s Victoria Live show Ashworth insisted he was merely having a bit of “banter” with Greig Baker, chairman of the Canterbury branch of the Conservative Party, about their respective parties’ chances of winning the election. “It’s a bit of joshing, because he’s an activist, it’s a bit like saying to your mate who’s a fan of a rival football team,” he told Victoria Derbyshire.
This disingenuousness typifies the abject failure of Labour moderates. They don’t believe Corbyn is fit to be Prime Minister, they have serious concerns about the team around him and they are forever apologetic about the institutional racism in their Party, and yet they do nothing. In fact they do worse than nothing, they destroy their own integrity by convincing others to vote for something they themselves think will be bad for the country.
Like many people I had expected a serious rupture in the Labour party long ago as the moderates broke away in protest, instead they either cowered away from taking action or couldn’t give up their tribal loyalties or, indeed, risk their jobs. Instead, they legitimise the far left and give Corbyn, McDonnell and the Stalinists around them credibility they don’t deserve.
When I go into the polling station, I consider my vote to be an endorsement, so I’d rather not vote than opt for the “lesser of two evils”. I don’t believe in tribal political loyalties either, hence supporting a political party as if it were a football team truly baffles me. So, the position of Labour moderates inspires nothing but contempt.
It is morally wrong to campaign for a man you privately consider to be unfit for the job, even a security risk to be mitigated. Especially considering some of them have stood by as colleagues have been abused and bullied for saying what they were too cowardly to say. Especially when Jews within the Party have been racially abused and driven out. What did the Labour moderates do in their defence? Most of them sent some tweets saying how sorry they were and got in with trying to get the man responsible into Number 10.
John Ashworth deserves all the ridicule he gets today. “Obviously in the cold light of day when those quotes are read out I look stupid, and I apologise to the Labour Party […] I look like an idiot, I’ve been too clever by half”. I don’t think many people would accuse you of that John.