A few weeks ago – in the midst of the maelstrom – I considered doing what is usually unthinkable for a journalist, that is joining a political party. It seemed, and still does, as though we British have moaned pointlessly too much about our parties and learned too late the perils of leaving politics entirely to others. A small group of Tory members were going to get the right to choose the next Prime Minister and the Labour party needed moderates of all types to join up in an attempt to save it from the hard left.
The feeling passed, although ‎it may return, and party membership looks likely to become a renewed feature of British life, as it has become in Scotland under the SNP (although in that party there is little point being a member because the leader decides everything and criticism is banned.)
Anyway, I am glad I didn’t join Labour. Owen Smith is challenging Jeremy Corbyn for leader. He, Smith, seems like a nice chap and good on him for trying to take down the bearded Trot who is on a mission to give the Tories and Theresa May a parliamentary majority of 200 seats, at least.
But there is a problem with the Smith approach. Although one can see the logic in attempting to woo Corbynites, Smith is making a catastrophic error in being nice to the worst Labour leader in the party’s history. Corbyn would have a role under Smith, as party president or some other role, says the challenger. That is a truly terrible idea which only postpones the reckoning moderate Labour people need to have with the far left forces that have infiltrated their party.
Labour moderates should not be attempting to mollify the Corbynites.‎ They should be seeking to crush him and then banish – expel – anyone connected with Momentum or other far left groups. What is required is a long effort, like the battle against Militant in the 1980s. There can be no accommodation with the latest incarnation of the hard left and Smith would be far better admitting that this is what will have to happen.
Pretending that there is common ground with these people is daft. To watch that privileged Primrose Hill popinjay James Schneider, the “brains” behind Momentum, twitter on in the Newsnight studio about the fate of a party in which he has only recently arrived, was to see the authentic, smooth face of the latest leftie craze. It is a new take on an old 1960s story, in which far left game-players have their fun for a few years and then move back to their comfortable lives leaving carnage in their wake. Young Kinnock, alongside Schneider, did well to stay civil, although it would have been far better if he had given his opponent an updated version of his father’s wonderful takedown of Militant in that famous speech in 1985.
The truth is that even to become a credible opposition, which the country needs, Labour faces an enormous challenge to win over millions of voters in England who voted for David Cameron. These Britons don’t like extremists and they are unlikely to be wooed by people who think that the problem with Marxist economics is that it just hasn’t been tried often enough.
In another indication of how warped the contemporary Labour party is, Smith is being forced to denounce choice to woo the activists. It seems he once endorsed the concept in relation to healthcare. He is denying ever having committed such thought crimes. But, a sensible response in line with reality would instead have been a bit Blairite, or even Mayist:
“Look,” Smith could have said. “Choice is a good thing. How good do you think the supermarket industry or the tourist industry would be if there was no choice and there was one provider in each case run by the government? If you want to try this, go to Venezuela, Jeremy’s favourite country about which he is now silent, where they tried to banish choice. The result has been a public health disaster, shortages of basic drugs and even a shortage of toilet paper. But in the UK the NHS is distinct, and we choose for it to remain free at the point of use. That does not mean that we should ignore lessons and techniques from the private sector where they aid efficiency and make scarce resources go further. Beyond that, it’s not that the Corbynistas are little bit misguided. Jeremy and John McDonnell are far leftists who hate private commerce and want to control it. If their platform is ever put to the voters of England, the defeat will be on a massive scale. Labour members: wake up before it is too late.”
Instead, well-intentioned young moderate Labour activists go around telling people that Jeremy has “the right values” and the problem is he is just a bit of a muppet. No, he has the wrong values which have been proved time and again in history to lead to economic chaos and human misery.
It looks more and more likely that Corbyn will win the leadership election this autumn, giving Theresa May an early Christmas present. That being the case, it may be better for Real Labour to go down fighting and then split. If Smith loses they will have to leave Momentum, Len McCluskey and ‎the Socialist Workers Party infiltrators to it.
