“How dare he?” That is an easy summary of most Labour MPs’ response to Jeremy Corbyn’s re-election. Believing that he is wrecking their party by rendering it unelectable, they feel entitled to moral superiority. But is this true? Could it be that Mr Corbyn has a stronger moral case than any of his opponents?
Let us consider the opposing arguments. Jeremy Corbyn is a socialist, and always has been. Keynes might have told him that consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds. Although the little-minded charge would be irrefutable, a quicker-witted Corbyn might reply as follows. “Globally and domestically, we face a crisis. In this country, capitalism condemns millions of people to poverty. Throughout the globe, it is billions. The earth’s resources could be used to provide a decent standard of living for everyone. Instead, capitalism diverts even more wealth to those who are already grotesquely rich. The result is starvation, disease, instability and war. Through economic and environmental violence, capitalism threatens everyone and everything. There is an alternative; socialism. I have spent my entire political career arguing for that humane solution to the world’s problems. If that is consistency: a consistent rejection of hunger, oppression, misery and conflict – I plead guilty.”
That argument has a powerful appeal to adolescents, and also to a smaller number of perpetual adolescents. Fortunately, that is not an electoral base. But how would Labour’s electable tendency reply? Liz Kendall, Yvette Cooper, Dan Jarvis, Keir Starmer or Philip Collins: what is their refutation of Corbyn? (Mr Collins can claim to be the last moderate Labour intellectual who has not collapsed into despair, irrelevance or popular television – though I am not so sure about despair.) Above all, what do those characters believe? Jeremy Corbyn is a socialist, which commits him to a fundamental reconstruction of society and the economy. They, presumably are not socialists. So what do they want?
Their answer – and they cannot excuse themselves by claiming little-mindedness – might run as follows. “We are tribal Labour. We also know that, ipso facto, that makes us morally superior to the Tories. They may claim to care for the great majority of people, but that is hypocrisy. With the Tories, it is government of the rich, by the rich, for the rich. When they claim otherwise, it is mere electoral deception as polling-day approaches. If you want a decent country, vote Labour.”
There is one problem with that. As most serious Labour moderates know, it is mere sloganising. There are serious social problems in the UK which arise from the existence of a hereditary underclass: families in which no male has worked for three generations. Indeed, family is a misnomer. In most cases, we are dealing with a single mother. As for the father – or fathers – we are talking about a mere biological cause: a social irrelevance. It would be absurd to pretend that this could be cured by twopence on income tax and a higher welfare budget.
Similar arguments apply to education. For decades, Labour was the party of the bog-standard comprehensive. it was less concerned with the existence of failing schools than with the survival of successful ones. To be fair, there were a few exceptions: Tony Blair, Andrew Adonis and…there must have been some other Labour figures who believed in improving standards.
But the battle to eradicate the bog-standard comprehensive, and to make decent schools and high standards available to all, was only really joined when David Cameron became Prime Minister. How could any Labour moderate argue that his party has a better record? Indeed, the Tories have been ridiculously slow to make the case that there is no alternative. Those who want a decent education for their kids must vote Tory.
Then there is the NHS. From election to election, Labour has claimed that the Tories want to abolish the NHS, knowing that this is a Goebbelsian lie. But it has succeeded in preventing a proper debate about health. How do we universalise best practice and deal with the challenges facing the health system without bankrupting the country? Greater efficiency must be part of the answer. So must public/private partnerships. In government, some Labour ministers were prepared to recognise this. Out of government, they have given up thinking.
Government: that is the key. A Labour moderate is someone who would sell his soul for a red box and a ministerial office. In opposition, he is happy to say anything that sounds electable. In government – well, let us wait until we get there.
That is not morality. It is expediency and opportunism: personal ambition pretending to be a political creed. It this were the only choice, these moderates  would be better than Jeremy Corbyn. But that is unlikely to be the choice, partly because they are so useless.
Jeremy Corbyn is dim and laughable. Even so, he is a better human being than most of the Labour critics who despise him.
