Jeremy Corbyn is winning – on the NEC, Carillion and Brexit
This was the most terrible setback for Jeremy Corbyn. A humiliating defeat that raises questions about basic strategy and the competence of the man at the top. Should there be resignations? Of course.
I refer, of course, to Arsenal’s miserable defeat at Bournemouth on Sunday. The leader of the Labour party is a big Arsenal fan, and the chap who manages Arsenal – a Mr Wanger – is facing yet more demands that he step down. Those of you with friends who are Arsenal fans will be well used to your social media timelines being full, periodically, over the course of the last decade, with irate demands for the Arsenal manager to quit. Finally, thank goodness, the denouement is approaching.
In sharp contrast, Corbyn is under no pressure whatsoever to quit. He can merrily potter about Westminster knowing as the political year gets underway that he faces no credible demands for his resignation. Corbyn is winning on at least three fronts:
1) The Corbynistas have control of the party machinery. In the elections to the party’s ruling body – the National Executive Committee – the Corbynistas took the three posts available. Among them is Jon Lansman, the founder of Momentum. Each of the three far left candidates received more than 60,000 votes. The few moderates standing were left trailing miles behind. This does not mean that the deselection of moderate MPs will begin immediately. Deselecting moderates might backfire and have unintended consequences. What if they fought back? But the Corbynistas can pick their moment, and the moderate MPs seem depressed, cowed and gloomy about the prospects of survival. This is great for Corbyn.
2) Carillion and the erosion of the public realm. Yes, yes, the attacks on the market system since the outsourcing and construction giant went into administration today have been confused. Was the company making too much profit? No, not enough. That’s why it went bust. But the confused nature of the anti-market critique only illustrates the problem faced by those of us who are pro-market and who are – right now – losing the culture war. Truly, if capitalism is done in it will only be done in by rogue capitalists paying themselves bonuses. Those running Carillion have created the most terrible mess. Tales of largesse and worse will appear. This will run as a scandal for months, if not years, with killer memos being leaked and a public inquiry demanded. Like water, dripping on stone, trust in markets and free enterprise will be further eroded. These public scandals – the most appalling being Grenfell – cumulatively contribute to a narrative in which the Tories are selfish beasts and what is needed instead is a Socialist Santa, St Jeremy of Corbyn, who is backed by hardliners, Stalinists (yes, really). This is great for Corbyn, obviously.
3) Hopeless Labour moderates have got lost in a doomed attempt to stop Brexit. By the time of the next general election Brexit will – barring an earthquake – have happened. This is the key fact, yet it seems to have escaped many of the remaining Labour moderates, who spend too much time noodling about on the ridiculous Stop Brexit circuit led by Tony Blair and assorted other faded veterans. Their latest fixation is on whether Corbyn will stay in the Customs Union, if he even knows what it is. It is flak, fluff, fake. Instead, Labour moderates should be looking at the bigger picture, trying to assemble a moderate centre-left post-Brexit programme and recruiting personnel to promote it and either take back the party or start an alternative. There are only two options. Either Labour must be saved, which means recruiting hundreds of thousands of Labour moderates to join and fight. That effort cannot be credible if it begins with a big fight over whether or not to stop Brexit, which will have happened by the time of the next election. Or a new party can be started that can tap into the 30% of English voters in the centre who as of today have no proper party to vote for. Among those voters are Labour people who voted for Brexit, or who now accept it. Again, founding a new party predicated on stopping something that will have happened by the time a new force is tested looks daft and doomed. The confusion of moderates about what to do and when, the unwillingness to move beyond Brexit, means that the moderates are as of now stuck and stranded. Which is also great for Corbyn.
This – Corbyn winning on several fronts – all adds up to a catastrophe for Britain’s national life. The mainstream Labour party has been one of the key institutions in this country for almost a century, keeping out the far left as the broad church Tory party kept out the far right. The Labour party has never been in the hands of extremists and Stalinists. It is now.