In
2015, anti-war socialist Jeremy Corbyn caused a stunning shock when,
as a 500-1 shot, he became elected as Labour Party leader. Corbyn’s
campaign engendered great enthusiasm among those desperate for Labour
to make a clean break with elite-friendly pro-war neoliberal
Blairism.
by
Neil Clark
In the
2017 general election Corbyn defied the odds, and the smug inside the
tent pundits again, with Labour achieving its biggest increase in its
share of the vote since 1945.
Corbyn
seemed to be on an unstoppable path to Number 10. But since then
momentum has been lost. Literally.
Let’s
call out the elephant in the room. The pro-Israel lobby in Labour and
outside of it has never been reconciled to having a pro-Palestinian
peace activist as party leader and potential Prime Minister.
They
have done everything possible to destroy Corbyn personally and
professionally, with charges of ’anti-Semitism’ the weapon of
choice. But Corbyn hasn’t done himself any favours by failing to
fight back forcefully against the smears.
Rather
shamefully he allowed his old comrade and lifelong anti-racist Ken
Livingstone to be thrown under the bus, simply for stating a
historical truth.
He
hasn’t come out publicly in support of another old comrade George
Galloway being able to rejoin the party from which he was unjustly
expelled for his fierce opposition to the illegal Iraq War, which led
to the deaths of 1m people. No one has been a more loyal supporter of
Corbyn these past four years than Galloway, but the loyalty has not
been reciprocated.
After
the 2017 election Corbyn had a great opportunity to move against his
enemies and reward his supporters but he failed to do so. He has
sought to placate his opponents within the PLP at every term - even
appointing Blairites to the Shadow Cabinet. This policy of
appeasement has been a disastrous mistake.
I wonder
if Corbyn has ever seen the film ‘Rush’ about the enthralling
battle for the F1 championship in 1976 between James Hunt and Niki
Lauda. In it Hunt is asked by a journalist how he managed to drive so
fast. ‘Big Balls’ was Hunt’s reply.
Voters
admire politicians — and indeed people generally, who’ve got big
balls.
Mrs
Thatcher gained a lot of working-class votes not because of any great
enthusiasm for her policies, but because she came across as a strong
leader who didn’t flip-flop.
That was
admired, even by her ideological adversaries.
To this
day in France, there is enormous nostalgia for Charles de Gaulle, who
never buckled. Similarly, Austrians greatly miss Bruno Kreisky.
Corbyn,
by failing to fight his enemies, and allowing himself to be cowed
into silence on important foreign policy issues he was once so vocal
on, has demoralised his supporters. Labour is down to 30% in the
polls, 10% down from what it achieved in the general election.
The
situation is hardly helped by the latest concession to the so-called
‘centrists’: Corbyn coming out in support for a 2nd referendum on
Brexit. This could do the party great electoral harm, bearing in mind
the 13 key Tory marginals Labour must win at the next election are
all strong (60%+) ‘Leave’ seats and that the six seats Labour
lost in 2017 were all pro-Brexit.
In his
defence, you could say that Corbyn has been let down by his allies.
His strongest support, from what I hear, has come not from anyone in
the Shadow Cabinet or the PLP, but from his Strategy and
communications director Seumas Milne.
Corbyn’s
pro-Israel deputy Tom Watson, has been an utter disgrace. He has
undermined Corbyn’s leadership at every turn, only last week
denouncing moves to select Labour candidates to stand against
‘Independent Group’ defectors as ‘spiteful’.
Which
brings us back to Mrs Thatcher. She famously acknowledged ‘Every
Prime Minister needs a Willie’. She wasn’t referring (heaven
forbid) to private parts of the anatomy, but her very loyal Deputy
Willie Whitelaw. Ideologically Whitelaw came from a different faction
in the Conservative Party than Thatcher (he was a One Nation Tory and
she was from the ‘New Right‘), but he backed his leader to the
hilt. Corbyn desperately needs a Willie. In fact several Willies.
Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell and Momentum boss Jon Lansman, both
seem to have accepted the false Friends of Israel narrative that
anti-Semitism is a big problem in Labour. Momentum — under
Lansman’s ownership-has turned out to be a block on radicalism.
The
situation in Labour is depressing, but Corbyn still has a chance IF
he fights back.
He needs
to stop going on the back-foot on anti-Semitism — which has
involved only a tiny proportion of Labour’s vast 500,000+
membership- and instead go on the offensive against the Israel lobby
and their support for a racist state. He needs to expose the foreign
policy agenda of those out to destroy him and remind people of the
calamitous wars the Blairites supported and the way they greatly
increased the terrorist threat to British citizens. He needs to end
his boycott of lawfully-operating Russian media (he was a regular
guest on RT before he became leader), and start making speeches about
Palestine again. He needs to call for an ally in the PLP to challenge
the serially disloyal Tom Watson for Deputy Leader. He needs to make
it clear that if there is a 2nd referendum he would campaign for a
‘Lexit’ out of respect to the 17.4m who voted Leave in the first
referendum.
He needs
to respond to McCarthyite calls for the socialist Labour MP for Derby
North Chris Williamson to be suspended (for hosting an event for
Jewish Voice for Labour!), by restoring Chris to the Shadow Cabinet.
In short
he has to go back to being the Jeremy Corbyn he was before he became
leader in 2015. Radical, daring and unafraid of speaking truth to
power.
Show us
you’ve got big balls Jeremy, before it's too late and Britain’s
best chance of real positive change for the many and not the few, has
been destroyed by the wreckers.
Alas,
reports that have just come in that Corbyn’s office has called on
Chris Williamson asking him to apologise and withdraw comments he
made about Labour being too apologetic about the anti-Semitism
witch-hunt, indicates that a fight-back is not going to happen.
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