CORBYN BETRAYS HIS OWN BREXIT VOTERS
ONE of the great myths of the modern Labour Party is that it is somehow the political arm of the working class. And of all the mistakes that are made about Jeremy Corbyn, the most bizarre is that he is somehow a tribune of the people, a warrior for the working classes.
Because for Mr Corbyn the working class – or proletariat as his beloved Karl Marx labelled them – are simply a means to an end. And that end is not just power it is socialist revolution.
The proletariat do not realise what is good for them – only the likes of Mr Corbyn know that.
So it matters not a jot whether or not they agree with the actions being taken in their name, what matters is how they can be used to bring about the socialist revolution.
Understand this and you understand Jeremy Corbyn’s Brexit betrayal this week of the very Labour voters he claims to represent.
Until 2015 these ideas about the proletariat had next to no relevance to British politics. They were the preserve of fringe groups which stood no chance of ever winning power.
Labour was a centre-Left party that, even when it swung further Left in the 1980s, conformed to the norms of British politics. When Militant Tendency attempted to infiltrate the party under Neil Kinnock they were thrown out.
BUT the election of Jeremy Corbyn as leader and the subsequent takeover of the party by the hard-Left has changed everything. Labour is now run by a cadre of extremists who have only one concern: getting their hands on power and using that power to cement their permanent role leading the revolution.
They do not care if they are popular. They don’t care if they are consistent. All they care about is seizing the opportunity presented to them by the freakish circumstances that led to Mr Corbyn’s election as Labour leader.
This is the context in which Jeremy Corbyn’s Brexit speech on Monday needs to be viewed.
For Mr Corbyn could not care less that he is sticking two fingers up to the 17.4 million people who voted to leave the EU.
It matters not one bit that many of those people were long-standing Labour voters in heartland areas such as Sunderland, where 61 per cent voted Leave, or Stoke.
All that matters is utilising this chance to take power. And Mr Corbyn has spied what he thinks is a golden opportunity by switching his party’s stance from acceptance of the referendum result to the demand that Britain must remain in a customs union. Because of the hung Parliament and the apparent determination of the Tory Remainers to do whatever it takes to stop Brexit, he thinks he has found his moment.
Be clear what this is: a cold, calculating betrayal of Labour’s own voters. But so what? To Mr Corbyn and his allies they are simply the fodder to be used to secure the supreme victory of revolution. Their views do not count because they are too unthinking to realise what is good for them.
The frightening thought is that Mr Corbyn’s brutal political calculation may be right. If the Tory Remainers do indeed vote with Labour it could not only threaten Brexit but end up with Labour in power.
The contempt with which Mr Corbyn treated his own Labour voters this week shows how scary that prospect is. As history shows us the hard-Left thinks nothing of betraying its own supporters if power requires it.
And don’t think there is any ambiguity about all this. When millions of Labour voters voted Leave they knew exactly what they were doing and what they were voting for.
Ignore the Remainers’ desperate attempts to pretend that anything was unclear in the proposition that we should leave the EU. As Mrs May used to put it, “Brexit means Brexit”, which means leaving the single market, leaving the clutches of the ECJ and regaining the freedom to govern ourselves. Which means of course leaving the customs union and being free to have our own trade policy.
Ignore the ludicrous idea that the issue hangs on the difference between membership of “the” customs union and membership of “a” customs union.
Whether we remain members of the existing EU customs union or – as Mr Corbyn now says is Labour’s policy – join a newly designed customs union makes not the least difference to the real issue.
WE VOTED to take back control, to be free to design our own laws as we see fit, to be free of interference by those in a foreign court and to be free to make our own rules on trade and immigration.
Jeremy Corbyn knows this full well. It is one of the great ironies of politics that Jeremy Corbyn is viewed as a man of principle. In reality he is shameless, as his speech this week shows.
Inasmuch as he was known for anything before becoming leader it was for his opposition to the EU. He voted against remaining in the Common Market in the 1975 referendum. He voted against the Maastricht Treaty in 1993. And he voted against the Lisbon Treaty in 2009.
But in the 2016 referendum he thought it politically expedient to back Remain – but then did next to no campaigning for his own side. And now he has gone the whole hog: betraying not only his own so-called principles but also the many Labour voters whom he pretends to represent.
‘Contempt with which he treats his voters’