Ditch Chequers or prepare for a crazed Corbynista takeover
It is now clear that Labour’s leader is the biggest threat to freedom this country has faced in decades
But why won’t he just say it? Spit it out, man, I feel like shouting, as I watch Jeremy Corbyn. Just state the bleeding obvious – and denounce evil. And he just won’t. He never misses an opportunity to miss an opportunity. I saw it in the House of Commons earlier this month, when the Prime Minister announced that, by a superb piece of detective work, the police had identified the Salisbury assassins. There they were on the CCTV, this pair of goons from Moscow – and the whole thing was plain as the beard on Corbyn’s chin. With sickening disregard for public safety, they had daubed poison on Sergei Skripal’s door and then left traces of Novichok all over a park frequented by children. Having laid their horrific trap, they then chucked away the poison bottle, which later killed an innocent member of the public, Dawn Sturgess.
These thugs are members of the Russian military intelligence – the GRU. As the PM rightly said, the order came from the top. There is only one possible conclusion: that the Russian state has been responsible for murder, using chemical weapons, on British soil. There can be no hedging or fudging. As the PM made her statement, Corbyn had his chance. He could have shown that he was willing to stick up for Britain, and to point the finger at the aggressor. He could have condemned the Russian state – completely and unequivocally – and yet he just wouldn’t do it. He condemned the perpetrators, whoever they might be. He disapproved strongly of the attempted assassination. But he couldn’t find it in himself to denounce Moscow.
The right words stuck in his craw; and I saw the same thing yesterday on the Andrew Marr Show, when he was shown the famous lefty mural from east London, against whose removal he had initially protested. Would he accept that the image was anti-semitic? The entire TV audience looked at the screenshot of the mural – a blatantly anti-semitic image straight from the propaganda of 1920s Soviet Russia. We waited for Corbyn to state the obvious; we waited for him to confirm what we needed to hear – that in his view such imagery is unacceptable and anti-semitic. But he just wouldn’t do it. He mumbled something about how the mural had been taken down. The opportunity was lost.
What is going on in his head? I am afraid we are coming up against the ugly reality of his world-view. He refuses to condemn Moscow for the Skripal atrocities, because in his primitive conception there is at least one thing to be said in favour of the Russian state. It doesn’t matter that Russia is no longer socialist. It doesn’t matter to Corbyn that today Russia is a giant kleptocracy run by Putin’s cronies, in which journalists are regularly killed. The important point is that Russia is still opposed to the West – and Corbyn, deep down, is opposed to the West, and inclined to believe that in any great controversy it is the West, and especially the USA, that is in the wrong; and that explains his attitude to the Hackney mural.
He refuses to condemn obviously anti-semitic images of Jewish financiers because he still basically believes that the world is in the grip of a great Zionist-capitalist conspiracy. He still believes – in the face of all the evidence – that Israel is the main obstacle to peace and progress in the Middle East. It is because he is unable to shake off these prejudices – antizionist, pro-moscow – that he finds it so hard to denounce some things that everyone else can see are quite loathsome.
He happily appears on Russia Today, and has taken plenty of money from Press TV of Iran – even though both these outlets are prodigious peddlers of lies; and if anything he would like the British media to be more like these mouthpieces of the Russian and Iranian regimes. As he said in his recent Mctaggart lecture, he would like to politicise the BBC, by ensuring that senior executives have to stand for election, and he would even like newspaper editors to stand for election.
You only have to look at the modern Labour Party, now dominated by Momentum entryists, and you can see the potential for disaster. Across the country fine moderate Labour MPS are facing deselection by claques of crazed Corbynistas. One by one they are being purged, like something from the French revolution; and if you want to understand the ideology behind Momentum, listen to the praise heaped the other day by Dawn Butler – Corbyn’s most loyal lieutenant – on Derek Hatton. Derek “Degsy” Hatton! The man who broke the law and almost bankrupted Liverpool, and who personified the Militant Tendency that almost wrecked the party. It took the combined efforts of Neil Kinnock and Tony Blair to defeat the likes of Derek Hatton, and now they are back. Militant is back in the guise of Momentum. They are running the Labour Party, and under Corbyn’s proposals they could be running our media.
Jeremy Corbyn would not only be an economic nightmare; he is the biggest threat to freedom that this country has faced for decades. He can and will be defeated: by sensible One Nation Conservatism that makes the case for markets and wealth creators – as the only way to pay for great public services. There is one mistake we Conservatives must avoid – and that is to fail to deliver on the Brexit referendum. If we go with the Chequers approach, the public will spot it. They will see that the UK has become a vassal state, that we have not taken back control, but lost control. They will take their revenge at the polls. There is a far better solution, a Supercanada free trade deal broadly on the lines set out today by Shanker Singham in an IEA paper. That is the agenda the PM needs again to seize – because it has been her agenda in the past. We need to get back to the elegance and uplift of that Lancaster House vision, because I am afraid that Chequers = surrender; Chequers = a sense of betrayal; Chequers = the return of Ukip; Chequers = Corbyn. The Labour leader is set to betray the referendum result by offering – absurdly – another vote. We Conservatives must show that we can and will deliver.