Labour is a threat to liberal democracy itself

Britain has few protections against extremists who will stop at nothing to put their ideology into practice

As The Guardian noted with approval, Jeremy Corbyn used this week’s Labour’s conference to declare class war. If he wins power, we risk not only economic destruction, but an assault on liberal democracy itself.

The policies announced in Liverpool are dangerous enough. Labour’s plans to spend more than they could ever raise in taxes, nationalise everything in sight, and hound the private sector would drive away investment and impoverish us all. But more worrying than any policy announcement is the menace Labour pose to their enemies, the rule of law, and our system of government.

The presence of Holocaust deniers and anti-semites among delegates was sadly no surprise. And hateful attacks on Margaret Thatcher and the Royal family were nothing new. Admittedly, the abuse directed at one speaker for crossing herself was novel, but the perpetrator – the National Executive Committee chairman, no less – spoke for many on the hard Left with his contempt for Christianity.

More serious is the threat of violence that is umbilically connected to the modern Labour Party. Luciana Berger, a Jewish MP who has spoken against anti-semitism, needed police protection. As far as anybody can work out, this is unprecedented for a backbench MP, yet when Corbyn was asked why Berger needed protection at her own party’s conference, he said: “There is no threat being made in this conference to anybody.”

If that sounds like deceit worthy of Animal Farm, John Mcdonnell’s answer was worse. The shadow chancellor seemed to expect credit for “making sure everyone’s really protected from any threat”, as though the intimidation of Berger and other Jewish MPS had nothing to do with his fellow socialists.

Mcdonnell’s personal history makes his answer more sinister still. He has praised the “bombs and bullets” of the IRA, urged supporters to “lynch the bitch”, when discussing a Tory MP, and praised rioters for “kicking the s---” out of Conservative Campaign Headquarters. He called the attack on CCHQ “the best of our movement”.

And “the movement” revealed itself this week. One MP, Laura Smith, gave a speech in which she said “if we can’t get a general election, we should … bring an end to this Government with a general strike”. Smith drew criticism from some colleagues, but won a standing ovation from her audience.

Dawn Butler, a shadow minister, praised the hard Left council that ran Liverpool in the 1980s for setting illegal budgets and saying “better to break the law than break the poor”. And Corbyn agreed with her, saying he absolutely understands why councils might decide to break the law.

On anti-semitism, the shadow foreign secretary, Emily Thornberry, played Squealer to Corbyn’s Napoleon. “Jeremy … is someone who’s spent all his life fighting racism,” she said. “He was so upset about [being accused of anti-semitism] he found it very difficult … to deal with the issue.” Yes, you read that correctly: Corbyn is so opposed to racism that he could not oppose racism in the party he leads, or address the accusation that he, himself, is an anti-semite.

Corbyn’s Labour have become Britain’s answer to President Trump: they have no respect for the truth, and no qualms about abusing their power. In his speech yesterday, Corbyn even surpassed Trump by not only attacking the press, but vowing to regulate its content.

Corbyn might not have heeded the call for a general strike, but his shadow Brexit secretary, Sir Keir Starmer, effectively announced that Labour will vote down Theresa May’s Brexit deal, whatever its content, and whatever the risks to the country, in order to form a Labour government.

And this is the truth of the Corbyn doctrine. It has nothing to do with the national interest, only the interests of his party and its extreme ideology.

On Brexit, Corbyn declared himself “bound by the democracy of our party”. As prime minister, he would not consider himself accountable to Parliament, the country, or even as an MP to his own constituents. Government policy would come straight from Labour conference, because the only democracy that counts for Corbyn is the democracy of the Labour Party. He would be accountable only to the extremists and racists who make up his supporters.

Is Britain adequately protected against a party that would use state power to attack the institutions that are supposed to restrain it?

The experience in countries like Hungary, Poland and the United States, where populists are doing just that, suggests not. In those countries, laws and institutions that guarantee individual rights and due process have proved weaker than previously thought.

Liberal democracy, it seems, has relied not only on laws and institutions to endure, but the restraint and moderation of its leaders. And this week has proved beyond doubt that, with Corbyn’s Labour, there will be little restraint and no moderation: we cannot say we have not been warned.