KEVIN MCKENNA
Smell the fear from those out to oust Corbyn –
WORDS like “unedifying” and “unpleasant” don’t even begin to describe the campaign that the British establishment has undertaken to destroy Jeremy Corbyn.
Try “sinister” and “malevolent” and “venomous” instead. Yet, when you assess the nature of the forces that are lined up against him and then observe how his very name brings them to a point where they begin to boil and froth, then you know Mr Corbyn must be a good man.
As well as the entire Conservative Party at Westminster and the editors and leader-writers of Britain’s rightwing press, Mr Corbyn is reviled by corporate Britain’s executive class and held in barely concealed contempt by the BBC in London. You can almost smell their fear and you begin to understand that they are out to stop him at all costs. Under no circumstances can an authentic socialist, red in tooth and claw, be allowed access to the levers of power in the UK. For then, who knows what he might bring down upon these his enemies; each of whom has a stake in the way that business is done in this country and thus has much to lose if Mr Corbyn were ever to gain the keys to 10 Downing Street.
About two-thirds of Westminster’s parliamentary Labour Party loathe him too and seem to vie with each other daily in the chamber in their little acts of petty vindictiveness. They all saw how much Hilary Benn was cheered by the forces of the Right when, after dinner, he courageously stepped forward that night to show his support for the bombing of Syrian women and children from his green leather seat in the heart of London.
Perhaps they too might have a moment in the sun if their own little well-rehearsed insult could be picked up by the microphone. Later, they would also have a chance to brief the Mail and the Telegraph about how Mr Corbyn had lost the dressing-room. “By the way, that’s Austin with an ‘i’. Yes, and it’s Dudley North and I’ve been a member for 11 years; yes really.”
That vote was taken in the House of Commons late at night. Mr Corbyn has experience of those late-night votes. This is what he said not long after he was first elected to Parliament: “Late at night here it’s quite disgusting. After the dinners are over and the division bell rings for 10pm, fleets of limousines draw up and out get large Tory MPs with even larger stomachs wearing dinner jackets, and they stride in to vote.”
Acquiescent Labour MPs didn’t sacrifice their law and teaching careers and spend all those hours at constituency meetings only to discover they would have to follow a proper socialist. My God, the man would get them all hung and anyway, hadn’t Tony assured them all socialism was dead? My God, this man Corbyn actually believes in all that stuff about fairness in the workplace and fighting inequality and making Big Business pay and not wanting to, you know, invade other countries while pretending that they are a threat to the security of the realm.
Why can’t Corbyn be just like the rest of us? After all, it said on the brochure that by keeping your head down, not rocking the boat too much and meeting the punters on the doorsteps once every five years you could have quite a nice life and a decent standard of living. Corbyn’s ruining all this. We want to be like Tony and Gordon and Peter and David.
Ah yes; the real spiritual leaders of the anti-Corbyn MPs: Tony Blair, Peter Mandelson, Gordon Brown and David Miliband all revile him too. For they stand for everything Mr Corbyn probably detests. Mr Blair has built a multi-million pound property empire since he demitted office. Lord Mandelson, on the other hand, spent much of his time in office trying to scramble up the property ladder. Mr Brown is working for Pimco, one of the world’s biggest asset managers who advise very rich people how to protect their money. Mr Miliband gets a salary of several hundred thousand a year as the CEO of International Rescue, a humanitarian organisation that is obviously very successful at what it does.
You can’t even say Mr Corbyn is a loser; yet they all do. Every by-election on his watch has been won by Labour and four mayoral elections too. George Osborne, the man whom he held responsible for enslaving millions of families with austerity has been defeated, sacked by a new leader who has promised to introduce a fairer deal in the workplace. This is what Mr Corbyn has been all about since he became Labour leader and, as head of the opposition, he has enjoyed success.
The party coffers are now swilling with cash to fight future elections thanks to the huge increase in Labour Party memberships. Many of the new members are young people who have been energised by a politician who actually believes what he is saying, rather than one who makes endless compromises with the corporate interests who manipulate Parliament for their own ends. To them, the mother of all parliaments is a place for racketeers and exploiters, and those who prostitute their influence in return for a few grand and who claim for milk and paper clips.
Mr Corbyn isn’t like that. When the scandal about MPs’ expenses claims first broke he was found to be among the lowest claimants. He wants to re-nationalise the railways, a policy that chimes with a public weary of profiteering and inefficiency by the train companies. He is supported by many economists who have stated his theories and policies surrounding public sector investment and managing debt and money is a much more equitable matrix for economic recovery.
Yet, the public are being given no opportunity to assess and measure Mr Corbyn’s policies for themselves. Instead they are told he is dangerous and he can’t be taken seriously because he doesn’t wear pinstripe suits and doesn’t know how to be properly obeisant to Her Britannic Majesty.
His critics regularly whine about how nasty it is inside the party and that Corbynistas have engendered an atmosphere of bullying and intimidation. It’s always unnamed sources and the tales are always told to the same contacts in the right-wing media. Yet some of these critics were around when Tony and Gordon spent their time in power squabbling with each other for possession of Number 10 while employing a gang of enforcers to slander and destroy opponents within the party. Instead of working for the people who elected them, they created two separate wings as monuments to their pride and vanity.
I hope Mr Corbyn sees off this challenge to his leadership and makes all those people masquerading as Labour MPs walk the plank of re-selection. His enemies know only too well what he is about. And what he is about is ending the influence and corruption of the self-serving elite who have annexed Westminster. They all have good cause to fear this man.
‘‘ Acquiescent Labour MPs didn’t sacrifice their law careers only to discover they would have to follow a proper socialist