CORBYN’S GULAG ARCHIPELAGO
Labour MPs are on their way to a show trial and...
NEXT week, Labour MPs arrive for their annual conference in Liverpool. And for the majority of them it will be like walking i nto a nightmarish British version of The Gulag Archipelago.
‘The dogs of war will be unleashed,’ one Labour MP explained to me, ‘there will be retribution, punishment beatings and threats of deselection. Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell will be walking around preaching the politics of unity. And while they’re doing it the Momentum activists will be roaming around, looking for vengeance.’
The catalyst for this political bloodletting will be Jeremy Corbyn’s successful re-election as Labour leader. No one in the Labour Party – with the possible exception of Owen Smith – is even bothering to pretend any other result is feasible.
Some are still holding out the faint hope Smith may break the ‘40 per cent threshold’ of support, leaving Corbyn vulnerable to a fresh challenge next year. But even that straw is slipping from their grasp.
‘How we react depends a lot on the scale of the result,’ says one leading rebel, ‘but we have to be realistic.
‘If Owen had attacked from the soft-Left, he might have exposed Corbyn. But he’s pretended to be on the hard-Left, and that’s just played into Corbyn’s hands.’
Corbyn, well aware that victory is his, is already planning his response. As his opponents point out, on the surface he will be a model of magnanimity. ‘We must unite to fight the Tories’ will become the unofficial conference slogan.
But behind the scenes he and his commissars have already been plotting their retribution against those they deem guilty of crimes against his leadership.
TWO weeks ago, Corbyn, McDonnell and senior aides decamped to the Unite union’s training centre in Esher, where I am told they drew up a political hit list. First target is party General Secretary Iain McNicol, who dared take a stand against hard-Left infiltration of the leadership contest. Next will be senior national and regional party officials, who are viewed as insufficiently ideologically pure.
And, finally, Corbyn’s assassins plan to plunge an ice pick into the back of the man now regarded as enemy of the people No1 – deputy leader Tom Watson. ‘A challenge to Tom over the next 12 months is inevitable,’ a Watson ally confirmed to me.
Against this backdrop, the process of purging rebellious MPs will commence. This will be conducted under cover of the boundary review, which will see the number of winnable Labour seats significantly reduced.
Corbyn and McDonnell plan to use their activist base to set MPs against one another, in a sort of Momentumsponsored Hunger Games.
The first move from the Corbynites will come on Saturday morning, as soon as his victory is confirmed. Labour MPs will be invited to issue loyalty statements, with Corbynite delegates on hand to offer a ‘re-education course’ to those who decline.
‘All those lunatics who used to stand outside conference screaming and trying to shove leaflets into people hands will be on the inside now,’ said one former Labour Minister. ‘In fact, they’re the ones who’ll be running the conference.’
Another predicts things could spiral beyond political confrontation. ‘Mark my words, it’s going to come to actual fisticuffs. It’ll be 3am, people will be tired and drunk, and then someone’s going to get chinned.’
ADDING to the concerns of moderate MPs is the fact the conference is being held in Liverpool for the first time in five years. Many have noted that a significant quantity of the aggressive pro-Corbyn messaging they receive comes from Merseyside. ‘We’re going to the old heartland of Militant,’ one said. ‘This is bedrock Corbynite territory.’
Not everyone is going. A number of MPs are ducking the show-trials all together. Others are planning to skip the leader’s speech on the final day. ‘It’s going to be like that scene from The Great Escape,’ one said, ‘when all the prisoners arrive at the station at the same time.
‘You’ll see all the moderates standing there, trying not to get recognised. All it needs is some Corbynite activist to say, “Good luck” to Chuka Umunna, and it’ll end in a massacre.’
But there is no escape. Corbyn and his commissars have the Labour Party by the throat. Next week the Great Terror begins.