Labour’s split is coming . . . so how CAN any decent MP stay?
THE Shadow Minister’s assessment was bleak. ‘The split’s happening. When it does, the people who break off will be attacked, and dismissed as an irrelevance. But this will expose a fault line running right through the party. It could lead to the complete fragmentation of Labour.’
The split is indeed going to happen, but those initiating it intend to keep Jeremy Corbyn – and the rest of us – guessing a little longer. ‘You’re just going to have to bear with us,’ one of the rebels explained. ‘The dilemma for us is we’re reaching the crucial stage of the Brexit debate, and we don’t really want anything to distract from that.’
Brexit isn’t the only factor governing the point of departure. A number of MPs are focusing on tomorrow’s Parliamentary Labour Party meeting, which is the deadline for General Secretary Jennie Formby to provide details on Labour’s huge backlog of antiSemitism cases. ‘ She said she doesn’t answer to us,’ a backbencher told me, ‘so how she responds on Monday will be important.’
The initial plan was to announce the breakaway over the summer, in advance of the autumn party conference season. But two issues have pushed matters to a head.
The first was the decision by Corbyn to drop his strategy of equidistance, and move towards facilitating Brexit. Up until now a number of moderate MPs were clinging to the hope he would abide by his pledge of at least keeping the option of a second referendum ‘on the table’.
But on Tuesday evening he smashed the table into firewood by abandoning Labour’s ‘six tests’, and offering May a deal that no longer offered the same ‘benefits’ currently enjoyed via EU membership.
The second was the revelation that Jewish Liverpool Wavertree MP Luciana Berger was facing a no- confidence motion following her criticism of her leader’s failure to tackle his party’s rampant anti-Semitism. Or, more specifically, it was the response of Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell to that threat.
McDONNELL is one of the most politically sadistic members of the House, with an historic predilection for embraci ng t he l anguage of politi cal violence. He keeps a plaque in his private study honouring IRA ‘martyrs’ who were convicted of the murder of soldiers and bombing of civilians. But he is usually adept at keeping his true feelings in check, and presenting a moderate, paternalistic face to the public.
On Friday the mask slipped. Presented with the spectacle of one of his colleagues facing de-selection for taking a stand against racial persecution, he decided to bravely side with her opponents.
‘From what I’ve seen, what’s happened is Luciana has been associated in the media with a breakaway party,’ he said. ‘Some local party members and the media have asked her to deny that. She hasn’t been clear in that. So my advice really, on all of this, is for Luciana to just put this issue to bed.’
All that’s required is for the Jew to issue an oath of loyalty. And she will be left in peace.
This morning there is speculation six Labour MPs are preparing to decline McDonell’s advice, and leave. Speaking to those who are preparing to go, they are coy on numbers. But they, and other Labour MPs, have been surprised by the level of hostility towards Corbyn’s Brexit volte- face and McDonnell’s gangsterish intervention, and have not been placated by the belated withdrawal of the Berger no- confidence motion. ‘We’ve seen people saying they’re leaving who we never expected to see,’ one tells me.
But in a sense, these numbers no longer matter. The issue for Labour is not whether six MPs leave, or 16, or 60. It is how any MP can think of staying. Enough really is enough. It’s no longer possible for selfstyled moderate MPs to divest themselves of responsibility for what has happened to their party. Yes, being a pragmatist in the age of political zealotry is hard. Most Labour MPs are good, honest, decent people.
But there can be no more excuses. Those who continue to enable through their inaction – save for the odd hasty tweet – the overt racial persecution of their colleagues, cannot claim to be good, or honest or decent. They are cowards, content to throw one of their own to the anti-Semitic wolves.
These are the people who have the nerve to talk about the ‘takeover’ of ‘their’ party. ‘Their’ party? As if they are the God-given inheritors of Labour’s great traditions.
Of solidarity. ‘You’re on your own Luciana.’ Of collective endeavour. ‘Let’s keep our heads down. They might leave us in peace.’ Of righteous anger towards prejudice and i ntolerance. ‘ It’s not t oo bad. They’re only picking on the Jews.’
In a few weeks, a handful of Labour MPs will display the courage the majority of their contemporaries lack. They will walk away from the cesspit their party has become. And at that moment the divide in Labour will no longer be between Corbynites and Moderates. It will be between the Corbynites and the Appeasers.
Labour’s so-called moderates are not the heirs of Attlee, Wilson, and Blair. They are the heirs of Neville Chamberlain. Not since the 1930s have we seen a more squalid abandonment of basic political principle on the altar of personal expediency.
Actually, that’s unfair to Chamberlain. He thought he was saving his nation from a war. Labour’s moderate MPs are interested only in saving themselves.
JUST look at their pitiful capitulation on Brexit. ‘ We need a People’s Vote!’ they demand, then don’t even have the courage to place an amendment to that effect in front of the House without Corbyn’s blessing. Then accuse May of being in hock to her party’s extremists.
Time and again Labour’s moderates have been called upon to make a stand. And each time they have been found on their knees, pleading ‘please don’t hurt me, Jeremy’.
Well, he will hurt them. He’ll come for them, just as he has for Berger. He has to. As the polls worsen, and his personal approval ratings plummet, he will have to point the finger of blame somewhere. But by then the true moderates will be gone. It will be interesting to see which of the Appeasers Corbyn selects as his new victim.