Res Publica Simon Carr
The likes of Jeremy, Yvette and Chuka have little in common with the electorate – as the two upcoming by-elections will no doubt prove
Just going back to racists and bigots for a moment.
The Hon Tristram Hunt has left the Commons but he’s still the Hon Tristram Hunt. His father, Julian, is in the Lords, so for six or seven years his son was an honorary Honourable as well as a Commons Honourable, a doublebarrelled hon, an Hon-hon. He has gone from being the MP for Stoke-on-trent Central to running the V&A – and he’s only 43.
He took over Stoke from Mark Fisher – who is not an Hon even though he is the grandson of an Earl of Lisburn. He is a Rt Hon, though, by merit, and in his day he was the only Old Etonian in the Labour party. No mean feat in Blair’s Britain, as was.
Which is to say that Stoke – Labour’s heartland – has been represented by the cream of British society since 1983, and by the Labour party exclusively since its creation in 1950. Now, suddenly, the possibility of Labour losing the seat or even coming third shouldn’t be ignored.
The much-remarked-upon rift between the party and its base is opening up for all to see. The take-over of Labour by the theologians of social justice has been so thorough that many of their previous supporters cannot express themselves even with guarded civic honesty, without being denounced as racists, bigots, war-mongers, haters of humanity.
In a world where Benedict Cumberbatch can be called a racist, which of us is virtuous? In this brave new world, perfectly normal human impulses have been medicalised and listed in the Dictionary of Political Diseases.
Those who support the American Constitution or the 1688 Bill of Rights are called ‘white supremacists’. If you think children of eight shouldn’t be given life-changing hormones you can be denounced as transphobic. What was patriotism is now called nativism. That is adjacent to xenophobia. It probably leads to white supremacy and our old friend ‘fascism’.
It’s a bit tough when you, a pottery worker from four generations of pottery workers, are required to accept and profess as an article of faith that the newest arrival from the most foreign of cultures is as British as you are.
This is a polite fiction. As pleasantly hospitable as it may be, it isn’t naturally or instinctively felt by very large numbers of ordinary bigots and racists – or fellow citizens, as they are sometimes known.
When we meet real racists, and real bigots, we know all about it. The difference between them and us ordinary sinners is, I hope, stark. Unease or sullen resentment against incomers is very different from the ideological race-hatred that you see on the internet.
But the Labour membership is so deeply invested in social virtue it has consigned its old support to purgatory, to purge their sins before being allowed to vote for their old party
Supporters want to feel liked by their party. And that is very hard to fake, over time. Yvette, or Chuka, or Jeremy trying to connect with Brexit-voting, sitcom-watching, beer-drinking, bacon sandwich-eating plumbers sounds as convincing as Dick Van Dyke doing his cockney accent.
Oddly enough, the aristocratic Hilary Benn could probably do it. It’s not a question of wealth or class – personality can bridge the gulf. We know this from the American election, with millions of trailer-dwelling deplorables voting for a billionaire.
The existing leadership will never get the deplorables going. Donald Trump told a rally he could stand on Fifth Avenue and shoot someone in the face and it wouldn’t affect his poll rating. That’s not Jeremy. Labour does not, as any proper populist must, as any Labour leader should, like the poorly educated. And anyway, maybe the situation is worse. Labour may be beyond the power of a Messiah.
What if Labour has become obsolete? What if its calls for solidarity, equality, class struggle, the abolition of poverty and the overthrow of capitalism no longer mobilise its vote?
Because what is it that mobilises the British these days? For the next ten years in Britain, the fault line is between Leave and Remain. The Tories own Leave, for better or worse – and probably for better. If the referendum had been a general election it would have given Leave more than 400 seats.
The Lib-dems probably own Remain. Labour leaders quite want to have a bit of Remain but their heartlands have deplorable majorities. Stoke is one of the most Brexit constituencies in the country (Copeland isn’t far behind). If these two go, Jeremy might stay but there’ll be a run of Labour MPS who won’t.