Labour has to destroy Corbyn before he destroys Labour
WHEN does being a witness to a crime turn into you becoming an accomplice? At what point does being a spectator at a death make you an accessory?
That is a question every decent, moderate Labour MP and MSP who has so far failed to raise their head above the parapet as their once great party is destroyed – and their careers with it – should ask themselves every day.
Because be in no doubt, Jeremy Corbyn is destroying the Labour Party. Indeed, it may already be gone. Their silence and inaction means they share culpability in the crime.
This is not just an old familiar brand closing down. This isn’t the end of Woolworths. The demise of the thrupenny bit. It is a vital organ of our democracy, whether in or out of power.
Corbyn’s massive misjudgment last week over the poisoning of two Russians on British soil is no surprise.
He is at least consistent in his contempt for the nation he apparently aspires to lead. He will give the benefit of the doubt to any country other than his own.
Now I do not doubt the scale of the task of saving the Labour Party. The reforms of ex-leader Ed Miliband did terrible damage to its internal democracy.
PEOPLE who had never supported the Labour Party – indeed, often hated it – were given the chance to elect its leader for the price of a pint. (In case you’ve forgotten him, Ed was the Miliband without the banana.)
The length and breadth of the country, lifelong Labour members are giving up – pushed out by a mixture of the bullying of Momentum and their embarrassment at their leader.
We know there will be deselections of moderate Labour MPs. It will be portrayed by Corbynistas as a purge of the Blairites.
But the casualties are also people in the tradition of Neil Kinnock, John Smith and Michael Foot. Real Labour people.
Jeremy Corbyn’s refusal to condemn the Russian government last week reminded me of Foot’s speech when Argentinian fascists invaded the Falkland Islands in 1982.
Foot was no warmonger, no imperialist. He was not a man for jingoistic bombast. When the House of Commons was recalled on a Saturday to discuss the invasion, he posed many critical questions of Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher.
Then he said this: ‘There is the longer-term interest to ensure that foul and brutal aggression does not succeed in our world. If it does, there will be a danger not merely to the Falkland Islands, but to people all over this dangerous planet.’
That is what a person with Labour values should sound like. It is time they were restored.
There is no point in Labour MPs merely waiting for the axe to fall. You cannot claim to represent the powerless and voiceless and choose to be voiceless as what little power you have is removed.
The party of Smith, Harold Wilson and Clement Attlee cannot be allowed to die without a fight. To be destroyed by a ragbag of Trots and Militants who will do nothing for the poor they claim to champion.
Anyone who believes in our democracy – and in the power of politics – should join the fight even if they have never voted Labour in their lives.
Our democracy works best when the Opposition holds the Government to account, whatever the stripe. When people of real ideas of Right and Left clash and create new opportunities.
Shocked that they were not routed at the last election, some Corbynistas claim they won it. They should reflect on where they sit in the Commons chamber when they think that. When they see that, despite the shambles of Theresa May’s government, they do not command any real lead in the polls.
I’m so old I can remember when Kinnock enjoyed 15-point leads over the Tories.
The last election has given the Labour Party false hope. No one really believed there was a chance – or the danger – of Corbyn becoming Prime Minister.
The nation was just not prepared to reward Mrs May’s hapless, arrogant, negative campaign with an overall majority.
SOME voted Labour as some Scots voted Yes in the referendum – out of sentiment, but hoping the rest of the population would save them from the consequences of their actions. If the Labour Party is dead – and the fight not worth having – those who still hold true to its traditions should re-form it. Start all over again – but do it quickly, while they still have seats to try to save.
The people who currently hold sway over the Labour Party – the Len McCluskeys and Seumas Milnes – have always held it in contempt. They are foreign to it.
There is a strong tradition of social democracy in this country, but no one party has a monopoly of it.
We no longer weigh the Labour vote north of the Border. But many Scots may weigh up in their minds who is closest to the politics of social democracy. And it won’t be Jeremy Corbyn.
I DON’T understand the fuss about Alex Salmond’s show on RT – not that I have ever watched it. Decades ago, when Kelvin MacKenzie ran a cable channel called LIVE TV, he had a weather man called Rusty who was a dwarf. He would bounce up and down on a mini-trampoline to manage to point to higher points of the weather map he could not otherwise reach. I never watched that either. In UK television, ideas like that died a long time ago. But if Vladimir Putin wants to revive them in a new form with Alex Salmond, where is the harm?