I’d take no-deal Brexit over Old Man Steptoe any day
Iremember when my husband, a member of the Labour Party, voted for Jeremy Corbyn as leader. There was pouting, shouting, door-slamming – I hadn’t had such fun hating someone I loved since I was a teenager! But then the Brexit referendum was announced – to be held on June 23, my husband’s birthday – and while I know Brexit’s been a source of conflict for others, for us it was better than 20 sessions of marriage counselling. Both of us raised as socialists, we bonded over our mutinous cleaving to the Brexit Party; though Corbyn had always been against the EU, it didn’t occur to us to unite over him. Instinctively, we knew he couldn’t be trusted with anything valuable.
In a political milieu where so many people know the price of everything and the value of nothing, it’s really remarkable to appear equally blank about both. And observing the swaggering gaggle of superannuated Conservative politicians who seem so cavalier about letting this sad-sack get his paws on power, rather than allow the Prime Minister to carry out the will of the people, I’m inclined to
believe that all political careers end in petulance as much as failure.
I grew up hero-worshipping my communist father in the constituency of Tony Benn; I still consider myself Left-wing, believing in nationalisation and an eye-watering level of inheritance tax. But there’s something about Corbyn that makes my flesh crawl and that has driven me, like so many millions of Labour voters – especially from socialist strongholds in the north of England and the south of Wales – into the spivvy embrace of Nigel and the Brexit Party.
What is surprising is the people who’ve gone the other way – those, including analysts at major City banks, who are so obsessed with the Chicken Little vision of Brexit that they think giving JC the keys to No 10 is a feasible alternative to letting Boris have a fair crack at getting us out. I – like Jeremy – would be happy to squeeze the banks until the pips squeak. But I never thought they’d volunteer for it.
As far as I’m concerned, Magic Grandpa’s only redeeming feature was his refusal to come out in favour of a Loser’s – sorry, People’s – Vote. Even then, agreeing with him about anything felt oddly dirty, like using someone else’s bathwater. Now he’s thrown his lot in with the rest of the elitist Remainers, things seem cleancut again. If the Brexit Party didn’t exist, I’d have had to invent them as my imaginary friends to save me from the sad fate of being rendered politically homeless.
Corbyn is unwholesome in every way a man can be. When he’s not sucking up to exotic murderers, he’s baiting British Jews or condescending to our other ethnic minorities – remember “Only Labour can unlock the talent of BAME people held back by the Conservatives”? The “absolute boy” of golden Glastonbury salad days increasingly resembles Steptoe Senior.
After three years of looking like an offshore zoo of squabbling monkeys to the rest of the planet, due to the inability of politicians to
at telegraph.co.uk/ opinion do their job properly, the indignity of having this clown representing us on the world stage would be the final straw. The idea of living in a near-future country headed by him and his anti-West friends makes me feel like burning my passport and running off to join the Foreign Legion.
Though I’ve always found Corbyn unreservedly a Bad Thing, I could never work out whether this was because I believed him to be evil or stupid. Now, as he plods through the end-game of his last grasp at power – rheumy old eyes never losing sight of Seumas Milne to make sure he’s saying the right thing – both these words seem too big for him.
Christopher Hitchens once called the anti-war rent-a-mobs which Corbyn cut his teeth rallying “the silly led by the sinister” – this suits him better.
He’s not the Messiah – or the anti-Christ – he’s just a very silly, slightly sinister old man. It is staggering that anybody – let alone Tory MPs – thinks a no-deal Brexit would be worse than putting him in charge.