Be careful what you wish for

The Bishop of Willesden, Pete Broadbent, is the most high profile supporter of Jeremy Corbyn, but hardly alone. Many clergy are devoutly cheering on the Islington maverick. They should be careful what they wish for. History tells us that when Labour is in disarray, then the job of opposition falls to other parties, including the churches. But though the Church of England can lay a few punches on a government there is very little support in the pews for a party political version of muscular Christianity. So without an effective opposition a government becomes arrogant and increasingly dictatorial.

Labour under Corbyn is about to become very badly divided. Whatever his qualities as an apparently decent human being, Corbyn is nevertheless a creature of student protest politics. He has jumped on every fashionable left-wing cause over the years and supped and spoken with terrorists and dictators, like his great friend George Galloway.

The pretence that he has been involved in some kind of peace process by flirting with Sinn Fein, the IRA, Hamas and Hezbollah is sheer vanity. He has never similarly shared platforms and spoken with Ulster Loyalists or Israeli settler organisations. He is no neutral peace campaigner – he is a partisan of political campaigns.

He has never displayed any loyalty to his party and deserves none from his colleagues. Many of them will refuse to sit beside him in the shadow cabinet. Moving on from foreign policy, his policy on defence, the economy and Europe is completely at odds with the majority of his Parliamentary colleagues. He has no earthly chance of leading successfully into an election victory.

So the question is why are clergy and church leaders applauding a man who will lead the main opposition party into self-destructive limbo thereby doing vast damage to social democratic politics in Britain?