‘New’ New Labour’s vote-winning tactics turn the scattergun on India
The “New” New Labour Party is starting to sound xenophobic. You can’t send asylum seekers to Rwanda, MPS told Liz Truss, because it is inhospitable and anti-gay – though they also say that about Brexit Britain, so where are refugees safe to go?
Well, the PM has returned from a diplomatic mission to India, prompting an Urgent Question on the state of that nation by the SNP. “Ian Blackford,” announced the Speaker, “with two minutes.” The look on old Windbag’s face when he realised he’d have to cut four days from his prepared remarks…
He didn’t want to know how the trip went, of course, he just wanted to know why Boris hadn’t come to the House to talk about it himself, declaring, “he has no respect for the office he occupies!” When minister Vicky Ford rose to defend the PM, the SNP interrupted her with chants of “Where is he? Where is he?”, prompting Ms Ford to retort that they have no respect for women.
She then offered a rationale for Boris’s tour based upon what sounded suspiciously like a flick through the Encyclopedia Britannica: “It is the world’s sixth largest economy... It has got a population bigger than the US and EU combined”. India “is a democracy that respects the rule of law”, added Theresa Villiers, to which someone shouted “No, it isn’t!” And that’s when things turned weird.
The opposition’s chief objections were that a trade deal might undermine British business and that Boris hasn’t challenged Indian prime minister Narendra Modi’s neutrality towards Russia. But Lefty MPS also tore into India’s treatment of Kashmir, a disputed territory that most voters couldn’t point to on a map yet, which sparks raw emotions in the Commons.
Truck with India and you are “dancing on the human rights” of minorities, said Khalid Mahmood.
Are these MPS unaware of the jobs a trade deal will create, complained Ford, or of the magnificence of India? (The Ganges is 1,600 miles long. It has 30,000 elephants). How can this be controversial?
Well, Labour is trying to nail down the Muslim vote, which on Kashmir is anti-india. The Tories are courting the Hindus, who are pro-modi. With local elections looming, there hasn’t been this much interest in the politics of South Asia since we governed it.
The funny thing is that when Jeremy Corbyn tried to tackle Kashmir, the party establishment pushed back against him; “New” New Labour, in its scattergun approach to vote-getting, suddenly seems happy to make enemies overseas in a bid to win votes at home.
“Now then,” said Tory Lee Anderson, “last week Labour were having a go at Rwanda, now it’s India. God knows where it’ll be next.”
It’s a matter of sticking a pin in a map, Lee. Post-corbyn Labour is so desperate to sell itself to anyone that Elon Musk could probably buy it, and policy is simply the opposite of whatever the Government does. If Boris announced tomorrow that he was going to resettle the Channel migrants in Surrey, Labour would demand they be sent to India instead.
It’s quite a country. According to my sources in No10, “it has 22 languages and invented Snakes and Ladders”.