I keep hearing Corbyn’s tenure referred to as an experiment.
But how many experiments continue for four years, despite a toxic chemical haze
billowing out of the mad inventor’s lab?
The hard-left project should have been stopped in its
tracks countless times. As far back as 2015, Joe Haines – Harold Wilson’s Press
Secretary – suggested that the Parliamentary Labour Party should make a
unilateral declaration of independence. They could have appointed their own
leader in Parliament and bypassed the socialist relic the members had chosen to
elect.
Instead, they prevaricated. They agonised. They muttered to
each other in corridor recesses at Westminster.
The frightened bunnies were at first bemused and
disoriented, allowing Corbyn and his cabal to consolidate their position. And
subsequently, they were frightened. Mainly frightened of the swollen membership
of three-quid flotsam and jetsam who had invaded their constituencies pledging
allegiance to the sage of the allotments.
In 2016, they managed – somehow or other – to muster the
strength for a collective vote of no confidence in Corbyn. The battle was
finally joined. Angela Eagle was rejected as a leadership contender, in no
small part because she’d supported the decision to go to war in Iraq under Tony
Blair. None of the drifters, grifters, trolls and misfits who’d signed up to
membership were going to back her, it was supposed.
Step forward Owen Smith. I remember making a speech in my
own CLP in 2016 to help secure his nomination, while all the time despairing at
his hopeless campaign.
Rather than challenging the weird leftist ideology of Corbyn, McDonnell and Abbott (which was pickled in aspic at the time when Ken Livingstone led the ill-fated GLC back in the early 80s), Smith pretended to share his socialist vision. Indeed, he even offered Jez a non-existent role as President Emeritus or spiritual leader in his new regime.
The morning Corbyn was elected the second time, I resigned from
Labour and posted a blog that had several thousand views online. I also chatted
with John Pienaar on 5 Live, explaining in pretty blunt terms why I thought the
party was on the road to ruin.
When the 2017 election came along, I was pretty certain
that we’d see a meltdown. But I’d not calculated on Theresa May’s disastrous
campaign and Corbyn’s remarkable conjuring trick, in which he managed to persuade
both Leavers and Remainers to back him – probably on the basis they thought he
had little chance.
But once he’d clocked up 40% in the polls, he seemed untouchable.
Even though May had actually achieved the largest percentage share of the Tory
vote since 1983 (surpassed only by Johnson this week), Corbyn had made a very significant
advance in terms of the popular vote on Ed Miliband.
At this point, the fifth column was in seventh heaven. ‘Centrism’
was dead. No one wanted compromise any more. John McDonnell argued that if the
campaign had gone on just a week longer, Corbyn would have been ensconced in 10
Downing Street.
And then the bowing and scraping. The broken Tom Watson
joining in with the rendition of ‘Oooh, Jeremy Corbyn’ to the familiar White
Stripes refrain at the 2017 conference. Truly toe-curling.
The Brexit crisis rumbled on. The instances of obnoxious
anti-semitism continued unabated.
A brave group of people chose to break away. Chuka Umunna,
Mike Gapes, Luciana Berger and the others were all talented politicians, who
ended up sacrificing their careers because of the pathetic cowardice of others.
If even 25 or 30 additional colleagues had joined them,
Corbyn would have been in a desperately weak position. But Watson used all his
influence to persuade other PLP members to stay. In the process, he helped pave
the way for the disastrous defeat in the Christmas 2019 election.
Many people have remained publicly critical of Corbyn, but
never seem to get much further than the Twitter app on their phones. Jess Phillips,
Wes Streeting, Stella Creasy and others are no doubt decent people, but trapped
by a misplaced sense of loyalty to a party that has been turned into a poundstore
Podemos.
Now, in defeat, the PLP should be immediately supporting
Alan Johnson’s call for the hard-left Momentum group to be wound up. But all we
can hear is the sound of tumbleweed blowing down the road from much-prized former
Labour strongholds such as Wakefield and
Bolsover.
Who are the most complicit? The people who have actively
facilitated Corbyn. In the process of lending the veteran hardliner credibility,
Emily Thornberry, Shami Chakrabarti, Barry Gardiner and Keir Starmer have
destroyed their own.
I expect, at some point soon, these people will be desperately
trying to distance themselves from the four years of madness. It will cut no
ice with me.
Today, I renewed my membership after more than three years
away, determined to give it one last go. Perhaps there will be a new will to
remake Labour as mainstream social democratic party again. Any new leader will,
however, have to be someone with cleaner hands than the members of the current
shadow cabinet. And their starting point will be an abject apology not just to
Labour voters, but to the whole country.
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