There can be few politicians in the post war era who have excited so much comment and yet achieved so very little that is either worthwhile or noteworthy than Jeremy Bernard Corbyn.
Today, Mr Corbyn attends his final Shadow Cabinet meeting. No doubt there will be plenty of farewell cards from his adoring colleagues. Hopefully, there will be more than few resignation letters too. As a collective group, they have been spectacularly poor at stemming the advance of the reactionary right. The only two who can reasonably hold their heads up are Jon Ashworth and Keir Starmer. Even those two, hamstrung as they were by the rules of collective responsibility, have singularly failed to score a telling blow on the Conservatives.
From the outset, many of us warned our friends and colleagues who have an interest in Labour succeeding that Corbyn’s tenure would end in spectacular failure. But not even I had any idea of the spectacular nature of the disaster that awaited Labour at the end of 2019. He will, on many levels, be judged as the worst leader with which the Labour Party has been inflicted.
Yet there are many who are saddened by his departure and believe he has made the Labour Party a better place. I have words of comfort for them: “Grow the fuck up. Politics is real life and millions will have been detrimentally affected by this gross act of stupidity”.
The growth of the Labour Party membership is often cited as one reason to praise Corbyn. It is true the membership has grown, achieving levels comparable with historical highs. The problem is, many of these new recruits have used their numerical power to take control of different aspects of the party and then found they have no idea what to do next. The consequence being is the party is being run by a bunch of amateurs – even at the highest level – who do not know how to form an effective opposition to the ruling Conservatives. It is no surprise the Tories wiped the floor with Labour at the last general election.
Add to that, Corbyn and his staffers have no ability to manage, no sense of organisation and very little willingness to tolerate ideas outside their own limited sphere of experience. The top-down management of the party has alienated its core supporters – the people who do the hard graft of positioning a political party so it starts to look like an alternative government. But worse, much worse than this, is the arrogant vituperation of other views. Gangs of Corbyn supporters on Twitter – the Corbots as I christened them in 2016 – piled on any perspective that was even remotely critical of Corbyn. The nastiness and hatred that characterises their every waking moment can only be seen as a reflection of the whole Corbyn experiment.
This is especially true of Jewish people, who have suffered inordinately at the hands of Corbyn’s supporters. Blamed for the extreme right wing government in Israel, threatened at every turn, forced out of the party, the Jewish members and supporters can view Corbyn’s passing with a sense of relief, but until the horrors who have waged this war against Jews are evicted from the party, they can never feel safe. And that, must be the starting point. A massive clearout of the racists has to be a priority of any incoming administration – and that starts right at the very top of the party.
Neil Coyle MP wrote in Politics Home “Corbyn failed by not ensuring the Party was run properly, preferring factionalism to functionalism. Had he bothered to listen to concerns about racism, bullying, antisemitism and intimidation, his disgrace might not be so deep.”
I agree with every word of that. Corbyn could have done something, but he did not. That is a disgrace and must never be allowed to happen again. There is a place in the Labour Party for the left and the ideas of of the left. I firmly believe in many socialist principles. Racism isn’t one of them. Labour is an anti-racist party and the grip of the anti-semites must be broken.
We should begin by saying sorry. Sorry to the millions we have let down by being unfit for government. Sorry to all those who felt the Labour Party was no longer a safe place. Sorry to all those who were misled by the pie in the sky politics of Corbyn and his accolytes. Sorry to all those who now have to face five more years of the Conservatives in government. Sorry to those who have suffered to the extent of losing their jobs, homes, financial security and some cases their lives because of austerity, which could have been reversed had there been a Labour Government.
Now begins the big task of resurrecting the big Labour tent. It’s going to be long and hard such are the depths to which Corbyn took us. It make take longer than the five years we have before the next election. I hope the next Labour leader is up to the task, because if they are not, Britain will fall ever deeper into the dystopian future the Conservatives have mapped out for us.
Roll on Saturday April 4, 2020 at 10:45 a.m. when we can draw a line under the biggest mistake Labour has ever made.
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