Sunday 26 June 2016

The Bad Smell of Blairism

The Blairite MP's think that they have been oh so clever in their coup attempt against Jeremy Corbyn, and the hundreds of thousands of party members behind him. But, not only are they yesterday's people, that same fact means that they do no have a clue about what is going on around them. They represent all that is rotten about politics, everything that has been rejected by millions of people not only across Europe, but in North America too. In their tiny bubble, they see politics as nothing more than a real life version of House of Cards, or perhaps in the case of Kinnock Minor, Borgen.

As careerist politicians, their whole world revolves around the kind of unprincipled stitch ups they can arrange behind closed doors with others of their ilk, or in the corridors of power. The coup against Corbyn has nothing to do with the referendum result. As James Schneider pointed out to Kinnock Minor in a TV interview, where Jeremy and the Labour Party nationally secured 70% of Labour votes for Remain, in Kinnock Minor's solidly working class, South Wales constituency, 60% of the voters voted to Leave!

The reality is that the Blairites had been waiting for a pretext to launch this coup from the day Jeremy was elected Leader. They continually claimed that Labour's standing would fall in the polls with Jeremy as Leader, but it didn't. They claimed that Labour would lose elections, but when the Oldham by-election came, Labour increased its majority. It also increased its majority in the recent Tooting By-election. The Blair-rights did all they could to undermine Labour's campaign at the May elections, including launching the Anti-Semitism moral panic – which went into a deathly silence as soon as the May Elections were over – but Labour won the London Mayoralty with an overwhelming majority, as well as the Mayoral contests in a string of other cities, and it at least matched the best performance of Ed Miliband in the local elections.

Some Blair-rights were stupid enough to come out to decry those results, as part of their planned coup, back then, but their complaints simply looked carping, and their plans were shelved. They let it be known back then what their plans had been, had the results been bad, which was to have a string of Shadow Cabinet Ministers resign along with a series of Council Leaders coming out to call for Corbyn to stand down.

Let's be clear, many of these council leaders are cut from the same cloth as the Blair-right MP's. They are career politicians, many of whom only have their positions because of the control over the party machine that Blair and his allies had in previous years, which allowed them to impose candidates on local parties. Many of those Council Leaders receive salaries as high as an MP, some even more when other allowances are included. Its obvious that such people will consider their own career and their own financial interests first, rather than any concern for the party, or the working class, at a time of considerable chaos.

But, they do not seem to understand that their old rules do not apply any longer. In the past, they could get rid of one of their own, by such a vote of no confidence, and silly childhood political manoeuvring. Today that will not wash. Corbyn and McDonell must hold the line. Any wavering on their part, in the face of this coup attempt would be a betrayal of the hundreds of thousands of party members that stand behind them, and who are counting on them to hold that line.


The Blairite MP's and Councillors represent only themselves. They can pass as many motions of no confidence as they like, but if we the party members continue to support Corbyn, as we must, their attempts will be futile. In fact, we should tell them straight, if you do not like the party you are members of, if you can't reconcile yourself with Corbyn as Leader, then for god's sake go, because you are causing a bad smell within the party as the corpse of the regime you represent putrefies. We say to the Blair-rights, on your way, and don't let the door hit you in the arse on your way out!

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