Chuka Umunna has called on Jeremy Corbyn to "call off the dogs", as, one after another, right-wing Labour MP's, who have spent the last three years attacking Jeremy Corbyn, and his supporters in the party, find themselves being subject to the kind of vote of no confidence that the Labour Right wanted to preserve for themselves to impose on Corbyn. It demonstrates the incredible arrogance and hypocrisy of the Blair-rights, who have assumed that they have some god-given right to their cushy positions. That is illustrated by Umunna's comment that those right-wing MP's are being forced out of the party. Not at all, they are welcome to stay. Its just that they may not continue to be MP's. But, of course, the careerist Blair-rights only want to stay if they can have a cushy job for life as an MP, or some other well-paying sinecure.
The arrogance of the Blair-rights means that as soon as they face the possibility of having to justify themselves to their party members, they see it as a gross imposition. They continually refer to Corbyn's serial rebellions in parliament, but they fail to register the fact that, in nearly all those instances, Corbyn was only rebelling against the right-wing policies of the Labour Leadership in parliament, which were themselves in conflict with the policies and ethos of the party in the country. They fail to recognise that unlike the right-wing MP's now, Corbyn was never in danger of being out of synch with his own party members. Umunna's arrogance, and that of the Blair-rights is not only highlighted by the fact that they think that the votes against them are reducible simply to their opposition to Corbyn, rather than the fact that they are out of line with their party members, but that the matter is in the hands of Corbyn, rather than with the members of the party. They are simply transposing the undemocratic methods of running the party under Kinnock, Blair and Brown on to Corbyn.
Umunna's attitude and that of the Blair-rights is also incredibly hypocritical. Corbyn was elected leader by a huge majority, but as soon as it became obvious that he was going to win, the Labour Right did everything they could to try to frustrate his election. Right-wingers like John Mann, having been in the forefront of proposing primary style elections for candidates, suddenly decided that the process was deeply flawed and should be stopped. One after another, right-wing MP's, and unelected Labour Lords, along with the plethora of unelected, SPAD's, spin doctors and other hangers on, flooded the TV channels, and filled newspaper pages with unsubstantiated, and ridiculous allegations that the half million new members who had joined were all assorted Trotskyists. Ridiculous given that even at the height of their support, in the 1980's, Trotskyist groups in Britain have never had more than around 20,000 members, and if there really were half a million Trotskyists in Britain, they probably would not have had to have waited all this time to join the Labour Party, but would have already established a significant and influential revolutionary party in their own right!
But, the Right have never had more than a fleeting acquaintance with the truth, or the need to deal in facts, when it comes down to trying to explain why they have so spectacularly failed to mobilise any significant support behind them, which is why they also resort to ridiculous and unsubstantiated claims about bullying and intimidation, and so on. The truth is that in the last three years, it has been the Right that has been the ones attempting to cling on to their positions by intimidation, using their access to the Tory media, and for a time their continued control of the party apparatus. When party members took back control of local parties, right-wing MP's ran to the Tory press to claim intimidation, and the party apparatus reversed democratic decisions, putting the defeated candidates back in control, sometimes depriving members of their membership, and so on. The whole issue of anti-Semitism was whipped up by the Right, as just one of these means to attack party members, and provide spurious grounds on which to suspend them, and via which to purvey the idea that the party had been taken over by alien forces, who were using undemocratic methods.
For three years, we have had right-wing MP's appearing on TV disparaging ordinary party members in the most despicable manner, referring to them as rabble, and so on. Their totally arrogant attitude to party members was shown by their attempt to overturn the decision of party members in electing Corbyn as leader, by pushing their vote of no confidence in him in parliament. Now, when they themselves face such votes of no confidence they howl with outrage. But, the vote of no confidence they passed in Corbyn, was a vote by an insignificant 200 odd MP's, whereas the votes of no confidence those same MP's now face, is a vote by thousands of their party members.
Time and again over the past three years, they have tried to ride roughshod over party members, and Corbyn as their elected leader. On every possible occasion they have tried to undermine him, and the party for their own personal self-interest. Now, they are indignant when the party calls them to account.
In the 1980's, the right of the party under Kinnock also rode roughshod over party members. They used the fact that they had support amongst right-wing trades union leaders, and control of the party bureaucracy to block the election of even mildly left-wing candidates, and to close down branches and CLP's that took up an oppositional position. They had no compunction about using their attack dogs to cement their position, to oppose left-wing party members, and to put in position as MP's their own placeholders. In 1989, I was selected as County Council candidate by my Branch, only to find the selection ruled out of order by the party bureaucracy in short order. My friend John Lockett, who was Branch Chair, told me that the Regional organiser had told him that if they selected me again, in the re-run, they would close down the Branch. I decided to withdraw, and it was another 8 years, before I actually got to stand, and won the election by a huge majority.
The right have no qualms when it comes to using any method to hold on to power whether it is using control of the party bureaucracy, utilising their close connections with the Tory media, or spreading ridiculous lies and making outrageous allegations about ordinary party members. Over the last three years they have done all in their power to not only unseat Corbyn, but to undermine the party's chances in elections, in the belief that a poor performance will legitimise their claims and be a step towards removing Corbyn and the leadership. As former Blair spin-doctor, Phil Collins, said a couple of days ago, as he beat his drum in The Times, leading Blair-right MP's are hoping for a Tory victory, and a credible Tory leader to save their bacon. And, make no bones about it, were they to remove Corbyn, and find any way to get one of their own into position, even as with Kinnock in the 1980's, one of their own, who has masqueraded as being mildly left, they would immediately set about regaining control of the party machine, and using every bureaucratic and authoritarian measure to cleanse the party of their opponents.
The last thing they would be doing, as they showed in the 1980's, is calling off the dogs in the name of party unity. Rather than calling off the dogs, Corbyn and the party leadership should stop trying to love bomb the Blair-rights and their Tory supporters in the media, and wider society. Now is the time to press ahead and remove the Right before the campaign for the next election begins; now is the time to entrench democracy, so as to make it more difficult for the Right to re-establish themselves via their normal bureaucratic methods; now is the time to begin selecting new candidates for parliament, for local councils, and for party officers who reflect the current party membership, and so we can begin to push forward on a unified basis free of the continual sniping from the Labour Right, as they try to undermine the party for their own personal interests.
No comments:
Post a Comment