I didn't bother to watch the Leader's debates last night, for the reasons I'd set out yesterday. It seems to have been the right decision. It turned out to be a draw with very little enlightenment coming from it, from all of the reports. The main beneficiaries seem to have been all those party leaders that did not take part in the charade.
Reports are that both Johnson and Corbyn were laughed at by the audience - Johnson for claims about his concern for the truth, Corbyn for the farcical nature of his Brexit position. Of course, both have problems with the truth. One of Corbyn's initial positive features was supposed to be his straightforward, honest John, sticking to positions of principle. But, the whole experience of the last four years has shattered that illusion. On principled issue after principled issue, Corbyn has capitulated whenever there has been the slightest whiff of opposition.
Indeed, that is one problem with his Brexit position, though the same could be said in relation to his position on Trident, NATO and a series of other issues. Corbyn has been a lifelong opponent of the EU. He is wrong in that opposition, which stems from a reactionary economic nationalist ideology whose roots are in the Theory of Socialism In One Country developed by Stalin in 1924. Corbyn's position on the EU has always been wrong, and indeed reactionary, but at least he held that position honestly. Everyone knows that Corbyn continues to hold that position, and yet he continues with the farce that he is today a proponent of remaining in the EU.
Give me some who is wrong, but honest, over a liar who is right every time. But Labour's Brexit position is worse than that, because, in order to try to reconcile Corbyn's real pro-Brexit position (and not just his, but that of the other economic nationalists in his Shadow Cabinet, as well as that of his advisors in the Leader's Office) with the pro-Remain position of 90% of party members, and around 75% of Labour voters, the party has developed a thoroughly dishonest and ridiculous fudge. Labour's position now is clear, but absurd, and so its no wonder that the audience laughed at the absurdity of that position last night, and at Corbyn's refusal to say, having been asked on nine separate occasions, whether in the proposed referendum on the issue, he would back his own deal, or Remain. We all know the real truth, and it is why Labour is losing votes to those who will give an honest answer to that question, primarily to the Liberals and the Remain Alliance.
Perhaps the most obvious example of Corbyn's continued backsliding was his answer to a question on the Monarchy. The Monarchy currently is experiencing one of those regular periods when its fortunes are waning. The Queen's consort has retired from public life due to old age, though not so old as to have been driving dangerously on public roads. Of course, he like the Monarch, and like foreign diplomats get to benefit from immunity from prosecution. The heir apparent is disliked by a large proportion of the population, his former wife's kids are apparently feuding amongst themselves, whilst his brother is embroiled in an international sex ring scandal. The Queen allowed herself to agree to an illegal proroguing of parliament.
But, asked about his position in respect of the Monarchy, the supposed lifelong Republican Corbyn commented that "It needs some improvement."!
Compare that with Marx's comment in The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, talking about the state.
“ All revolutions perfected this machine instead of breaking it. The parties, which alternately contended for domination, regarded the possession of this huge state structure as the chief spoils of the victor."
The job of even a consistent democrat, not even a socialist, is not to seek some improvement in the Monarchy, to perfect it, but is to finish the job that the bourgeois political revolution of the 19th century began, and to abolish it, along with all of the other associated forms of privilege and heredity, such as the House of Lords!
No once can trust Corbyn to defend even basis elements of principle on simple questions of bourgeois democracy, let alone socialist principle. This all before he even has chance to form a government, which if it were to make any kind of fundamental change in the balance of wealth and power would come under a much more sustained and vicious attack than mere bad press. A weak and dithering labour government that attempted to introduce any kind of radical measures from above, but which shows the kind of lack of spine that Corbyn's leadership has shown, and which has failed to build a mass social, extra-parliamentary movement in support of such changes, would be making the same mistakes that were made by the Stalinist Allende regime in Chile. It would be inviting disaster for the working-class, and the introduction of a vicious reaction.
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