Good article by a man who has always written alot of sense.
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Labour still tainted by Corbyn’s grim legacy
Sir Keir Starmer has made a bold start but his party won’t be trusted until he turns his back on the deluded hard left
David Aaronovitch
Thursday April 16 2020, 12.00am, The Times
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‘The Labour Party is in turmoil,” wrote the editor of the Labourlist website, Sienna Rodgers, this week. And Ms Rodgers is someone who knows her Labour Party. And readers may wonder how Labour can possibly have the energy to be in turmoil a fortnight into a new leadership and in the middle of a global emergency. Quite easily, as it turns out.
The first thing Sir Keir Starmer did after his victory was to contact Jewish organisations. It was an exercise in thick line-drawing. He apologised for the [ censored word]emitism in Labour’s ranks, committed himself to rooting it out and did it in words that made clear he meant it. No evasive guff about “opposing all forms of racism”. His message was: that was then, this is now.
But a few days later “then” returned with a vengeance.
First, though, a little necessary history. After Jeremy Corbyn was elected Labour leader in 2015 his acolytes struggled to gain control of the party machine. But a failed leadership challenge by moderates the following year enabled his Momentum and trade union allies to gain a majority on the ruling national executive committee (NEC) and to install a hard-left general secretary.
More recently, the Corbyn ascendancy found itself accused of tolerating [ censored word]emitism among some party members. Last year, following a spate of allegations, the Equality and Human Rights Commission opened an investigation into the party.
Which brings us to the extraordinary internal report, probably written by Corbynista staffers, that recently leaked. It’s a blatant attempt to shift the blame for Labour’s failure to tackle [ censored word]emitism from Corbyn and his general secretary Jennie Formby, to the previous leadership of Ed Miliband. It also contains vast amounts of ostensibly private chatter (unredacted) between former Labour staffers hostile to Corbyn, some of which is couched in vivid terms, that has thrilled the hard left. Their websites, alternative media centres and social media accounts have erupted in delighted outrage.
Some of them think it explains the otherwise inexplicable decision of the British people not to choose Mr Corbyn as prime minister. The new Corbynite MP for Coventry South, Zarah Sultana, wrote: “Just think. If it wasn’t for their sabotage, we would have won [the election] in 2017, Jeremy would be PM. But these people [the former Labour staffers] preferred a Tory victory instead.” One Corbynite commentator said the report showed that Labour officials had “actively conspired for the party to lose the 2017 election”, making this “a Watergate moment, not just for Labour but for British politics”. And so on.
In their eagerness to believe such nonsense, these people failed to notice the report’s own preamble that it “thoroughly disproves any suggestion that [ censored word]emitism is not a problem in the party, or that it is all a ‘smear’ or a ‘witch-hunt’. The report’s findings prove the scale of the problem . . .”
The inconvenient truth is that in their heyday the Corbynistas denied there was a problem and insisted it was got up by shadowy forces to “hurt Jeremy”. Some of those complained about were, after all, their dearest and oldest comrades. But as the row deepened and it became obvious that some very rotten apples had infiltrated the barrel, the more pragmatic ones decided to concede that some bad things had been said and done. And their old (and now embarrassing) friends were marched off into noisy oblivion. Now, it seems, the plan is to shift the blame, however improbably, on to the party organisation inherited from Ed Miliband.
This belief in their own virtue is key to the psychology of the hard left. In the short time since their candidate for leader, Rebecca Long Bailey, was trounced by Starmer, they have been desperate to assert that a) her defeat was just a victory cleverly disguised and b) that the new leader still needs them. “Our time will come”, concluded a recent Momentum statement, incidentally echoing a favourite Provisional Sinn Fein slogan from the bad old days. It happens.
Actually, their time has gone. Sir Keir, scarred by the behaviour of Corbyn supporters in his own constituency party and on the NEC, has responded by purging them from practically every position they hold. Of 97 new shadow appointments, almost none are from the Corbyn wing. In this ruthlessness, Starmer has startled me, just as the failure of the Momentum machine to get enough votes for Long Bailey surprised me.
He may have ordered an inquiry into the leaked report but what is becoming evident is that Starmer believes the 2019 election was a 1983-style watershed moment for Labour. The illusions fostered during the Corbyn leadership have dissolved in the acid storm of Boris Johnson’s 80-seat landslide. In the most recent NEC elections the centre left has won ground over the hard left. Reality is starting to bite.
What’s more, the corona crisis changes the political landscape as much as it changes the economic and psychological ones. But not in easily predictable ways. It is useless simply to project old political templates on to the post-pandemic world.
Yesterday, Starmer talked of a “re-evaluation” of our society adding, “clearly, we’re going to have to reimagine our economy”. Yes indeed. But in the circumstances not of a cornucopia of cash available for pet projects and redistribution, but in conditions of recession or low growth. Also, I’d argue, in a situation where the need for transnational co-operation and action has never been more obvious.
If we want a larger, more embracing state sector (which a lot of surprising people now do) to save the economy, and we want effective measures to end low pay without creating mass unemployment, then promising to bash up “the rich”, as the Corbynistas dreamt of doing, won’t cut it. Nor will subsidising middle-class students, nationalising broadband or abolishing universal credit. The country has to discuss moving to a society where most of us pay more in tax, some of it on wealth, to afford to be the post-virus society we aspire to.
But Labour, possibly working with others, can only champion this successfully if people believe that the party is competent. That its leaders solve problems rather than spout slogans. The bring-your-own-loudhailer-and-placard party is over.
