A Labour of love?

Were I was a Labourist I would be sitting back to take stock. The majority of working class people have voted to leave the EU. It would actually have been by a bigger majority had Vote Leave not been a bunch of zealots. Why they chased the xenophobia vote beats the hell out of me since they were always going to vote leave.

I would think on that. I would not be looking to subvert the referendum result. I would be looking to facilitate a pain free Brexit. And then I would look at the party leader; a man who, for the sake of a fragile unity, defied his own conscience to support the EU. His position demanded that of him. A man largely elected by the party membership - who also voted to leave.

So if I was a Labourist conniving to subvert the referendum I would be defying not only the substance of the leader but also the people I supposedly work for. And so it is not Corbyn who should step down and stay silent. It is those Blairites who connived to take us deeper into the EU without popular consent.

As it happens I could not be further from a Labourist and I do not appreciate Corbyn's politics. But I do believe that of all the leaders of the left there have been in my adult lifetime, he is one who best represents the ideas upon which the party is based in the tradition of the best social reformers the left have ever offered.

That said, I am not praising the man as I believe him to be a dinosaur bereft of ideas and still stuck in the 1980's. But that at least is grounded in some kind of philosophy unlike the mainstream Labour party who evidently stand for nothing except for their own tribal advancement. If I had to pick a side it would be Corbyn. And though he is an inept spokesman, he connects with at least some of the people unlike the rest of Labour who connect with no-one.

But in the end I believe the modern left will turn on Corbyn because those qualities I begrudgingly admire him for are what they detest the most. What they seek is control for the clan rather than the service of those they represent. They have their fixed ideas that we should be in the EU and will do anything to make sure it stays that way whether the people want it or not.

Exemplifying this is Hilary Benn, a man who salivated at the prospect of bombing Syria and staying in the EU - not out of any principle but out of a sad compulsion to define himself as different from his great father. I have never suffered from that affliction. Many people told me my father is a great man. They are right. Why would I not want to aspire to be the same, standing up for democracy and good governance, as indeed did Tony Benn? It's time to call Labour out for what they are. Politically and morally bankrupt.