The Crisis Around Corbyn

On the surface, Jeremy Corbyn's aides appear to be mishandling the current crisis in the Labour Party - there is a lack of dynamism in responding to critics and an unnecessary defensiveness. The attack dogs of the PLP smell fear and it only encourages them.

Corbyn may now be wilting under pressure but there is undoubted bullying going on here. The alleged deletion of the hard drive on the finance bill (reported in the Guardian today) is a very serious matter that can only be interpreted (if not a genuine error) as political sabotage, one that could affect the lives of vulnerable working people negatively.

However, the more serious issue is the underlying political situation in the country which is more complex than it first appears. The recent increase in party membership seems to be in non-marginal non-Labour territory while the Party is weakening or shrinking in traditional Labour areas placing the marginal seats (the key ones in an FPTP system) at serious risk.

MPs fear for their jobs because Corbyn is allegedly not reaching out to working class constituencies but how can he reach out in this way if he is hobbled by the PLP itself? It is these MPs who have been disabling the Corbyn-McDonnell team from developing a message more in tune with the vote that took place on June 23rd.

The hollowing out of the Party in its traditional areas certainly has nothing to do with Corbyn and everything to do with Blair and Brown's era of control (and that of Milliband). Meanwhile, the coup leaders are radical middle class Remainers who may be incapable of communicating with the discontents that UKIP is now targeting.

It is arguable that Corbyn could have reached out to the working class long before this if he had not been hobbled by the Party's pro-EU position. Corbyn is a weak Leader thrown into an intolerable situation because of the refusal of the PLP to face reality on the ground.

His office know what is at stake - throwing the Party back into the hands of a professional political class which has failed to engage with the electorate in stages since the landslide of 1997 and has no coherent plan of its own for electoral recovery. A weak Leader of the Left cannot resign because its strong Leader (McDonnell) would not get on the ballot under current rules - the Left and the new membership would be erased from history and the Party handed over to make-weights.

The rebels huff and puff but cannot come up with their own alternative who could beat Corbyn in a straight democratic fight. They are also made up of multiple competing factions - the old Labour Right (represented now by Watson who seems to be playing as straight a bat as he can under the circumstances), the soft Left (represented by the younger Benn and Kinnock), the Brownites and the hard-line Blairites, allegedly manipulated from behind by PR advisers.

The PR Campaign which appears to have had months of preparation has framed the media and so much of the general public against Corbyn, thereby adding another weapon ('public opinion') to the rebel armoury but it is one which the Left knows is based on the same sort of false framing that we saw in the Remain campaign. Part of the crisis of our times is public resistance to manipulative political framing of the debate - the spinners are crumbling before the stubbornness of the people and are forced into increasingly hysterical and bullying positions as a result.

The unions are aghast and divided - some have thrown themselves in with the rebels because of potential Left rebellions in their own ranks, others are fully committed to the Left. The stakes are immensely high and the 'schwerpunkt' of the battle is the mind of Corbyn himself - hence the Left (which acts as a collective here) shores up and shields him in a ring of steel while the rebels apply extreme, often bullying, pressure directly and through the media on the man and only the man.

If he snaps they win. If he holds, they have to find a candidate-challenger and lose everything. This is, in short, one of the most brutal and ruthless engagements ever seen in British politics in which morality has no meaning.

There is one other factor which is driving the Blairites and, to a lesser extent, the Soft Left - Chilcot. There is no conspiracy theory needed here but Chilcot, pushed continuously into the long grass until now, will be a decisive judgment on a former Prime Minister and his Foreign Secretary. Normally, it would be a simple partisan matter and the effect would be neutered since a war crimes case is unlikely to be demonstrated under Nuremburg principles (or will it?).

If there is any ambiguity in this, however, Corbyn would be expected to turn on his former Leader and may even prosecute the case for war crimes. There is a back story here of conflict over Middle Eastern policies that pulls in criticism of NATO, of Atlanticism and of Israel - and the antisemitism narrative (also carefully framed to promote hysteria rather than thought) is part of the mix.

Corbyn is only dangerous if he is in office on Wednesday - once out of office, he is just a discredited Leftie. So, the mission from the old Atlantic Right is to get him out of office before Wednesday or destroy his authority.

Corbyn's alleged weak leadership of the Remain campaign was merely an excuse to drive this war forward and quickly and pull in an angry mass base behind it. The timing is carefully designed to split the Corbynistas over Europe itself.

The Left is actually highly critical of the EU. It only chose to campaign for Remain on a rather spurious makeshift policy of internal reform that had more holes in it than a Swiss cheese.

The reasoning (proven flawed) was based on a belief that by conceding on the European Union, the inevitable coup attempt could be deferred. The June 23rd vote now frees the Left to accept Brexit and then campaign for a Socialist Britain.

The Right not only do not want acceptance of Brexit, they don't want a Socialist Britain and they know that many young Party activists were as committed to Remain as they were to Corbyn. June 23rd thus offered an opportunity for the Right to mobilise the Remain vote alongside Liberal Democrat and dissident Socialist and anti-racist networks to create a 'popular' movement to contain and then defeat Corbyn.

However it seems as if the Neo-Remain movement is not all that it appears to be. 30,00-50,000 on the streets is not actually a lot, Corbynistas appear to be mobilising for their man in preference to Europe, there have been dodgy practices exposed in the petition and the involvement of big business and PR people is being exposed on social media.

It gets worse. Geldof and Izzard are now figures of fun, radical Remainers are not necessarily the majority in many CLPs and it is clear that no PLP member seems ready to rely fully on the Neo-Remain movement to launch them into office by mounting a challenge.

The public has moved on and it seems that only bankers and big business are continuing to moan about the result in public (alongside some petit-bourgeois students) - not exactly the natural friends of the working class. So, with four days to go to Chilcot, the choices are simple - will Corbyn accept some untrustworthy deal and go before the release of the Report, will he hang on to force a challenge or will he leave only on condition of a change to party rules that allows McDonnell to stand in his place?

The collective leadership of the Left and four decades of tough survival in the wilderness suggests that Corbyn will go to ground and hang on until he is challenged or the Left can be promised a viable alternative candidate. What we can rely on is that the operation to oust Corbyn will now increase in intensity until it reaches levels of unparalleled viciousness aided and abetted by the trained ferrets in the mainstream media.

At a certain point, though, the bullying may result in blow-back within the softer unaligned elements in the PLP who may begin to waver at the aggression of their allies. Bullying in itself may mobilise members and some of the public and union activists in particular (often hyper-sensitive to bullying in workplace situations) for Corbyn.

All in all, despite all the pressures on him, Corbyn appears to be down rather than out and there is still room for a fight-back although how this cannot end in some split in the Labour Party beats this observer. Eventually there will be a stabilisation based on compromise but surely either the Hard Left or the Blairite Right will be exuded from the Party within months.

Panel Contribution - Initiatives of Change Conference: The Middle East Migration Crisis - Genesis and Responses – London, June 20th, 2016

Seven minutes is not a great deal of time to provide a creative solution to our biggest current challenge – the mass migration not only of the dispossessed by war but of the global poor under conditions of globalisation. The crisis is not just one of the Middle East and Europe. It is a global crisis. I have time just to propose one big political shift of emphasis.

TPPR is primarily an adviser to the private sector on the risk implications of changes in our political situation. We have been much preoccupied with Brexit which comes to a head on Thursday. The Brexit Debate contains important lessons for us. Basically, the liberal middle classes want idealism from their leafy suburbs while many working class people would like some compassion directed at their situation instead.

The cultural idealist in the metropolis who has done well out of globalisation has suddenly faced a revolt from half his fellows. The latter have realised, perhaps too late, that they have one shot at recovering their old cultural status before, not migrants, but the liberal middle classes in all its manifestations confirm their minority status in their own land.

Migration is too often framed as one of humanitarian duty against racism and xenophobia. But it is also one of class, of classes that see themselves (whether petit-bourgeois East Coast shopkeeper or working class Northerner) not merely as the general losers in the globalisation game but as on the edge of permanent insecurity and exploitation because of it.

The numbers of migrants is always exaggerated in political discourse but this truth is often used as an excuse to try to dismiss complainants as irrational or vicious. In fact, their protest is rational on several grounds.

First, the flow of migrants is increasing. They are not fools in the belief that assimilated migrants will come to be a permanent voting bloc working with the liberal-minded middle classes to steer resources ever more in the direction of those with the political power. The fears are anticipatory and correct.

Second, they see free movement of labour, in association with the capture of their political movements by the middle classes, including the official parties of the Left, as a means of atomising them and driving down wage rates but it also observably increases competition for scarce resources especially housing.

Many working people see what happens when unscrupulous exploitative business takes up the opportunity of cheap labour without having to invest in social infrastructure, the social capital needed to sustain the communities into which the migrants are also inserted without much social support other than the family, clan or tribe.

Third, the average working class reaction to people from faraway places and different cultures begins with being tolerant (although, of course there are a minority of fascists in these communities) but resentment grows – yet not necessarily because of the migrant …

When the dominant culture – the world of government and the BBC to oversimplify – engages in what the local community thinks of as an intrusive positive discrimination in which its own history and values are disrespected, it is this disrespect, anticipatory of humiliation, which becomes the problem.

The best of the Left has always tried to point out that an exploited white working class person and an exploited migrant have the same problem at heart. In general, the British working class has not been averse to this. Many of these issues would certainly be less salient if the globalising system had not resulted in an economic crash in 2008 in which the higher you were up the middle class food chain, the less likely you were to be hurt.

But now we are in the economic doldrums. Large numbers of people feel disrespected and under threat. Nor are they are wrong in seeing their problems increase if cheap labour is to be the engine that tries to keep a failing economic system alive until the next innovation-led economic cycle many years away.

And the creative solution to the long term problem of refugee and even economic migrant acceptability? We step back and give ourselves a three, perhaps even seven, year breathing space in which the West allows itself to put up some sufficient short term barriers to totally free movement of labour in order to buy itself valuable time.

Why? To allow the human-all-too-human to adjust to new conditions and prepare for the next economic cycle. To reconstruct a culture of respect for the ordinary person whether native or migrant. To put idealistic liberals back in their box as the dominant political species. To put in place the necessary managed system of migration control.

The positive results would be a breathing space for more toleration, less populism, more acceptance of those migrants who are here, the ending of an exploitative labour market, the political consensus for vital social investment overseas and the eventual widespread social acceptance of a restoration of moderate managed migration with an adequate infrastructure in place to handle it.

Text of Resignation Letter to Labour Party Dated Today

Dear X –

It is with regret that I resign from the Labour Party. Could you remove me from all membership and e-circulation lists? I do not think this will come as a surprise but it strikes me as good mannered to give some reasons. It would appear that I made a mistake in re-joining the Party and it is for me to take responsibility for my misjudgement. The reasons may, however, be instructive because I am not alone in my concerns. 

1    Lack of Respect for Dissent Within the Tradition

The insulting response by the Labour In Europe representative to my dissenting position on the European Referendum and the failure of the Chair to offer any reasonable opportunity for a reply would not in itself be sufficient cause to leave.

What provided sufficient cause alongside other issues of concern was the discovery that a Party Conference decision was not merely the basis for the decision of the Party Leadership to unite around the pro-Remain policy (which is reasonable) but that it was clear that those who disagreed with the policy would, more generally, not be treated with respect but rather treated as the enemy within.

I was not alone across the Party in finding pressure, often bullying (though I would never accuse anyone in XXXXXXXXX CLP of this), being placed on Members not to promote a dissident view but to follow a ‘line’, an attitude that I thought was one that went out with the old Communist Party. This lack of respect for reasonable dissent within the democratic socialist tradition was, frankly, shocking.

2     Lack of Respect for Evidence-Based Debate

The recent furore over Livingstone’s radio comments was equally disturbing. In fact, Livingstone had expressed an opinion based on a reasonable interpretation of certain facts. He had not expressed any anti-Semitic opinion whatsoever and that was clear at the time. Another MP then barracked him aggressively in public and in an un-comradely way.

Again, if this had resulted in an open debate about what Livingstone said, it would be classed as political education. It may be that the balance of opinion might reasonably have contested his position. Instead, Livingstone was virtually witch-hunted in public and the MP who verbally attacked him not only escaped any censure for his appalling behaviour but was protected by the Whips.

The matter was then ‘framed’ in the media  as one of general antisemitism (which was un-evidenced) in terms that bode ill for future freedom of debate and speech. Once again, the Party appeared to be moving towards the adoption of ‘lines’ and the rejection of open debate and away from a strategy of public political education which is the only way to engage honourably with the British people.

One aspect of this farrago was that the thuggish behaviour of the Labour Right and the intemperate arguments of the Labour Left were both derivative of the fact that each had its own constituency based on identity, Jewish or Left-Muslim in this case, which leads me to the third reason …

3     The Infiltration of the Party by Identity Politics

One thing that has radically changed since my earlier period with the Party is the further intensification of American-style identity politics as an acceptable ideology for a democratic socialist party. I find myself very uncomfortable with identity politics because it collectivises not the people as a whole but sections of the population around their attributes and beliefs. It is an indirect concession to fascism.

This is not to argue against action against discrimination and inequality when it disproportionately affects people with certain attributes (gay, black, female or whatever) but only to argue that action on discrimination and for equality is based on people being persons first and having attributes second. Identity politics creates communitarian blocs in which activists purport to speak for others.

Locally, I was disturbed at the dominant role played by radical feminism and was particularly disturbed to find local activists both giving a platform to a rival party (the Women’s Equality Party) and organising and publicising an event which would be ‘women only’, discriminating against men and using the Party brand for a sub-ideology of exclusiveness.

There is no issue here with supporting the Women’s Equality Party or with having women-only or men-only events in a free society. There is every issue with a democratic socialist party conniving in this or any other form of sectarian behaviour. It would be equally disturbing if we were offered Muslim only meetings or LGBT only meetings under the Labour ‘brand’. I want nothing of this.

What do all these have in common? They represent a closed-in exclusive activist ideology that is deeply alienating to dissent within the democratic socialist tradition – a person can be disrespected because they are a) critical of the European Project, b) educated, meaning here willing to test opinions against facts and undertake a civilised debate, and c) male (and, no doubt, the wrong skin colour in some contexts).

Enough is enough. The Party was founded on general working-class representation and on Enlightenment principles based on educational improvement and equality. The post-Marxist infiltration of the Party has created something else entirely – a liberal-left middle class party that expects group-think as a matter of course and reinstates communitarian ideology in place of political pragmatism and liberation ideology.

This has little to do with Left and Right – I am a Corbyn supporter and the Labour Right have led on the promotion of identity politics – but everything to do with civilisation and progress. The Labour Right are far more culpable in general than the incoming Left but I am reluctant to waste the rest of my life trying to contribute to a Party in a state of near-civil war, one in which my core values are clearly not respected.

Having said all that, I want to emphasise that there is no rancour or issue with the local Party (other than the failure to challenge visiting officials and identity activists). I know that the members are hard-working, decent, intelligent and good people who have made great strides in a very conservative local environment.  I wish them individually well but it would be wrong to stay silent.

Unfortunately, I cannot wish a Party well that I fear would bring its new habits of discrimination, authoritarianism and evasion and avoidance of challenging debate into high office. Armed with the machinery of the State, there is a serious risk that this culture of disrespect for dissent, of rejection of open debate in favour of media brawling and of discriminatory identity politics could become oppressive.

It is simply not enough to say that we should put up with these flaws in order to ensure a Labour Government, especially one that can reverse neo-liberal austerity measures. History teaches us that a Government that does not have core values based on reason and respect is a very dangerous Government and an anti-austerity culturally authoritarian Government could be very dangerous indeed.

If the Labour Party wants to win my vote (since that is now what it has come down to), it will have to demonstrate to me and to others that it represents the interests of the whole working population and not that of special interests, that it adopts pragmatic evidence-based policies and that it can accommodate reasoned debate and criticism on major existential issues.  At the moment, the Party is not for me.

The resignation is effective immediately.

Kind Regards

Tim Pendry