The Black Dog Coalition

It is too long to reprint in full here, but Bill Mitchell has the measure of Black Labour.

These neoliberal diehards are in the same position as the rather similar Blue Dog Democrats to suit whom healthcare had to be watered down very heavily in the form of the Senate Bill rather than the greatly superior House Bill, which was also significantly more protective of the child in the womb.

Let there be no doubt. Being British Labour, or an American Democrat, or Australian Labor, has always been more than compatible with being a social conservative. At a push, it is compatible with being either a foreign policy hawk or what is usually termed a fiscal conservative (although not in reality any such thing), provided that one accepts that the party's position will only ever take account of that view among several others that are radically different from it. But a Labour, Democratic or Labor identity is not compatible with being both of a fiscal and a foreign policy hawk.

Where one's position is a combination of social liberalism, fiscal "conservatism", and foreign policy hawkishness, then it is quite clear where one belongs: in the post-Thatcher Conservative Party or the Lib Dems (it does not matter which), or in the post-Reagan and post-Dubya Republican Party, or in the Australian Liberal Party. Of its own volition or otherwise, the Blairite rump should clear off to a party with which it agrees. If it did, then some of us might even consider rejoining the party from which it had been purged.