Or Else

Mark Ferguson takes apart the essentially false nature of the Telegraph's "story" on John Mills's donation to the Labour Party.

But there is more going on here.

It is absolutely forbidden to be a hugely successful businessman and a much-published economist in the Classic Labour tradition.

Or else.

It is absolutely forbidden to oppose the EU from a Classic Labour, by no means Hard Left, perspective, and to have been doing so since the Year Dot, or indeed for anyone in business to deviate from the CBI's line of uncritical support for what has, after all, always been a project expressing the depth, breadth and ferocity of Thatcherism that she of the Single European Act was never able to implement through the British Parliament that she utterly despised.

Or else.

It is absolutely compulsory to uphold neoliberal capitalism as the only pro-business position, no matter how corrosive it might be of business, of fiscal responsibility, of a large and thriving private sector, and of a large and thriving middle class.

Or else.

It is absolutely compulsory to uphold the Conservative Party as this country's approved vehicle of opposition to the EU, no matter how preposterous that might have always have been in actual fact, and to defer to the saloon bar ranting of UKIP, which has no specific objection to the EU and in fact agrees with its view that the only problem with British austerity is that it does not go far enough, as somehow a serious contribution to the debate.

Or else.

And it is absolutely unconscionable that a major political party, with a large and permanent lead in the opinion polls and sweeping all before it whenever real votes were cast, might have as its single largest donor a hugely successful businessman who is also a much-published economist in the Classic Labour tradition, and who on that basis has been an opponent of the EU since the Year Dot.

Or else.