“Every great leftwing campaign and movement belies the splits, schisms, feuds, fallings-out, and monstrous vanity beneath: the tussle between Militant and the Socialist Workers’ party over the poll tax campaign; the fight between the tankies and the Trots in the struggle against apartheid; or the nest of vipers that is the Stop the War coalition.”
If the Poll Tax had still been in place when Tony Blair became Labour Leader, then “reluctant” acceptance of it would have been a New Labour article of faith.
The same would have been true of apartheid, which Blair missed by a very brief period.
By this article’s own admission, the right-wing Labour Leadership played little or no role in the opposition to either.
One might add that in government, that Leadership had repeatedly wielded a UN Security Council veto in the Pretorian interest.
There is something almost admirable about the sheer gall of mentioning the war in Iraq.
But the organisational work of the Stop the War Coalition did eventually remove Blair from the Premiership over the bombing of Lebanon.
A lot of people forget that. It is nice to see that some people never will.
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