The Bitter End

There is an almost admirable gall about the attempt to trace Corbynism's intellectual lineage back to Carl Schmitt, of all people. It ranks with the heirs of Max Shachtman going on about Trotskyism.

Schmitt corresponded fruitfully with Leo Strauss, and although he did not die until 1985, he was barely cited before the era that had been inaugurated by the neoconservative coup in the United States at the turn of the present century.

Linking Corbyn to Schmitt is of course an attempt to brand Corbyn a Nazi. Arguably, it is more sophisticated than chanting at Anna Soubry that she is one. But it is essentially the same thing. Such is the rage of the people who had thought that their own position marked "The End of History", so that, in itself, it was never going to end.

The neoliberal caricature of liberalism as a complete economic and social free-for-all was supposed to have been promoted and protected in perpetuity by the neoconservative parody of conservatism, spreading the New Order throughout the world by a force of arms to which none of the traditional constraints any longer applied, while "securing" that Order at home by means of limitlessly draconian measures against "terrorism" and "antisocial behaviour".

So, pretty much Carl Schmitt, then. Providing the hard practical edge to the Straussian duty of the elite to lie to the common herd. The vanguard elite, even. The vanguard elite of the global revolution. See how the strands start to become woven together.

In Britain, this position has been held by all three parties in government continuously since Callaghan's turn to monetarism in 1977. It was also held by every Official Opposition for 21 years, from the accession of Tony Blair to the Leadership of the Labour Party in 1994, to that of Jeremy Corbyn in 2015.

It is still held by most Labour MPs, by most or all Conservative MPs, and, so far as one can tell, by all Liberal Democrat MPs, of whom there are going to be a lot more after the next General Election, at which that party is on course to take between 10 and 20 seats from the Conservatives in the Remainer heartlands of the South outside London.

The SNP also has a pronounced streak of this kind of thing, and in any case the recent campaign against Alex Salmond has manifested the fact that its machine has been captured by the Sturmabteilung in the likes of the Integrity Initiative and the 77th Brigade.

Another hung Parliament is coming, however, and our people need to hold the balance of power in it. It has become a local commonplace that I am on 30-30-30 with Labour and the Conservatives here at North West Durham, so that any one of us could be the First Past the Post. I will stand for this seat, if I can raise the £10,000 necessary to mount a serious campaign. Please email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com. Very many thanks.