One Nation, Three Parties

The Conservative Party now has responsibility for representing in the House of Commons numerous of the poorest communities in England and Wales. Those are places whose defining political experience was that of being ravaged by Thatcherism, and which entirely failed to notice the 13 years of Labour Government that some people would tell you had happened in the meantime. 

Here in what was then Hilary Armstrong's constituency, no such Labour Government ever happened to us. Evidently, it never happened to the residents of Sedgefield, either. Or look even at seats that Labour retained. At North Durham, Kevan Jones's total this time was 44 votes fewer than his majority had been when he was first elected, in 2001.

The United Kingdom is due to leave the European Union next month, practically five years before the next General Election. To have any hope of holding seats like North West Durham and Sedgefield, never mind of winning seats like North Durham into the bargain, then Boris Johnson, who has no ideology beyond Boris Johnson, is going to have to spend much as a Miliband Government would have done.

In so doing, and we already see this in the positioning for the Labour Leadership, he will tear the Labour Party apart. The Blairites, no more than a fifth of Labour Party members but well over four fifths of Labour MPs, are far to the right of any such economic programme, as was clear from their vicious failure to consider implementing anything like it during their prolonged period in power. But the Corbynites, no more than one tenth of Labour MPs but well over two thirds of Labour Party members, are noticeably to its left. 

Each finds it bewildering that the other ever joined the Labour Party in the first place. And both would want to oppose Johnson's reward schemes for the places that had given him such a thumping majority. But they would wish to do so from diametrically opposite positions. There will be no reason whatever for them to remain in the same party, and every reason for them not to do so. 

The Blairite faction might subsume the fiercely pro-austerity Liberal Democrats, who also share its foreign policy hawkishness. They even appear to share it on principle, whereas the Blairites back to the hilt America, Saudi Arabia, Israel, and increasingly also Narendra Modi's India, because they are paid to hold that line. The Corbynites are principled opponents without the other side's having to pay them a penny, while the Conservatives are now openly awash with Moscow Gold and Riyadh Gold alike, thereby disinclining them to attack the proxies of either paymaster.

To us peace-loving types, that is a strategy of sorts, I suppose. Although only one lot of proxies stages attacks on the streets of Britain. The Conservative and Blairite pecuniary relationship with the House of Saud is not keeping us safe from its other dependants. I will be standing for Parliament again here at North West Durham next time, so please give generously. In any event, please email davidaslindsay@hotmail.com. Very many thanks.