At least today's report from Ed Miliband and Lucy Powell admits that the fall of the Red Wall has been a process of 20 years so far, and that it is by no means necessarily over. 15 to 20 years ago, I was not exactly well-received for predicting all of this.
How often do Labour figures bemoan that their constituencies "have never recovered from the Eighties"? Well, you had 13 years in which to bring about such a recovery. So what was the point of you? And yes, that failure did indeed lead to the casting of the votes that decided the referendum in favour of Brexit. Brexit therefore has to be made to work for those who cast those decisive votes, the votes that also decided the General Election of 2019.
There is a "Don't mention the War" approach to the 2017 Election. At the head of a party that was both anti-austerity and pro-Brexit, Jeremy Corbyn came within 2,227 votes of becoming Prime Minister. Without what are now known to have been the machinations of his enemies on his party's own staff, then who knows what might have happened?
Ah, yes, the Labour Party's staff. They wanted to burn Corbyn. They wanted to use his face as a dartboard. Not his picture. His face. Such people walk among us. As some of us have known for many, many years. The London Regional Director who used the Angry Black Woman trope against Diane Abbott is now set on having his bad character and those of his associates, including his relatives, examined in detail in court. That would suit me just fine.
With that kind now back in untrammelled control of the Labour Party, its problem with black people has become total and irreparable. Months ago, I started saying that the Black Wall would follow the Red Wall. Now everyone says that. Whenever you hear or read of "the Black Wall", then do please think of me.
Nor are the two Walls merely parallel to each other. There are BAME people everywhere now. And if you think that the militarised, homicidal, politically Far Right policing that has inspired Black Lives Matter is alien to these shores, then you must have missed, for example, yesterday's anniversary of Orgreave. Rother Valley is a textbook Red Wall seat.
Its Black Wall equivalents remain to be seen. But even before recent days, Keir Starmer, who as a former Director of Public Prosecutions will have had an appalling record on race to begin with, had already lost Labour a million votes over Kashmir. That will be devastating for the party in such key electoral battlegrounds as Lancashire, Greater Manchester, West Yorkshire, and the West Midlands. As the talk of China, India and Pakistan, Kashmir is the biggest story in the world. Electorally, it might also turn out to be the biggest story in Britain.
That, and the Red Wall's Green Bricks. The DUP no longer provides the Government's majority. Instead, across Wales, the English Midlands, and the North of England, the Conservatives now hold by tiny majorities seats that contain major centres of Irish Catholic population, from Crewe to Consett and well beyond. The consequences of that change are now playing out before our very eyes.
Ah, yes, the Labour Party's staff. They wanted to burn Corbyn. They wanted to use his face as a dartboard. Not his picture. His face. Such people walk among us. As some of us have known for many, many years. The London Regional Director who used the Angry Black Woman trope against Diane Abbott is now set on having his bad character and those of his associates, including his relatives, examined in detail in court. That would suit me just fine.
With that kind now back in untrammelled control of the Labour Party, its problem with black people has become total and irreparable. Months ago, I started saying that the Black Wall would follow the Red Wall. Now everyone says that. Whenever you hear or read of "the Black Wall", then do please think of me.
Nor are the two Walls merely parallel to each other. There are BAME people everywhere now. And if you think that the militarised, homicidal, politically Far Right policing that has inspired Black Lives Matter is alien to these shores, then you must have missed, for example, yesterday's anniversary of Orgreave. Rother Valley is a textbook Red Wall seat.
Its Black Wall equivalents remain to be seen. But even before recent days, Keir Starmer, who as a former Director of Public Prosecutions will have had an appalling record on race to begin with, had already lost Labour a million votes over Kashmir. That will be devastating for the party in such key electoral battlegrounds as Lancashire, Greater Manchester, West Yorkshire, and the West Midlands. As the talk of China, India and Pakistan, Kashmir is the biggest story in the world. Electorally, it might also turn out to be the biggest story in Britain.
That, and the Red Wall's Green Bricks. The DUP no longer provides the Government's majority. Instead, across Wales, the English Midlands, and the North of England, the Conservatives now hold by tiny majorities seats that contain major centres of Irish Catholic population, from Crewe to Consett and well beyond. The consequences of that change are now playing out before our very eyes.
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