There is no legal or moral obligation to vote at all, much less to vote for any particular political party.
Over the last five years, and through two General Elections, the anti-racist movement, the anti-war movement and the economic Left have grown used to voting and campaigning for the Labour Party because they wanted to, and not merely because "the Tories would be even worse", something that from the anti-racist and anti-war points of view, at least, had in any case never been true.
Likewise, the Red Wall expanded slightly in 2017, when everything about Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell had been known for two years, because the left-leaning three fifths of the traditional working class turned out and voted so very heavily for Corbyn's and McDonnell's economic programme and foreign policy stance.
It was only the betrayal of Brexit, at the behest of Keir Starmer, that caused half of the Red Wall to collapse in 2019, with the other half universally expected to follow suit in 2024. But even that was the culmination, to date, of a 20-year trend, and Boris Johnson had not run as either a budgetary or a military hawk, neither of which he was or is. For that, you need Starmer.
Moreover, although enough of that left-leaning three fifths either stayed at home or voted Conservative to deliver last year's result, the Conservative majorities in those seats, such as this one, are nevertheless nothing like as large as the Labour ones used to be, with most of that interest having continued to vote Labour.
The crucial difference was that they had made a very conscious choice to vote Labour, in conversation with relatives, neighbours, workmates and drinking companions who were going to vote Conservative for the first time in their lives. Some of the most left-wing people I know, and whom I know from 25 years of activism on the Left, voted Conservative last year on the Brexit issue, in several cases in constituencies that turned blue by tiny margins and for the first time ever.
So even working-class and left-wing Labour voters are no longer core Labour voters. The working class is more conscious of its electoral power than at any time in the past, and it is fully determined to use that power. As surely as the South took over the Republican Party, in that direction, so we now have a Conservative Prime Minister who has effectively repudiated the economic records of his seven most recent predecessors, including and especially Margaret Thatcher.
The economic Left always did despair of Corbyn's timidity in the face of this, that or the other committee of the Labour Party, structures the like of which do not burden the Leader of the Conservative Party, a party that has accepted for all practical purposes the fundamental premise of Modern Monetary Theory. The anti-war movement was bitterly disappointed by the free vote on Syria, and by the whipped abstention on Trident.
But the anti-racist movement loved Corbyn to the last second of his Leadership, and it still does. It truly loved him, and it truly loves him. It said that "Jeremy Corbyn will be the United Kingdom's first anti-racist Prime Minister" because, "No other British politician in recent memory has been so dedicated to working with us in our communities, in order to overturn racism and achieve justice for those of us facing oppression and injustices." He has never given the signatories to that, or the millions for whom they spoke, the slightest cause to reassess that judgement of him.
Corbyn, however, is no longer the Leader of the Labour Party. In his place is a former Director of Public Prosecutions who refuses to discipline the party's shockingly racist staff, who presides over the victimisation of black women MPs, who dismisses Black Lives Matter as a "moment", who identifies with those who took selfies alongside the bodies of black murder victims, who rejects self-determination for Kashmir, who indicates his view of self-determination for the Chagos Islands (and of a great many other things besides) by revelling in his role in the torture of Julian Assange, who fails to oppose the early lifting of the lockdown, and who sacks anyone who so much as tweets a link to an article that mentions in passing the well-documented fact that techniques such as the one that killed George Floyd are taught by the Israeli secret service.
Labour has never been particularly good to the Black Wall, as it had never been particularly good to the Red Wall. Starmer's Brexit betrayal, although Corbyn ought to have faced him down, was the moment at which the 20-year tilt of the Red Wall turned into an impending collapse that duly occurred as soon as the opportunity presented itself. And Starmer's "Black Lives Matter moment" will itself be seen as that moment in respect of the Black Wall.
The metropolitan liberal elite thinks that it has parliamentary seats for life, as the worse-dressed part of the right-wing Labour machine also used to think. But that elite now faces mass BAME abstention, or votes for small Left parties, or votes for local Independents organised by mosques, black churches, black community organisations, and so on.
And once those constituencies had made themselves marginal seats of the governing party, rather than safe seats of the permanent Opposition, then they really would be able to flex their muscles. The one with Grenfell Tower in it is already in that position of strength. We know that the Black Wall could do this, because here on the Red Wall we are already doing it. The Budget of March 2020 has ended the era that began with the Budget of 1976. The Centre is the think tank for this new era. It already has plenty going on.
Corbyn, however, is no longer the Leader of the Labour Party. In his place is a former Director of Public Prosecutions who refuses to discipline the party's shockingly racist staff, who presides over the victimisation of black women MPs, who dismisses Black Lives Matter as a "moment", who identifies with those who took selfies alongside the bodies of black murder victims, who rejects self-determination for Kashmir, who indicates his view of self-determination for the Chagos Islands (and of a great many other things besides) by revelling in his role in the torture of Julian Assange, who fails to oppose the early lifting of the lockdown, and who sacks anyone who so much as tweets a link to an article that mentions in passing the well-documented fact that techniques such as the one that killed George Floyd are taught by the Israeli secret service.
Labour has never been particularly good to the Black Wall, as it had never been particularly good to the Red Wall. Starmer's Brexit betrayal, although Corbyn ought to have faced him down, was the moment at which the 20-year tilt of the Red Wall turned into an impending collapse that duly occurred as soon as the opportunity presented itself. And Starmer's "Black Lives Matter moment" will itself be seen as that moment in respect of the Black Wall.
The metropolitan liberal elite thinks that it has parliamentary seats for life, as the worse-dressed part of the right-wing Labour machine also used to think. But that elite now faces mass BAME abstention, or votes for small Left parties, or votes for local Independents organised by mosques, black churches, black community organisations, and so on.
And once those constituencies had made themselves marginal seats of the governing party, rather than safe seats of the permanent Opposition, then they really would be able to flex their muscles. The one with Grenfell Tower in it is already in that position of strength. We know that the Black Wall could do this, because here on the Red Wall we are already doing it. The Budget of March 2020 has ended the era that began with the Budget of 1976. The Centre is the think tank for this new era. It already has plenty going on.
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