Labour In Vain

These dying days of the Labour Party are not tragic, but comical. When it is not sacking its staff because it can no longer afford them, something that was never a problem under Jeremy Corbyn, then it is planning the pompous "proscription" of two men and a dog operations that had already left the party, if they had ever been in it.

Labour is no longer in a position to expel existing members, since it now has hardly any of those, and fewer every day. Its poll rating is lower than it was at the last General Election, while Keir Starmer's personal approval rating would be pitiful even if it were not lower than Boris Johnson's. Therefore, Starmer must remain Leader until the next General Election. The Right must have nowhere to hide from that catastrophic result, when Labour will have fewer seats than all other Opposition parties put together.

The Conservatives are going to lose numerous old Thatcherite strongholds to the Liberal Democrats, who were always the more pro-austerity and pro-war party in the Coalition. But the Conservative majority is still going to double, because that party is going to pick up so many seats that had voted twice for Corbyn. If the Blairite Electoral Commission ever did allow Black Lives Matter to register as a political party, then Labour would be as finished in London as it was everywhere else. Starmer might very well lose his own seat.

By then, Corbyn will have been without the Whip almost for an entire Parliament. He had always been unlikely to seek reelection at 75, and after 41 years as an MP. And he would be faced with a colossal programme of central government investment and infrastructure, much of it in public ownership, and all of it made possible by withdrawal from the European Single Market and Customs Union. On those grounds, he seems set to retire a very happy Bennite.

Especially in economic policy, the guiding lights of this century's uninterrupted Conservative rule are on course to be the Labour manifestos of 2019, 2017 and 1983. That last is still lazily dismissed as "the longest suicide note in history", but an astonishing amount of it has come to pass. The fig leaf is that unilateral nuclear disarmament never has. Unfortunately, however, it never would have done. Michael Foot would never have found 100 MPs who would have been prepared to have served in a Government with such a commitment, and his potential alternatives would have declined peerages on principle, as Foot himself eventually did.

Brexit used to be held up as equally suicidal, but apparently that was never "Loony Left" after all. Who knew? And all the standard abuse and ridicule will be heaped on the Corbyn Leadership, rather than the criticism that it truly deserved, just so long as there was never another referendum on EU membership, as there never would have been, since Corbyn would have relied successfully on the Conservatives and the DUP to vote down any Blairite and Starmerite attempt to hold one.

Meanwhile, great tracts of Corbyn's economic programme are going to be implemented, some of them already are being, the Government is well on the way to becoming even more dependent on areas that had voted for Corbyn, the areas that might object are turning Lib Dem, and the anti-Corbyn Labour Party is effectively defunct. Starmer has lost Labour one million Kashmiri voters, largely in key electoral battlegrounds. No one who defected to Change UK has re-joined the Labour Party, so Starmer has failed in his own terms.

After all, who would join the Labour Party now? Proponents of economic equality and of international peace would not spit on it, although it does little or nothing but spit on them. They would be given far more of a hearing in the Conservative Party. Starmer's preferred constituency of hardcore global capitalists and war hawks is already powering the resurgence of the Lib Dems.

Not only that, but Super Thursday has devastated the Labour Right's control of vast sums of Council Tax, business rates, pension funds looking to invest, sweeteners and backhanders from property developers and others, and so on, as well as its vast powers of patronage in the allocation of council housing, better council housing, jobs with the council, better jobs with the council, and so forth.

Labour holds on in Wales only because of the Corbynite Mark Drakeford, who will not be there forever, and who may not necessarily have any influence over votes for the House of Commons. Labour holds on in Great Manchester only because of Andy Burnham, who will not be there forever, and who may not necessarily have any influence over votes for the House of Commons.

Labour holds on in and around Liverpool only because of the remarks about Hillsborough by Boris Johnson, who will not be there forever. Labour holds on in London, and Starmer probably holds onto his own seat, only because the Blairite Electoral Commission refuses to register Black Lives Matter as a political party. And that is pretty much it.