Uncommitted No More

Cornel West is back on the ballot in Michigan. Things are shaping up on both sides of the Atlantic. There is still a long way to go, but the British Government's resumption of the funding of UNRWA, its withdrawal of its objections to the International Criminal Court's arrest warrants such that Benjamin Netanyahu has just refused to meet David Lammy, and its hints at the restriction of arms sales to Israel and at the recognition of Palestine, are all consequences of the re-election of Jeremy Corbyn, of the election of four more Left Independents, of the defeat of Jonathan Ashworth and Thangam Debbonaire, of the halving of Keir Starmer's constituency vote, and of the near-defeat of Wes Streeting, Shabana Mahmood and Jess Phillips. All of those went back in turn to the entirely peaceful Gaza ceasefire marches, which had already brought down Suella Braverman. There has not been such a successful movement from the streets of Britain since the Poll Tax and its Prime Minister were swept away.

Tomorrow, Starmer will say that the rioters had a point. You know, the people who threw concrete slabs at the Police and who set fire to hotels with the wrong colour people in them, all while coked off their heads despite officially either being on benefits or having no income whatever, and a handful of whom were now serving derisory sentences. But at least Starmer prevented Jeremy Corbyn from becoming Prime Minister. Under the electorally more popular Corbyn, there would have been pogroms, apparently. Imagine that.

Throughout this century, the Parliamentary Labour Party has been the most right-wing section of the House of Commons. That that was still the case was confirmed when most of it voted to retain the two-child benefit cap, on which the Conservatives and Reform UK abstained, while all nine other seat-taking parties voted to lift the cap, including three types of Unionist from Northern Ireland, as did all six MPs who had been elected as Independents, ranging from Corbyn, via someone who had been a Liberal Democrat councillor until this year's General Election had been called, to a former stalwart of the DUP. Onwards, then, to the attempt to means-test the winter fuel payment, against which all non-abstentionist parties except Labour are going to vote, as are all Independents, including seven people who had been elected as Labour MPs. And things are shaping up on both sides of the Atlantic. Cornel West is back on the ballot in Michigan.