Party Poppers

Someone needs to introduce Kemi Badenoch to Christian Democracy. She should also ask Theresa May whether working with the DUP entailed small spending. And if “There was no State in the early days of Christianity”, then by whom or what were the martyrs martyred? Whatever the robustly disputed meaning of “Render unto Caesar”, Badenoch would have no Caesar despite wanting to be Caesar.

Still, as Badenoch might put it, “God help us!” Rachel Reeves has got away with it. Mind you, it has been 20 years since a Prime Minister won a General Election even after everyone knew that he had lied this country into a war. The mass movement against that, back to which so very much goes, was not “an unholy alliance”. Until then, Muslims had mostly voted Labour, and not only under Tony Blair.

The Muslim politicians and activists in the anti-war movement were also staunchly left-wing economically, just as none of their social views was beyond the bounds of the Left in those days. Only 10 years ago, MPs who always voted against abortion, as John Smith had always done, and MPs who had voted against same-sex marriage, were among those who nominated Jeremy Corbyn for Leader. Another was a considerable private landlord who had been too left-wing for Blair’s Cabinet. If you treat your tenants well, and as an MP vote for tenants’ rights, then what is wrong with that? Nothing ever used to be.

If this is now a Trotskyist thing, then in 2005, the Socialist Workers Party distributed George Galloway’s expressly anti-abortion leaflet at Bethnal Green and Bow. The SWP forbids both dual membership and internal factions, and it is a ruthless expeller; Leninist organisations sometimes allow and even encourage entryism elsewhere, but not the SWP. It also has some far worse habits than that. Formations of people who had been driven out of it are today demanding that it be allowed to do what it did within Your Party, presumably to protect their own positions. That is quite some cynicism, and I speak as a connoisseur. In Gateshead in 2016, I remember the SWP picketing Corbyn. If you wanted, as an SWP speaker put it today, “collective decision process running through the organisation”, then you would not join the SWP, or you would leave very quickly and never speak of or to it again.

Since George lost his seat, every party with MPs for England, Scotland or Wales has been split on the transgender issue, and Corbyn probably does not agree with the Gaza Four about it, but he clearly respects the legitimacy of their position within the struggle for economic equality and for international peace. Zarah Sultana’s making of that the shibboleth excludes, not only the Workers Party of Britain, but also the Communist Party of Britain and with it the Morning Star, as well as Arthur Scargill’s Socialist Labour Party, which still exists.

It ill behoves those who agree with the MPs who have already left Your Party and with most people on the trans issue to mock them as “Islamists” or as “hardline Muslims”. What will you be called when you are the targets of Eryn Browning, who denounced Adnan Hussain and Iqbal Mohamed from the platform today, having been removed as a Green candidate only in April because Evan Browning had sent inappropriate messages to underage girls? They are coming for you in all the parties that are currently sitting for Great Britain in the House of Commons. And never mind a Sultanaite mass defection to the Greens. Her supporters have already parted company with them, and look why.

As for the Greens themselves, in Brighton they have increased the council’s surplus by the same £60 million that they have cut from services. Across the country, their councillors vote for austerity. Meanwhile, a Portsmouth City Councillor of 30 years’ standing, Jason Fazackarley, who has sat both as a Green and for Labour, has moved from the Liberal Democrats, who had made him Lord Mayor, to Reform UK, following at least one other sitting Lib Dem councillor, Jeff Sumner of Burnley. From Labour to Reform has defected, among at least five others nationwide this year, Councillor Mason Humberstone of Stevenage, who contested internal Labour Party elections on the slate of Morgan McSweeney’s Labour Together. Reform is highly likely to take the parliamentary seat of Stevenage from Labour.

Alongside the steady stream of Boris Johnson veterans into Reform, expect a lot more of this sort of thing, warmly welcomed by Nigel Farage, Richard Tice, and that recent Conservative MP and fairly recent Labour councillor, Lee Anderson. But a tiny number of votes could deny Reform scores of seats, and this weekend has seen the first opinion poll to suggest a hypothetical party led by Rupert Lowe. When polled, its support is 10 per cent, only three per cent behind the tied Conservatives and Lib Dems, and only six per cent behind Labour, which is two points behind the Greens. Imagine the scenes if Labour under Corbyn had ever been in third place behind Farage and the Greens. Or if the Conservative Party under any previous Leader had ever been tied with the Lib Dems for fourth place.

If Your Party rightly opted for a single Leader, then there would be a contest between Corbyn and Sultana. And if Sultana lost, then she would set up her third party in two years. Ask about a hypothetical party led by Sultana. No fat lady will be singing for a long time yet.