POSTSCRIPT (2)
Post-Election Politics
I
have long believed that what we had come to think of as the three main
political parties – Conservative, Labour and Liberal/Democrat, all had the same
basic policy; to win the next election
by any means possible and, having done so, to hang on to power for as long as
they could. The Lib.Dems knew that they
wouldn’t win outright but hoped they’d have sufficient parliamentary seats to
hold the balance between the Labour and Conservative MPs at Westminster . They wanted to form a coalition with one or
other of the two parties (they really didn’t care which one) and they expected
to get a few cabinet posts and the title (and appropriate salary and perks) of
Deputy Prime Minister for their leader.
But in the General Election it
didn’t happen like that. The
Conservatives (who secured only 35 percent of the votes cast) obtained a small
first-past-the-post overall majority and, as I had forecast, the Lib.Dems. were
all but destroyed. The third party in
today’s House of Commons is not the Lib.Dems. but the Scottish National Party! That's something that I hadn't foreseen!
After
the General Election the leaders of the Lib.Dems, the Labour Party and of UKIP
all resigned. Nick Clegg, Lib.Dem.
leader brought his downfall upon himself by acquiescing to and defending
measures he had, only a week or so earlier, promised to oppose. The opening words of Robert Browning’s ‘Lost
Leader’ come to my mind ‘Just for a
handful of silver he left us, Just for a riband to stick on his coat’. Ed Miliband, Labour Leader, lost the
election not because of anything he had done or failed to do but because of the
daily dose of quite unjustified vilification and denigration launched about him by the right-wing
press. If something appears before your
eyes day after day you begin to feel there must be something in it – even when
there clearly isn’t. What about Nigel
Farage of UKIP? He did resign, but was
back and leading his odd army of Europhobes and crypto-fascists before you
could say ‘Brussels
The Lib-Dems have
chosen their new leader who has, as might have been expected, been denigrated
by the right-wing press. Apparently he
is a fundamentalist evangelical Christian and believes in a literal Heaven and
Hell. Well, that’s no more fanciful than
believing that ‘market forces’ and private enterprise will solve all the
world’s problems. He is, I think,
likely to prove to be a man of his word.
The election
of a new Labour leader is proving much more exciting than had been expected. There appear to be three ‘New Labour’
candidates with proposed policies that are much the same as the Conservatives but
perhaps – depending on what the latest opinion poll says – a little less harsh
on the poor, the unemployed and the disabled.
But now there’s another candidate; Jeremy Corbyn, fighting for the ‘old
Labour’ policies of a fairer distribution of the country’s wealth, an end to
privatisation and unilateral nuclear disarmament. At least one of those who sponsored him said
that she didn’t think for a moment that he would get anywhere but that she felt
the voice of ‘old Labour’ should be heard.
No doubt lack of support for Corbyn was expected to demonstrate beyond
doubt how thoroughly ‘New Labour’ had destroyed the tattered remnants of the ‘old
Labour’ of George Lansbury, Nye Bevan and Michael Foot.
But, once again, it hasn’t happened like that. Jeremy
Corbyn, who seems to be a very likeable, straight-forward chap, and his radical
policies are proving unexpectedly popular, especially with younger Labour
voters. Opinion polls suggest that he could win the leadership election. Hundreds of people who have previously not
bothered to vote, may decide that Jeremy Corbyn offers something different;
something that it’s worth turning out to vote for. I don’t know why everybody should be so
surprised. The democratic socialist policies for which Corbyn stands are much
the same as those held by the Scottish National Party who, you will recall,
made an almost clean sweep of Scotland ’s
New Labour MPs in the recent General Election.
Are the Scots really so different from the rest of we
British?
Needless
to say, prominent has-beens from Labour’s past have been paraded to offer dire
warnings of endless years of opposition for Labour if Corbyn were to be elected
leader. Finally former Prime Minister
Tony Blair gave us his great thoughts on the matter - and probably increased
rather than diminished Jeremy Corbyn’s chances of success.. Anyone, he said, whose heart was inclined
towards old Labour ‘needed a heart
transplant’. That, I think, was bound to infuriate hundreds
of sincere Labour supporters who cherish the memory of the up-hill struggles of
the 19th and 20th Century pioneers of the Labour, Trade
Union and Co-operative movements. 'Though cowards flinch and traitors sneer, We'll keep the Red Flag flying here!'
No-one
could deny that Tony Blair was a great winner of elections. He did so by creating 'New Labour and dragging it far enough to
the right to attract the support o the Murdoch Press. Thousands of Labour Party members who voted
to revoke Clause 4 imagined that they were voting against everything being
nationalised. They were, in fact,
opening the door to the privatisation of every public service.
In
the ten years that New Labour formed our government, the gap between the
wealthy and the poor actually widened, Tory legislation like the Right to Buy
Act which lies at the root of today’s housing problems, remained intact. An unholy friendship between Tony Blair and
the most reactionary American President in living memory, led to an illegal
bloody war in Iraq that has resulted in the ruin of that country, the growth of
terrorism throughout North Africa and in Europe and the USA too, and the
martyrdom of hundreds of Christians in the Middle East, North Africa and the
Indian sub-continent. Tony Blair was
made United Nations Peace envoy to the Middle East . As I have previously said in this blog, that
was like making one of the Kray brothers a Chief Constable.
It
simply isn’t true to claim that a political party can achieve nothing in
opposition. Had Nick Clegg not entered
into coalition with the Conservatives the Lib.Dems. could have retained their
independence – voting for, or at least abstaining from voting against – any
legislation to which they didn’t object and joining with Labour and the small
opposition parties to oppose legislation they found objectionable. Where the
party in government has only a small overall majority this can be very
effective. In this parliament David
Cameron was all set to pass legislation legitimising fox hunting with
hounds. The SNP MPs said they would join
with Labour in opposing this (largely to remind the Conservatives of their
fragile majority) and, to avoid the possibility of humiliating defeat, that
legislation has been put on the back burner.
Had
they adopted that policy the Lib.Dems. could have prevented particularly
objectionable legislation from being passed, and retained their own
integrity. They wouldn’t have been given
any seats in the government and their leader wouldn’t have become ‘Deputy Prime
Minister’ – but they might well have been spared humiliating defeat in the
General Election. ‘This above all, to thine own self be true!’
I
am neither a member nor a supporter of today’s Labour Party. I am a member of and support the Green Party because I
believe that today, care of the environment and countering the effects of
climate change are more important than any other political issue. I think though that if Jeremy Corbyn were to
be elected leader of the Labour Party a great many, perhaps most, Greens would
be delighted that one of the main parties
would be working towards the resolution of at least some of our concerns.
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