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You can find the current article at its original source at https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/feb/22/jeremy-corbyn-blairite-socialists-labour-leadership-party
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| Version 1 | Version 2 |
|---|---|
| Calling everyone who criticises Corbyn ‘Blairite’ is crazy | Calling everyone who criticises Corbyn ‘Blairite’ is crazy |
| (2 months later) | |
| Splitters. Traitors. The People’s Front of Judea. I am quite enjoying the current shenanigans of those people who say they just can’t take it any more. Some are sick of Brexit. Some want a people’s vote. Some are disgusted at the acceptance of antisemitism. Some are probably terrible careerists out only for themselves, though this seems a rather unlikely way to do it. Some may be people you want to go to the pub with. Some you would cross over the street to avoid. I couldn’t possibly comment. | Splitters. Traitors. The People’s Front of Judea. I am quite enjoying the current shenanigans of those people who say they just can’t take it any more. Some are sick of Brexit. Some want a people’s vote. Some are disgusted at the acceptance of antisemitism. Some are probably terrible careerists out only for themselves, though this seems a rather unlikely way to do it. Some may be people you want to go to the pub with. Some you would cross over the street to avoid. I couldn’t possibly comment. |
| Never mind. Some probably just look at their own their leaders and wonder what they have to lose. Jeremy Corbyn, nonchalant about George Galloway being readmitted. Galloway! Oh why not? Degsy Hatton lasted all of two days in the in, out, shake it all about Labour party where you can say nasty things about Jews to some of the people just some of the time. As usual, none of this matters if you utter the magic word “neoliberalism” every other sentence. | Never mind. Some probably just look at their own their leaders and wonder what they have to lose. Jeremy Corbyn, nonchalant about George Galloway being readmitted. Galloway! Oh why not? Degsy Hatton lasted all of two days in the in, out, shake it all about Labour party where you can say nasty things about Jews to some of the people just some of the time. As usual, none of this matters if you utter the magic word “neoliberalism” every other sentence. |
| An ideology of political purity is what produced the ERG and equally those who are still fighting the miners’ strike | An ideology of political purity is what produced the ERG and equally those who are still fighting the miners’ strike |
| End austerity and create socialism in one country, or a few towns, by bowing down to Corbyn and his inner circle of anachronists. Sit there while women and Jews and Muslims are vilified. Tolerate sexual harassment for the greater good. Plus ça change. | End austerity and create socialism in one country, or a few towns, by bowing down to Corbyn and his inner circle of anachronists. Sit there while women and Jews and Muslims are vilified. Tolerate sexual harassment for the greater good. Plus ça change. |
| Those who thought the 2017 Labour manifesto was impressive – me, actually – also thought it was fairly centralist. A bit of redistribution, nationalisation, making big corporations pay their tax. More funding of the public sector. All fine by me. This seems a Labour type of thing to do, but the dastardly splitters are not leaving because of that, are they? It’s the facilitation of Brexit and bullying and racism made permissible by this leadership that’s behind the resignations. | Those who thought the 2017 Labour manifesto was impressive – me, actually – also thought it was fairly centralist. A bit of redistribution, nationalisation, making big corporations pay their tax. More funding of the public sector. All fine by me. This seems a Labour type of thing to do, but the dastardly splitters are not leaving because of that, are they? It’s the facilitation of Brexit and bullying and racism made permissible by this leadership that’s behind the resignations. |
| Leadership is really crucial here. Theresa May, because she is some sort of catatonic obsessive, is not seen as the dangerous, reckless, ruthless individual she is. She lies, dissembles and fails to cooperate or listen. Shadow chancellor John McDonnell, meanwhile, has threatened to go round “listening”. Spare me. Luciana Berger MP had been abused in public for more than two years. | Leadership is really crucial here. Theresa May, because she is some sort of catatonic obsessive, is not seen as the dangerous, reckless, ruthless individual she is. She lies, dissembles and fails to cooperate or listen. Shadow chancellor John McDonnell, meanwhile, has threatened to go round “listening”. Spare me. Luciana Berger MP had been abused in public for more than two years. |
| Have they listened to anything since 1976? This world, continually divided still into the “wrong” and “right” side of history, is so stuck. And irrelevant, often. Yes, I am glad Corbers marched against the war in Iraq and supported the miners and was anti-apartheid. So was I. So was everyone I know. Bully for us. It’s 2019. I never voted for Tony Blair, ever. I was part of a Marxism Today one-off mag with a cover picture of a youthful Blair with “WRONG” as the cover-line. Nonetheless, I see that for the majority of Corbyn people, anyone who criticises him is a Blairite. What a stupid mindless binary this is. He went in 2007. | Have they listened to anything since 1976? This world, continually divided still into the “wrong” and “right” side of history, is so stuck. And irrelevant, often. Yes, I am glad Corbers marched against the war in Iraq and supported the miners and was anti-apartheid. So was I. So was everyone I know. Bully for us. It’s 2019. I never voted for Tony Blair, ever. I was part of a Marxism Today one-off mag with a cover picture of a youthful Blair with “WRONG” as the cover-line. Nonetheless, I see that for the majority of Corbyn people, anyone who criticises him is a Blairite. What a stupid mindless binary this is. He went in 2007. |
| This insult is now being used against Jess Phillips MP, as if this were the only way to understand unhappiness with the current Labour leadership. This is moronic. Blairism was failed triangulation. Iraq was a disaster. But the electoral coalition that put Blair into power, that produced successive Labour governments, does have to be understood because it meant talking to the unfaithful outside the party. An ideology of political purity is exactly what produced the ERG and equally those who are still fighting the miners’ strike. The purging of the impure is both politically unwise and personally nasty. | This insult is now being used against Jess Phillips MP, as if this were the only way to understand unhappiness with the current Labour leadership. This is moronic. Blairism was failed triangulation. Iraq was a disaster. But the electoral coalition that put Blair into power, that produced successive Labour governments, does have to be understood because it meant talking to the unfaithful outside the party. An ideology of political purity is exactly what produced the ERG and equally those who are still fighting the miners’ strike. The purging of the impure is both politically unwise and personally nasty. |
| Labour MP Ian Austin quits the party over ‘culture of antisemitism’ | Labour MP Ian Austin quits the party over ‘culture of antisemitism’ |
| Many will look at the new independent group and not be screaming, “What are your polices?”, when they are not yet a party. Why shove them into that mould so quickly? Wait and see how it all shakes down. Party loyalty is a concept that appeals to those already in parties. That is not most of us, and it is overvalued. If deputy leader Tom Watson and shadow Brexit secretary Keir Starmer are wavering then you’ve got to wonder where we are headed. | Many will look at the new independent group and not be screaming, “What are your polices?”, when they are not yet a party. Why shove them into that mould so quickly? Wait and see how it all shakes down. Party loyalty is a concept that appeals to those already in parties. That is not most of us, and it is overvalued. If deputy leader Tom Watson and shadow Brexit secretary Keir Starmer are wavering then you’ve got to wonder where we are headed. |
| The ERG are not loyal, they are wrecking their own party. If we are to have a new way of doing politics, then screaming at people that they are wreckers, Blairites, careerists is not the way forward. | The ERG are not loyal, they are wrecking their own party. If we are to have a new way of doing politics, then screaming at people that they are wreckers, Blairites, careerists is not the way forward. |
| If we are to listen, then let’s do it properly. | If we are to listen, then let’s do it properly. |
| The system is broken. Its default setting is to call anyone who doesn’t back a party line a traitor. But something much more interesting is happening, and to try to stuff it all back into traditional party political straightjackets represents the past, not the future. | The system is broken. Its default setting is to call anyone who doesn’t back a party line a traitor. But something much more interesting is happening, and to try to stuff it all back into traditional party political straightjackets represents the past, not the future. |
| Call it centrist if you like, or recognise something radical when it happens. A lot of us have wanted to vote for “none of the above” for a very long time. If you don’t understand that, you continue to prop up the status quo, which is actually the ultimate definition of centrism. | Call it centrist if you like, or recognise something radical when it happens. A lot of us have wanted to vote for “none of the above” for a very long time. If you don’t understand that, you continue to prop up the status quo, which is actually the ultimate definition of centrism. |
| • Suzanne Moore is a Guardian columnist | • Suzanne Moore is a Guardian columnist |
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