The Splintering of the Labour Party

I've developed a screen aversion of late. Mostly I would say it is due to work. Work is a seemingly never ending source of misery. But my screen aversion also tracks back to nauseating news -- a lunatic rudderless Russophobia, threats emanating from the United States as Syria readies its offensive to reclaim Idlib Province from Al Qaeda control, the ongoing campaign to censor social media and the robust effort to tar Jeremy Corbyn as an anti-Semite.

Corbyn is a threat to the listing neoliberal "New World Order" because the Labour Party which he leads will likely form the next UK government once a crash-out Brexit becomes a reality. Before that can happen, the Blairite wing of Labour is making sure that the party will split.

Paul Mitchell writes this morning in "Momentum’s Jon Lansman aids witch-hunt against Corbyn, joins Blairites at Jewish Labour Movement event" that

[T]he former welfare minister, Frank Field, quit the Labour group at Westminster complaining of the “tolerance” of anti-Semitism and “culture of nastiness” under Corbyn. Rather than forcing a by-election, as is usual, Field arrogantly declared he would continue as an independent Labour MP.

In 2010, Field accepted Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron’s invitation to act as “Poverty Tsar” in the Tory-Liberal Democrat coalition that was overseeing vicious austerity. He has described former Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher as a “hero”, commenting that he would see “Mrs. T from time to time”, during the time she was in office. His decision to quit the Labour group came after he had suffered a “no confidence” motion by his own Birkenhead constituency Labour party, in response to his voting with the Tory government on Brexit, preventing its potentially damaging defeat.

The Observer’s Andrew Rawnsley commented that more resignations by the right-wing are on the way and that, “One of the challenges for this group over the summer of Labour ferment has been persuading some of their number to wait rather than resign immediately.” He reports that one associate of Mike Gapes, the Labour MP for Ilford South, who says he has been “agonising daily” over whether to quit, stating, “A lot of the summer has been about holding the gang together and stopping people splitting off, one by one. We’re all trying to stay in formation until the right moment.”

A front-page article in the Sunday Times, owned by billionaire oligarch Rupert Murdoch and which has played a central role in the manufactured anti-Semitism campaign, was headlined, “Labour Rebel MPs plot breakaway party and ‘no confidence’ vote.”

It reported that a group of Blairite MPs “ plan a no-confidence vote to give MPs a way of expressing their disgust at Corbyn’s handling of the affair in the hope that it will embolden others to join a breakaway.” It added, “Fury at Corbyn’s approach to anti-Semitism has pushed up to 15 MPs to the brink of a breakaway from Labour...”

Craig Murray cogently sums up the situation -- either Corbyn and the majority of Labour's rank'n'file membership is ousted or conservation Blairite MPs split off:

There are only two ways to resolve this. Either the MPs will have to leave parliament or the members will have to leave the party. There is no coherent party at present.

The Blairite Labour MPs have painted themselves into a corner by their decision to brand Jeremy Corbyn as personally a racist and an anti-semite. If I was in a party led by a racist and anti-semite, I would leave the party. The idea that they can continue as members of parliament for the party while expressing such views about the leader is a nonsense. But they do not wish to leave, because they would lose their comfy jobs. All of the right wing Labour MPs realise they would never win an election on their own account, without Labour Party support. It would be hilarious if not so serious, that they claim Frank Field can resign the Labour whip but this does not mean leave the party, and that he must still be the Labour Party candidate at the next election!

Their hope is twofold. Firstly, that the charges of anti-semitism against Corbyn will be widely believed and lead to a drastic drop in public support which will force Corbyn out. This is not happening. The public realise that the charges of anti-semitism are false and based on a definition of the word which simply means critic of Israel. Other than the normal polling malaise which follows any split in a party, there is no drastic plunge in support for Labour of the kind which would definitely follow if the public thought the party were led by an anti-semite.

To put it another way, either 40% of the public are anti-semites, or the public do not take these accusations seriously.

The Blairites other hope is that, by the Labour Party adopting the IHRA’s malicious definition of anti-semitism as embracing criticism of Israel, they will manage through legal action to force Jeremy Corbyn’s expulsion from the Labour Party. This attempt to use the British Establishment to circumvent party democracy is extraordinary.

By bringing things to this pitch, the Blairites have made compromise impossible. Either Corbyn and most of the members will have to go, or the Blairite MPs will.