Porter’s Pensées

It’s good to see that the Labour Party has agreed to be investigated by an outside and (I hope) neutral body about claims made against it of ‘anti-semitism’: https://www.theguardian.com/news/2019/mar/06/equality-watchdog-could-rule-on-whether-labour-broke-law. I’ve made my views up to now on this whole sorry episode clear: see https://bernardjporter.com/2016/04/28/anti-semitism-and-labour/, and two or three of my subsequent posts. But I’m open-minded about it all, and willing to be corrected on the basis of solid and neutral evidence of anti-semitism in the Labour Party, which has been in astonishingly short supply throughout the course of this dispute.

In any event, the inquiry should put the whole distressing matter to rest; so long as it doesn’t rely on the well-known – and deliberate? – confusion of criticism of Israel’s policies, especially towards those other Semites, the Palestinians, with genuine Judenhetze. In connection with this, the Commission could perhaps take on board today’s ‘long read’ in the Guardian, which is the best – the most forensic and rational – argument on this that I’ve seen. Here it is:  https://www.theguardian.com/news/2019/mar/07/debunking-myth-that-anti-zionism-is-antisemitic. – Game, Set and Match, I think.

It might also take a glance at the Conservatives, whose Islamophobic pockets – if that’s all they are – don’t appear to be so newsworthy; though they’re starting to come into the open now: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/mar/05/tories-suspend-14-members-over-alleged-islamophobia. Perhaps Islamophobia is not regarded as quite so shocking as anti-semitism. Zionists don’t cut people’s heads off, after all.

My PhD research was done under the supervision of the late, dear RE (‘Robbie’) Robinson – DSO, DFC: he’d been a bomber pilot in the War – who first (I think) coined the term ‘free trade imperialism’ to describe Britain’s effective control over countries which weren’t formally administered by her. It was also called ‘informal’ or ‘soft’ power. Argentina in the nineteenth century was one of the prime examples, but there were many others. Later the idea was further extended to describe any relationship between Britain and a formally independent country – economic, cultural, or what have you – which could be seen to be one-sided; to the advantage, that is, of Britain. Eventually the ‘one-sidedness’ dropped out of it. McDonalds (the eateries) were painted as manifestations of ‘American imperialism’: as if their dreadful burgers were forced on us. That I think is when it went too far. But the main point was and still is valid: that a nation can be, at least to an extent, under the effective control of another, without that control’s being registered by means of boundary lines, colours on the map, constitutional convention, or even the claim of ‘sovereignty’.

Which of course brings us on (or back) to Brexit. One of the main arguments made in support of Brexit – and it may have been a genuine motive behind the Brexit vote, more important say than ‘immigration’ or ‘£350 million more a week for the NHS’ – was that it would ‘take back control’ of Britain’s affairs from what some saw as a quasi-colonial dependence on ‘Brussels’: back, that is, into the hands of Britain’s own democracy. Hence the spelled-out name of ‘UKIP’ – the United Kingdom Independence  Party – and Nigel Farage’s reception of the result of the 2016 referendum as marking her ‘Independence Day’: which seemed superficially attractive. (Unlike most countries, including her own ex-colonies, Britain has never had an Independence Day. It’s a serious lack; a bit like not having a birthday.) But of course it also reflected a very superficial idea of ‘independence’, and indeed of ‘sovereignty’: to think that these could be secured merely by cutting one’s country away from its alliances.

We’re beginning to learn now that, in Britain’s case, this is unlikely. Formal ‘independence’, rather than the pooled sovereignty we had with the EU, can only make us less able to make our own decisions, and in that sense less ‘free’. The example which is being highlighted just now is any commercial agreement we are likely to get with the USA, in order to compensate for those lost European ones; which apparently can only be made by subordinating our food standards to hers (‘chlorinated chicken’, and all that). Vulnerability to American competition in the healthcare field is another example. These will, in an important way, make us more reliant on America than we ever were on the European Union. How is that ‘taking back control’?

My second book, The Lion’s Share  (1975), was subtitled A History of British Imperialism, rather than of the British Empire, in order to emphasise the difference between the two things; and to encourage scepticism towards those old maps of the ‘Empire’ which coloured only the formal bits of it in red, thus failing to indicate the true extent of British influence and control in the world. It’s the same error in reverse that leads ‘Leavers’ to place far more emphasis on Britain’s formal situation after Brexit – the idea of ‘sovereignty’ – than it deserves.

But that’s a common failing of most people, and with regard to their view of many other things – ‘democracy’, for example: to confuse the formal with the real. That’s why we need historians, political scientists and other ‘experts’ (sorry, Michael Gove), to delve beneath appearances. Robbie, peace be unto him, showed me that.

The BBC Today programme this morning reported an extraordinary shift in public opinion relating to immigration over the past three years. According to an apparently reputable recent survey, at the time of the Brexit vote only about a quarter of the population thought foreign immigration was on the whole good for Britain; now the figure is nearly two-thirds. (That’s what I heard on the radio; this report on the BBC’s website gives slightly different figures: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-47428515.) There will be many reasons for this. It can’t be a decline in the number of immigrants, which hasn’t happened: the numbers from continental Europe have gone down (who in their right minds would want to come to Brexit Britain?), but that is compensated for by a rise in the number of extra-Europeans coming in. That may be puzzling to Brexiteers who voted that way in order to keep the darkies out. But, hey, that’s the British for you.

The BBC website suggests some other possible reasons. One is that the Brexit debate and its outcome may have focussed people’s attention for the first time on the facts of the matter, and the realities they can perceive around them; away, that is, from the distorted and selective propaganda foisted on them by the likes of the Sun and the Daily Mail. If so, it’s one good thing to have come out of this whole sorry mess; albeit too late, probably, to have any positive effect.

Facts are important, whatever Michael Gove (‘we’ve had too much of experts’) and the other amateur postmodernists say. (It’s ‘experts’ who can establish the ‘facts’. That’s not to say that they always do.) Without facts, people usually form their opinions according to whom they trust. An example of this is the way the debate on alleged anti-semitism in the Labour Party now focuses entirely on what certain people think about it, without a single convincing piece of evidence being produced to attest to the phenomenon itself. In much the same way the current debate on Brexit is almost entirely about the motives of those who would like to reverse it, and the validity or otherwise of the 2016 vote in favour of it – ‘you lost, get over it’ – rather than about the strict merits (or demerits) of the case for Britain’s leaving the EU, as they have been more reliably revealed in the past three years. It’s almost as if the Brexiteers know they no longer have an objective case, and so are falling back on this kind of ad hominem argument, and in particular accusations of ‘treachery’, in order to win regardless. As they probably will.

Much of this arises from a lack of trust. People have become used to being lied to, by governments in particular. This has gotten even more common in recent years, with the elevation of obvious and amoral liars to high positions in government: Trump over the water, of course, and Boris Johnson here in the UK. It wasn’t always thus, incidentally, in periods – like the nineteenth century – when most British politicians prided themselves on their integrity. The public scepticism that this gives rise to is healthy in many ways, and of course is almost the prime quality required of a historian, or any kind of scholar; but only so long as it doesn’t morph into absolute cynicism, which not only mistrusts but also instinctively rejects anything that comes from an authority, or (these days) from an ‘elite’. True scepticism requires one to bear in mind the possibility that something might be true, as well as that it might not be; even, for example, something that is labelled a ‘conspiracy theory’. (People do conspire.) It also requires examining the facts, insofar as that may be possible, in order to determine whether a claim or statement is (or at least is likely to be) true.

The problem here, however, is that most people can’t or don’t bother to do that, but instead fall back on who said whatever it is, and what their feelings or prejudices are about them. If it’s in the Daily Mail, it must be right – or wrong. If it comes from a socialist, it’s probably biased; from a Right-winger, the same. If a Conservative government is saying it, it must be trusted – or not. If Trump claims it – ditto. If it’s on the BBC, like that survey of opinions towards immigrants, it must be reliable, or, alternatively, simply liberal establishment propaganda. It’s a convenient way of short-circuiting the need for proper thought and enquiry. And I suspect it’s what most people do.

Which is why – very incidentally – I’m having doubts now about the practice I adopted a few books ago of prefacing them with brief summaries of my own personal background and what might be loosely termed my ‘ideology’, in order to be honest with readers about where I was ‘coming from’ – or might be. I now think this may have been a mistake, if it leads people to attribute all my historical opinions and judgments to my background. I would vehemently dispute that my ideas are significantly determined by my class, my education, my gender, my nationality, even my politics, or anything else about me; apart from my passion for dispassionate enquiry. To either accept or to reject my writings because of who I am is simply lazy. The same is true on all sides of most of our more public debates.

I rarely travel by first class train, but I thought I’d allow myself the luxury for the last stage of my exhausting journey from Stockholm to Hull on Tuesday. (It was only £10 extra, and you get a free meal.) Who should I find sitting over the aisle from me but John (now Lord) Prescott, former deputy prime minister, and that very rare specimen – a working-class Labour MP – before his elevation. He used to be a merchant seaman, then a TU organiser, before Ruskin College Oxford – that great portal into higher education for the plebs – and on to university. He was one of our local Hull MPs until recently. I always liked him; all the more for the way he was looked down on by the Tory snobs. I won’t tell you what we talked about – it was mostly mutual friends – except to say that he’s clearly on Corbyn’s side in these present Labour wars. Good man. (He’s the one on the left here.)

(Selfies are rather naff, aren’t they?)

Since arriving back I’ve been gathering documentation in support of my application for Swedish citizenship. (Proof of earnings, evidence that I’ve never been a welfare burden on either State, a list of my absences from Sweden over the past 23 years, etc…) I hope to get it done by the time Kajsa arrives to join me in Hull, at the end of next week. And when Erika – my case officer at Migrationsverket – returns from her ‘semester’. – Ski-ing, I presume. Will it count against me than I’ve never got the hang of Swedish cross-country ski-ing? That’s in spite of my being fairly competent at the downhill sort. It’s the boots. They’re too loose at the heel.

I’ll resume regular blogging when all this is done. I’d like to comment on the ‘Labour anti-semitism’ thing, but I’ve done that to death in previous posts. All I can add now is: why can’t Corbyn’s enemies give us just one example? Of genuine anti-semitism in the Labour Party, that is; not of criticism of Israel’s present ultra right-wing government. I’ve not seen a single one.

From all I read (via Facebook) in the British media, it’s Jeremy Corbyn who appears to be ‘the problem’; and behind that, his socialism. Which, truth to tell, is no more ‘extreme’ than was the policy of the Labour Party under Attlee and Wilson, the regime I was brought up under; or the fundamental beliefs of the country I am living in now.

Most of his domestic policies are favoured by a large majority of the British population, according to recent polls. His supposed toleration of ‘antisemitism’ in the Party is based on lies and propaganda, the latter probably Israeli-inspired, and encouraged by flawed and biased reporting in our own media – and not only the billionaire-owned right-wing nasties. (See https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/sep/30/flawed-reporting-on-antisemitism-claims-against-the-labour-party?CMP=share_btn_fb&fbclid=IwAR2-vfNAhfCpwCBusTYeyJsUfeeaxb8fdyHg1a33dmnqKUmnKucY–9dy_w.) His Brexit strategy has always been consistent, and is the only clear one on offer today with any chance of delivering anything close to what we Europhile Remainers want. He is also likely to be far better at delivering it than are May and her crew, as is indicated by this report of his recent unofficial negotiations with European leaders: https://www.itv.com/news/2019-02-21/jeremy-corbyn-pushes-labours-brexit-blueprint-in-brussels/. The ‘deal’ he would come to with Brussels – abandoning May’s ‘red line’ on freedom of movement – would be significantly better for us all than either May’s plan or a ‘no deal’ exit. And if it fails, he’s opened the door to the second referendum that most Remainers want; which is the best hope we have of staying in (or returning to) the EU. Anyone who doubts Corbyn’s ability to represent his country in the world should mark this. Leadership and even ‘strength’ don’t require confrontation, which is what the Brexiteers in Parliament and the press are demanding, but which is counter-productive more often than not. Wisdom, honesty and judgment are far more essential. And Corbyn seems to have these in spades. (See https://bernardjporter.com/2018/12/30/corbyns-way/.) I still think he’s ‘playing a blinder’ (https://bernardjporter.com/2019/02/09/corbyn-the-strategist/). He could be our salvation – if that doesn’t make me sound too much like a naive devotee.

So: why all the animus against him? Is it simply because he doesn’t look the part? A ‘leader’ in the Thatcher or Churchill mould? Or because he is perceived not to come down clearly and firmly on one or the other ‘side’ of the Brexit debate? – Or is it rather because his ‘socialism’ turns people – especially comfortable people – off; although it’s really a very moderate form of socialism, and would be regarded as such here today in Sweden, as it would have been in Britain in the 1960s and ’70s.

One problem may be the dominant image of that latter period that has stuck to it ever since Thatcher got her claws on it, and distorted it out of all recognition. According to this, the ’60s were characterised by industrial decline, strikes, unburied bodies, rubbish littering the streets, high taxes, and loony leftism – which is what Corbyn is associated with particularly. Another reading however could be that this was an age of growing equality, functioning social services, a properly-funded NHS, free higher education, a lively culture (both ‘high’ and ‘popular’), hardly any ‘rough sleepers’, far less serious crime, ‘progress’, general optimism (especially on the Left), mainly clever men in charge, with the Etonians excluded from government, no Piers Morgan, and when Britain did have at least some heavy industry. Corbyn is charged with wanting to return us to that time. I won’t make the obvious retort: that the Tories seem to want to return us to a far more distant past. But if it’s the reputation of the ’60s that is putting people off Jeremy, they should think again. Perhaps we historians could have a role to play here, in rehabilitating his formative period of history (as well as mine).

(For music lovers.) We went to a concert this afternoon in the wonderful Musikaliska concert hall in Stockholm, attracted there (for my part) by a performance of William Walton’s Violin Concerto, which I knew from recordings but had never heard live before. It’s a fine and exciting work, underperformed, I think – certainly in Sweden – but played here superbly well by Alexander Kagan (vln) and the Norlandsoperans Symfoniorkester – a ‘regional’ Swedish band, though you wouldn’t guess it from hearing them. The conductor, to whom of course should go most of the credit for the performance, was one JoAnn [sic] Falletta: one of the new breed of female conductors who are at last beginning to make it in this most male-dominated of worlds. It was glorious.

Flanking the Concerto were two other works. The first was a kind of concert overture, Camelopardalis 9, by another woman, Andrea Tarrodi, a young blonde Swede (sorry for the cliché), which blew us away: pastoral, sonorous, thickly and ingeniously orchestrated, with echoes (but not too many) of Debussy, Stravinsky and Forest Murmurs – utterly moving. I must see if she’s on CD.

The third item was a disappointment to me, shown up I think by the preceding works. It was Stenhammar’s Second Symphony: boring, repetitive, superficial, with no decent tunes or original ideas. But then I’ve never, even after all these years in Sweden, taken to Stenhammar. During the performance I caught myself wondering why he bothered? Kajsa liked the symphony better, but then she’s Swedish, and a better musician than I am; and may be able to hear things in it I can’t.

Sweden has better composers than this – Alven, Larsson, Berwald – but none of the stature of its neighbours’ best: Sibelius, Grieg, Nielsen. I’ve no idea why. Perhaps the Swedes might claim Sibelius as one of their own. He was a Swedish-Finn, after all.

I’ve been out of the UK for two months now – in body, if not in mind. How could I mentally distance myself from all that’s happening there politically just now, even if I wanted to? It’s all the doing of our modern media globalisation, of course, especially the internet – enabling us to keep in touch with everything that’s happening everywhere all the time. I sometimes feel nostalgic for the old days, when travelling abroad meant you could cut yourself off entirely from home. I remember flying back from a fortnight’s ski-ing trip in the Alps with friends about fifty years ago, remarking: ‘Anything could have happened while we’ve been away – a revolution, even.’ And so it turned out. While we’d been sliding down mountains in Obergurgl, Martin Peters had been transferred from West Ham to Spurs. For non-football devotees among you, or at least of that vintage, this seemed the equivalent of Netanyahu going over to Hamas. Nowadays I’d hear of it the very moment it happened. I can get away from Britain, but Britain follows me, via my smartphone. Of course I could switch it off. Kajsa’s always telling me to. But that’s a big ask.

As a historian, I ought to be able to suggest historical parallels for the political defections of the last couple of days, but I can’t. That has nothing to do with my exile. It’s the bi-partisan nature of the new ‘Independent Group’ that differentiates it from most of the great British parliamentary splits of the past: over the Corn Laws in the 1840s, Ireland in the 1880s, imperialism in the 1900s, the nuclear deterrent in the 1970s… and other lesser ones in between. ‘Centre’ parties have generally failed, but we don’t have many precedents that recruited from both sides.

All I can contribute as a historian is the broad view of things that a study of history can give you, which suggests to me that something else is going on here. It’s not just about ‘anti-semitism’ or Corbyn or ‘extremists’ infiltrating both parties, or even Brexit. It’s a result of a more seismic shift in British – and indeed Europe-wide and even American – political society, in which the hitherto accepted verities are being thrown into confusion in a way that can’t be reflected in our traditional political structures. All of these are breaking apart, but along fault-lines that don’t necessarily represent the fundamental causes of the crisis. We can all have our theories about what those causes are. Mine happen to be (neo-?) Marxist. It all has to do with the inevitable self-destruction of late-stage capitalism. But there are other possibilities.

If this is so, then the great ‘Brexit’ debate could be regarded as a mere distraction. I’ve suggested before that this makes sense of Jeremy Corbyn’s strategy: not to allow the issue to distract Labour and the country from the key social and economic transformations – including, most essentially, equality – that are required to bring us (back?) to a measure of national stability and relative contentment. How to do that now? The trouble is that Brexit is a vitally important issue in itself, as well as a distraction. The best that we Labour Remainers can hope for, therefore, is that it is resolved – ideally ditched, but short of that made as ‘soft’ as possible – in such a way as to settle the issue, in order to allow (1) the more fundamental debate to take place; and (b) a Corbynite – preferably still Corbyn-led – Labour government  to lead the country into it.

And we also, incidentally, must tackle the problem of foreign interference in our domestic politics. In these days this means not mainly the Americans or Russians, but the Israelis; whose complicity in measures to ‘take down’ Corbyn – because of his championing of the Palestinian cause – is by now indisputable. (Here’s the latest on this: https://electronicintifada.net/content/watch-film-israel-lobby-didnt-want-you-see/25876?fbclid=IwAR2UcqO7ylm8bMoGpCHriZnzZ6YnRGIHm-KVh94i2x4G4NkMQhcz8gRcl3Y.)  That this is so difficult to say these days without being accused of ‘anti-semitism’ indicates how active and insidious the ‘Israel Lobby’ is. Even Jews can’t say it – and many do – without being called ‘self-hating’. But that’s a familiar controversy.

*

(Personal note.) Next week I’m off back to England. That I’ve been here in Sweden so long this time is because Kajsa broke her wrist falling on the ice about a month ago, and so needs me to help with things (or so I insisted). She’ll follow me shortly. But I need to get back, for my next solid bit of writing. I used to think – to return to my original topic – that the internet would enable me to work just as well here in Sweden, with my laptop; but I’ve found over the last week or so that there’s only so much I can do without my library. Kajsa can wiggle her fingers now, so she should be able to cope on her own for a few days. But I feel guilty about leaving her, all the same.

‘Sledging’ – close fielders throwing insults at batsmen in order to put them off – is one of the most unpleasant things to have entered cricket in recent years. Last week the English captain Joe Root responded to a homophobic piece of sledging by the West Indian bowler Shannon Gabriel – implying he was gay – not by protesting his masculinity, but with the words: ‘Don’t use that as an insult … there’s nothing wrong with being gay.’ What a perfect answer by the young Yorkshireman! He’s been roundly commended for it, and Gabriel fined and banned for a number of matches. I hope the Australians were watching. (They’re usually credited – maybe unfairly – with bringing ‘sledging’ into the game.)

Otherwise it has been good to see the once-great Windies back to their terrifying fast-bowling best. (They beat England two matches to one.) The cricket world needs them.

In the world of politics the sledging still goes on. Currently it mainly consists of ‘anti-semitic’ smears against the Labour Party, which are descending to an even sub-Australian level of ‘low’. What the latest Tory defections will mean for British politics, and for the ‘Brexit’ debate in particular, is unpredictable. If the new ‘centre’ party that might be emerging can put a stop to the swivel-eyed Tories’ ‘hard’ Brexit, or even to Brexit per se, then it might almost be worth the damage being done by the defections on the Labour side. Almost.

Who is to say what will come out of this? It seems more potentially unsettling for British politics as a whole – the party system, perhaps even our voting system (hopefully) – than the old SDP breakaway. The three ex-Tory women I thought spoke well at their press conference; unlike the ex-Labour malcontents yesterday. Poverty and inequality were two of their targets. I didn’t get the impression that they were two of the Gang of Seven’s (now Eight. And tomorrow?)….

OK, I’m coming out of my political depression now; and wondering whether something positive could be made of this terrible thing that’s happening to the Labour Party. If Philip Cassell, commenting on my last blog, is right, it could just be a simple ruse to force Corbyn to resign, to be replaced by someone more ‘electable’. This is unlikely to be one of the Seven, who will be marked for life by their ‘treachery’, and for that reason I agree with Philip that it can’t be seen as a ‘career’ move – unless a very stupid one. None of the ‘Maleficent Seven’ (like it?) appears any more ‘electable’ than Jeremy; most of them are very dull people, virtually unheard of before now, and with nothing but clichés to say for themselves at their press conference yesterday. (John Field’s comment on my last blog is on the ball here.)

So, a new leader would have to come from outside their circle. He or she would need to be someone who goes along with Corbyn’s policies, but doesn’t have his baggage: serial disloyalty to the party, being embarrassingly right about most foreign issues in the past, talking to terrorists, lack of respect for Her Maj, daring to support the Palestinians, shabby dressing, the allotment. There are suitable candidates for the succession. I imagine that the two I suggested in my last blog are beyond the pale for most Labour members; but others have been making a very good public impression by negotiating the Brexit quicksands calmly and intelligently. These include Emily Thornberry, Keir Starmer, Barry Gardiner and John McDonnell – if he’s not seen as too close to Corbyn. (My vote would go to Emily, but partly because she’s a woman, and could show us that women can be leaders in our political world without de-sexing them.) I’d trust – well, half trust – any of them to carry on Jeremy’s good work. On the other hand, I don’t trust the Labour Party membership to see things in this way; which is why Corbyn would need to resign voluntarily first, and anoint one or some of these as his possible successors. We’ll see. It would be unfair on Jeremy, whom I greatly admire (partly because he looks and thinks like me); but at least Labour would escape some of the vitriol heaped on it by the Press if he were to go. He then would go down in history not as a failure, but as the John the Baptist of New-New Labour, preparing the way for the coming of the Lord. And my original prediction, or suggestion, or hope (https://bernardjporter.com/2016/07/12/keep-corbyn-for-now/), would have come to pass. Glory be.

I still think we need to know where the Seven’s financial backing comes from – which their registering in a notorious tax haven won’t make easy. Also, the part played in all this – if any – by Israel; of which Scott Newton tells us (below) two of the seven are ‘Friends’. Just a suspicion; but probably enough for me to be suspected as an ‘anti-semite’ by the likes of Luciana Berger, who gave Labour anti-semitism as her main reason for joining the mutiny. You might not like ‘conspiracy theories’; but if yesterday’s rebellion wasn’t a conspiracy in itself, what was it?

I thought I couldn’t get more depressed about British politics, but this latest breakaway from the Labour Party has plunged me into an even deeper pit of despair. That’s despite the fact that very early on, when Corbyn was surprisingly and almost accidentally elected Leader, I had my doubts over whether he had the charisma to become an effective national campaigner for the kind of democratic socialism he represented, and which chimed in very well with mine (https://bernardjporter.com/2016/07/12/keep-corbyn-for-now/). My hope then was that he would reform, democratise and detoxify the old Blairite party, for someone else then to take over and lead to victory.

Then, however, he proved surprisingly effective as a campaigner in the General Election that May sprang on us, especially among the young, nearly winning it against tremendous odds; and I felt he performed pretty well thereafter in Parliament, albeit in a style that didn’t earn him the plaudits of those who want someone wittier, more aggressive and more – yes – charismatic representing them from the despatch box. Corbyn’s calm integrity, and his deliberate rejection of the politics of personal attack and insult, which I thought should warm people to him, clearly haven’t done him much good with those in the press and among the public who clearly like their politics to be more red-blooded. And then, of course, the picture that was painted of him in the right-wing press, seeing him through the eyes of a highly distorted version of the 1960s and ’70s, when his politics were forged, added to his discomfort. I was hoping that his example might bring in its train not only some new policies (albeit many of them perfectly good ones dusted off from the ’60s), but also a new dawn of political decency and rationality; exactly what, incidentally, I had hoped from Obama too. Then someone else could take over. (I had my eye on Hilary Benn. Or a come-back by Ed Milliband.)

I still think that’s possible; and even if not I’ve accrued more respect for Corbyn as leader now. But the rebellion of these seven Labour MPs, forming a new party (or ‘group’) strongly reminiscent of the ill-fated SDP of the 1970s, has, I feel, turned these hopes to dust. It was the SDP, remember, that helped bring Thatcher to power in 1979, and then, by continuing to undermine the Labour Party, sustained her. It could happen again, with equally unfortunate repercussions. It’s unlikely, surely, to help the Left in the great struggle before us. Surely they’ve thought of that? They must have some knowledge of such recent history?

So why have they done it? Each member of the group has given different reasons. One is the antisemitism that she still insists infects the Labour Party, which I’ve given many reasons to think is a false hare. (See https://bernardjporter.com/2017/12/19/more-anti-semitism/, which connects to my other posts on this too.) Much of the opposition to Corbyn appears to be personal, with the ‘Independents’ disliking precisely those characteristics which warm me and others to him, just as American Republicans do in Obama’s case. Some critics cite bad behaviour in private by his ‘team’, which of course I can’t vouch for or against; but which in any case they should surely learn to rise above. It doesn’t seem to have been over differences of domestic policy – the NHS, railway renationalisation, demarketising schools and universities, and anti-‘austerity’ generally: not that they have stated, anyway; except on the Brexit issue, where I concede that pro-Europeans may have a bone to pick over his caution with regard to a ‘people’s vote’. That pains me too; but I think I’ve given a good explanation for that, and one that holds out the prospect of a new referendum eventually, without provoking violent reaction, in recent posts (e.g. https://bernardjporter.com/2019/02/09/corbyn-the-strategist/). The other issue that they seem to think divides them from him is the ‘nuclear deterrent’ one; which incidentally is the same one that motivated the SDP ‘Gang of Four’ in the ’70s. Corbyn is ‘weak’ on ‘defence and security’. Which is why he was so much against all of Britain’s neo-imperial adventures in recent years. I disagree; but his critics may have a sort of point there.

Issues of defence and war have divided the Left in Britain for over a century. My PhD research featured one such split, affecting both Liberals and Socialists, in the early 1900s. Never have the resultant divisions done any good to anyone on the Left, though the one over ‘imperialism’ did little harm to Labour after 1918. This latest one, however, could do immense damage to the progressive (that is, anti-Neoliberal) cause today – and totally unnecessarily. It’s unlikely to spur a realignment of politics in order to scupper Brexit in time. The rebels would have done better to stay with Labour in the lead-up to it, if it ever comes. Then they could have shown their hand.

In the absence of a really convincing explanation for their rebellion, or rather for the timing of it, one is tempted to look for other motives. Careerism? Over-trust in opinion polls? The hostile press? Israeli money? The Russians? The Americans? – I’m unwilling to go down any of those latter paths; but it might be interesting to explore how many of the rebels are, for example, ‘Labour Friends of Israel’. OK, probably none; which knocks that conspiracy theory on the head.

Anyhow, the Split made the Swedish TV News tonight. So it must be significant.

PS. We’re told that the new group has registered itself not as a political party, but as a commercial company (in Panama); meaning that it doesn’t have to disclose where it’s financed from. Can this be true?