{"id":17418,"date":"2021-02-15T13:44:30","date_gmt":"2021-02-15T13:44:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/?p=17418"},"modified":"2022-10-17T10:54:54","modified_gmt":"2022-10-17T10:54:54","slug":"two-reviews-of-books-on-the-corbyn-project","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/2021\/02\/15\/two-reviews-of-books-on-the-corbyn-project\/","title":{"rendered":"Two reviews of books on the Corbyn Project"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tony Greenstein reviews Left out: the inside story of Labour under Corbyn<\/cite>\u00a0by Benjamin Pogrund and Patrick McGuire as well Owen Jones’s This land: the struggle for the left<\/cite>. This article was originally entitled The Collapse of the Corbyn Project.<\/cite><\/h2>\n
\"\"
The UK state – let’s suck it and see<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

There has been a marked reluctance by the Labour left to ask simple questions in the wake of the party\u2019s defeat in the December 2019 general election about where the Corbyn project went wrong. They seem to fear asking the questions even more than they fear the answers.<\/p>\n

Take the Labour Representation Committee, whose president is John McDonnell. On January 12 it held a meeting entitled \u2018Learning the lessons and rebuilding the Labour left\u2019 – admirable objectives. I attended and asked in the chat why the Socialist Campaign Group had not opposed the fake \u2018anti-Semitism\u2019 campaign. I also asked why Laura Pidcock, one of the speakers, instead of defending Chris Williamson, had asked him not to attend meetings of the SCG.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

You will not be surprised to hear that, despite the fact I had put my hand up first, the chair, Bisi Williams, decided to call me last and then announced that, as the meeting had run out of time, I would not be called after all! If the LRC is scared of holding elected Labour representatives to account, then clearly it will not learn many lessons.1<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

Two books have recently appeared which offer different explanations as to why Labour was defeated in the general election. One is by journalists from\u00a0The Times<\/cite>\u00a0and\u00a0The Sunday Times<\/cite>, Benjamin Pogrund and Patrick MacGuire, and the other is from\u00a0The Guardian<\/cite>\u2019s licensed radical, Owen Jones.<\/p>\n

The analysis in both books is not substantively different. Both concentrate on the internal politics and dysfunctional state of \u2018LOTO\u2019 (the leader of the opposition\u2019s office), though Jones lays greater stress on the hostility that Corbyn faced, not least from the feral members of the Parliamentary Labour Party.<\/p>\n

Jones also sets out to correct the narrative that the Corbyn project was solely defeated by sabotage within the Labour Party, coupled with a vicious onslaught from a hostile media. To him the damage was done by internal conflict within the project. What he does not mention is that the campaign against Corbyn was led by his own newspaper,\u00a0The Guardian<\/cite>, and that he had a hand in it. Jones also believes that an additional cause was the failure to deal with anti-Semitism and reach out to Jews who (except for anti-Zionist Jews) had experienced a \u201ccollective trauma from two millennia of persecution\u201d (p6).<\/p>\n

I intend to write a separate article on Jones and \u2018anti-Semitism\u2019, since he played a key part in spreading the idea that Labour had a major problem with it. Jones made a significant contribution to the defeat when he says he had \u201ca period of disillusionment before the general election\u201d (p8). In March 2017 he wrote an article entitled \u2018Jeremy Corbyn says he\u2019s staying. That\u2019s not good enough\u2019.<\/strong>2<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

Strategy<\/h3>\n

Both books detail the treachery of Labour\u2019s deputy leader, Tom Watson, who, when elected, promised to back Corbyn 100%, saying that \u201conly through unity comes the strength we need to fight the Tories\u201d.3<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0It was one more lie from a man who had every quality of a dog – except loyalty.<\/p>\n

Watson was in league with Labour\u2019s staff, \u201cmany of whom craved electoral disaster\u201d (p135). We are told that when Sam Matthews, head of Labour\u2019s governance and legal unit, was forced out, he took hundreds of files and emails with him. On February 27 2019 he met Danny Adilypour, Watson\u2019s closest advisor, to hand them over. The Zionist lobby and Hodge arranged for them to obtain legal representation. It would seem to be a clear breach of data protection legislation. These files were the basis of the BBC\u00a0Panorama<\/cite>\u00a0hatchet job by John Ware, which presented Matthews as a \u201cwhistleblower\u201d.<\/p>\n

It is some measure of Corbyn\u2019s inability to face down his enemies that he recommend peerages for both Watson and Iain McNicol – Labour\u2019s general secretary, who tried to prevent him standing when Owen Smith challenged him for the leadership. Watson was only prevented from becoming Baron Watson by the House of Lords\u2019 Appointment\u2019s Commission because he went along with Carl Beech\u2019s false allegations of child abuse.4<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

Jones lays emphasis on the leaked Labour report on \u2018anti-Semitism\u2019 and the war of attrition waged by Labour\u2019s permanent staff, whereas Pogrund and MacGuire play the issue down – as might be expected from the Murdoch school of journalism. However, Jones draws all the wrong conclusions about the existence of anti-Semitism within Labour.<\/p>\n

Shortly before Labour\u2019s 2019 conference Jon Lansman proposed to the national executive that the deputy leader post should be abolished as a way to get rid of Watson. Although it would have been better for the left to have challenged Watson, it was a reasonable proposal. According to Pogrund and Maguire, Corbyn was the originator, shouting, \u201cI want him out of the shadow cabinet and I want to abolish the deputy role\u201d (Left out<\/cite>\u00a0pp235-37). Yet, when it came to it, Corbyn backed out. It was another example of Corbyn\u2019s spinelessness. Naturally McDonnell, the appeaser, was opposed to this (This land<\/cite>\u00a0pp266-68).<\/p>\n

One of the most remarkable things about the Corbyn leadership was its complete lack of any political strategy. Corbyn was buffeted by the political winds and failed to take the initiative. Within a year he had been subject to a no-confidence vote by Labour MPs, which he lost by 172 votes to 40. It is to his credit that Corbyn refused to be bullied by the PLP into standing down despite, in Diane Abbott\u2019s words, the attempts to \u201cbreak him as a man\u201d\u00a0Left out<\/cite>\u00a0p84). A major reason for his clinging on and forcing Owen Smith to challenge him was the fact that Momentum called a massive 10,000-strong demonstration on Parliament Green.<\/p>\n

Having won against Smith by an even larger majority than when he stood the first time, despite the suspension of thousands of members by McNicol, Corbyn was at the height of his power. At this point he should have called on McNicol to resign. Indeed he should have accepted McNicol\u2019s offer to resign when he was first elected. Even after the near election victory of June 2017 – when, in anticipation of a coup, as both books confirm, McNicol had the passes of Corbyn\u2019s staff to Labour\u2019s head office cancelled – Corbyn failed to call for his dismissal.<\/p>\n

The only political strategy that Corbyn had was that of appeasing the right, yet it should have been obvious that a hard core of at least 50 MPs would never accept Corbyn and in the event that he won the general election they would not have voted for him as prime minister. There had to be a strategy of deselecting these MPs, yet not only did Corbyn fail to embrace such a strategy: he persuaded Len McCluskey to break Unite\u2019s mandate in 2018 and oppose the open selection of parliamentary candidates – a key failure.<\/p>\n

Corbyn had a strategic director in the form of Seamas Milne, the former\u00a0Guardian<\/cite>\u00a0comment editor, who came from the womb of the British establishment. Both books report Milne as someone whose only contribution was to lead Corbyn into Labour\u2019s disastrous Brexit strategy, if one can call it that. On the question of the fake \u2018anti-Semitism\u2019 campaign, Milne had little to contribute or suggest. His failure to devise a strategy and stick to it, instead of firefighting as the latest Zionist attack was mounted, is as incomprehensible now as it was at the time.<\/p>\n

When Corbyn was elected leader, he found the cupboard was bare: LOTO had been stripped of its furniture and computers, and even the keys to the door did not work! Not surprisingly it took some time to get everything in order. However, far from getting their act together, LOTO degenerated into squabbles, personality conflicts, empire building and ego trips. Karie Murphy, who was brought in to sort things out as chief of staff, soon became part of the problem. According to Jones, \u201cOften chaotic, under Murphy\u2019s aegis the atmosphere of the leader\u2019s office had become poisonous\u201d (p271).<\/p>\n

Murphy forced Corbyn to sack the chief whip, Rosie Winton, but who was her replacement? Nick Brown, Gordon Brown\u2019s boot boy, the man who is now demanding an unconditional apology in return for the restoration of the whip to Corbyn. If someone like Ian Lavery had been appointed, he could have removed the whip from a dozen Blairites and saved their constituency parties the need to deselect them. It took Boris Johnson, who dispatched 21 rebels in one go, to demonstrate what effective political management is about.<\/p>\n

Murphy provoked two staff rebellions over her bullying and intimidation, including hounding out Corbyn\u2019s Asian PA, Iram Chamberlain, because she was held guilty over MI5\u2019s refusal to give her a parliamentary pass. Chamberlain attended a meeting at MI5 HQ with Corbyn where she had the audacity to raise the issue of the state\u2019s lack of interest in the far right (as opposed to hounding Muslims). A close friend of hers had been murdered by neo-Nazis. Murphy was incandescent and with Milne\u2019s agreement Chamberlain was forced out (see\u00a0Left out<\/cite>\u00a0p157). Corbyn behaved in a spineless fashion yet again. Murphy, just like any traditional employer, regularly attacked female staff for not dressing \u2018appropriately\u2019.<\/p>\n

In August 2019, as the days of the Corbyn project were drawing to a close, several staff submitted a grievance against Murphy. The outcome was that Murphy was effectively sacked and forced to work at Labour Party HQ with a new glorified title. But, as was so often the case, Corbyn could not bring himself to do the deed.<\/p>\n

It was not just an accident of fate that allowed Corbyn to get the necessary nominations for the leadership contest, but also the result of mass pressure – I know because my 13-year-old son was one of the thousands furiously lobbying MPs! Corbyn became leader as a result of a spontaneous insurgency and rebellion against the Labour right. But unfortunately he failed to live up to the task of facing down the right – not that you would know it from these two books.<\/p>\n

For example, he was accused of supporting \u201cterrorism\u201d by calling Hamas and Hezbollah speakers his \u201cfriends\u201d in an interview before being elected. Instead of getting angry and defensive (and later apologising), he should have stuck to what he had previously said: Hamas and Hezbollah are not terrorists. They are the victims of terrorism, the offspring of massive Israeli violence. If terrorism means anything, then it is Israeli state violence which falls into that category. The problem is that Corbyn bought into an acceptance of the British state and with that comes its own definition of terrorism – which, of course, excludes the actions of any imperialist state.<\/p>\n

\u2018Anti-Semitism\u2019<\/h3>\n

Even the title of the chapter in\u00a0Left out<\/cite>\u00a0about anti-Semitism, \u2018For the many, not the Jew\u2019 (which adorned Zionist placards at the March 2018 demonstration outside the House of Commons) is anti-Semitic, because it assumes that all Jews are part of \u2018the few\u2019 (ie, Zionists). But then Zionism and anti-Semitism have always been Siamese twins.<\/p>\n

Pogrund and McGuire report how the right believed that Corbyn\u2019s support for anti-imperialism blinded him to anti-Semitism (p99). The idea that anti-imperialists are also racists is only something the press and Labour\u2019s right could seriously believe. For example, Siobhain McDonagh, one of the most stupid of rightwing Labour MPs, believed that, because many capitalists were Jews, anti-capitalism and socialism were anti-Semitic!<\/p>\n

The \u2018anti-Semitism\u2019 campaign was based on disinformation. Pogrund states that for decades the Labour Party had been \u201cthe natural political home of Britain\u2019s Jews\u201d (p320). Utter nonsense. Since the 1960s, with a blip during the Blair years, most British Jews had voted for the Tories. But this kind of nonsense permeates their book.<\/p>\n

Corbyn\u2019s major failure was his inability to understand the nature of the \u2018anti-Semitism\u2019 attacks. He took them personally. For someone who had devoted his life to fighting racism it was the nastiest blow that the Zionists could make. If Corbyn had been a racist then it would not have bothered him.<\/p>\n

One cannot imagine Tom Watson taking offence or losing sleep over accusations of racism. Watson, who was instrumental in the \u2018anti-Semitism\u2019 affair, played the race card himself in the 2004 Hodge Hill by-election, producing a leaflet which declared: \u201cLabour is on your side … the Lib Dems are on the side of failed asylum-seekers.\u201d5<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

Watson declared that he had \u201clost sleep\u201d over \u201cpoor Phil\u201d, when the racist Labour MP, Phil Woolas, was ejected from the House of Commons by the high court for having lied about his opponent during the 2010 general election. Woolas had run a campaign which was explicitly about \u201cmaking the white folk angry\u201d: ie, stirring up racial discord.<\/p>\n

It is inexplicable why Corbyn, who had been involved for 30-plus years in Palestine solidarity work, did not get it that \u2018anti-Semitism\u2019 is the first resort of the Zionists. When Zionists say \u2018anti-Semite\u2019 they mean \u2018anti-Zionist\u2019. But Corbyn became an automaton. He went into a routine of stressing how much he opposed anti-Semitism. This was absurd, as the \u2018anti-Semitism\u2019 that the Zionist Board of Deputies was talking about was hatred of Israeli racism, not hatred of Jews.<\/p>\n

Corbyn took to parroting the line that those who denied that Labour had a problem with anti-Semitism (\u201cdenialists\u201d) were \u201cpart of the problem\u201d – a form of cognitive dissonance. Corbyn did not relate the false allegations of anti-Semitism against him to the fact that other people too were falsely accused of anti-Semitism.<\/p>\n

It should not have been difficult to understand why the charge of \u2018anti-Semite\u2019 is made against opponents of Zionism. Israel finds it difficult to justify the oppression of Palestinians, including the torture and sexual abuse of children, or the demolition of Palestinian homes. It is easier to attack the messenger than the message. This was the context of Corbyn\u2019s failure.<\/p>\n

When the \u2018anti-Semitism\u2019 crisis took on a momentum of its own, Corbyn should have declared that, while, of course, he opposed anti-Semitism,\u00a0at the same time<\/em>\u00a0he opposed those who weaponised anti-Semitism in order to defend Israel. Corbyn should have called out all those Labour MPs, from Ian Austin to Tom Watson, who were so concerned about \u2018anti-Semitism\u2019, yet had failed to oppose the 2014 Immigration Act, which had introduced the \u2018hostile environment\u2019 policy and ushered in the Windrush scandal. Just six Labour MPs voted against the act.<\/p>\n

Corbyn came into the leadership determined to appease the right. No-one seems to have told him that the right could not be appeased. They could be fought, they could be deselected, but you could no more appease Austin or John Woodcock than you could pat a rabid dog on the head and get away unscathed.<\/p>\n

Austin openly declared: \u201cI want to do everything I can to stop [Corbyn] getting into government\u201d (Left out<\/cite>\u00a0p162). Likewise, Mandelson said: \u201cI work every day in some small way to bring an end to his tenure in office\u201d (This land<\/cite>\u00a0p174).<\/p>\n

Of course, there were a few anti-Semites in a party of 600,000, just as there were a few paedophiles. But no-one said that Labour was overrun with paedophiles. It was a wholly contrived controversy.<\/p>\n

IHRA \u2018definition\u2019<\/h3>\n

Anti-Semitism is \u201chostility to or prejudice against Jews\u201d, according to the\u00a0Oxford English Dictionary<\/cite>. Yet Corbyn,\u00a0of his own volition<\/em>, adopted the 38-word IHRA definition of anti-Semitism. In September 2018 Labour\u2019s NEC adopted the 11 examples attached to the IHRA, seven of which refer to Israel. The IHRA \u2018definition\u2019 reads:<\/p>\n

Anti-Semitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of anti-Semitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and\/or their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.6<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

Anti-Semitism is not a \u201cperception\u201d: it is a practice. What else \u201cmay\u201d it be expressed as? This is not a definition, but a ramble. It is difficult to know what went through Corbyn\u2019s mind when he adopted it, but either way he made a rod for his own back. The definition is a model of obfuscation. In the words of professor David Feldman, the IHRA is \u201cbewilderingly imprecise\u201d.7<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

The sole purpose of the IHRA \u2018definition\u2019 was to conflate anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism. When Theresa May adopted it in December 2016, Corbyn felt the need to follow suit. The Labour leader, who had long been friends with Jewish anti-Zionists like Mike Marqusee, must have been aware of the record of the Zionist BoD, which has\u00a0never<\/em>\u00a0fought anti-Semitism. In the 30s it advocated that Jews staying at home during the Battle of Cable Street against Moseley\u2019s fascists. In 1977, when the National Front gained over 100,000 votes during the Greater London Council elections, the BoD chose to attack the\u00a0Anti-Nazi League<\/em>, not the NF. As Maurice Ludmer, editor of the anti-fascist\u00a0Searchlight<\/cite>\u00a0magazine wrote,<\/p>\n

In the face of mounting attacks against the Jewish community both ideologically and physically, we have the amazing sight of the Jewish Board of Deputies launching an attack on the Anti-Nazi League with all the fervour of Kamikaze pilots … It was as though they were watching a time capsule rerun of the 1930s, in the form of a flickering old movie, with a grim determination to repeat every mistake of that era.8<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

It should have been obvious that the Board, which has support for Israel embedded in its constitution, was concerned with anti-Zionism, not anti-Semitism. When Corbyn met the BoD in April 2018 he left \u201cwith one request ringing louder in his ear than any other\u201d (Left out<\/cite>\u00a0p105). It wanted the IHRA \u2018definition\u2019 adopted in full (ie, including the pathetic \u201cexamples\u201d). To Pogrund and MGuire this was \u201crelatively uncontroversial\u201d.<\/p>\n

Yet the same Board said nothing about Boris Johnson\u2019s 2004 novel\u00a0Seventy-two virgins<\/cite>, which depicts Jews as controlling the media; or Jacob Rees-Mogg\u2019s references to the \u201cilluminati\u201d – an anti-Semitic trope.9<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0The Board of Deputies never raised the issue of Tory MEPs being part of the Conservative Reform Group along with anti-Semitic MEPs from Poland, Latvia and Sweden.<\/p>\n

When Labour\u2019s NEC endorsed an anti-Semitism code largely based on the IHRA, the Board threw a fit. It wanted the\u00a0whole<\/em>\u00a0IHRA \u2018definition\u2019 adopted. And, of course, Keir Starmer weighed in to support them (Left out<\/cite>\u00a0p111). Yet, when the chair of the Jewish Labour Movement, Ivor Caplin, met with Jennie Formby, he agreed to Labour\u2019s proposed \u2018anti-Semitism code\u2019 based on an amended form of the IHRA without any objection (Left out<\/cite>\u00a0pp110-11). When the JLM executive heard, its members threw a fit (Caplin was voted off at the following AGM). Why? The answer was supplied by Len McCluskey in an article for\u00a0Huff Post<\/cite>\u00a0headed \u2018Jewish community leaders refuse to take yes for an answer\u2019.10<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

In other words, the Zionist demands were not intended to be met – if they were then new ones would be made. This makes sense if your real objective is removing Corbyn, who initially tried to woo the Zionists. At a hustings with Owen Smith he was asked what he most liked about Israel. Instead of responding ironically that he liked its censorship of the press and the locking up and torture of Palestinian children, he said he admired the separation of powers between Israel\u2019s supreme court and the government. In reality the \u2018neutrality\u2019 of the supreme court is a myth. It has totally disregarded international law and sanctioned the theft of Palestinian land in the West Bank and Gaza. It has never questioned the \u2018security\u2019 arguments that are the favourite excuse for Israeli racism.<\/p>\n

Intellectually Corbyn is lazy. He has never bothered to understand the racist, Jewish-supremacist nature of Zionism. He was simply content to give bland support to Palestinian rights.<\/p>\n

Witch-hunt<\/h3>\n

What was most galling was the way Corbyn was prepared to throw his friends under the bus. There were a whole series of people he betrayed, such as Christine Shawcroft – a leftwing member of the NEC, who was ambushed by Labour staff when she became chair of the disputes committee. Corbyn asked her personally to resign from the NEC. Chris Williamson, loyal to a fault, was suspended on the basis of a speech he gave to Sheffield Momentum, where he not only condemned anti-Semitism, but said that Labour had been \u201ctoo apologetic\u201d over allegations of anti-Semitism. An obvious truth.<\/p>\n

According to Owen Jones, Corbyn stated that he wished Chris Williamson would \u201cshut his fucking mouth\u201d (This land<\/cite>\u00a0p253). When Chris was readmitted by the NEC, there was a petition signed by 150 Labour scabs organised by Watson calling for him to be suspended again. Corbyn \u201cangrily asked his aides why the decision had been made; with his support, Williamson was resuspended two days later\u201d. If this is true, then Corbyn should hang his head in shame.<\/p>\n

By throwing his friends overboard, Corbyn guaranteed his own demise. He introduced \u2018fast track\u2019 expulsions at the 2019 Labour Party conference to deal with \u201cegregious\u201d cases of anti-Semitism. It has been used since then for\u00a0all<\/em>\u00a0cases, including that of Corbyn himself!<\/p>\n

When Labour\u2019s report on the treachery of full-time staff was leaked, I read it very carefully. On p306 it reported:<\/p>\n

Jeremy Corbyn himself and members of his staff team requested to GLU that particular anti-Semitism cases be dealt with. In 2017 LOTO staff chased for action on high-profile anti-Semitism cases, Ken Livingstone, Tony Greenstein, Jackie Walker and Marc Wadsworth, stressing that these cases were of great concern to Jewish stakeholders and that resolving them was essential to \u201crebuilding trust between the Labour Party and the Jewish community\u201d.11<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

Well, we were all expelled (apart from Livingstone, who resigned instead to help Corbyn out). Was \u201ctrust\u201d rebuilt? Of course not. The Zionists just made more demands and Formby and Corbyn rushed to fulfil them. And when they came for Corbyn there was no-one left.<\/p>\n

Jones says that LOTO \u201cwas unhappy with the NCC panel\u2019s decision to suspend Ken Livingstone for another year rather than expel him\u201d. Ken said nothing that could remotely be termed anti-Semitic. Likewise Marc Wadsworth, who introduced Nelson Mandela to the Steve Lawrence campaign. It was sad and shameful. Corbyn brought about his own suspension by bringing Starmer back into the shadow cabinet despite him having walked out in the chicken coup.<\/p>\n

John McDonnell once said of Corbyn that he was his \u201cbest friend\u201d in the Commons (Left out<\/cite>\u00a0p13). That friendship was sorely tried. From being a hard-line IRA supporter, who refused to adopt a budget under Ken Livingstone at the GLC, McDonnell went on to become the appeaser-in-chief.<\/p>\n

When Margaret Hodge accused Corbyn of being a \u201cfucking anti-Semite\u201d, Karie Murphy insisted on disciplinary action and Jennie Formby issued a notice of investigation. If any other member of the Labour Party had spoken in these terms they would have been suspended, if not expelled. Yet McDonnell declared that Hodge had a \u201cgood heart\u201d (This land<\/cite>\u00a0p242). I was expelled for calling Louise Ellman MP a supporter of Israel\u2019s abuse of Palestinian children, which is documented by\u00a0Defence for Children International – Palestine<\/cite>\u00a0and by Unicef.12<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0Yet this tax-avoiding millionaire had a long record as a racist. She had even been praised by the British National Party for her support for a \u2018whites-only\u2019 housing policy.13<\/sup><\/a><\/p>\n

In his determination to appease the right, McDonnell betrayed Corbyn. The Hodge outburst caused \u201cthe most profound breach between Corbyn and McDonnell the Project would ever experience\u201d (Left out<\/cite>\u00a0p115) – Corbyn wanted to see disciplinary action taken against her. According to both books, it led to a complete breakdown between the two for six months.<\/p>\n

McDonnell also spoke out in support of reinstating Alistair Campbell after he admitted voting Lib Dem in the European elections, even though Campbell had been treated no differently from thousands of others for doing so. Yet Campbell and McDonnell had \u201cforged an improbable alliance\u201d (Left out<\/cite>\u00a0pp195, 284). \u201cThe defining difference between the two [was that] McDonnell obsessed over the pursuit of power\u201d (p84), so there was no right-winger that McDonnell would not appease. Not once did he consider that the more he appeased the right, the stronger they became and the less likely he would ever sit in a ministerial limousine.<\/p>\n

When it came to international affairs, McDonnell went out of his way to \u2018prove\u2019 that he was as loyal to the British state as any jingoist. When Corbyn doubted Russian involvement in the Skripal poisoning in Salisbury, McDonnell made his disagreement clear, even going so far as to boycott the Russian radio station, RT. Presumably the BBC, with its support for British imperialism, posed fewer problems.<\/p>\n

McDonnell is said to have been \u201ctearing his hair out\u201d over \u2018anti-Semitism\u2019, saying that Jewish people were \u201creally suffering out there\u201d.14<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0Total drivel – it is black and Muslim people, not British Jews, who were suffering. Yet this man is still president of the LRC.<\/p>\n

Brexit and the end<\/h3>\n

Brexit and its fallout dominate both books. The more that Corbyn and LOTO struggled to come to terms with it, the more intractable the problem became. Labour ended up with a policy which repelled supporters of both \u2018leave\u2019 and \u2018remain\u2019. It was a struggle of Sisyphus. Corbyn bowed to pressure from Starmer and Andrew Fisher, amongst others, to accede to the demand for a second referendum, but it was never clear what the party\u2019s position would be in that referendum.<\/p>\n

McDonnell had bowed down to the right and Alistair Campbell, and had become a remainer without conditions. With McDonnell, Emily Thornberry and Andrew Fisher pushing one way and Milne, Lavery, McCluskey and Murphy pushing the other, Corbyn came to resemble nothing so much as a cork bobbing on the water.<\/p>\n

The problem of Brexit was approached purely from an electoralist calculus. A Marxist approach would have been to ask why so many in the northern working class supported Brexit. The clear and obvious answer was that it was a consequence of deindustrialisation and the succession of working class defeats over the past 30 years, symbolised by the defeat of the miners.<\/p>\n

Those who voted for Brexit were not racists, but they were motivated by the belief that migrant workers were responsible for taking their jobs and undermining their wages and conditions. The fact that there was no basis to these fears made no difference. \u201cTaking back control\u201d for Johnson meant British bosses taking back control from Europe in order that they could lower wages and conditions, as we can now see, with the proposal to abolish the working time directive.<\/p>\n

It pains me to say it, but Tony Blair was right when he said that Corbyn and Labour should have pressed for a referendum\u00a0before<\/em>an election (Left out<\/cite>\u00a0p283). As it is, Johnson, against all expectations, obtained a deal and with it went on to win an election. Johnson had calculated, unlike Theresa May, that Europe – and in particular German capitalism – did not want to see no deal, with all the subsequent disruption. Johnson faced them down and instead it was Burgon and Carden from the left who \u201charried their leader for an election\u201d (Left out<\/cite>\u00a0p291). They were turkeys urging an early Christmas, which is exactly what they got.<\/p>\n

Thanks in no good measure to the \u2018anti-Semitism\u2019 crisis, Corbyn was dubbed in the election campaign as being \u201cweak, indecisive and a flip-flopper\u201d (This land<\/cite>\u00a0p209).<\/p>\n

When Andrew Fisher resigned during the 2019 conference he predicted that Labour would be defeated at the forthcoming election. Internal Labour polls had forecast that the party would do worse than at any time since 1918. By the time of the election the Corbyn project \u201cwas barely a coherent entity\u201d. McDonnell had \u201csowed a corrosive distrust\u201d (Left out<\/cite>\u00a0p359).<\/p>\n

It was no surprise that Keir Starmer became leader. He even had the backing of ex-Momentum supporters like Laura Parker and Paul Mason. As Pogrund says, \u201cKeir Starmer won power by embracing Corbynism rather than repudiating it\u201d (Left out<\/cite>\u00a0p360). It speaks volumes that Starmer\u2019s record as director of public prosecutions and his voting against an inquiry into the Iraq war were not part of the campaign against him.15<\/sup><\/a>\u00a0No sooner had Starmer become leader than he gave Formby her marching orders and installed Tony Blair\u2019s advisor, David Evans, as the new general secretary. It was a marked contrast to Corbyn who had embraced those out to destroy him.<\/p>\n

Part of the problem with the Corbyn project was that he was elected when the class struggle was at its lowest. That meant being honest with workers and telling them that Labour would fight neoliberalism in the EU, but at the same time the proposal to hand back control to British bosses (who, like Dyson, were busy exporting their factories abroad anyway), made no sense. Unfortunately there does not ever seem to have been such a discussion and Corbyn\u2019s strategic adviser, Seamus Milne, was incapable of framing the issue in class terms.<\/p>\n

Owen Jones believes that McDonnell would have been a better leader. I disagree. McDonnell has already shown that he would bow down to the demands of British capitalism. In reality the Labour left is incapable of critiquing the British state – that is why it does not attack Starmer the way that the Labour right attacked Corbyn.<\/p>\n

The problem today is that the left in the Labour Party is incapable of analysing where it went wrong and without that it has no chance of regaining the leadership. That is the truth that Momentum and the LRC are trying to avoid.<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. My subsequent letter to the chair, Matt Wrack, can be viewed at drive.google.com\/file\/d\/1YxhEgpUJzibcL-eJONfjZvqtObohVKwg\/view.<\/li>\n
  2. theguardian.com\/commentisfree\/2017\/mar\/01\/corbyn-staying-not-good-enough.<\/li>\n
  3. bbc.co.uk\/news\/uk-politics-34232388.<\/li>\n
  4. See theguardian.com\/politics\/2019\/oct\/04\/tom-watson-criticised-over-role-in-bungled-vip-abuse-investigation.<\/li>\n
  5. theguardian.com\/politics\/2009\/jun\/02\/tom-watson-step-down-controversies.<\/li>\n
  6. holocaustremembrance.com\/resources\/working-definitions-charters\/working-definition-antisemitism.<\/li>\n
  7. theguardian.com\/commentisfree\/2016\/dec\/28\/britain-definition-antisemitism-british-jews-jewish-people.<\/li>\n
  8. Searchlight<\/em>\u00a0No41, November 1978.<\/li>\n
  9. See ucl.ac.uk\/european-institute\/news\/2019\/sep\/jacob-rees-moggs-alarming-cry-illuminati.<\/li>\n
  10. huffingtonpost.co.uk\/entry\/anti-semitism-labour_uk_5b7573dee4b0df9b093ccbc6. See\u00a0Left out<\/em>\u00a0p123.<\/li>\n
  11. drive.google.com\/file\/d\/1_3t5lLogHN0nsZsuCh_Q0YZ66Yiy8wrP\/view.<\/li>\n
  12. Defence for Children International: dci-palestine.org\/israels_isolation_of_palestinian_child_prisoners_amounts_to_torture; Unicef: unicef.org\/oPt\/UNICEF_oPt_Children_in_Israeli_Military_Detention_Observations_and_Recommendations_-_6_March_2013.pdf.<\/li>\n
  13. theguardian.com\/politics\/2007\/may\/27\/thefarright.communities.<\/li>\n
  14. bbc.co.uk\/news\/uk-politics-45035341.<\/li>\n
  15. See the blog I wrote in February 2019: \u2018Keir Starmer is the candidate that the deep state and the British establishment want you to vote for\u2019: azvsas.blogspot.com\/2020\/02\/keir-starmer-is-candidate-that-deep.html.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    4th February 2021<\/p>\n

    This article was first posted at:- Weekly Worker<\/a>
    \n____________<\/p>\n

    \n

    also see:-<\/p>\n

     <\/p>\n

    THE BRITISH LEFT AND THE UK STATE<\/a> –\u00a0Allan Armstrong, RCN<\/a><\/p>\n

    LABOUR\u2019S HISTORIC DEFEAT IN SCOTLAND – Steve Freeman, RSA<\/a><\/p>\n

    THE CRISIS IN THE LABOUR PARTY – Steve Freeman, RSA<\/a><\/p>\n

    THE LABOUR LEFT ALLIANCE AND ROYAL SOCIALISM \u2013 Steve Freemnm, RSA<\/a><\/p>\n

    FROM ILLUSIONS IN A LEXIT BREXIT TO A DISILLUSIONED LEXIT FROM BREXIT POLITICS – Allan Armstrong , RCN\/<\/a><\/p>\n

    THE IMPACT OF THE DECEMBER 12th GENERAL ELECTION ACROSS THE CONSTITUENT PARTS OF THE UK \u2013 Allan Armstrong, RCN<\/a><\/p>\n

    THE RISE OF NATIONAL POPULISM AND REACTIONARY UNIONISM IN THE RUN UP TO THE DECEMBER 12th GENERAL ELECTION<\/a><\/p>\n

    THE CONTINUED RISE OF RIGHT POPULISM AND REACTIONARY UNIONISM\u00a0IN THE LEAD-UP TO THE DECEMBER 12th GENERAL ELECTION \u2013 Allan Armstrong<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    Tony Greenstein reviews Left out: the inside story of Labour under Corbyn\u00a0by Benjamin Pogrund and Patrick McGuire as well Owen Jones’s This land: the struggle for the left. This article was originally entitled The Collapse of the Corbyn Project. There has been a marked reluctance by the Labour left to ask simple questions in the…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1873,1854,1862,1878],"tags":[4558],"class_list":["post-17418","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-against-unionism","category-the-left-crisis","category-ideology-and-religion","category-england-against-unionism","tag-author-tony-greenstein"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"views":1328,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17418","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17418"}],"version-history":[{"count":13,"href":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17418\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22410,"href":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17418\/revisions\/22410"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17418"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17418"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/republicancommunist.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17418"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}