Cometh The Hour ... Hilary Benn's speech in favour of bombing the Islamic State brought the House of Commons to its feet. Finally, the Blairites have someone to replace Jeremy Corbyn.
IT HAS BEEN HAILED as one of the best speeches delivered to
the House of Commons in 50 years. Having urged his fellow MPs to support the
Prime Minister’s motion in favour of bombing Syria, the Shadow Foreign
Secretary, Hilary Benn, resumed his seat to resounding cheers from both sides
of the aisle. The Labour Leader, Jeremy Corbyn, his face a picture of both
puzzlement and exasperation, did not join in the applause. No one from the
Labour Party, himself included, had managed to deliver so passionate a speech
on behalf of peace.
The emotion missing from Corbyn’s countenance was fear. It
speaks well of the man that Benn’s noisy standing ovation did not frighten him.
Someone more steeped in the realities of politics would have heard, behind the
cheering of the Commons, the dull rattle of the tumbril. He should have known
that his opponents weren’t just applauding the impassioned speech of a
bellicose social imperialist, they were applauding the fact that, at last, they
had found the person to replace the despised Member for Islington North.
It’s been the biggest problem of the Blairites all along
that among their ranks there was no one who could hold a candle to Corbyn. When
set against the sincerity and plain-spokenness of the front-runner, the bland
contributions of the other three leadership contenders came across as utterly
unconvincing. Liz Kendall, the candidate most closely associated with the
Blairite rump, attracted just 5 percent support from the party membership.
What’s more, in the aftermath of the membership’s resounding endorsement of
Corbyn, the Labour Right’s petulant refusal to accept that Blairism had been
rejected only added to the new leader’s lustre.
Yes, Labour’s parliamentarians had the advantage of a
sympathetic press. United in their disdain for Corbyn the journalists and
columnists of the allegedly “left-wing” newspapers – The Guardian, The
Observer, and The New Statesman – never missed a chance to tell
their readers that Labour could not hope to win with Corbyn at the helm. But,
increasingly, the left-wing media’s hostility was being written off by the
Labour rank-and-file as yet further proof that the whole “mainstream” political
establishment was rotten to the core.
What they needed was a challenger untainted by all the
petulance and back-stabbing; someone who cleaved to his or her principles with
the same sincerity and passion as Corbyn himself. Someone who had served time
in the trade union movement. Someone unafraid to summon-up the ghosts of the
men and women of the International Brigade who died fighting Franco’s fascists
in Spain. Someone who was a teetotaller and a vegetarian. Someone who never
fiddled his parliamentary expenses claims,. Someone whose father was, for more
than 50 years, one of the towering figures of the Labour Left. Someone, in
short, called Hilary Benn.
That Benn the Younger had made a point of telling his
constituents that he was “a Benn – not a Bennite”, and had been an enthusiastic
supporter of Tony Blair’s “New Labour” from Day One, serving in the Cabinets of
both Blair and Gordon Brown, well, that only made it all the more delicious.
Not that the Blairites will be celebrating too loudly. The
more intelligent among them understand that Corbyn has shoved “Overton’s
Window” decisively to the left. Indeed, when History assesses the (now almost
certainly brief) leadership of Corbyn, breaking the neoliberal stranglehold on
the British Labour Party will be cited as his greatest achievement. If Benn
wants to be Prime Minister he will have to run on a clear anti-austerity
platform and to offer the voters policies that are recognisably
social-democratic in tone, content and purpose.
But if Paris, as Henry of Navarre is said to have quipped
“is worth a mass”, Number 10 Downing Street is worth the renationalisation of
British railways and a sharply more progressive tax system. Hilary Benn has
only to signal to Labour’s rank-and-file that Corbyn’s vision (minus the
pacifism and all that baggage from the 1980s) is safe in his hands, and the
incumbent’s already difficult position will become impossible.
As the Andrew Finney character (played by Ian McShane) says
in the TV series Ray Donovan: “If you see a man getting ready to take on
the world – bet on the world.” After weeks of relentless media and political
assault (not least from his own side) even Corbyn’s staunchest supporters know,
deep in their hearts, that the British Establishment is never going to allow
their hero to become Prime Minister. One way or the other, Corbyn is going to
be driven from the Labour Leadership.
But the United Kingdom is an old and devious state, and both
its public and not-so-public protectors know that if they are seen to have
taken out one Labour Leader, then it is not in their interest to be seen
putting too many restrictions on his replacement. In return for Trident, the
“Special Relationship” with the USA, and a light hand when it comes to
reforming the financial system (i.e. The City of London), the Left will be
given their moment in the sun. The protectors of Britain’s Deep State
understand that the Westminster System requires two parties of more-or-less
equal strength if it’s to go on working. Allow that myth to fail, and who knows
what the long-suffering British people might replace it with?
The King is dead (or soon will be). Long live the King!
This essay was posted
on The Daily Blog and Bowalley
Road on Saturday, 5 December 2015.
