This puzzles me. Every day, I'm attacked by people on the Labour left for what they say was my campaign against against Jeremy Corbyn. But it's a fiction. I sometimes expressed frustration and challenged specifics, but was generally supportive. Where is this coming from, and why?
I spent the best part of a year helping to write and edit a report for Corbyn's Labour Party (Land for the Many), and took massive flak from the billionaire press for it. Now I'm taking similar flak from some on the Labour left for being "anti-Corbyn". I genuinely don't get it.
And to those saying (in effect): "you are the Guardian", yes I like the paper. But I'm a contracted freelance with no pass to the building and no involvement other than sending in a column once a week. I do my own thing, and always have.
Reading a small minority of the responders, I think I have the answer. To them, anything other than total, uncritical enthusiasm for JC was treachery. Support was not enough; you had to support him unconditionally. Well, I won’t suspend my critical faculties for anyone.
Nothing in left politics is more offputting than a demand for absolutism: the insistence that you leave your brain at the door. Our engagement should always be thoughtful, critical, based on principle, not blind loyalty. Belonging to a movement does not mean belonging to a herd.
And isn't critical support more persuasive than uncritical support? For example, I was attacked by some fellow remainers for conceding that the Leave argument had some merits. But how are we supposed to reach other people if we insist there's nothing to be discussed?
