I mean, I have to say it’s absolutely fascinating watching people who know better try and compare Starmer’s donkey field story with, for example, a story about laying a wreath for the men who planned the Munich attacks.
These two men are not the same.
These two men are not the same.
By this point in Corbyn’s leadership we already had antisemitism & foreign policy stories about his past on every tabloid newspaper on a near weekly basis. The Right Wing press can’t do to Starmer what they did to Corbyn because unlike Starmer, Corbyn provided years of ammunition
His supporters aren’t being forced to condemn their man’s past, ignore it, deny it, or defend the indefensible. Those were the only options available in the Corbyn era. The Starmer era is instead filled with universal laughter at the Mail on Sunday’s attempt at a takedown.
Here’s the thing though, they’d be struggling trying to do this with Rebecca Long-Bailey too. This whole charade is still happening because many of Corbyn’s supporters won’t ever be able admit what a uniquely terrible candidate for the job he was.
Corbyn and the Labour left can be given credit for moving the party away from austerity, but the cost for that policy realignment was a candidate who damaged Labour’s electoral credibility and moral standing.
What’s also fascinating is how for years the Labour Left weren’t obsessed with control of the party & purges, they had one major goal, to move the discussion of the party leftwards. They not only succeeded in that discussion, they moved the party decidedly leftwards economically.
However, that taste of power has realigned the Labour Left’s priorities again, and all their gains are falling apart as hard left factionalism disintegrates their coalition, a coalition that was ultimately built on the politics of personality, not ideas.
The problem for the Labour Left is no longer the viability of their ideas, it’s their lack of credible leaders and their loss of a coherent strategy. Now that the conversation has finally moved leftwards, they are out of ideas.
If the Labour Left of 2014 could have a word with the Labour Left of 2020, maybe the 2020 people might realise they already accomplished their biggest goal. But that perspective is probably lost forever.
