So he is not immortal after all? The part of the Labour party that supports Jeremy Corbyn is edging out of its fantasy that Corbyn will lead them to a great victory in 2020.
We now know from a secret recording of Jon Lansman, founder of Momentum, that they grass roots organisation is privately preparing for an early election and to put someone in place who can continue Corbyn’s exemplary work of plummeting in popularity among every age group in every area. This is some sort of progress. Of course, not Progress, that Blairite organisation, but at least they are reaching the point everyone else did long ago. Corbyn has not grown into leadership, only in incompetence.
The issue then becomes about whether the left of the party can maintain control and change the rules to get one of its candidates on the next leadership ballot paper. This is a battle about who owns the soul of the Labour party.
Lansman told a meeting of Momentum supporters that he wanted to get their activists in key positions to ensure the correct Corbyn succession. He also outlined a plan whereby the union Unite affiliates to Momentum via Len McCluskey’s re-election as Unite leader.
Deputy Labour leader Tom Watson, who has long been warning of “entryism” , says this all amounts to “a hard Left plan to control the Labour party”. Now the secret takeover by Momentum of the Labour party is not so secret. Watson and Lansman have taken to talking to each other on Twitter like battling superheroes trying to save Planet Earth: Watson to Lansman. “You’ve revealed your plan. If you succeed you will destroy the Labour party as an electoral force. So you have to be stopped.” Lansman reply: “For 20 years, the Left was denied a voice. We will deny a voice to no one. We face big challenges and we need our mass membership to win again”. Guys?
Let battle commence. Does anyone inside Labour have any idea how ludicrous this all looks? Momentum is a mixed bag. It has been sparky and certainly got some of its people to canvas in the recent byelections but asking people to pay their union subs to it? How is this even in McCluskey’s gift? The idea of these guys sitting around and divvying up the future of the Labour party by taking for granted the loyalty of Unite members is deeply suspect. Giving the left a voice is more important than winning elections clearly. So the left of the party may well be manoeuvring into position. Actual polices on corporate greed, bank profits, renationalisation all play well but not when they come out of the mouths of Corbyn and his cronies. The Left can choose to see that or not. Labour is not trusted to run the country.
The party can tear itself apart after its loses an election or it can do it now. Perhaps it has to be now as the current paralysis cannot go on. The insanity of a leader unsupported by his MPs, falling desperately in the polls, inert over Brexit, has the party simply waiting to lose for the reckoning to begin. If a general election is called in May — although 10, Downing Street has attempted to quell these rumours by ruling it out — then it will be sooner rather than later.
But it’s already begun. Corbyn supporters may well be right to talk of a “democratic deficit” within the structures of the Labour party, but the bigger democratic deficit of not having a functioning opposition is the one everyone feels right now. It turns out Corbyn and his team are on an away day today. Very far away from where they need to be.
— Guardian News and Media Limited
Suzanne Moore is an award-winning columnist for the Guardian.
