Goodbye to all that, Jezza Corbyn

Were the antisemitic smears against Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn real? Hell yes. I just blogged about the disgust of Bomis founder, and creator of this W-thing, Jimmy Wales, pushing them.

But sorry, US pergressuves, while the antisemitic and other smears were real, as was media bias, they weren't the only reasons Corbyn lost. Corbyn refused to take a firm stand either way on #Brexit, whether #Leave or #remain, and refused to accept this was the center of the campaign.

The same was true with Corbyn in 2016, even though the Parliamentary Labour Party and the unions both took a strong #Remain stance. Corbyn only timidly spoke for Remain the last weekend of the #Brexit referendum.

A caucus vote, as I see British parliamentary politics, on an issue like #Brexit, is like a triple-line-whip vote in the Commons. If Corbyn couldn't ardently support #Remain in 2016, he should have stepped down as party leader back then, no matter his desire to reform Labour.

And, this is nothing new from me. I said all this at the time of the referendum. Three and a half years ago, I called him a British Tom Mulcair, and if anybody knows what I thought about Canada's then-New Democratic Party leader, they know that's a slam indeed.

In this way, and not just on #Brexit / #Remain / #Leave, the New Statesman may be half right about Corbyn. Beneath the surface, perhaps he's a trimmer on some issues. Even Just.Another.Politician.™

And, yes, I’m serious. Frankly, I think Corbyn himself has been, and remained, a closet Leaver. In 2016, he said just enough pro-Remain at the end of the campaign to keep from getting turfed as party leader.

But, then, in the 2017 election, and in the just ended election, while he had no problem calling out Tory lies on other issues, he never would  call out — at least not ardently and as a full laundry list — the laundry list of Tory lies about Brexit.

And that would make him Just.Another.Politician.™

In turn, it would make the campaign to defend his conduct as party leader another example of twosiderism. And regular readers of this blog know I loathe that.

I also, to some degree, love seeing it, because it gives me an easy opening to be a deliberate contrarian, at which I’m damned good.

Anyway, it’s already out there. Some Berners are touting this.

Someone who definitely knows better, the allegedly outside the box steno Aaron Maté, is also already pushing this line.

Why not just admit that part — not all, but part, and not a small part — of the problem with Jeremy Corbyn was Jeremy Corbyn, and his stance on Brexit?

Maybe some part of it was Corbyn the campaigner. That said, per Zoe Williams' description of this issue, I think it folds up into Corbyn the closet Leaver. (More here, linked off that article, with some Labour losing candidates in that election calling out leadership, if not Corbyn by name, for "facing two ways" on Brexit.)

There’s one other issue.

In refusing to accept the 2016 PLP vote on Remain, Corbyn comes off as trying to make the parliamentary election system more like the American presidential-focused process.

Just like Corbyn’s Labour BFF stood accused of doing.

Congrats, Jeremy. You’ve finally caught up with Tony Blair on something.

In the nonce, per the title, and Robert Graves, let's see how bitter the parting is.

So, I don't feel sorry for Corbyn as ex-party leader.

I do feel sorry for British Labour, which is now going to have New Labour say that it's right after all, and unionism wondering if it's going to become almost as dead as its American version.

 I feel sorry for the British people, who are now going to be governed for five years by an uncouth elitist-populist toff and yob who will have an ironclad majority to do whatever he wants to the NHS that he and Farange lied about and many other things. I feel doubly sorry because your economy is likely to crap out.

I feel sorry for Scotland, where its Remainers from its independence vote of a few years ago will surely now have buyers' remorse, even as Johnson blocks any attempt at a second referendum.

I feel sorry for Northern Ireland / Ulster, which is going to get royally screwed simply because Johnson will continue to not accept that he can't force the EU to do what the EU doesn't want to do. Since the DUP lost seats, it's weakened anyway, even more so with Johnson in a strong majority, not a coalition.

 

==

 

Four and a half years on from this, Labour is finally in power again, led by Keir Der Starmer, the man who shivved Corbyn. Corbyn's still in parliament, as an independent. And, with the margin of Labour's victory, arguably even more marginalized than he was a month earlier.