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The twitter-sphere is agog with rumors that if the Judge decides the 130k recent members can vote in the British Labour Party's Leadership election, then a delegation will press Owen Smith to pull out and end the contest. We will see on Monday. My own feeling is that there is probably some truth in this. The leadership election campaign has driven Corbyn out among the people and that is where he is strongest. The turning point was probably the huge crowd in Liverpool. 10k stood in the rain and sang "You'll never walk alone" to him. That song is better known as a soccer song, but it truth it is about solidarity. Not a single one of Corbyn's opponents will ever, ever experience working class solidarity. And they know that in their shriveled, cowardly, slavish hearts. Where to now? The coup against Corbyn has turned into a nightmare for his enemies. I think one can forget any talk of a series of challenges each year. That is not going to happen, because it would mean an annual display of Corbyn's strength. Nor do I think there will be a split. The irony is that Corbyn's enemies represent the past. The Blairites and the Third Way coup plotters were the children of the Thatcher era - the high point of neoliberalism. The Old Right/ Soft Left belonged to the Cold War past and longed to go on Red Hunts. It is significant here that "Lord" Kinnock, when he intervened against Corbyn, did so along the lines of parliamentary road versus the revolutionary road - reform versus revolution. He too was trapped in the Past. Almost alone, Corbyn grasped that times had changed and that the people were yearning for relief from neo-liberalism. Can the British Labour Party be forged into the force that will end the era of neo-liberalism in the UK? Can the millions who have dropped out of politics be brought back into the struggle for a program which promises a better life for all? Richard Seymour is as always very good here. He points out that it will be very difficult. The Labour Party Machine has shown very clearly where it stands. The General Secretary, Iain McNicol and the Deputy Leader Tom Watson inherited the anti-Corbyn coup from the Blairites. Their strategy was to force Corbyn's resignation through a massive parliamentary vote of no confidence. When that failed, they moved to prevent Corbyn standing in the leadership election, and then to try and gerrymander the electorate when they could not keep him off the ballot. In effect, they waged war on their own party. Along the way, they lost the moral high ground totally and irrevocably. For it became apparent, that they were prepared to destroy the Party to prevent the return not of Red Revolution, but of Keynesianism believe it or not. Of course, what they were actually doing was defending the status quo, the ways things are or as Marx put it keeping the world safe for the upper 5k. As a consequence of the coup, the Corbynites now have a narrative and a strategy. The blows that have not broken the backs of the Corbybistas have strengthened them. Now they talk of building the Party up to a million strong membership, and getting it to lead a social justice movement that will sweep the Tories out of power. I have no intention at all, of throwing cold water on this strategy. Far from it, if we look at what happened to Sanders in the US, we can see that by contrast Corbyn has not become the play thing of the establishment. Indeed, with his roots in British socialism and the memory of working class struggles struggle, he represents a force which will clearly fight for a better post neoliberal world. comradely Gary _________________________________________________________ Full posting guidelines at: http://www.marxmail.org/sub.htm Set your options at: http://lists.csbs.utah.edu/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
