The rattling of the machine coming apart in the wake of Brexit may be having some positive effects on Brit politics. Consider this report in WaPo of defections from Labour Party ranks, the current opposition and home to Party Leader Jeremy Corbyn, who wants to return to the 1950s, when government controlled much of industry, and a man accused of anti-Semitism – an accusation of which I have no idea as to its truthfulness.
At a morning news conference, Parliament member Luciana Berger said she had become “embarrassed” and “ashamed” of the Labour Party, which she said was “institutionally anti-Semitic.” Berger, who is Jewish, added she was leaving behind a culture of “bullying, bigotry and intimidation.”
Chris Leslie, another breakaway lawmaker, said the party had been “hijacked by the machine politics of the hard left” and that Labour’s “betrayal on Europe was visible for all to see.” While many Labour party members support a second referendum on whether to leave the European Union, Corbyn has been cold to the idea of a do-over. …
“The pursuit of policies that would threaten our national security through hostility to NATO. The refusal to act when needed to help those when facing humanitarian distress, preferring to believe states hostile to our country rather than believing our police and security services — these are all rooted in the Labour leadership’s obsession with a narrow, outdated ideology,” Leslie said.
Corbyn speaks of the gains his party made in the 2017 elections, but this does not absolve the party of the sins of which it’s accused – and past performance is no guarantee of future gains. He apparently dislikes the idea of a do-over referendum, now that the monster is at the shore and ready to wreak disaster on the nation. He may not like the idea of foreign constraints on his activities if he were to gain the position of Prime Minister. But, perhaps most importantly, is how the article ends:
Vince Cable, leader of the Liberal Democrats, a small center-left party, told the BBC he was keen to work with the new group, which he speculated could grow in coming days.
“We shouldn’t forget the Conservatives are also very badly split and there are quite a few of them who no longer see a future in the Conservative Party,” Cable said. “So I think this is the beginning, rather than the end, of something rather important.”
Have the old majority parties crystalized so much that it’s time for them to shatter? This is not unusual, as the power-brokers, often light on principle but heavy on self-involvement, maneuver themselves into a position in which none can resolve problems, and they simply entrench blindly, never envisioning that the way to break the impasse is through destruction of the machine, rather than adjustment. They never imagine a mass movement away from what they purvey.
Keep an eye on those Brits. The breakup of a major political party across the pond may presage similar incidents in our neck of the woods.
