It’s all over. In fact, it was over before it ever really began. I knew it, you knew it, and even many of the poor fish who voted for Jeremy Corbyn knew it. And now everyone knows, as Morrissey put it, That Joke Isn’t Funny Anymore.
The Labour party, it should now be obvious to everyone, no longer exists as a functional political organisation. Order has disintegrated and it’s every man – and woman – for themselves. Save what you can while you can because things are going to get worse – a lot worse – before they get any better. It is a shambles; a once great party reduced to competing rabbles of independent gangs scavenging for whatever meagre comforts they can rescue from the rubble. Love, peace and harmony? Very nice. But maybe in the next world.
All of which is no great surprise. The notion Jeremy Corbyn could ever become Prime Minister was always preposterous. Not in this lifetime; not in this country. Even so, you begin to marvel at the thoroughness with which he is destroying the Labour party.
Not that he lacks for helpers, of course. John McDonnell, Ken Livingstone, Dianne Abbot and Seumas Milne are willing accomplices. Who could have predicted these would prove sub-optimal appointments?
I was going to say that there’s a fresh episode of this tragi-comedy everyday but, actually, they come along more frequently than that. It’s like bingeing on a box set of political incompetence. Mao. The IRA. The 7/7 suicide bombers. Who dares predict what happens next? Nothing is too improbable to be realistic now.
Matters have reached such a state that the leader of the Labour party feels unable to campaign in a by-election in which his party is defending a 15,000 majority won just six months ago. His presence in Oldham – Oldham! – can only make things worse for Labour.
The choosing time approaches for members of his Shadow Cabinet. The ship is sinking and no amount of dogged loyalty to the greater idea of the Labour party can change that. The question is whether they wish to sink with it. On Monday some will surely decide to abandon ship. There is no disgrace in that. On the contrary, dignity and self-respect leave them with little else to do.
Corbyn himself will not go. Nor can he change course. He is who he is. He is who he has always been. Inverting the usual rules of politics, the more unpopular he is the more that demonstrates he must be right. The path of righteousness is not for everyone and it is no surprise that many, even most, of the parliamentary Labour party aren’t up to the job. They, like the British people, are part of the problem. They must be replaced.
It is hard to think of precedents for this nonsense. The Labour party is currently in the business of making Ukip seem respectable and adult. But that is what is happening as the Labour party is taken over by cranks.
Cranks undersells it, actually. A fringe party can accommodate eccentricity but Labour is supposed to be a serious party of the kind that could plausibly form a government. That Labour party no longer exists.
Granted, it is by no means obvious that there is a winning alternative to Corbyn. But his leadership is achieving the impossible: it makes you pine for Andy Burnham. Andy Burnham! Think on that.
Loyalty is all very well and good but what happens when there’s nothing left to be loyal to? That’s where Labour is now. Members of the Shadow Cabinet who disagree with Corbyn have a choice: do they stay or do they go? If they stay then they should be aware they’re acting as accomplices to this nonsense. If they leave they can at least say, with some measure of honesty, that they gave Jeremy a chance but loyalty to the idea – and future – of the Labour party as a functioning political party demanded their resignation.
Because it can’t go on like this. Anyone who thinks Corbyn can recover from this is fooling themselves. The public reaches a verdict on party leaders very quickly and it is rare that judgement changes very much. The British people knew, deep down, that Ed Miliband wasn’t up to being Prime Minister (a sentiment confirmed by the manner in which, with lip-petted, he scuttled from the leadership of his party) and they know Jeremy Corbyn isn’t either.
Things won’t get better. They will get worse. Stop Me If You Think You’ve Heard This One Before but there is no escaping this. Oblivion awaits.
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