Brendan O’Neill Brendan O’Neill

Jeremy Corbyn isn’t destroying Labour: backstabbing is

First things first: there is no force in Heaven or on Earth that could induce me to vote for Jeremy Corbyn and his sad brand of sixth-former state socialism. In fact, as someone who believes in freedom and growth, the idea of ever giving my beloved ballot to the illiberal, eco-miserabilist Labour Party, regardless of who’s leading it, fills me with horror. Or is it mirth? It’s one or the other.

And yet, despite my Corbynphobia, and my humane desire to see dying Labourism put out of its misery, I increasingly find myself shaking my head in something like fury at Corbyn’s Labour critics. They accuse him of destroying their party. Which is both chronologically and factually wrong.

Labour has been destroying itself for years, long before Corbyn became leader, back when he was just every North London media muppet’s favourite teetotal, cigarette-banning secular vicar masquerading as a Marxist. And today, if anyone’s putting the final nail into Labour’s coffin, it’s not Corbyn — it’s his Labour haters, the schemers and Chukas and commentators desperately trying to depose a leader that their party democratically elected barely three months ago.

These people’s sub-Shakespearean skulduggery against Corbyn, their cheap, panto version of the backstabbing of Caesar, will have a far more corrosive impact on Labour in the long run than Corbyn’s airy, forgettable drivel and policy proposals ever could.

One of the most unseemly sights in British politics this year has been the lip-licking glee with which Corbynphobes within Labour have seized the Syria moment over the past week to try to do in their boss.

What should be a serious moral debate about whether or not to bomb Raqqa has been reduced by the likes of Chuka Umunna to an opportunity to elbow aside the Corbynites.

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