Devoid of
agility, charisma and credibility, Corbyn has led Labour into the abyss
Polly
Toynbee
Yes, the
manifesto was magnificent. But Corbyn has allowed his party to be riven by
sectarianism, antisemitism and Brexit
Fri 13 Dec
2019 07.51 GMTLast modified on Fri 13 Dec 2019 09.18 GMT
‘Once it
was plain in every poll and focus group that Corbynism was electoral arsenic,
they should have propelled him out.
The
nightmare has happened. The worst of men is elected prime minister. The hardest
of times lie ahead. Unfit in every way for any kind of office, Boris Johnson
takes up the reins of absolute power bestowed on any leader with such a
majority.
This blow
has fallen on a country ravaged by a decade of decay in the public realm and a
stagnant economy. We have become an embarrassment abroad. Brexit was the wicked
weapon Johnson used to dethrone his last two leaders in order to lever himself
into their place. Reckless in everything but personal ambition, he has trapped
us into the worst Brexit imaginable, withdrawn from the EU next month and out
with a disaster of a “deal” next year.
Five
crucial years will be lost in the fight against the climate crisis. In search
of deals, he will bend to every interest, every lobby, every fossil fuel and
fracking pusher, hiding behind his empty 2050 zero emissions pledge. The
shriveling of every service is cemented into his budget plans: enough to stop
outright NHS collapse, not enough to get schools or police back to 2010 levels,
and everything else destined for never-ending decline. Expect no sudden change
of heartlessness. We Cassandras have wrung our hands and howled out loud
warning of rising poverty, homelessness, collapsing legal and social care
systems, living standards in reverse. Yet people voted for all this woe.
Who is to
blame? There are the lies of the extreme Tory press, echoing around all media –
but Labour always faces that injustice. It is the rough sea that any leader
must try to navigate. Unabashed by the valiant Full Fact and other
fact-checking organisations, Johnson found he can repeat a lie a thousand times
with utter impunity, no one to stop him except the people – and they have
preferred the lie.
They are
not deceived: they call him untrustworthy. Anyone listening hears his plans for
revenge on all who thwarted him: he will dilute the powers of the supreme court
for defying him. He threatens Channel 4 and the BBC with malevolent “reviews”.
Beware any civil servant or regulator who gets in his way, as he curtails the
right to judicial review and threatens to “update” the Human Rights Act. The
pound surges as City folk fear paying higher tax more than they fear a bad
Brexit crippling the entire economy.
Given the
worst choice in history, the public preferred him to his opponent. How bad did
Labour have to be to let this sociopathic, narcissistic, glutton for power beat
them? That’s the soul-searching question every Labour member, office-holder and
MP has to ask.
Labour was
disastrously, catastrophically bad, an agony to behold. A coterie of Corbynites
cared more about gripping power within the party than saving the country by
winning the election. The national executive committee, a slate of nodding
Corbynite place-persons, disgraced the party with its sectarian decisions. Once
it was plain in every poll and focus group that Corbynism was electoral
arsenic, they should have propelled him out, but electoral victory was
secondary.
Should we
laugh or cry at Corbyn’s announcement that he wouldn’t stand for another
election? He should have gone before dawn. Any possible or impossible successor
will clear out that Len McCluskey clique – Karie Murphy, Seumas Milne, Andrew
Murray and others who propped up the old fellow to secure their own power base
– with results worse than Michael Foot. Watch them try to divert blame onto
“Corbyn-disloyalists”, remainers and ”Blairites”.
Corbyn is
not an amoral man. He can never tell a lie: pretending to watch the Queen’s
Christmas message in the morning showed he’s not used to fibbing. He is a man
without any qualities required of a leader, mental agility, articulacy,
strategy, good humour or charisma.
Yet his
legacy is of historic importance: he did this country profound,
nation-splitting, irreparable harm. Had he led his party and the unions full
tilt against Brexit, the narrowly lost referendum could have been won. But he
and his cabal refused outright: when beseeched, they said they were too busy with
May’s local elections. He wouldn’t share any remain platform. Festering Bennite
1970s ideologies blinded his sect from seeing Brexit was the far right’s weapon
of buccaneering destruction. He could have saved us – but he obfuscated.
Corbyn came
weighted with baggage too heavy for a Hercules to shift: the IRA, the Hamas
friends, Venezuela. But antisemitism was accusation he could not shift. I am
certain he sees no stain of it in himself, refusing to comprehend it, and so
could not apologise. Failure to purge every case left candidates on the
doorstep dumbstruck when anyone said “I can’t vote for an antisemite”. And
remember that early refusal to sing the national anthem? Voters’ first
impression was his deep-seated aversion to expressing patriotism.
The
campaign was chaotic, all front-bench talent banished for fear of outshining
the leader. Toe-curlingly bad performers and insignificants were punted up as
loyalists, while serious heavyweights Keir Starmer and Emily Thornberry might
as well have been shut in Johnson’s freezer. Even John McDonnell, better by far
than Corbyn, was largely kept from the cameras. Corbyn’s sectarian grudges
prevented any effort to heal the party’s rift, leaving immense talent wasted on
the back benches.
Here’s the
real tragedy. The manifesto was essentially magnificent. The vision was of a
country freed from years of darkness with green investment, growth in places
that most need it, salving the many wounds of marrow-deep cuts, restoring pride
in the public sphere and hope in a future that was absolutely affordable. Why
should we not tax and spend the same as similar north European countries? But
if socialism is the language of priorities, these were lost in a profusion of
never-ending promises too easily mocked. The political landscape was never
prepared, soil untilled, last-minute policies falling on stony ground. Where
was the simple five-point pledge card?
Credibility
is everything and Corbyn lacked it like no other. Without credibility all was
lost. Think on it, every Labour member. It will be a long, long road up from
such a fall. There will be days to consider hope: today is for confronting
reality.
• Polly
Toynbee is a Guardian columnist
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