The self-anointed Labour "moderates" are delusional

"Jeremy Corbyn is a left-wing extremist" 
       

"Jeremy Corbyn is unelectable" 

     

"Embracing the 'moderates' is Labour's only hope"

The mainstream media mantras have been set and the gullible are already repeating them as if the simplistic opinions they're rote learned from the pages of some newspaper or some biased TV report represent some kind of incredible political insight all of their own.

The problem is that it's all bullshit. It's a deliberate coordinated effort by the mainstream media and the political establishment (and the billionaires and tax-dodging corporations they both ultimately work for) to undermine a man who they consider to be a threat to their privileges.

Jeremy Corbyn is a threat to them because he has something that they don't. He has a massive groundswell of public support. If registered supporters are included alongside full party members, the Labour Party now has over half a million members. No UK political party has had half a million supporters since the 1970s. Labour have gained more new members in the last 8 months than the Tory party have in total!

It's astonishing that the Labour Party is continuing to grow and grow despite the endless misrepresentations and character assassinations in the mainstream media, despite the outrageous propaganda attacks by the government, despite the endless parade of failed, disgraced and unpopular Blairite's (the self-anointed "moderates") running to tell their bitter sob stories about Jeremy Corbyn to the media instead of actually criticising any of the malicious and incompetent behaviour of the Tory government.

The self-anointed "moderates" want the public to believe that the only option for the Labour Party is to ditch Jeremy Corbyn and get back to selling exactly the same toxic right-wing economic policies as the Tories, but to sweeten the vile concoction with a few dollops of pseudo-socialist populism.

In reality the self-annointed Labour "moderates" are nothing of the sort. They're not "moderates" because they want to ape the economic policies of the most radically right-wing Tory government ever. They want to offer a continuation of the Thatcherite economic agenda.The only real difference they have with the Tories is not ideological, it's that they want people in red ties to be running the neoliberal show, not people in blue ties.

The so-called Labour "moderates" are terrified of offering any truly radical or progressive policies to the electorate because of their fear that the right-wing dominated media will attack them for it. But they simply don't seem to understand that the right-wing press will attack them anyway, so it's better to offer policies that people actually want, and that might actually make things better, rather than just offering Tory-lite corporate-friendly policies in the pathetic hope that the likes of Rupert Murdoch, Jonathan Harmsworth, Richard Desmond and the Barclay brothers will give Labour a fair hearing (which they definitely won't).

The only way that the absolute domination of the right-wing press can be overcome is by force of numbers, and so far Jeremy Corbyn has been doing well at increasing the Labour support base. There's obviously a long way to go, and many outrageous smears from the right-wing press to come, but to my mind the only Labour Party worth voting for would be one with bold, radical, progressive policies. A Labour Party inspired by Clement Attlee's post-WWII government, not a so-called "moderate" Labour Party offering Tory-lite policies in the vain hope of resurrecting the decomposing corpse of Blairism. 

One of the most obvious problems with the so-called "moderates" and their Tory-lite political strategy is that it failed so spectacularly in the 2015 General Election. Not only did Labour's appallingly uninspiring austerity-lite agenda fail to beat the Tories at their own game, it even allowed the most malicious and incompetent government in living memory to actually strengthen their position to form a majority government!

Another factor to consider is that the Labour Party has already had this debate years ago (see image). Back in the 1930s the genuine Labour Party were trying to rebuild themselves after Ramsay MacDonald's treachery in splitting the Labour Party and then using his rump of so-called "moderate" MPs to lead a majority Tory government.

In the end the "moderates" fell completely out of favour and the Labour Party swept back into power in 1945 to set about implementing the most radical and progressive programme of reforms of the entire 20th Century. In just a few years they founded the NHS, improved pensions, built hundreds of thousands of decent houses, rebuilt the nation's shattered post-WWII infrastructure, introduced Legal Aid, created full employment and built the welfare state. Despite all of this investment the national debt actually fell even more as a percentage of GDP in five years than George Osborne has increased it by in the last five years!

The progressive reforms carried out by the radical post-WWII Labour government laid the foundations for the longest period of economic stability, debt reduction and increased prosperity (across all sectors of society) in British history. It's only when Margaret Thatcher came to power in 1979 that the achievements of Attlee's radical government came under sustained attack.

Astonishingly after almost four decades of Thatcherite assault elements of Attlee's reforms still survive, but for how long it's hard to say. Perhaps the next big economic crisis will be just the excuse the Tories are looking for to abolish the NHS and scrap what remains of the welfare state? Or perhaps it will allow a progressive Labour Party to sweep back into power to make all the changes that the Blairites abjectly failed to make during their 13 long years in power?
 

 Another Angry Voice  is a "Pay As You Feel" website. You can have access to all of my work for free, or you can choose to make a small donation to help me keep writing. The choice is entirely yours.

MORE ARTICLES FROM
 ANOTHER ANGRY VOICE 
                 
Austerity is a con
                                       
Jeremy Corbyn: The more they attack him, the stronger he becomes
                
The Blairite attacks on Jeremy Corbyn
                         
George Osborne has created more debt than every Labour government in history combined
                        
How Ed Balls' austerity-lite agenda ruined Labour's election chances
           
Anti-austerity = Epic Win / Austerity-lite = Massive Fail
                     
How the Lib-Dems were just as compassionless as the Tories

                                
Margaret Thatcher's toxic neoliberal legacies