Corbyn is now coming under unprecedented
attack from the establishment – mainstream media and the BBC, the right-wing
and Blairites within his own Labour party – and now what some would see as the
actual ‘hard left’ are also being encouraged to attack him.
Over the past couple of weeks, aside from
the ongoing and wholly ridiculous guilt by association (or by being in the
same room as, mentioning in the same paragraph as, friending etc. etc.) idea, I’ve
seen:
- · Stop the War is pro-war and pro-Putin;
- · apologising for the wholly legal and fully justified Iraq War is a direct insult to veterans and their families;
- · Corbyn grew up in a big house;
- · Corbyn’s son is called Quentin;
- · Corbyn as PM would lead to the destruction of the country, him being evacuated by the UN and an annoyance to President Trump;
- · Corbyn supports women-only train carriages to get the Muslim vote
- · Corbyn would give state secrets to our enemies
- · Corbyn is a threat to national security
As I write this, teams of unpaid interns in
basements in ‘Fleet Street’, BBC Broadcasting House and Labour HQ (oh, and Louise
Mensch) will be continuing to pore over thousands of hours of video and reams
of documents to find the latest ‘Corbyn ate my hamster’ story.
The latest one to be ‘broken’ was the
Corbyn / Bin Laden smear, something so bizarre and ridiculous it falls into
self-parody before you even pass the headline. Also with this one was the
seeming gleeful acceptance by the Anyone But Corbynistas (ABCs) that to argue
against what Corbyn actually said meant that you support the principle of
extra-judicial killing by executive order. Not a problem for Pres. Obomber and
his drone kill-list, but perhaps something that should be giving Labour party
members a moment of pause. Not even Boris agrees with that principle.
Aside from the usual suspects in these
attacks, what we’re seeing increasingly over the past week or so is the use of
‘left-wing’ spokespeople, such as James Bloodworth of Left Foot Forward. Over issues like Ukraine and ISIL, because
the propaganda narrative on these issues is so widely accepted, these are easy
hits to divide the left. But surely these attacks are wasted now – if the idea
is to divide the left against Corbyn, wouldn’t they be better used at a general
election? Unless of course, the idea is to completely split the party. Every time one of these stories is created, Labour MP clowns like Simon Danczuk jump on it - exactly what the Tory press really want.
But it does look like Corbyn will walk into
the Labour leadership, and the establishment are absolutely terrified. The
first political leader to challenge the status quo in a generation, with Labour
core support flocking to his banner. Corbyn has managed to capture the mood
right now – a political will that is spreading across the continent and can
even be seen in the US.
What some commentators can’t understand is
that their best efforts at attack and smear seem only to strengthen the resolve
of the Corbynites. But this isn’t because Corbyn is hero-worshipped or
because the movement is a crazed UKIP-style personality cult – it is because
the movement is bigger than one man. It is about principle and belief, about
hope in the face of political movements that have only provided hopelessness.
The media are attacking Corbyn the man – not the socialist policies he
subscribes to. They have the wrong target.
