Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it. That, I am afraid, is the Labour Party today. And that is why I say this: told you so. Labour lost the general election because not enough people saw Ed Miliband as a potential prime minister and because Labour was not trusted on the economy. Add security to the pot and Labour, already, is heading for electoral oblivion and, quite conceivably, to extinction.
Labour’s traumatic loss in May should have seen the party look outwards, to find the reasons it lost so badly and how and why it was so far out of touch with the general public. Surely, it was the logical thing to do. Something goes wrong; find out why and do something about it. Labour, instead, looked inward, elected a lifelong rebel from the far left fringes of the party, put its blinkers on and then hoped for the best. And if you hope for the best you often get the worst.
Jeremy Corbyn’s “new politics” was no such thing. It was always a return to the 1980s, the tomfoolery of the disastrous Bennite era and a lurch to the outer reaches of politics. Love him or hate him, no one would seriously suggest that Corbyn was a giant in the political world but the leadership he has brought to the table has so far been pitiable.
For the first time since the 1930s, Labour has a pacifist as its leader. In 1933, the then leader George Lansbury said: “I would close every recruiting station, disband the Army and disarm the Air Force. I would abolish the whole dreadful equipment of war and say to the world: “Do your worst”. Labour metaphorically bombed Lansbury out by 1935 and four years later Hitler was indeed doing his worst. In 1959, architect of the NHS and much loved by the left, Aneurin Bevan, described unilateral nuclear disarmament as follows: “You call that statesmanship? I call it an emotional spasm.” My feeling is that Corbyn’s pacifism is not shared by much of the electorate, especially by those who do remember the past.
Now Corbyn has prevaricated on the issue of a so-called shoot to kill policy. It’s a straightforward enough question: if some terrorist is in your streets, firing off a Kalashnikov, should the police take him out? If your answer to that is not an unequivocal yes, forget about any thoughts of being prime minister. What would you expect an armed police officer to do is faced with the type of carnage we saw in Paris? “Come over for a brief chat? I’m sure we can sort it out over a cuppa.” That is not literally what Corbyn said when he was asked, but he might as well have done.
It took Labour until 1937 – four long years, as Nazi Germany prepared for war – to stop being a pacifist party and instead support armed deterrence, collective security through the League of Nations and bitter opposition to Neville Chamberlain’s policy of appeasement. It is beyond belief that some elements of Labour have forgotten such basic history. Some it seems never understood it at all.
Two months on and it might be argued that I have given up too soon on Corbyn, that I should give the man a chance. Well, I have to give him a chance because he has been elected by Labour Party members and supporters, but that does not mean that I am not concerned that under his lame and directionless leadership the party is on its way to hell in a handcart.
Not only has Corbyn not bothered to learn the lessons from the recent past, he appears to have learned nothing from history in general. The nation’s security comes first in a government’s duty. Any politician who doesn’t get that does not deserve to be in a position of power, or anywhere near it.
