The overt neoliberalism of so many Labour MPs.
Many Labour MPs wouldn’t know socialism if it slapped them in the face.
It has once again over recent weeks become painstakingly obvious how overtly rightwing so many Labour MPs are. We all know that a substantial chunk of the parliamentary Labour Party were opposed to very mild pillars of social democracy as proposed by Jeremy Corbyn in his two manifestos, but it is worth taking another look at just how rightwing some of these people truly are. Not only are they to the right of the general public, they’re probably to the right of some Liberal Democrats and maybe the odd Tory MP.
How has this come to be? We all know it was Tony Blair. The New Labour years saw a class of briefcase Labourites with no connection to working class communities storm into parliament and take over the apparatus of the party, all with the sworn goal of eliminating or hiding anything about Labour that was Labourish, so as to appeal to soft Tory voters. Well, that paid off for them in the 1990s, but now, it has tremendously backfired, with a class at the top of the party that despise its actual voters and supporters, and who base everything they do and say off of an imaginary a set of fictitious swing voters that don’t actually exist.
A couple of example from the past week to really show the moral degradation of a party that, while always a part of the British state, once had a proud tradition of socialism which it wasn’t embarrassed by the the existence of.
We of course have to give an honourable mention to Emma Lowell-Buck, the Labour MP for South Shields, for essentially doing a post promoting a local casino, saying “Thanks to the team @AdmiralSlots on King Street today for a great visit. Pleased to hear about how gambling safely and responsibly is an absolute priority for the staff. Regulars often pop in to socialise and have a cuppa ☕️ 🎰”. When challenged on this she had no comprehension fo why this could possibly be an un-Labour thing to do.
Casinos and betting outlets in general make a fortune out of the bets of very often poorer people, and get these people in and coming back with the offer of a space where there are cheap or free refreshments, essentially exploiting people’s addictions. Of course there are people who gamble who do so responsibly and everything is fine with that, there’s no snobbery from me about that, enjoy yourself! But the issue here is that a Labour MP should ABSOLUTELY NOT be promoting these places and somewhere to go and get a cuppa, absolutely not, especially when we all know the damage these sorts of places have caused to working class people, and when the big item on the agenda regarding gambling right now is reining in the power of these exploiters, not giving them Twitter promotion.
We all make mistakes, but the lack of comprehension for what was wrong with this shows that Labour Party really has taken a long step back from defending working class people or taking on any form of institutional power in British society. It is a party of shills.
Next we have the case of Apsana Begum MP, a Muslim woman who has faced a torrent of smear and abuse, and faced a court case, all because of the actions of an abusive ex partner. Surely for the Labour leadership an offer of solidarity in the wake of her being cleared and breaking into tears in the dock would be a no brainer from a supposedly progressive leader, but no, not a peep. Indeed, in the wake of this, none of the usual suspects who usually speak up when they see rightwing Labour women facing (absolutely horrible) abuse have said a thing about this happening to their colleague. Same with Diane Abbott previously of course. Wonder why that might be?
Indeed, right now we have a Labour leadership who will only stand up for minorities when those minorities swear their support. If a Muslim MP is facing abuse, they don’t deserve solidarity because they aren’t of the same wing of the party. If a black woman MP faces more abuse than anyone else in parliament, it’s something to mock and deride. If Muslim voters abandon Labour as they abandoned Muslim voters, they become reactionaries unworthy of Labour’s support. This sort of politics is absolutely repugnant to me and makes me so glad to have left the cesspit of a political party that Labour has become.
And finally, last but certainly not least, we have Chris Bryant’s comments. An indigenous trade unionist won the election in Peru by offering an alternative to neoliberalism, standing up to a literal fascist and emerging victorious amongst dog whistles and smears out of a 16 strong crowd of candidates. It was a victory for the international left, and a Labour MP can’t see a distinction between a literal fascist and the working class trade unionist.
Chris Bryant’s attitude on foreign policy is indistinguishable from what you often hear coming out of the US State Department, and in many ways goes a step further. That’s the norm among his colleagues, and one of the central reasons they were all so opposed to Jeremy Corbyn. It should go without saying no party that has beliefs like this central within it should call itself a Labour Party.
Labour is in a death spiral and has abandoned any progressive positions on the issues of the day. Why would we want a Labour government when it would be filled with idiots like these?