Was the plan to force a split in the Labour Party all along?
The Labour NEC has made the decision that Jeremy Corbyn will be on the ballot for another leadership election. This makes the challenge by Eagle a farce and a waste of time. It is less than unlikely that any outcome other than a second decisive vote for Corbyn will be the result of the vote. Eagle and the rest of the right wing PLP MPs will be beaten by the membership of their own party.
But that was probably always an outcome they considered. There’s a good chance her backers — and those driving the attack on Corbyn from within the party — suspected it would end like this. They must have a plan B. This isn’t the England football team.
That plan, I fear, is to split the party. They would prefer a split party than a party that offers real hope. That said, however, it is clear that the party is ripe for splitting. What, after all, is the point of an opposition party who, for the most part, supports the actions of a government set to become even more reactionary? How does a party present policies that promise greater equality, economic justice, increased standards of living — for the many, not merely the few — and a functioning National Health Service when many of its MPs act to sabotage that message and those policies?
Perhaps a Labour Party closer to its roots and proud to include the word socialism as one of its aims is worth having again. Those on the right of the party can, as once before, drift into some alliance with a centre party who looks to the right and the fading lights of neoliberal policies and pretends they are not Tories.
Better a split than a Corbyn loss and the result: a party bankrupted morally and, quite possibly, financially as members leave in their many thousands and unions begin to cancel their affiliations.
Unity at any cost is more likely to see the endless enactment of policies that drive us closer to serfdom and the destruction of the planet. These are dangerous times and there is a need for clear aims and distinct policies.
As we saw with Blair and New Labour; when the mainstream media — and Murdoch in particular — support you, it is evident that you are no longer acting in the interest of the people you are meant to serve.
