Starmer picks up Blair’s baton in the race to the bottom – but there is still hope

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It’s the hope that kills you. I was on a protest in London in support of Palestine in 2015. Police officers took videos of the sinister threat we posed. Men with sniper rifles were scattered across rooftops. Peaceful protesters being targeted by armed men just seemed the way things were going: the only difference was that Israeli snipers pulled the triggers to maim and kill; for the time being the British ones just menaced you.

Amidst the crowd, people canvassed for Jeremy Corbyn to be Labour leader – I took a leaflet without enthusiasm. I had given up on politics. Labour especially turned me off: a faded monolith of spads, spivs and spin doctors. I had less interest in Blair’s ‘has beens’ than in eating discarded chips out of a bin. I had never heard of Corbyn and viewed Labour as a lost cause – I crumpled the leaflet.

But my interest was later piqued as the media were patronisingly aghast that Corbyn was being nominated for the Labour leadership. I swiftly surmised the truth. The coronation of the next Labour robo-spiv needed a token socialist to make the process look less of a stitch up: Corbyn was just frosting. The usual suspects were sure no-one would vote for a hippy peace-activist and Bennite. Here was a relic of a bygone era when Labour used to give a fuck about things. He would never catch on. 

As it became clear that Corbyn was indeed a serious contender, the media frenzy of alarm and condemnation intensified – so I started to listen to him. Then it hit me: the system had made a mistake! Out of all the careerist liars and supine fools they could have chosen – Labour had mistakenly put forward this one good man. I hardly dared to breath. This was real hope.

Corbyn was elected as leader – twice – and Labour led in the polls. He was popular with a younger generation, desperate for some progressive moral leadership and some hope of a better future. The rallies were inspiring. Having a man in politics who actually cared about stuff was exhilarating: I had forgotten what it felt like. 

But it didn’t last. Constantly smeared by the media and relentlessly undermined by his own party, Corbyn was brought down. The 2017 general election was the high point: just a few thousand votes saved the status quo. The establishment regrouped and this rare opportunity for moral progress was squandered over Brexit. A safe new robo-spiv sits atop of Labour; The Guardian et al are cooing with delight and gleefully trashing the legacy of the Corbyn project.

Much more has been lost in these battles than which tribe within Labour has power – or whether the next prime minister wears a red or a blue rosette. Marching in step with the USA, Britain has been in regressive moral decay for decades. Now that Starmer’s cabal have picked up Blair’s baton, that race to the bottom can continue.  

For a political party to facilitate a progressive moral discourse,  you need leaders with some grasp (and interest) in the cause of morality. Such people normally self-select themselves out of politics or are sidelined. Corbyn was a contemporary political anomaly: he was a good person prepared to make a moral argument in public life – a genuine threat to our degenerate normality.

Keir Starmer will use ethical optics when it suits him – but he will not make genuinely moral arguments. This is why he is so hilariously tone deaf about the #BLM movement: for him it is just a ‘moment’ and talk of defunding the police is genuinely baffling to him.

Starmer will say and do whatever the media and his advisors tell him to say. His considerations are tactical and careerist – not vocational. Labour will now avoid genuinely progressive moral arguments and the overall slide of Britain down the developmental spiral will accelerate: the centre ground moving ever further to the right.

Everywhere you now look in public life, new depths are being plumbed. Corruption, naked greed, lying, scapegoating and a venal lack of concern for the suffering of others are all in a day’s work for the current British government. No real push back from Starmer and the New Labour zombies – but why would there be? The reintroduction of morality into politics was the very thing they strained every sinew to resist and defeat. 

I have no idea where the push back comes from or even if it does: Lord only knows how Corbyn endured all the abuse he suffered and his final political fate acts as a most discouraging marker buoy for anyone inspired to follow his example. 

When arguments for socialism and caring social norms are made with passion and conviction, the overall moral discourse is elevated and we have hope; when they aren’t, the altogether easier slide downwards into selfishness and despair begins anew.

Do not imagine that we already know the true depth of Britain’s moral bankruptcy: things can and probably will get worse.

My hope is that amongst the millions inspired by Corbyn, a new moral impetus will emerge: people who won’t tolerate the slide downwards into new injustices and horrors.

Perhaps it isn’t the hope that kills us – rather it keeps us all going. The leaders of tomorrow can foster a new moral dialectic…rather than strangle it at birth.  

Since 2013 I have worked between 4-6 hours a day on this Ad-Free site: trying to give a voice to those without the power or agency to speak out for themselves and uncovering truths that well paid journalists in the corporate media dare not utter.

I am a home schooling parent on a low income – paying for the domain, web hosting and security entirely out of my own pocket.  

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Thank you in solidarity with all our readers. John Lynch, Editor.     

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