A Free Left Blog

I must say I have found it a little strange seeing so many 'moderate' Labour MPs and activists getting angry about anti-Semitism in the party under Jeremy Corbyn's leadership. Where was this anger and upset during two leadership elections which re-elected Corbyn in 2015 and 2016? This sort of stuff is not new. It was well known and covered widely on blogs such as Harry's Place  and Rob Marchant's Centre-Left blog  in 2015. I also wrote about it  on this blog . The right-wing press covered it extensively. Even the Guardian published a piece by James Bloodworth setting out the charge sheet against Corbyn and his many known associations with anti-Semites. But in both elections, as I recall, none of the leadership candidates dared to raise it as a reason not to elect Corbyn as leader. Yvette Cooper, Liz Kendall and Andy Burnham in 2015 and Owen Smith in 2016 instead fought dull, dry campaigns trying to tell the membership what they wanted to hear while talking in...

If the Labour Party elects Jeremy Corbyn as leader as now seems likely, it will deserve everything that follows. I don’t mean that in relation to his support for policies like raising taxes and nationalising the railways and energy companies, though the latter would be fiendishly difficult and very expensive to do (before the government even starts trying to manage them). No, a Corbyn-led Labour Party competing on these and other old Left policies would struggle to win elections, but it wouldn’t bring shame on itself. These are solid left-wing positions with some good rationale and decency behind them, even if they may be unwise. Jeremy Corbyn MP, Labour leadership elecion front-runner Most anti-Corbyn campaigners around Labour have been fighting on this ground, seeking to appeal to Labour members and supporters on the basis that Corbyn is ‘unelectable’, as if that is argument enough. But it isn’t. I don’t blame anyone for being idealistic and seeking to break beyond t...

‘Immigrationism’ is a bit of a clunky, unwieldy word, but it accurately describes an ideology that manages to bring together our big business elite and free market fundamentalists with the far left and the Blairite centre-left: an unusual and powerful political alliance. Even though around 80 per cent of the population stands against it, this motley crew of political factions has enough serious clout to win most political battles in Britain, and indeed it has been conclusively won the political battle over immigration up until now. Sheer weight of public opinion seems to be shifting that situation, though as yet our main political parties seem powerless or resistant when it comes to doing anything to seriously reduce immigration. Currently net migration (immigrants minus emigrants) is adding around 200,000 more people to Britain’s population every year – quite a lot for a crowded island with already stretched infrastructure (transport, housing, schools and hospitals for exam...