I suspect it’s simplistic to cast those violently
opposed to Corbyn as a Blairite rump, and Corbyn himself as a wishie washie
lefty. For me the key is Owen Smith. He’s been chosen for his ability to sling
combative rhetoric at the party opposite like for like. I guess the theory is
there’s no way a lamb can compete with the slaughterer but this Labour schism
is far too heated to be about mere style, it has to be something far more
visceral: survival. Avowed socialists want their party to be a viable
opposition behind a fierce general, which Corbyn appears not to be. But what if
Corbyn is a first shoot of a different spring? What if the old ways of our
adversarial democracy have become archaic, decrepit and that cloistered highly
politicised MPs are no longer good decision makers? Then again what if the
messianic following of Corbyn might in itself destabilise our whole politics?
Is the Westminster establishment too big to fail? Are we too blinded by
animosity to see the reality behind it, that Corbyn has touched a visceral
nerve of an un-represented decent honesty majority fast becoming another
indigenous population being crushed by global neo-liberalism? Habituality is
the cholesterol of the mind; it thickens the arteries of thinking. The more it
takes hold the more the vital necessary action to renew health becomes
frightening and inconceivable. This is the essence of Labour’s conflict, its first
heart attack. It’s the survival of the social politic.
