Respect 2.0?
It may simply be that things are quiet on the home-news front, but we are beginning to see again, reports that Jeremy Corbyn MP is planning to start his own political party. The reports are said to emanate from ‘friends’ close to Corbyn.
If the reports are true, and there is some contention over this, (Laura Pidcock is described as Corbyn’s collaborator in this and she has denied it), it will be a left-wing alliance of left-wingers and Muslims. This is not the first time that such a Red/Green alliance has been suggested. Hence Respect 2.0.
The problems will be manyfold. Not least will be whether this new party would welcome the likes of the SWP. They might share much in common, politically, but history has shown that the SWP are adept at infiltrating and then taking over organisations.
The last days of Respect also showed that the implicit tension between socially conservative Muslims and socially radical and collectivist Trotskyists would make themselves known eventually. The Islamo-Leftist coalition is unified in its distaste for all things western, but not much else.
For those with a more internationalist interest, the history of the Tudeh Party (Communist Party) in Iran is instructive. They welcomed the Islamic revolution in 1980. Within a few years, the party was banned and its members imprisoned. Before the end of the decade, many of them were dead. In Egypt the Muslim Brotherhood was enlisted to fight Egypt’s secular left. When trades union Gen, Sec., Najim Abd-Jasem was kidnapped and murdered in Iraq, it was by Islamist militia fighters.
There is some doubt as to what Corbyn’s ambition is. He appears to have ruled out a run at Mayor of London in favour of contesting his Islington North seat as an independent, (or at the head of a new party). As we have noted elsewhere, it seems that George Galloway is intent on leading the Left’s assault on City Hall.
The policies of the new party are said to be:
Anti-war. This does not mean that it will be a pacifist party. “Anti-War” does not mean anti-fighting, or even anti-killing. You can kill as many Americans or Jews as you like. In a world that’s divided into oppressor and oppressed, (as defined by the woke-left), the oppressed can kill as many oppressors as they want.
Gaza. The Israel/Palestine issue is a touchstone for the Left. The differences have become stark in recent months between those that want a solution where Jews and Arabs live alongside each other and those who, frankly, don’t.
We should expect to see a raft of old-left policies; increased pay for public sector workers and re-nationalisations, perhaps mixed with some new-left favourites;
Defunding the police, relaxing immigration controls (immigration amnesties?) and abolishing tuition fees.
Corbyn has name recognition. It is not evident whether the student/youth vote which flocked to him in the 2017 election will remain with him.
With Starmer back-tracking on Labour’s environmental promises, it is not beyond the realms of possibility that The Greens might enter an informal pact with the Corbyn party, particularly given the demographics of Islington North.
And what does that mean for us in Newham?
Take a guess.
