THE BIG ISSUE The Big Issue - 11 January 2016

WorldMags.net BRENDAN O’NEILL The commentariat are so shrill I’m backing Corbyn T hose Blairites have some McCarthyite-like bitching about Corbyn over the reshule, claiming Corbyn is “very brass neck, don’t they? from the right, the media and sections of top-down”. Blair-backing journalists Freaked out by the ascen- his own party. Consider his recent resh- accuse Corbyn of having his own Praetorian dancy of Jeremy Corbyn to ule, or the Revenge Reshule as everyone Guard – Momentum – which uses “water- the top of Labour, they called it. The way some talked about front machismo” to protect their “Caesar”. whisper to the media about Corbyn’s shifting of shadow ministers, Can these people hear themselves? how cliquish, vindictive and top-down the you’d be forgiven for thinking it was a rerun It’s hard to think of anyone less macho, or Corbynistas are, and what a horrible of the Night of the Long Knives. Apparently Caesar-like, than Corbyn. What’s more, spin doctor they have in Seumas Milne Corbyn was driven by “vengeance”. one of the main reasons many Labourites (former Guardian columnist). Which is a Actually, rearranging one’s party staf became ticked off with New Labour bit like Gordon Ramsay complaining about is a perfectly normal thing to do and always was precisely because of its own “very people swearing. involves leaders shunting aside people they top-down” style (think of Alastair For the folks around Tony Blair in the dislike or disagree with. It’s called politics, Campbell barking at everyone to toe the late 1990s and early 2000s, as he turned guys. In the event, all Corbyn did was Blairite line) and its severe cliquishness. Labour from a political party for working sack two people – Europe minister Pat Have we forgotten the Shakespearean people into a shiny PR machine for McFadden and culture minister Michael skullduggery of the aeons-long Blair- middle-class professionals, were Dugher – and move Maria Eagle. It’s hardly Brown spat? The factional heavies who world-beaters at the very tactics they now the Red Wedding of Game of Thrones, is leaked against their internal opponents? accuse the Corbyn camp of using. If the it? Shadow minister Kevan Jones resigned Corbyn is positively open-minded in Corbynistas really are sharpening comparison with that old stuff. The worst thing about the their knives for what many call an anti-Corbyn crybabies sitting anti-Blairite purge, then maybe they learnt a trick or two from the mopey-faced beneath their framed Blairites themselves. The New pictures of Blair and wishing it could Labour wing of the party is being be 1997 forever is their contempt for done in by a political style of its Labour democracy. Some anti- own making. Corbyn columnists have called for There are so many dispiriting ministers to stab him in the back: things about the current corroded depose him, “save Labour”. From state of Labour. For me, personally, whom? Its own members, it seems. the worst thing is that I’ve found They voted fairly and convincingly myself defending Corbyn, of whom for Corbyn just ﬁve months ago. I’ve never been a fan, because the The anti-Corbyn crybabies would other side, the bitter Blairite politi- kill their party’s democracy in order cos and columnists, are so much to save the party – like extracting a worse. To give you a sense of how little Jeremy Corbyn kept Hilary Benn onside as shadow foreign secretary man’s soul but allowing him to live on I care for Corbyn’s politics, get this: as a zombiﬁed body. when I was 16, and started to think of myself What we have is not a Labour civil war as a leftie, I went to hear some people speak but rather the historic collapse of the out against the First Gulf War. One of them party being played out publicly. There’s one was Corbyn. And I remember my friend question none of them can answer, and that and I saying to each other: “Not this old is: what is Labour for in a largely post-class, guy.” That was 1990. post-industrial era, when many of its We were being unfair, since Corbyn former voters have abandoned it? would only have been 41 then – my age now! Terriﬁed of confronting that existential – and he’d only been in parliament seven stickler, instead party factions just ﬁght, years. But, to my mind, he always gave of in the process making worse the very crisis a vibe of tiredness, lacking daring. So I was their ﬁghting is designed to disguise. far from excited when he was elected Labour leader last September. But since Brendan O’Neill is a columnist for The Big Issue. He is the editor of Spiked. then my Corbynphobia has taken second @spikedonline place to my growing concern over the “Anti-Corbyn crybabies would kill their party’s democracy in order to save Labour – allowing it to live on in a zombiﬁed body” THE BIG ISSUE / p15 / January 11-17 2016 WorldMags.net

THE BIG ISSUE The Big Issue - 11 January 2016 | Page 15