Amateur Hour

Ben Wildsmith

Sticking the boot into right-wing politicians is embarrassingly simple. From the increasingly overt racism of Reform UK to the reflexive nastiness of Kemi Badenoch, or the bumptious populism of Andrew RT Davies, they paint targets on themselves week in, week out and trust that their lavishly bankrolled house media will portray any criticism as abuse.

Simultaneously playing the saviour and the victim, they have transformed UK politics into a poorly scripted tragicomedy. Boris Johnson, Priti Patel, Nigel Farage, Mark Francois, Laura Anne Jones, Liz Truss, Robert Jenrick, Kwasi Kwarteng, Suella Braverman, the list of malevolent clowns goes on.

Carry-On Torying has, of course, transmogrified into Carry-On Race-Baiting, as the worst excesses of American conservatism have infected British discourse.

So, last year’s election result represented a willingness by the electorate to accept anything that didn’t present as mad, bad, or dangerous to know. If the electorate had a message, it was Make it stop.

Against that backdrop, the dithering, ideologically- bereft Keir Starmer seemed like the least-worst option for many. He might be entirely captured by the financial establishment but at least he tries to look sad when plunging people into poverty.

He might have the charisma of a Tunnock’s Teacake, but he’s not preaching Replacement Theory like Bernard Manning with a quiff. He’ll have to do.

His government, however, has ladled up the thinnest of gruel. Whilst managerialism seemed preferable to incipient fascism, this version of Labour has proven unable to make the most fundamental moral choices.

From Starmer’s bumbling endorsement of war crimes in Gaza, to Rachel Reeves’ endless U-turns on benefits policy, the government has revealed itself to have no guiding philosophy, nothing that prickles the back of the neck when it gets something wrong. We have a court backlog. Ok then, let’s cancel jury trials! What’s the problem?

Amorality

The passionless amorality of this HR Department of a government is proving every bit as dangerous as the lunacy it was elected to supplant. In a fluid world situation that holds real dangers for our isolated island, the government has blundered around the Ukraine crisis, demanding relevance when it has none and threatening military commitments everybody knows it can’t afford.

Bismarck’s genius was always to position Germany in an alliance of three amongst five world powers. Having variously incensed Europe, the USA, China, and Russia, our ‘forensic’ PM seems to have, Kaiser-Bill-like, achieved the opposite.

So, that’s the right and the supposed centre of UK politics up the spout for most of us. The challenge to both busted flushes is supposed to come from the organised left of UK politics. There is space a mile wide on the pitch where the case for inclusiveness, social progress, and peaceful solutions to conflicts can be made.

The lack of serious politicians to fill this void has led over the last few years to Brexit, the economic vandalism of Liz Truss, the acceptance of racism as a respectable political position, and the systemic looting of the public sphere by private interests.

Takedown

As all this has gone on, ‘The Left’ has managed nothing more than the pipedream optimism of Jeremy Corbyn’s tenure as Labour leader. The takedown of that project by political nonentities from the Labour right was achieved so easily as to be a disqualifier for anybody involved in guarding against such a predictable outcome. Yet here we are again.

The same characters, apart from, tellingly, John McDonnell, are currently engaged in making a mockery of left-wing politics for a whole new generation via ‘Your Party’.

On the eve of its foundational conference, a slew of members was expelled for being Socialist Workers Party entryists, intent on installing their own people at the top of the party.

Following a series of public spats, splits, and financial shenanigans, the headlines yesterday went to Zarah Sultana MP, who boycotted her own conference in protest against the expulsions. Putative members who belong to local organisations, the Socialist Party, or the Greens were also excluded at the last minute. Those hoping for a loosely governed umbrella organisation found that some animals are, indeed, more equal than others.

Posturing

This farcical, jejune posturing has characterised left-wing politics for my entire adult lifetime. From the miners’ strike onwards, the ordinary people of the UK have been reduced to wheedling for concessions from entrenched interests because those who are charged with demanding fairness are too egotistical and detached from reality to do their jobs.

Neither Plaid Cymru nor the Greens are what the upper echelons of Your Party would describe as socialist. These parties converge on social justice from the traditions of national determination and environmentalism. They are, however, on the pitch, rather than engaged in a decades-long scrap in the coach on the way to the ground.

In the electoral battles to come, both Plaid and the Greens have established appealing spokespeople whilst demonstrating sufficient discipline to suggest they can manage something other than a farce.

The confrontation with right-wing populism, whether that comes from Reform UK, the Tories, or something new, is a serious business.

A government based on division could rip the UK and Wales apart at every level and do so quickly. Such a battle is no arena for amateur-hour nonsense.