From Left to Right

To return to politics  (and I keep trying to write about other things as it really isn't good for my blood pressure), I'm amused to see that the pressure is clearly getting to the Corbynite hordes.  Faced with growing unease at the tactics of intimidation that some of their ilk have been employing against anyone else in the Labour Party dares to criticise Corbyn or has the audacity to simply disagree with them, they've launched a counter offensive.  In essence, this involves questioning whether any of their opponents actually have suffered intimidation.  Even where physical evidence of such intimidation exists - the brick put through the window of Angela Eagle's constituency office, for instance - it still didn't happen.  (That brick was apparently thrown by a drunk as that sort of thing is common on that street after closing time - the timing, just as Eagle challenged Corbyn for the leadership - was purely coincidental).  The trouble is that there are multiple documented instances of Momentum's bullying tactics - which can be as simple as denouncing anyone who questions Corbyn's leadership as a 'Blairite' (I've been on the receiving end of that one myself). So, if, as they claim, there is no intimidation going on, yet their opponents keep documenting these incidents, what are the Corbynites saying?  That these are 'false flag' operations?  That the so-called victims are actually staging attacks on themselves to discredit the Corbynites?

It's clear that Momentum is rattled by the Labour leadership challenge.  They are beginning to realise that there is a possibility that their man could lose.  So they react by descending into paranoid conspiracy theories.  Which is fascinating, as such things as belief in 'false flag' attacks are generally the preserve of right wing conspiracy theorists.  According to them, everything from 9/11 to the recent terror incident in Nice are 'false flag' attacks, orchestrated by 'the establishment' to spread fear among their own citizens, thereby justifying ever more repressive measures in the name of protecting their population from terrorists - and to discredit Islam, ('the establishment' being part oh a global Zionist conspiracy, of course).  Even the alleged Zionist conspiracy is echoed in the alleged increase in anti-Semitism among Corbyn supporters.  Of course, as far as they are concerned, Momentum's members are victims of a huge conspiracy involving the media, supposedly right wing Labour MPs, and Uncle Tom Cobbley and all, designed to prevent the British working classes from seeing that their way is the only true way.  The fact that their brand of confused far left ramblings have been consistently rejected at the polls by working class voters is down to the fact that the latter have been brainwashed by this conspiracy, rather than the fact they see through them and recognise their impracticality.  The sad thing is that I am seeing people I previously considered rational, intelligent human beings buying into this paranoid fantasy.  For some reason they've latched nto the idea that Corbyn somehow represents the true 'soul' of the Labour Party and is returning it to its 'traditional values' - a belief which demonstrates a fundamental ignorance of the party's history.  They are buying into some fantasy version of the Labour Party that has never existed and never will.  They really need to give up on these fantasies and face the realities of politics. That principles and ideologies alone aren't enough, compromise and pragmatism are essential to trying to implement any part of the former.