Fun at One

One month, that is.

A month ago I wrote about what I foresaw as possible consequences of the Corbyn leadership of the British Labour party. One month in, much of what I anticipated has come to pass, other aspects are obviously on the way but currently still to come, and one or two items might not happen exactly as I thought they were most likely to go.

Already, the new leadership and its campaign team have moved to try to make the party the more-or-less revolutionary Marxist body I have been quietly expecting, with ways to deselect moderate sitting MPs and replacing them with out-and-out Lefties as candidates at future elections. The leadership's approach to the party's sitting MPs has been disastrous, as last night's meeting of the Parliamentary Party – well-reported in various places – demonstrated very clearly, helped by members tweeting their views from within the meeting room.

The MPs are not happy, especially with policy U-turns and other impositions by the Dear Leader and his staunch supporter, the new shadow chancellor John McDonnell. So far they seem to be sticking with the party, rather than (as yet) forming a breakaway new party, SDP style. I think that will have to come in due course, most likely in the second quarter of next year by my (typically complicated but thorough) reckoning.

Frankly, the parliamentary party is tearing itself apart, as several of its members have openly admitted via social media in particular – and the broader party nationwide isn't faring much better.

This is fine in some regards, as it is what many of us anticipated and it could prove valuable to the Labour party if they bother to learn the lessons. Some will, but I suspect that many others will not, and the party's future viability is thus threatened if they don't fix this in the false belief that either all is well, or that it cannot be mended.

In the final analysis the fading away of Labour would be a good thing for Britain – but not if it leaves a vacuum where there should be a credible Official Opposition party (Labour can probably never again be a party of government, by the way) and there are no other viable contenders at the present time. I wish there were.

Labour have a long-standing track record of putting themselves through periods such as this, but always coming back from the brink. It genuinely might not happen this time, but it is not impossible. The next month should be even more telling than these past few weeks have been...