How not to organise a split in a Party: Britain’s Macrons go Laurel and Hardy

Having laboured mightily for more than two years Labour’s Blairite wing brought forth a mouse – or a rat – depending on your point of view.

Just seven MPs announced their departure from Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party and though there may be others to come this was their first rank. And there lies the first problem.

Other than Chuka Umunna virtually nobody has ever heard of the new Independent Group of MPs who were quickly dubbed the ‘Seven Dwarfs’. One of the seven had to issue a humiliating public apology for a shocking racist blunder live on TV during an interview discussing...racism! And this was just the first hour. The rest of their first day didn’t go too much better.

From a crowded field I’d say the next biggest blunder was registering their parliamentary factions as a private company in a transparent effort to avoid...transparency!

It’s true that Chuka and co are the corporate suit types and most of them are more familiar with the boardroom than the boiler room but no parliamentary group in history has turned themselves into a business!

The reasons – millions of them – are not hard to discern. A political party must declare who’s funding it and how much. A private company doesn’t. But again what seemed like a wheeze is in fact a blunder. I’m now free to speculate that they’ve already received millions from Hamas, Hezbollah, Iran and President Putin. It’s probably not true, but how can one tell?

Perhaps George Soros will favour their rampant and so out of touch Europhilia? Perhaps Mr Netanyahu will respond to their unconditional unrequited love of Israel?

Perhaps the military industrial complex will be turned on by the group’s love of NATO weaponry? Again, how can one tell?

And of course if we can’t tell we will all just speculate as I’ve just done there.

Then there’s the politics themselves.

I may be wrong and Manchester United may win the Champions League but I'm perfectlysure Centrist neo-liberal politics are currently out of fashion throughout the world. I base this on 14 weeks of mayhem on the streets of France, and not much more than that in President Macron’s opinion poll ratings. On Mrs Merkel slouching out of the German Chancery in ruins. On the Rushmore like ruin of Hillary Clinton. On the portrait of Dorian Gray that is the haunted face of the most hated man in Britain, Tony Blair.

Yet it is the style and program of these discredited hulks, without even a tinge of polish or charisma, that Independent (Ltd) now offers us. My bet is there will be few takers.

My hunch is buttressed by the absolute refusal of the maleficent seven to resign their seats and let their voters judge their betrayal of the banner leader and program under which they were so recently elected.

They intend to stay ensconced in the mother of parliaments with all its comforts and emoluments essentially under false pretences and for as long as they can.

All of this would be a little local difficulty not so much of a split as a splinter. If not for this.

Bernie Sanders’ run for the Democratic Party nomination for 2020 has begun. The exact playbook practiced against Jeremy Corbyn will be perfected to try and defeat Sanders. And no smear will be thought too low to deploy and no deployment thought too frequent.

Strap yourselves in for ‘Tovarich Bernie the Commie’, the friend of terrorists and dictators, the anti-Semite (despite being himself Jewish). And if he wins why, there may even be a breakaway!

Like this story? Share it with a friend!