17

Liverpool United Aim for the Title

by W Stephen Gilbert

britain-politics-labour-610503062-57e96223b13a8
Nobody worked harder at the Liverpool Conference than John McDonnell. You could count yourself unlucky if he didn’t breeze in at the session you were attending, however arcanely fringe it might be. He never gave a speech or even a few words that you’d heard before and, though looking increasingly exhausted, he was winningly upbeat, ending with a cry of either “Solidarity!” or “Socialism!” every time. His keynote speech in the main hall put pounds of flesh on the bones of the party’s economic policy, indicating that he’s been working flat out all the rest of the tumultuous year that he has been shadow Chancellor. He’d better pace himself. Labour needs him.
Conference also established triumphantly that the Corbyn loyalists who stepped up to fill the suddenly empty seats in the shadow cabinet after the mass exodus were nothing like the fourth eleven that the media and other belittlers claimed. Sadly, I missed the much-praised address by Clive Lewis, but I caught most of his comrades performing in one setting or another: Angela Rayner, Cat Smith, Richard Burgon, Jon Ashworth, Rachael Maskell, Dave Anderson, Jon Trickett, Rebecca Long-Bailey, Emily Thornberry, Barry Gardiner, Rosie Winterton and, several times, Diane Abbott, and all were on top of their briefs and raring to go in a united front.
The theme of the week was “there is far more that unites us than divides us”. If you Google that line, the name popping up most often is that of Hillary Clinton, but of course it originates long before; Pope John Paul II also used it but it can hardly be his to claim. Jeremy Corbyn tended to mangle it a bit (he needs a more fastidious speechwriter), but inevitably it was the newly-confirmed leader for whom it had the most resonance.
Corbyn’s own speech was confident, determined, comprehensive and encouraging. It was also notably generous and conciliatory. The chasm between his gracious acknowledgment of Sadiq Khan and the latter’s suppressing-a-fart face that the television reaction shot revealed was telling. Elsewhere, the leadership’s enemies – some of them, anyway – were making constructive noises. In declaring after Saturday’s leadership result that “we’re absolutely settled on who leads our party”, the Ilford North MP and leading irreconcilable Wes Streeting will have astonished those who believed him.
In fact, the war continues in subterranean form. After all, the intention of denying Corbyn the prospect of leading Labour into the next election has been thwarted for now but, his enemies hope, there is time to rectify that. The war will be in the trenches and on the surface if Corbyn is still in post in a year, and nuclear if he enters Downing Street. The magnificently shrewd Jon Trickett warned us that this summer has been “a small skirmish, just sharpening the pencils”. Though the anti-Socialists have shown themselves time and again devoid of tactics, their strategy still works. They have damaged and can and will damage Corbyn by daily undermining and distracting. That this is self-harming does not enter their heads.
The tactics are astoundingly ham-fisted. After the leadership numbers were released, Neil Coyle, MP for Bermondsey & Old Southwark and one of the Corbyn nominees who’s been turned, tweeted: “Seems 20% of Labour members haven’t voted. If we can’t enthuse 1/5 of our own members we may have bigger problem engaging wider electorate”. Somebody please inform him that an unknown number of members – certainly running into six figures – was prevented from voting by arbitrary decision of the NEC. Does he not read the papers?
Shortly before Corbyn’s speech to Conference, a group of Progress supporters stood up and walked out, intending that the television cameras would show by their empty seats that Corbyn could not fill the hall. Tragically for their delightful plan, the Liverpool ACC had provided what every venue where Corbyn speaks needs to provide: an overspill hall (which incidentally was also ‘ram-packed’ as we say now). The abandoned seats were quickly filled with lucky ‘entryists’ from the overspill. As is his habit, Corbyn followed his address with an immediate appearance in the overspill hall – imagine the rapturous reception – where the audience got the benefit of a variation on his stump speech and hence more material than anyone else. His enemies accuse him of failing to ‘reach out’ to voters beyond his ‘comfort zone’, but there’s nothing lost by keeping the enthusiasts fired up. One of Labour’s growing strengths is the depth of its activism. These are the people who till the soil in which wider popularity will grow.
On the commercial radio stand in the exhibition hall, I went on LBC for an argy-bargy with Richard Angell (I’m glad you missed it; I was terrible). As gay men are apt to do, we established within a minute of meeting that we are both gay. But Angell – can that be a pseudonym? – is the paid ‘executive director’ of Progess, not merely a ginger group but an incorporated company set up to spread the philosophy that we are no longer allowed to call Blairism. Once we were on air, the gloves were off. I chanted the mantra that I brought with me to use at every opportunity, that anyone purporting to speak to the media for the Labour Party who declared that the party could not or would not be elected at the next election or that the present leadership was ‘unelectable’ ought to be disciplined. Angell wasn’t having that. Members must say it because it’s what people tell us on the doorsteps.
This is wilfully disingenuous. If anyone does actually say it on the doorstep, it’s a mere parroting of what they’ve heard on the media, a chicken-and-egg effect. And Progess doesn’t peddle anything else it hears on the doorstep – ”you want to bring back hanging”; “I’d send all the Pakis home”; “those poofs should all be in jail” – at least not as far as I am aware.
When Jeremy Thorpe’s leadership of the Liberals was in trouble in 1976, his old friend Michael Foot observed: “They pretend to be against you for your morals, but really hate you for your politics”. We need to remember that Progress and others pretend to be against Corbyn for his supposed incompetence, but they really hate him because they want New Labour to remain what Thatcher hailed it as: her greatest achievement.
As I left the ACC for the last time, I spotted Tom Watson striding towards his taxi. A tiny, pony-tailed Liverpudlian was scampering beside him, shouting “Two-nil”. I suddenly realised she meant that Corbyn had twice been elected leader. As the taxi pulled away, she ran alongside, punching the air and chanting “Jez we can, Jez we can”. It was a heartening and extraordinarily pertinent image to take home.

W Stephen Gilbert is the author of “Jeremy Corbyn – Accidental Hero” (Eyewear)

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Categories: Essays, latest, UK
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rtj1211
rtj1211
Oct 2, 2016 3:39 PM

One hopes that the other well-known football taunt isn’t wheeled out for your sake then: ‘and you f***ed it up, two-nil!’, which I’m sure My Corbin is well versed in, having attended North London derbies in recent years…..??

rtj1211
rtj1211
Oct 2, 2016 3:40 PM
Reply to  rtj1211

MR Corbyn….

Bryan Hemming
Bryan Hemming
Oct 2, 2016 12:12 PM

Great article! And so well-written.

W Stephen Gilbert
W Stephen Gilbert
Oct 10, 2016 4:55 PM
Reply to  Bryan Hemming

Thank you very much.

mohandeer
mohandeer
Oct 2, 2016 2:26 AM

A very inspiring account of the state of play – many thanks for this article

W Stephen Gilbert
W Stephen Gilbert
Oct 10, 2016 4:55 PM
Reply to  mohandeer

And thank you.

mohandeer
mohandeer
Oct 2, 2016 2:21 AM

Reblogged this on Worldtruth.

chrisb
chrisb
Oct 1, 2016 6:34 PM

Deluded …
If McDonnell’s speech ‘put pounds of flesh on the bones of the party’s economic policy,’ then that still leaves Labour policy pretty emaciated.
As for Emily Thornberry, it’s good to know that she now knows who is Minister of Foreign Affairs in France.

John
John
Oct 1, 2016 7:50 PM
Reply to  chrisb

Yes, chrisb, you are deluded.
Not only that; your remarks indicate that you are what is generally known as “a sore loser”.

mohandeer
mohandeer
Oct 2, 2016 2:23 AM
Reply to  John

Not just a sore loser but a right wing troll who refuses to abandon Thatchers “greatest achievement” and how ell he demonstrates this.

John
John
Oct 1, 2016 6:06 PM

The theme “there is far more that unites us than divides us” was chosen – I believe – as a way of honouring the late Jo Cox MP, brutally murdered during the Brexit Referendum campaign.
In her maiden speech in the House of Commons in June 2015, she talked about her constituents and said of them “…we are far more united and have more in common than that which divides us”.
You can see and hear her speech at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hXAAvU1VGZg.
The conference, therefore, was something of a bitter-sweet event.
Sweet to see Jeremy Corbyn reconfirmed Leader but bitter as we remembered the fall of a good comrade.

old observer
old observer
Oct 1, 2016 7:42 PM
Reply to  John

The Joe Cox murder story was a psyop intended to nudge people into voting remain.
It didn’t work.
You don’t need to do too much research to determine this. If you don’t believe me I suggest you do research my claim.

John
John
Oct 1, 2016 7:57 PM
Reply to  old observer

You might be right but my point was that she was being remembered within Labour circles in a warm and respectful way – even if state agents had tried to use her to get a different result.
By contrast, does Cameron not have the extinguished life of this young woman on his hands?
He is the one who stupidly engineered this pointless and counterproductive referendum.
Cox’s husband and children have lost a loving partner and mother, possibly thanks to him.
I think the Labour Party were right to use her words as their conference guiding theme.
We shouldn’t all be always cynical about everything.
If we behave like that all the time, the “others” win.
Our essential humanity makes us better than them.

old observer
old observer
Oct 2, 2016 11:00 PM
Reply to  John

I am right and it is important to take note that one cannot ‘remember’ a ‘dead’ person from a psyop.

Jim Porter
Jim Porter
Oct 1, 2016 3:04 PM

They say (Progress) that Corbyn is incompetent – I wonder how many more votes he would have got if he was competent. I’d back incompetence like that any day.

Amer Hudson
Amer Hudson
Oct 1, 2016 2:53 PM

Nice bit of writing, hugely buoyed up! Thanks.

W Stephen Gilbert
W Stephen Gilbert
Oct 10, 2016 4:57 PM
Reply to  Amer Hudson

You’re very kind.