'Boris Johnson noted that one of Crosby's tactics when losing an argument and having the facts against you was to do the equivalent of "throwing a dead cat on the table": bring up an issue you want to talk about that draws widespread attention from the populace, forcing opponents to also talk about your new issue instead of the previous issue.'
This particular tactic found its way into Johnson's own mouth in an interview on the BBC Radio 4's morning news program 'Today' ( 27 April.) He shut down the questions raised about Brexit costs and announced that Britain would take military action against Syria if asked by Trump, and no, he did not know whether Parliament would be able to make the decision.
A lot of similar sub-Trump crap has been unleashed by PM Teresa May and her ministers. Even the British, mainly right wing, media is sickening of the endless drivel about 'May's strong leadership' immediately contrasted by the 'coalition of chaos' apparently offered by Labour, and most of all by its 'weak' leader, Jeremy Corbyn. (This phrase was used 50 times in the final PM's Question Time in Parliament on April 26.) May, who had clearly endorsed Johnson's view as he publicly said she had, took the immediate opportunity to dump him. The 'strong leader' got scared that Johnson's "dead cat" might cause a stink.
On the whole, puffed up, juvenile, xenophobic Crosby type drivel is likely to narrow the 20 point lead between the Tories and Labour Party up to the June 8 General Election rather than extend it. May is the Tory leader that argued against Brexit last June, that stated she would 'never' go for a snap election, that the Scottish National Party could not have another referendum because it would get in the way of Brexit. Yet she has been elevated to a position somewhere between Churchill and Thatcher amongst Tory MPs and media because of 'her purpose', 'her will', 'her relentless principle' and 'wily ways'. May's assumption onto Mount Olympus will also probably lose Tories some points in the polls (and at the same time make half the British population ill.) However, it is not Tory tactics that will change Labour's prospects in the coming election - from either a positive or a negative direction.
A more consistent view of Labour's troubles laid out by some of the left are the effects of the Labour Party's relentless right wing onslaught, led by most of Labour's current MPs, over the last two years. It is true that split parties are unpopular with the electorate. Since the General Election was announced almost every Labour MP and many of their shadow ministers start their media interviews facing the question - are the savage criticisms that you made against Corbyn last year, last month, last week, all still current? Mostly the interviews do not get past that point. But the LP internal split is not all of it.
More significant in the discussion about why Labour is losing comes from understanding the modern history of the Party. It is summed up by Blair's two-term breakaway from any of the old, remaining Labour moorings. The defence of those moorings at the time would have least oriented some Labour leaders and members in the direction of how to defend the new working class interest in the context of globalisation. Instead Labour became the absolute European epitome of the empty, neither right nor left, 'let's get the best from globalisation and open up the remains of the welfare state to business at the same time', that fell to pieces - the policy that current French Presidential hopeful Macron is still planning to deliver. The experience of Blair (and Brown's) Labour Party had the effect of breaking Labour's connection with a huge part of the working class constituency in Britain, a constituency that remains angry, that despises all politicians, that has no interest in playing a part in political business as usual.
And that is the key question here. Despite the Tory's windy waffle about leadership, despite the relentless, right wing Labour MP led barrage against Labour's emergent new left, the new Labour left's main and historic task is to do everything it could to re-build a new link to Britain's working class interest: to seek in every detail to be the representatives of the new and changed working class.
After WW 2, Labour's old cold-war warriors at least kept the link alive for decades, albeit formally, through trade union affiliation. After Blair, even that that has fallen away. Paradoxically today the trade union link to the working class is itself uneven and often tenuous. Unions do not lead the working class as a whole - even in the workplace context. On the other side, the remaining affiliated union connection to the Party is modelled more on the funding arrangements provided to the US Democrats by American unions than anything else. It has been like this since the Blair leadership. Blair and his enormous base in the new political class at the turn of the century, decided that Thatcher's anti-union architecture should stand. Yet the union head offices still kept paying and paying as their membership dwindled, no longer involved in any sort of mutual liaison with LP central, let alone with the interests of their own members. All this machinery ground on and on, but with some honourable exceptions, without any genuine direction and progressively more and more empty. Finally, after foreign wars and the crisis of 2008, the traditional Labour Party base and its machinery started to fall apart.
What has the new left in Labour under Corbyn been able to do? The fact is that it has survived against an immense and relentless attack - from within its own Party. That is something worth loud praise and genuine support. But in the main the left has faced a structure and tradition, essentially buoyed up by a layer of self-promoting office seekers, that has overwhelmed the left in terms of its ability to take any initiative. The Labour left has been unable to break through the barriers created by their own party. They have been unable to reach out to the new British working class interest, nor provide a convincing policy and program to deal with the new working class reality. Three recent examples;
When Corbyn was questioned in a TV interview on use of UK nuclear weapons (April 23) he dodged the answer that everybody already knows. Why? Because he is restricted by an old Labour Party policy and some nervousness in trade union support. He was trying to pretend that there was no split in Labour. (Another thing that everybody knows.) What should he have said? The truth.
'My party still thinks that Britain should have nukes. I know a lot of the public do too. But we are not the world's policeman. And we don't want to be the deputy to the world's new sheriff either. Here is a list of some of the generals who agree with that. We are a medium sized country with a huge amount to do for its people. We are desperate for housing, for health, for welfare for the old. It is crazy to spend upwards of £40 billion on something where we get to share some launch codes with Donald Trump. The British people should have a real debate about this. Let's have a referendum! That is what I shall fight for; something peaceful and useful, both inside my party and out!'
Corbyn made a speech in Scotland about how there was no need for another Scottish Independence Referendum. Labour had already stated there will be no anti-Tory coalition arrangements with the SNP after the General Election. He was talking to Scottish Labour activists and he had fire in his belly. The fire originated in his reading of the Labour Party as still the main party representing the working class. He turned the pages of Labour's history back to its rejection of Snowden and 4 other Labour MPs setting up the National Government in 1931. In the following election the National government won by a landslide and Labour slumped to 52 MPs. The lesson apparently learnt was the need to keep the Labour Party independent of all other parties. But Corbyn has read his history the wrong way round.
Why did Labour step away from its leader Snowden? Because Labour were forced to represent the independent interests of the working class of the day - in the face of the 1930s Depression. Do the majority of Labour MPs today want to represent the independent interests of the working class? Is there any sign that they are forced to do so? To ask the questions is to answer them. It turned out, when Labour rejected Snowden and the National Government and then fell back to its lowest number of MPs, that Labour was right. And its stand helped prepare the achievements of 1948.
What Corbyn should have said to build up independent working class politics in Scotland is this.
'While it is up to Scottish Labour to decide what to do in Scotland, I believe that Scotland should decide its own future. The right to decide your own future in Scotland was part of the earliest principles when the British Labour Party was formed - from Scotland. Today the SNP runs Scotland. They took the leadership away from Labour in Scotland because Labour was part of the problem. They could not defeat the Tories and when they were in power they acted like Tories. Well, I agree we need an genuine anti-Tory, a real anti Austerity and, yes, an unconditional anti Nuke Britain AND Scotland. Of course we should try for unity between us all on those issues; in Westminster and in Holyrood. It will give our key policies greater strength and more support. We are not facing an electorate that simply love our particular parties anymore and can't wait to vote for them! Then, with our alliance, we and the people themselves can test all of us for our promises. It's time we made politics work for the people and not the other way round!'
As yet neither the Tories nor and of the other main parties have spoken out about immigration for reasons of fear. Labour's new left have again tried to roll over internal LP differences about free movement, immigration and numbers of immigrants. But it will not work. Slashing immigration is still the public secret why millions voted for Brexit in the referendum and why the UKIP 4 million, and more, will now vote Tory in the General Election - because they believe May will deliver (shifting Britain to the right for years to come.) A new Labour Party that seeks to represent the new working class in Britain must challenge this fact front and centre. Not because it is a principle (although it is.) Not because its says so in some socialist program. It is because Britain's working class is split on this matter as the Brexit vote in part shows. And the building of working class political representation to lead society starts from unifying the working class politically. Again Corbyn and his followers have weeks to break out of the current Labour Party's scared straight jacket and speak to the population where now only the most right wing Labourites can be heard in their demands 'to go with the people' and 'cut back immigration.'
Corbyn needs to say now:-
'It is unacceptable that ordinary people from across the world can't come to stay in Britain to work or to stay safe. It's what any one of us would want and do for our families and our friends. Ok. So what are the problems? When new people come they change things. Sometimes for the better; sometimes for the worse. Let's get rid of all the bad changes. That is not racism.'
'First we don't want people crammed up, so every area in the country takes their fair share of new families, based on resources and wealth. Every area has a low rent housing target. Second, no cuts in living standards. On current trends, there will soon be more self-employed than public sector workers. These include nearly 1 million in the so-called gig economy. Their position is structurally insecure. Not only are they dependent on a contract for work being renewed, sometimes weekly or even daily, but around 80% earn less than £15,000 a year, two thirds of the median wage. Worse still, their pay has been falling, on average by an astonishing £100 a week between 2006/7 and 2013/14. The number struggling with debt has exploded. Immigrants do not cause this. Employers cause it -especially big employers. We will stop that dead with a new minimum wage and a new workers minimum secure contract. Third, we are going to build up our health services, housing and welfare to the best European levels starting in the most run down regions. If we honestly and fearlessly face up to these real problems and share them fairly, then we will see just how many people and from what sort of places - rich or poor - that really want to pick up the racist card.'
These three examples come out of a fundamental issue about today's politics that is known by most voters in Britain and denied or ignored or wished away by the main traditional British parties, both the Tory party and Labour. Another big, publicly known secret of this age in Britain is that both main political parties, the parties that have dominated Britain's politics for 120 years, are in terminal decline. It is the end of Britain's precious political stability. Not surprisingly, Labour is first to face the fire and has already split into two different parties - except that only one part is acting on that basis, and the other, the left, is still trying to patch things up.
This is what everybody who was interested in Corbyn thought was to be addressed when he talked about a 'new politics.' They thought he would lead the drive to new types and forms of representation, a great new reform package of the ancient swamp that is Britain's political system, to honest and direct talking on real issues to ordinary people. Where are fair votes? Where is the demand to chase the Lords away? Where are the open hands to the rights of Britain's nations? Instead Labour's new left has so far expended its energy on keeping together the convulsive, decaying Labour Party instead of using their platform at the pinnacle of the party's leadership and its new membership, to begin the dialogue, over the heads of the MPs, in every part and corner of Britain, as necessary.
Speaking honestly and directly. Building united action and campaigns where possible. Tearing away at the reactionary political system and spelling out what really has to be done to save the country and all its people; not holding up the rotten parts of a collapsing party but preparing for the emergence of a new political formation with a real future. These are already lessons from France, across Europe, the US and deeply rooted in the evolution of Britain's own political and social structures.
What is clear in this election is that the old Labour Party is going down to traumatic defeat. What faces the Labour left is whether they can move on from that and start now to rebuild a different sort of political future for a mass-based, genuine, working-class left, and not go down, disappearing with the collapse.
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