The coming general election will be a battle for britain’s soul | thearticle

For much of my adult life I was convinced something about the British character, or perhaps the structure of our society, made us almost uniquely resistant to the siren call of fanaticism.

Snarling men in uniform, leadership cults, street thuggery and pogroms seemed to lose their appeal at some point along the English channel. We had extremists to be sure, of both the

far-right and far-left varieties, but they were a pale imitation of their continental brethren. For those lucky enough not to belong to a targeted minority community they were as much

figures of comedy as fear.  I’ll confess a certain nostalgia for this romantic picture of Anglophone exceptionalism. Looking back from 2019, Britain’s relative tranquillity over the past

century looks more the happy outcome of historic accidents than the product of some innate British decency. Practically everywhere you look, but particularly to the left, dark storm clouds

are brewing.  Should Jeremy Corbyn become Prime Minister after December’s general election, as looks perfectly plausible, it will mark a dramatic rupture in British history. For the first

time in the age of universal suffrage the UK will have a government whose commitment to core liberal-democratic principles is, at best, conditional. This is quite the claim, but I fear the

evidence leads to no other conclusion. Corbynism, though it has captured a social-democratic party and will doubtless run with a social-democratic manifesto, has always had its origins on

the far left.  One of the core principles of a liberal-democratic society is that transfers of power take place via the ballot box, not the gun nor the street. Leading Corbynites spent their

careers disregarding this rule with reckless abandon. John McDonnell saluted the “bravery” and “bombs and bullets” of the IRA, an armed group which butchered hundreds of his compatriots,

before calling for an “uprising” on the basis that “Parliamentary democracy doesn’t work for us, elections aren’t working for us”.  Jeremy Corbyn rarely encountered a terrorist gang,

provided it identified as anti-Western, he wasn’t prepared to fetishize. That some incorporated racial hatred into their core ideologies, like Hamas and Hezbollah, proved no barrier,

provided it was directed in an acceptable direction. Similarly authoritarian states were celebrated and promoted, so long as they pledged resistance to the leading liberal-democratic powers.

This could be the case regardless of whether they were far-left tyrannies, like Cuba and Venezuela, or a far-right theocracy like Iran.  Among a number of leading Corbynites ambivalence

towards political violence has gone hand-in-hand, as has so often been the case throughout history, with a certain tolerance towards racism. I’ve spent time in some of the larger pro-Corbyn

Facebook pages and they drip with anti-Semitism, some of which could be reproduced almost word for word on a neo-fascist forum. Memes about Jewish power, which used to be the speciality of

the far-right, have enveloped the radical left. It is entirely possible that, having formed a government, Labour could find itself branded institutionally racist in the upcoming EHRC report.

  In truth, the debate about anti-Semitism on the left is over, at least for now. Once Labour members decided it was a price worth accepting, in order to enact certain policies they support,

there was little left to discuss. Free university tuition and utilities nationalisation, it turns out, allow an awful lot of racism to slip down the gullet.  Waiting for ‘moderate’ Labour

MPs to act has proved itself a fruitless exercise. With a few honourable exceptions, they’ve watched as Luciana Berger and Louise Ellman, Jewish Labour MPs, were bullied out of their party

while those who peddled “Zionist” conspiracy theories were selected as parliamentary candidates. They have proven utterly unwilling or incapable of constraining Corbynism in opposition and

there is little reason to think they will succeed if it achieves government. Corbynism can only achieve power in Britain with the connivance of the centre-left, and right now there is every

indication it will be provided.  Human history is a curious beast and rarely moves in linear lines. For long periods relatively little can happen, and commentators find themselves fixated by

Ed Miliband’s culinary habits or whether Andrew Mitchell described a police officer as a “pleb”. Conversely, there are short periods, often a few months or years, which seem to change

everything. It’s hard not to wonder if we’re arriving at such a juncture in British politics. The stakes for the coming election are enormous. Whether Britain survives as a state, its

relationship with the EU and its membership of the Western alliance are all up for debate.  Britain, virtually alone among the nations of Europe, escaped capture by ideologues of both

far-left and far-right over the past century. This was a blessing, but also a curse. It fostered a certain complacency, particularly among the liberal intelligentsia. A belief that, whatever

happens, things will basically turn out OK. With Britain potentially just weeks away from the first radical left government in its history, I’m no longer convinced this is the case. It may

be that, like so many other peoples before, we have to learn the hard way where a contempt for liberal-democratic principles and individual liberty can lead.