The United Kingdom Social Democracy Alliance

Margaret Thatcher began a systematic destruction of the left wing of politics by adopting an 'art of war' strategy based on divide and conquer. She didn't do it because she feared them, she did it because she felt the country would be better off without them. The new country she was building didn't need pinko-lefties obfuscating the charge of capitalism and the free market. She viewed the left as nothing more than a tick in the fur, but one that allowed to bury itself would cause unrest, especially among those who viewed her as extreme.

The division of Labour and the forming of the SDP was the first of what would end up being more covert than overt. The rise of the Green Party, the Scottish National Party, Plaid Cymru and independents would further erode the left's vote. The Tories saw the left as easily divisible, while always being able to keep itself together through the common bond of greed. If you have greed, you have a common ground; if you have understanding and fairness at your root, you will always have disagreements with like-minded people over the most trivial of matters. Once the right had the press on their side, it became a fait accompli.

The Labour Party of the 21st Century - current leader excepted - would have Ted Heath's government concerned about radicalism and a lack of compassion. This is how far left wing politics has changed in the UK; where a man is judged on his choices and beliefs rather than his ability to look statesman-like, in a party that has shown, quite deliberately, how little it cares for the people of this country at a time when it was needed the most.

Take Scotland as an example. The press will have you think that Labour's destruction was down to bad choices in the referendum up there, but the truth is the SNP - not historically as left wing as Labour - stole the ground, offered the Labour voters of Scotland a manifesto that seemed more 'Labour' than their party of choice and it was always going to end badly for 'Red' Scotland. Oddly enough, the same thing, in reverse, happened in England, with UKIP conning their way into Labour heartlands through tapping into base human emotions rather than common sense and because the message sent out by Labour no longer appeals to their Northern core of older voters, they have to think outside of the box. Corbyn is doing that, despite his years, while the PLP tries in vain, it seems, to try and remain stuck in an anachronistic political elite that no longer listens to it's public.

Labour needs to rethink the country. It can no longer appeal to half of it, and the other half are fragmented, disenfranchised and disillusioned with politics. The Tory Party will always motivate their voters, unless they really are harmful and toxic and need a rest, so the only way for Labour to unite itself is to unite all the left wing parties in a rainbow coalition that allows for the one thing that has eluded the left for so long - the thing that keeps the Tories together, despite their deep divisions: compromise.

A Party for Britain would compromise Labour, the SNP, Plaid Cymru, the left-leaning Northern Ireland SDLP, the Green Party, possibly even the Liberals and any independent, centre or left-leaning MPs. As the UK will no longer be part of the EU, they would fight for the rights of the UK and not the individual with lots of personal interest. Devolutionary deals could be cut; specific powers could be allowed, while coming together, in parliament, to work as a power to ensure fairness, tempered with business concerns and the free allowance of aspiration to dominate the market, without fear of tax penalties or desire to work elsewhere is countered. Perhaps even ministerial posts held by coalition committee, rather than a single jurisdiction? A vision for a fairer society, while not penalising those who have paid enough, but also not encouraging business to look elsewhere for bases of operation. Social democracy that has allowed some (not all by any means) of our European neighbours to look considerably more humane in their overall treatment of their citizens (indigenous or not).

The Tories and the press used the idea of a Labour/SNP coalition as being bad for Britain, but now that Britain is isolated, surely the most logical thing is for the four countries in the kingdom to unite and run Britain together. The old arguments are obsolete, especially if it was sold to the public from the off as the way forward for Britain. If they worked together to ensure socialist victories in marginal seats actually makes sense - think about it, even if you're a Tory/UKipper, A (Tory) MP is elected with a 5,000 majority, but the combined vote of the (left) other parties is 3,000 more than the elected which suggests quite emphatically that the MP doesn't represent the views of the majority of his/her constituents - the fairness of FPTP also reflects the unfairness in it. Convince the voters that a Green or LibDem vote is as good as voting for their chosen party if they live in a place where their party stands zero chance of retaining its deposit.

Or...

The left remain divided over petty differences and allow the elite to asset-strip the country, penalise the people and ignore the pleas for fairness. It has to be time for the left to burn their hair shirts and work together to stop the rise of neo-liberalism.

Conspiracy Theories

"As Naomi Klein documents in The Shock Doctrine, neoliberal theorists advocated the use of crises to impose unpopular policies while people were distracted" From a George Monbiot column in The Guardian.

Ask yourself this: when a government releases information about plans or policy changes, buried beneath some major news story dominating the headlines and reducing other news to minor status - is that any different than a conspiracy theory turned inside out?

We are currently living in an era of fear and because fear is all around is we allow things we would normally question without hesitation to ensure that fear doesn't get us, personally. The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse arrived ages ago given the amount of Famine, Pestilence, War and Death (disguised as Poverty) we get subjected to on a weekly basis. Since 2001, it's like the news has to be like a Die Hard film or people will switch off. Sometimes life almost seems to be orchestrated and not by some omnipotent god, but probably some multi-billionaire with media interests and a cold dead heart.

Sometimes the world seems a little like a massive soap opera and at other times like the lunatics have been running the asylum, for a while. The concept of the 'conspiracy theory' has always been more attractive when the world is more crisis prone and, of course, in the 21st century even having a conspiracy theory is either madness or, if you have any evidence, not really a conspiracy theory at all. Some conspiracy theories are quite benign and highly plausible, others are as desperate as a 1996 post-match Kevin Keegan interview; most depend on a chain of information, a string of people and an unfathomable amount of probability that, if it's true then, someone will at some point talk. The biggest problem with a conspiracy theory is the longer it exists without a whistleblower or someone to throw something to give it credence, the more likely it's not going to have anything more than a grain of truth - if that. Wishful thinking mixed with the need for plausible (even if implausible) answers.

However, how about something that on the surface seems unlikely, doesn't have a big chain of potentially loose-lipped co-conspirators, but could ultimately reap the goal that is desired. Confused? Good.

I want you, if you can be bothered or even remember, to cast your mind back to when David Cameron was 'negotiating' the deal with the EU that he was going to use as the main reason for us staying in the EU, when he calls the much-heralded referendum. The man looked destroyed and beaten; like a leader who had lost. He hasn't looked even remotely in control of things since then and while he comes across business-as-usual in PMQs, he's uncertain and a bit dithering when confronted with unscripted questions and situations. He's also been the target of some interesting attacks, which have led to even more interesting public solidarity scenes within the Tory party which, behind closed doors, appears to be tearing itself apart.

Then look at George Osborne and how his star has descended like it was actually a housebrick. Look how he has gone from Dave's logical successor to being almost toxic. Now Theresa May is under scrutiny and even if Nick Clegg's allegations come to nothing; that's another one of Team Cameron who is seeing leadership chances dwindle.

How better to ruin the Remain vote than show those in favour of it on the ropes? But that's just a wee bit too obvious and quite see-through. It could, however, be made to look like this because there has to be a post mortem. I've said for years that Tories play the long game and in this instance maybe a strong faction within the party is playing that game, one that looks beyond the increasingly unpopular leader team?

The reason I mentioned Cameron's late night negotiations is because he went into that meeting asking for not a lot and he was given next to nothing. One of the leading nations in the EU and he couldn't change it how his party wanted it - which was essentially to opt out of anything we didn't agree 100% with - and that meant things were going to go badly wrong for him. You see (and this is the only part of this theory I'm in two minds about), I think Dave's election win was a bit unexpected for the party. I think, as did many others, it was going to be a hung parliament and they would be the party to form another coalition. It would also trigger a leadership contest and it would give the party the opportunity to either big up Boris or find go the other way and find someone less charismatic, but more pragmatic for the coalition to come. Contrary to some popular conspiracy theories, the voters occasionally surprise people. There are some who believe the Tories weren't really prepared for power in 1992, despite having been in for 13 previous years. John Major was not seen as a valiant and fearless leader and almost from the beginning of that government's reign it was plagued by scandals that Thatcher's team would have shrugged off. Parallels have been drawn.

Dave is elected and makes his own plans to go leaving his own legacy in the shape of Osborne or May, but this isn't fast enough for the party or even what it really wants. Things are not going as planned and something has to be done. Except, the only wrinkle in this is an unexpected opportunity and that is the EU referendum. The Tory Party - not necessarily all their MPs and members, but the Party is probably anti-EU. It throws up too many obstacles to prevent them from having the country they believe we should have and while many are pro-EU, the old school have a very narrow view of it, possibly skewered by a sense of empire or entitlement - we are British after all. What if the current government don't care what way you vote? Vote in and nothing changes, vote out and they benefit even more.

The Tories aren't exactly setting the world on fire with their pro-Europe campaigning. It seems to be down to MPs of other persuasions, celebrities and business to make the case. Dave is doing his bit, but he's being constantly distracted and implicated to the point where Jeremy Corbyn is more trusted on Europe and Corbyn is a bit of a sceptic. But what if Dave has no real reason to fight? What if he knew back in January that his days were numbered? The MPs can talk him up and give him public backing, but it all seems a little false when the next minute the Out campaign are criticising their own party/government because of some Euro tragedy. It all seems to be stage managed to give subtly different appearances to whoever interprets it and all slightly negative.

The Out call the In campaign 'Project Fear' when in actual reality it is 'Project Fact'. The Out campaign seem to be basing their campaign on the fact that people will still trade with us wherever we are and that they'd be cutting off their noses to spite their faces. Um... France? They'll be the first in the queue to renegotiate and they'll be setting the price high or go away. Not one single Out campaigner has said categorically that prices won't rise. Ask your neighbour this - if you're £20 a week worse off for leaving the EU and there's just as many foreigners here, will voting out be worth it?

I can't reiterate this point enough (because it seems to be neglected in the coverage) - we have no guarantees whatsoever we're even going to be able to renegotiate the same terms we currently have, so to expect us to get stuff cheaper is ludicrous. Plus, consider this - we give Europe two fingers, how desperate are they going to be to deal with us at all? How confident are you that nothing will change, things will get cheaper and everyone will be happy again? Do you really believe Michael Gove when he says that £50billion of the money we won't be paying the EU will go to the NHS? Or will it go to the private companies who have taken over parts of the NHS?

The way the Tories are dividing up the country and selling off what's left; it won't matter if we're in or out for them. They will still clean up; so it could be they're doing what they hoped to do last May, but now with added incentives. That's a conspiracy theory that could have some weight.

Hollow Victory?

The votes have been irrevocably cast. The losers lost more severely than anyone ever contemplated and that makes it difficult for the other losers. It was a comprehensive decision that could not be questioned legitimately, yet some are and by doing so they have made a calculated risk, which flies in the face of the members - who vote for them in general elections.

Jeremy Corbyn won; whether some people like it or not, Labour is going to be radically different for at least the next few years. The politicians - cross party - are oddly unified by their combined opposition for a man whose politics are being labelled 'left-wing' but are actually far more moderate than any true 'Trotskyite' would have hoped for. Yet, the likes of Cooper, Kendal, Ummana, Reed and Hunt have all resigned from jobs they, probably, wouldn't have kept, in what can be seen as them positioning themselves for the 'inevitable' fall and fallout and therefore not seen as part of this 'folly'. They will all feel they will have a chance of serving under the next Labour leader, or maybe even be that heir apparent, once this idiotic decision is seen for the foolhardy move it was.

The ex-ministers/shadow ministers are all young enough to spend a few years, maybe 10, in the political wilderness and will step up when needed to reposition the party closer to the Tories and in their minds become far more electable.

It's probably more mindless than electing a 66-year-old rebel as your leader. These 'well off' Labour new backbenchers are oblivious to the damage they and the Tories have done - the centre right and right wing MPs who look at balance sheets and profit margins before they look at people, circumstances and things that can never be planned or hoped for which cripple families who then need the help of a benevolent government and are discarded in the same uncaring way as we describe refugees wanting to escape a war. These 'Labour' MPs will be prepared to take a risk for their own purposes and to hell with everyone else and if you challenged them on this and they admitted it was an option, they would also say that following Corbyn would amount to the same thing and being part of his fiasco would mean there wouldn't be any sensible heads the public could identify with. It's appalling that these people are even allowed to be politicians considering the actual regard they have for the voters. The fact many think what they're doing is positive and will end up as a fait accompli are those 'others' mentioned earlier.

Corbyn won on so many fronts that the dislike of his victory has made everyone speak out against him sound like they both fear and loathe him in equal measure. Never have I seen such scaremongering tactics as employed by all parts of the media while completely ignoring the fact that he was the only candidate with ideas, the only candidate that filled hustings halls, the only candidate that didn't resort to bellow-the-belt tactics, the only candidate who appeared to have any dignity, self-conviction and belief in what he was talking about. That cannot be allowed in a world where it is important that you fear everything and know that the government - whatever colour - is there for you, sorting it out in a way that's best for the country (even if they all talk about decentralising government).

The new man will have many problems, but I believe he will rise above it and by doing so will impress people, in a similar way to how Farage rejuvenated disaffected Labour and centre ground Tories. UKIP might have only got one seat, but had the LibDems got their PR wish they would have ended up with considerably less than Nigel and his Purple helmets. People didn't vote for the UKIP candidate, they voted for Nigel. UKIP are a marginal loony party; imagine what a figurehead like Farage could do for a major party? Well, Jeremy Corbyn is as far removed from good old Nige, but in terms of their appeal to the public, they're cut from the same kind of cloth, but maybe from different ends. They talk - people listen. There are a lot more Labour people than UKIPpers; there are a lot of Liberals who will like many - not all - of this new look Labour, and there will be young, old, disaffected and disillusioned people energised by this man who doesn't talk in political double speak, but talks about things that people want their politicians talking about and, more importantly, opposing the Tories, not abstaining or voting with them on anything that isn't in the utmost public interest - and even then depending on the morality of what is being asked.

The self-exiled Labour MPs have made arses of themselves by petulantly walking away from the party at a time when they could have influenced or moderated some of the more extreme ideas and recreated Labour as the socialist party that works with business, Europe and the middle class people who don't trust them simply because of their name. These MPs should be asked to either support the party or walk across the floor to another party or resign and allow a by-election. I appreciate this is what some of the Blairites probably said of Corbyn or Skinner or Benn, but the left wing of the party after the schisms of the 1980s never undermined the way the party changed - they didn't like it, but like Tories, accepted the change to stay a united front. The self-serving Tories had enough foresight to let things happen for the good or the bad of the party because unity is what holds a lot of their vote together - there are so many light blue Labour MPs you would have thought they could see this. The left wing of Labour pretty much hated Blair and co, but having a pinkish blue government was always a better idea than a dark blue one and they retreated to the grass roots of the party and did good constituency work and quietly complained from the depths, albeit not too quietly. Neither do some Tories, to the left or right of Cameron because they have unity - whatever happens.

Corbyn energised a campaign so well he won it by a mile. His words appealed not just to Labour supporters but to many others; he inspired people to rejoin the party (me and several of my friends included) and that shouldn't be ignored - however small the overall percentage of the voting population it transpires to be. He's talking in a way that has made some people both extremely happy and scared. He's talking about politics and the consequences of politics rather than talking in political speak designed to bamboozle the average Joe into not being that bothered. Jeremy Corbyn has an opportunity to make politics cool again; the Labour party have a massive opportunity to make themselves electable by being honest, straight talking and realistic and it will all be for nowt if the sore losers go against the groundswell of support for their own selfish purposes. Politics should be about the people MPs serve not about their own petty ambitions.

The Bookie Knows Best

Maybe I'm biased. Maybe I see signs that aren't there. Or maybe I, like others, see a smidgeon of panic. When the candidates for the Labour leader became public, Andy Burnham was pretty much odds on favourite and the token left wing candidate, some aging MP called Jeremy Corbyn was 100-1 and frankly, bookies probably felt they could offer 1000-1 that was the chances of the 66-year-old winning. Then he opened his mouth and a few people stopped and listened; then a few more, then a lot more and by the end of July that 100-1 had been slashed to 10-1 and now bookies weren't sure they weren't offering people the chance to skin them alive.

Then 'the establishment' got it's act together. The right wing media began its smear campaign and the Parliamentary Labour Party - very much part of 'the establishment' since Thatcher endorsed Blair - started its own campaign - part vitriol, part eating itself. By the middle of August there was a great meme floating about. It had four figures: 4 - 7 - 11 - 0 and these figures were the number of times Burnham, Cooper, Kendall and Corbyn had 'attacked' each other; except it wasn't each other, it was the number of times the three Blair/Brownite candidates had dismissed or been 'nasty' about Corbyn and the number of times Corbyn - 0 - had criticised his fellow candidates. This kind of galvanised his campaign and on August 20th, a bookmaker paid out people who had taken bets on Corbyn at 100-1. The bookies now make Corbyn 1-6 favourite with Burnham at 7-4, Cooper 20-1 and Kendall 250-1 (higher odds than Jeremy had when he came into the race with no chance). Bookies are rarely wrong.

In the Independent, columnist and left winger Mark Steel said, "The problem for Labour and Conservative leaders may be that the enthusiasm for Corbyn isn’t confined to people who consider themselves left wing. It’s a movement of those who feel the poor weren’t, if you study economics carefully, the people who caused the banking crash, so probably shouldn’t be the people asked to pay for it." This appears to be one of the simple messages that Corbyn is getting across and it is inspiring people who for so long have been force-fed the party lines of austerity and all-in-it-together (although some are in it more than others). 

Corbyn appeals to the same people who Boris Johnson, Nigel Farage, Nicola Sturgeon and Ken Livingstone appeal/ed to - he seems like the antithesis of current party politics and seems to actually question bad decisions with straight language rather than pussyfoot around like his Labour party has for the last six years.

It has been proven that the mess we're in was not the fault of the previous administration. This has pretty much been common knowledge for five years, but have Labour attacked the accusations directed at them? No, they talk rhetoric and have been a tepid opposition. Corbyn doesn't just question this lie perpetuated by Cameron and his cronies, he argues that it has been exacerbated by Osborne's ideology to destroy the welfare state and return Britain to a more Victorian society.

People didn't vote Labour in May because they offered nothing different - they were just a light blue alternative. The LibDems didn't need vilifying by the press because everyone who didn't vote Tory in 2010 blamed them for the coalition and everyone who voted Tory hated them because weren't Tories. What Corbyn has done is ignite debates that have been dismissed or ignored because they have never fitted in with the ideas of Thatcherite/Blairite/Neo-Liberalism and the reason these debates have happened is because people would really like talk about these things and get governments to acknowledge that people feel they need to be on the agenda.

Every time there is an article about Jeremy Corbyn there follows thousands of comments and at least a third of these comments are from people gloating that Corbyn means the Tories will hang onto power for at least another term. They sound like Labour supporters in April who figured they were a shoo-in after the mess the coalition were. No one expected the Scottish Independence Referendum to be as close as it was nor did they expect politicians to suddenly be heard by a wider audience. People suspected that the SNP might achieve a huge win in Scotland, but the extent of it? Suddenly Scotland was full of prospective MPs talking the same language and fighting for the things the people wanted. Nigel Farage's party managed 13% of the vote in May and got one seat (The Libs got 8% and 8 seats - and I'm sure the irony isn't lost on them), but Farage was head and shoulders the most popular 'politician' during the campaign. Yes, he might have lost his chance of being an MP, but 13% of the vote? These 13% weren't just racists and ignoramuses; many of them were poorly informed long-time Labour voters who thought UKIP reflected their historic memories of a Labour party designed to help people first and corporations second.

I'm not suggesting for a second that I believe Corbyn as Labour leader will be the beginning of a socialist utopia, but I do believe it will put the fight back into the opposition. I can't imagine the quietly-spoken Corbyn allowing Cameron to ham it up for the cameras. I expect to see a few uncomfortable screen grabs as Corbyn asks him questions he will struggle to paper over with accusations, blame and self-aggrandisement. Dear old hated Tony Blair says Labour cannot afford to be the party of continual-opposition again, but he seems to unable to see the fact that new governments tend to be formed from oppositions that show steel and push the incumbents on every issue not just the ones they think their voters feel strongly about.

I believe that for every person who tells you that we must continue with our current politics, whether it is right, a bit right or a bit right of centre, there are people who will tell you that we need something that looks much fairer than it currently is and something that doesn't treat the poor and disabled as a contemptible and wasted commodity. Modern Capitalism is just like Soviet Russia except here you get balloons instead of beetroot.

I also firmly believe that the press are desperate. The press is the mouthpiece of 'the establishment', the press do an unbelievable job of obfuscating everything; in the art of deflection the press has no peers. Mark Steel's Independent column is a perfect example - he's left of SWP, the Indy is now owned by a Russian Oligarch who urged readers to vote Conservative. The Internet did a great job of being the Freedom of Speech platform for those that cared until governments and corporations pwned [sic] them; now the internet is just an extension of television and pages like this are less popular than Channel 264 on Freeview - on a ratio scale. But Corbyn has people turning up to meetings like they haven't for donkeys years; he generates masses of column inches all over the place and if he can ride the final shit storm from the PLP - because we all know how desperate Blair and his 'ites' are to keep the red flag slightly pale blue - and can be as moderate as he actually is (someone said Corbyn's politics wouldn't seem out of place in Ted Heath's Tory party) then I believe he could regenerate former voters, defectors and more importantly people who feel politics does nothing for them. He might even help some of the selfish people in our 'society', the ones who really don't care as long as they're okay, to rediscover their love for their fellow humans.

Or maybe he won't win and we'll get the same old same old. That idea seems quite abhorrent now.