Toby on Tuesday

 ‘Golden Opportunities’

So the revolution has happened, at least within the Labour Party. Jeremy Corbyn is leader. He will get a supportive run from the BBC, both by statute and because he has promised to “put Labour at the forefront of the campaign to defend the BBC”, from Channel 4 News which openly shares his convictions, and from the Guardian and the Independent. So that’s a solid support base in the media before he starts. What I’ll try to do in this piece is to share some random thoughts about Mr. Corbyn and the consequences of his election. The first point, which is significant at a time when MP’s expenses are again in the spotlight, is that during the 2009 expenses scandal he was revealed as claiming the lowest amount of any Member of Parliament. Again, he claimed the smallest amount in 2010 when he declared, “I am a parsimonious MP…I think we should claim what we need to run our offices and pay our staff, but be careful because it’s obviously public money.” This is a distinction shared with UKIP’s Douglas Carswell, another thrifty MP and indeed a Parliamentary friend of Jeremy Corbyn’s. A record of care with public money will have positive electoral consequences in the years ahead, something that should not be overlooked.

As to the EU, the Corbyn Labour Party will openly and strongly identify itself with Greece’s leftist Syriza Party, which looks set to win the General Election there on 20th September, with Spain’s Podemos Party, with Portugal’s Left Bloc and with France’s Socialist Party. All these parties of the left are rightly horrified by the economic crises and chronic unemployment that have beset their countries, although for ideological reasons they cannot accept the clear need for them to leave the Euro, devalue and default, then let their economies recover. This must be the logic of their position although the Corbyn Labour Party is unlikely to endorse it. But he will immerse himself in the European left’s campaign to “end austerity” through more borrowing for large-scale public works. As to the EU referendum, he is unlikely to show his hand for a few months yet as he develops relationships with those other parties of the European left.

As for the Conservative Party, there is no doubt that David Cameron and George Osborne will use the Labour Party’s move to the hard left to seize the fabled “centre ground” of politics. For my part, I have always believed in a “common ground” rather than a “centre ground”, but the ‘heirs to Blair’ will stake out that point in the hope of a landslide General Election victory in 2020. Of course for UKIP all this presents a golden opportunity, as with the Labour Party now well to the left and the Conservative Party as a centrist managerial party, there is a huge vacuum that a popular centre-right UKIP can fill. The themes of nationhood and family are as strong as ever and a UKIP that campaigns for 30 years of integration after 30 years of immigration, for rebuilt armed forces, for a nation self-sufficient in energy using carbon capture and safe shale (with proper compensation for those affected), in which our fisheries can be reclaimed and our farmers assured of a decent price for their food, should win 8 million votes in 2020, up from 4 million in 2015, and countless Members of Parliament.

And one last thing – at the next General Election Mr. Corbyn will be just short of 71 years old. So the days of handsome young technocrats, epitomised by Tony Blair and David Cameron (who will be gone by 2020), are drawing to a close. And the age of weather-beaten veterans, their hoary faces lined with years of campaigning against the fashions of their time, may just have arrived. Heaven knows, we’ve plenty of weather-beaten veterans in UKIP (including myself) and, if nothing else, Jeremy Corbyn’s triumph could just give all our vintage campaigners a new lease of life as well!

Until next Tuesday!
Toby