#SwindonsSundaySermon: the Guardian is not your friend – but John McDonnell is

I found myself reading a Guardian article this morning – I wouldn’t normally bother, but I was interested in what “the people’s chancellor”, John McDonnell, had to say about the tragic death of the Labour Party.

On a personal level, I like John. He’s friendly, knowledgeable, and his Rich Tea biscuits were proper McVities that you can dunk in your brew for half-a-second without it ending up at the bottom of your cup.

McDonnell started his article with the words, “I joined the Labour Party 50 years ago”.

His commitment to traditional left-leaning Labour values isn’t in question, but a good man is absolutely capable of making bad decisions.

That Guardian-John McDonnell article

The Labour Party that John McDonnell pines for in his Guardian piece has been utterly annihilated by an incurable moral infection spreading from Starmer and McSweeney outwards. You’re flogging a dead horse, John.

Calling for a leadership challenge from the left of Labour is futile. The left doesn’t have any clout in the party. I have more clout in my local kebab house, and I’m in my fourth decade of vegetarianism.

Labour is a rotting corpse. Starmer switched off Labour’s life support machine some time before he fluked his way into the top job. Jeremy Corbyn’s attempt to breathe new life into the mess left behind by the dirty years of Blairism was undoubtedly admirable, but ultimately, the poison had already set in.

And the tragedy for John? He played his part in hammering the final nail in the Labour coffin when he, somewhat naively, decided to get on board with the idea of a second EU referendum  — something that Jeremy Corbyn and his team were desperate to avoid.

John’s support for another Brexit vote was entirely at odds with the more pragmatic 2017 position that saw Labour commit to standing by the 52/48 vote in favour of leaving the EU.

Don’t get me wrong, I voted Remain and would do again tomorrow, if the choice was put to me. But everyone, without exception, knew that going into the 2019 general election with the promise of another crack of the referendum whip was only ever likely to gift millions of votes to Boris Johnson’s hard-Brexit Tories’ and whatever blatantly racist outfit mini-fash-Farage was backing at the time.

That rag is not your friend – nor is Labour

To be honest, I cannot for the life of me fathom how any principled socialist can remain in today’s Labour Party. That includes John.

I can understand how the red rosette would act as a comfort blanket, but when that blanket is smothering you it is no longer of any comfort.

I’m sure John McDonnell’s article got lots of clicks for the Guardian, and maybe even a few bonus fivers for the liberal rag that was so hard-up it needed to claim £100,000 in furlough cash.

The Guardian — always the first to attack the billionaire tax dodgers — managed to avoid paying corporation tax for many years. They even admitted to doing it.

The Guardian isn’t a friend of the left. The Guardian joined in with the false antisemitism rhetoric that was employed by the right to smear and silence the left. The Guardian did everything that it possibly could to deliver Keir Starmer to power, both internally and at the ballot box, just last year.

We all want a challenge from the left to Keir Starmer’s leadership, of course. But that will not come from within the Labour Party and it is fanciful nonsense to suggest otherwise.

How many times do we have to say it?

The Labour Party is dead.

Le Parti travailliste est mort.

El Partido Laborista está muerto.

劳工已经死了。

حزب العمال مات

Die Labour-Partei ist tot.

Partia Pracy jest martwa.

We could be here all day doing this, but I’m pretty sure you get where I’m coming from.

Starmer has destroyed it

In recent times we have witnessed the hideous spectacle of a Labour prime minister aping far-right rhetoric, claiming Britain is an “island of strangers”. Starmer has cut deep into Labour’s progressive roots to chase down the votes of Reform UK.

Did I mention, the Labour Party is dead?

Starmer’s leadership has destroyed its electoral and ideological cohesion and his pivot to the right quite clearly doesn’t broaden his government’s appeal.

I don’t think it is controversial to say that we are living through one of the most shameful times in our recent history. Israel is completely out of control.

Nobody is fooled by Starmer’s faux concern for the children of Gaza. He wouldn’t be allowing the sale of F-35 fighter jet components to Israel, and he wouldn’t be authorising the use of British spy planes for reconnaissance missions across the besieged enclave, within hours of publicly rebuking the Netanyahu administration, if he cared.

We have always been historically complicit in the displacement and destruction of the Palestinian people. Our support for the American colonial outpost of Israel carries a scar that has a strange power to remind us that our past is so very shameful, and so very real.

Bin the Guardian – and John McDonnell should bin Labour

If what he said in the Guardian is true, and John McDonnell wants to remain a part of this monstrosity because of “50 years of membership”, then good luck to him. I have way too much respect for the guy to lay into him.

But he, and the other dozen or so parliamentarians that still cling on to the belief of the Labour Party being the only progressive vehicle for societal change, need to realise that nobody is forcing them to stay in Starmer’s Labour.

Become an Independent. Defect to the Green Party. Set up your own left-wing movement that represents your cherished Labour values, because most of us aren’t old enough to remember what Labour values actually are.

Featured image via Rachael Swindon