The latest edition of BBC1’s Question Time featured both Labour’s Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell and former Blair spin-doctor Alastair Campbell as panellists. From the start of the programme the tension was palpable, hostility was strained but this was clearly an armed truce. Campbell, in particular, tried to be balanced:
“I certainly don’t put everything at the door of Jeremy Corbyn. I think that’d be really unfair. I think that there are issues going back to when we were in power – Iraq being the most obvious in terms of policy, but also tuition fees that were very, very difficult for a lot of people. We lost support.”
But McDonnell couldn’t help himself, lashing out: “You lost us 5m votes in that process and set us up to fail.”
Which, on the face of it, is an odd way to describe a record-breaking three massive election victories in a row which led people to question whether the Tory Party could ever be elected again. Which is why Campbell said to McDonnell:
“I get why newspapers like the Daily Mail want to trash Tony Blair. we won elections and they’re a rightwing newspaper. I understand why the Tories want to trash New Labour, because we beat them three times. But when the Labour party’s doing it, it’s utterly ridiculous. It’s part of the revolutionary posh-boy madness that’s taken this party over.”
Off-screen McDonnell went further, calling Campbell “a f****** a*******””.”
Now, politics is a passionate profession – and so it should be, it is about power and principles. But what is notable is how polite political discourse actually is. Sure, there are taunts in parliamentary debates and people will call each other opponents and even enemies. Yet there is an underlying civility and there are many friendships across the political divide. This may surprise those outside politics but it is, after all, a profession and you have a lot in common with your opponents – experiences, skills, career paths, frustrations.
That civility exists within political parties, too. You may disagree with fellow members in a debate about housing or welfare but you share a common bond – a commitment to winning and governing and fighting to achieve that. Or rather, that is how it is normally. As the Campbell-McDonnell clash vividly shows, any sense of comradeship has broken down within the Labour Party currently.
It is not just their clash. It is the death threats that Labour MPs have received – requiring them to evacuate their homes while the Bomb Squad search them, or necessitating police protection at surgeries. It is bricks through office windows. It is vile sexist abuse on social media. What is the cause of this behaviour? It is a new strain in Labour politics – the pursuit of purity in ideology.
The leadership team of Corbyn and McDonnell – and their supporters – believe that there has to be an end to internal Labour debate and unity behind their ideas. It is a travesty of democratic politics – the substitution of democratic centralism for a broad church of contesting views.
The Corbynite members of the party – organised through Momentum – are committed to that purity. And if that can’t be achieved then there needs to be purification.
Until now, this pursuit of ideological purity has been the preserve of fringe political movements – and it historically has led to the splintering and fragmenting of the extreme left parodied so well in Monty Python’s Life of Brian:
Brian: Excuse me. Are you the Judean People’s Front?
Reg: F*** off! ‘Judean People’s Front’. We’re the People’s Front of Judea! ‘Judean People’s Front’.
Francis: Wankers.
What was a joke has now become reality in the modern Labour Party. The combination of the new members, the ready availability of social media and a strong lead from the very top of the party has seen an abandonment of the basic Labour movement tradition of solidarity in favour of a relentless persecution of those with different opinions.
The behaviour of John McDonnell last week was a signal that this is authorised. It will not stop.