Tomás Ó Flatharta

Diary of a Corbyn Foot Soldier (February, 2020)

https://cedarlounge.wordpress.com/2020/03/09/diary-of-a-corbyn-foot-soldier-february-2020/
— Read on cedarlounge.wordpress.com/2020/03/09/diary-of-a-corbyn-foot-soldier-february-2020/

I highly recommend Michael Murray’s account – Days of Hope Started when Jeremy Corbyn was elected to the job of leading the British Labour Party.

The foot-soldier’s trek through a gloomy British political landscape ends on April 4 2020 when Jeremy Corbyn officially resigns from his leadership job, and Tony Blair style right-wingers take over the British Labour Party again.

Doctor Strangeloves are lining to press a nuclear button, and prepare the funeral rites of the British Labour Party, which has already lost its one-time electoral fortress in Scotland.

Dictionary definition of “foot soldier”:  “…a dedicated low level follower…” 

Contents:  

*The Labour leadership election;

*The Trump “Plan” – the end of the 2 State solution to the Israel-Palestine question?;

 *2020: 100 years of the Jewish Labour Movement/ Poele Zion.   

*The Labour leadership election

Voting in the Labour Party leadership contest begins on February 21st and closes midday April 2nd. April 4th the result is announced, a new leader is duly anointed – and Jeremy Corbyn stands down.  And, it seems, I didn’t do enough in the role of loyal Corbyn foot soldier to merit a nomination to the House of Lords, as happened with Tom Watson, handsomely rewarded for his disloyalty.  

April 4th, therefore, will mark my last entry in the diary of a Corbyn foot soldier. It started when I decided to support Jeremy’s bid for the leadership. It seems a long time ago, it’s been such an eventful  roller-coaster which, of course, came from an overly emotional investment on my part in what, without a doubt, will be seen in the future as one of the defining moments in British political history. Indeed that thought was more or less how I concluded the first piece. 

In that diary entry I said I supported Jeremy because although there might have been Labour MPs more experienced and talented for the job, there was no one I wouldn’t trust as much as Jeremy to do the best he could within – from the get-go – what was a toxic political environment – much of the toxicity being generated within the Parliamentary Labour Party itself.  And by the British Establishment, including billionaire-owned main stream media. 

Jeremy didn’t let down my faith in him. Indeed, as noted in a subsequent entry, I wrote that his  apology, on behalf of the Labour Party for its support for the Iraq invasion, would have been reward enough. Iraq was the reason I didn’t rejoin the Party on return from living in Ireland in my retirement, and didn’t until Corbyn presented himself for the Party leadership with the promise of doing things differently.  But there was more to come. Much more. Appropriately, culminating in his performance in  PMQ’s  (Prime Minister’s  Questions)  and his exposure of Boris Johnson’s support for the Trump “Peace Plan.” (29th January, 2020)