DESPERATELY THROWING MUD AT JEREMY

With Jeremy Corbyn and Labour looking more and more like the government in waiting, the attacks on Corbyn have stepped up from the disgruntled Blairite M.P.'s and a hostile corporate media.

WITH ALL THE national polls showing it consistently leading the Conservative Party, Labour are aiming to doing well in the local body elections in May.

Leader Jeremy Corbyn's election message is unambiguous. He told a local Manchester meeting last week:

“Austerity is a political choice. On May 3, people across England will have the chance to send an unmistakable message to this government that enough is enough. Enough of cuts to vital services that hurt local communities; enough of cuts to schools, hospitals and local policing; enough of library and youth centres closures, enough of leaving elderly and disabled people without essential care; and enough of failed privatisations that suck funds out of public services so a few can make a profit.”

The May elections could well be the first step in getting Jeremy Corbyn into 10 Downing Street and it is no coincidence that the establishment attacks against him have recently stepped up. As we all well know, Jeremy Corbyn will not only have to defeat the Conservative Party to become Prime Minister but he will also have defeat the Blairite M.P.'s within his own party.

It was in 2015 that Tony Blair accused Jeremy Corbyn of turning Labour into a "fringe protest movement" but in 2018, even with Labour on the brink of political power, the acolytes of Blair continue to attack Corbyn.

Bereft of political principle the Blairite M.P.'s won't resign but also won't accept that Labour is no longer their party to do with what they will. The party membership have spoken and they have spoken out overwhelmingly in favour of Jeremy Corbyn. Nevertheless, like spoilt children, the Blairites continue to stamp their feet and throw tantrums.

They have been aided and abetted in their campaign of destabilisation by a national corporate media hostile to the prospect of Corbyn's Labour becoming the government. While the Blairite cabal is small in numbers, their complaints are given extensive coverage in the corporate media.

That hostility also extends to the BBC. Corbynism seeks a fundamental rewriting of British politics and the overturning of neoliberalism and that offends the prevailing market politics and culture within the BBC. Unable to grasp anything that isn't 'politics as usual' the BBC's has consistently portrayed Corbyn negatively. Last year a former BBC chair, Sir Michael Lyons, referred to “some quite extraordinary attacks on the elected leader of the Labour Party”.

In 2016 a YouGov poll last year found that an overwhelming 97% agreed that the “mainstream media as a whole has been deliberately biasing coverage to portray Jeremy Corbyn in a negative manner”.

The BBC's Newsnight photoshop's Jeremy Corbyn as Russian.

Last week Owen Smith, who was trounced by Corbyn in a 2016 leadership contest, was sacked by Corbyn from his shadow cabinet for publicly criticising Labour Party policy.

If this issue was so important to Owen he could of resigned as a matter of principle in order to continue speaking out publicly. He didn't. Instead he allowed Corbyn to dismiss him in order to act as a rallying point for his fellow Blairite conspirators.

In recent times the Blairites have accused Corbyn of everything from anti-Semitism, bullying , sexism and being soft on Russia. If England don't win the World Cup later this year that will probably be Jeremy Corbyn's fault as well.

In his book Corbyn: The Strange Rebirth of Radical Politics, Richard Seymour notes that in 2016 a major theme of the campaign against Corbyn was that he was 'unelectable'. The Guardian, for example, claimed that Corbyn’s Labour was so ‘poncified’ that working-class voters had turned off in droves.

But Jeremy Corbyn has proved that he has anything but 'unelectable'. Unable to credibly claim that he is unpopular, the Blairites can now do little more than throw mud at Corbyn  and hope some of it will stick. They would rather see Corbyn fail than see a left wing Labour government elected. They have demonstrated that they no loyalty but to themselves and the venal interests of the British political establishment.