Friday 2 October 2015

Mixing the missions

Jeremy Corbyn's mission to Scotland to try and recover his party's position there, coupled with the enthusiasm of so many of his party's MPs for possessing and being willing to use weapons of mass destruction must surely raise an interesting conundrum for him.  On the one hand, he wants Labour to defeat the SNP in Scotland, and on the other he wants rid of Trident.  But paradoxically, achieving the first of those makes it considerably less likely that he can ever achieve the second.

Given the statements he's been making in Scotland, and the extent to which he's already been equivocating over Trident to appease his MPs, it seems to be increasingly clear which way he'll jump.  A victory for Labour is more important to him than getting rid of nuclear weapons.  Sadly, but not unexpectedly, he'll turn out to be less different from his predecessors than many have been assuming.  Too many people are being taken in by his rhetoric - when push comes to shove, it will always be party over principle.

2 comments:

Spirit of BME said...

While I totally agree with the gist of your post, if Brother Corbyn has a nose for a deal I think there is one to be made here.
He can go two ways by pulling out of Scotland – in reality what the parties have done in the North of Ireland and get a working relationship with the SNP, or he can try and kick start Labour and defuse the SNP threat of independence.
The Establishment who live in the drinking holes of St James will be forced to recognise that if he does save the Union, they will be forced to make a deal and “standing down” Trident during his administration might be on.
The west coast of Scotland is the prime site for submarines as they can get to deep water and disappear before detected, compared to being based in Englandandwales and having to navigate the channel or Irish Sea. So if Scotland goes it could render the Trident project useless.

Anonymous said...

John is right here. It's still early ish days but Corbyn will quickly become quite rudderless and will be seen as "weak". I'm not keen on the narrative around consensual leaders being "weak" but it is going to look like Corbyn is giving everything to the right of the Labour party and getting nothing back in return.

But what does it matter? What is the mechanism for ousting Corbyn even if he does badly in elections?