The late Ralph Miliband who died 25 years ago in May (the father of Ed and David in case you werent sure) opened his 1961 analysis of the history of the Labour Party, Parliamentary Socialism, by noting that of all the social democratic parties in Europe, Labour was the most obsessed not about socialism but about Parliament.
Since then 1968 has taken place and demonstrations of millions have taken place in the streets about issues ranging from the Iraq War to the EU Referendum result.
You might think that even the most die hard Parliamentarian would grasp that politics in 2019 is about a lot more than the House of Commons. Unfortunately Nigel Farage,who has never been an MP, has certainly worked that out.
I note that according to reports (which to be fair may not be particularly accurate) some Labour MPs are complaining that Jeremy Corbyn will address the anti-Trump protest in London on Tuesday.
Since even YouGov, not particularly noted for the left-wing bias of its polls, has found that Trump has an approval rating of 21% you might think that this is a pretty safe thing for any politician to do.
You might also think that these Labour MPs, whoever they are, might have noticed that Mr Corbyn spoke at a huge anti-Trump rally in London last time he came to London which was as long ago as, er, 13th July 2018. Still that was a Friday afternoon and well, the MPs might have been otherwise engaged as it were.
At root of course the complaint is that Corbyn is not sufficiently obsessed with Parliamentary politics (although obsessed enough to have been an MP since 1983). In that however he is almost certainly in tune with much of the electorate.
Guardian report of Corbyn’s speech at the last anti-Trump London rally
Leave a Reply