Last Friday, the British Labour Party introduced an “assisted dying” bill into parliament. The following day, in an attempt to demonstrate that they stood squarely behind the measure, the party’s members elected Jeremy Corbyn as their new leader.
Since 1974, Labour has won only three elections — all of them under the moderate stewardship of Tony Blair. By selecting a rabble-rousing socialist to lead it into the future, the British Left has sent a clear message to the public at large. That message? That it is happy to lose in perpetuity if it can moan and emote along the way. In The Road to Wigan Pier, George Orwell worried aloud that his coveted socialist agenda would never be realized if its implementation were to remain in the hands of the “prigs.” “It would help enormously,” Orwell concluded, “if the smell of crankishness which still clings to the Socialist movement could be dispelled.” “If only the sandals and the pistachio-coloured shirts could be put in a pile and burnt, and every vegetarian, teetotaller, and creeping Jesus sent home to Welwyn Garden City to do his yoga exercises quietly,” then — and only then — would the Left have a shot at power. Combining the mien of a burned-out geography teacher at a third-rate comprehensive school with the speaking style of a self-satisfied undergraduate Trotskyite, Jeremy Corbyn is precisely the kind of socialist Orwell feared. One can only imagine how he’d suffer if he were alive to watch his rise.