DAILY MAIL COMMENT: The unusual dying of Labour Britain and why the Right MUST unite
After her by-election win, Hannah Spencer, new MP for Gorton and Denton, declared: ‘There’s no part of the country where the Green Party cannot win.’
If that is even fractionally true, Britain is in deep, deep trouble. Once an alliance of worthy environmentalists, the Greens now peddle the politics of envy, divisiveness and ugly sectarianism.
Their victory yesterday has left many decent people anxious and bewildered. They fear the old two-party system is collapsing and darker forces are moving in to fill the vacuum.
To garner the large Muslim vote, the Greens embraced anti-Zionism bordering on anti-Semitism and often seemed more interested in Gaza than Gorton. As a result, many British Jews will be feeling less safe today.
There are also sinister accusations by an independent monitor of ‘family voting’, whereby Asian wives were allegedly accompanied into booths and told how to vote by their husbands. Such apparent misogynistic coercion must be fully investigated.
This paper aside, the Greens have so far been spared the scrutiny other parties are subjected to. Even a cursory look at their policy platform is enough to show they are dangerous and deluded cranks.
Free money for all in the form of a universal basic income, legalisation of all drugs, open borders, slavery reparations and a host of other crackpot Leftist causes.
With classic far-Left disingenuity, they pretend that this can all be paid for by wealth taxes. It is sixth-form politics at its most absurd, yet people, especially the young, are being seduced.
One obvious consequence of this by-election humiliation is that Sir Keir Starmer is finished. The big question is whether Labour is going the same way.
After her by-election win, Hannah Spencer, new MP for Gorton and Denton, declared: ‘There’s no part of the country where the Green Party cannot win’
One obvious consequence of this by-election humiliation is that Sir Keir Starmer is finished. The big question is whether Labour is going the same way
Between 1859 and 1922, the Liberals boasted seven prime ministers, one of whom, William Gladstone, won four elections
In his 1935 work, The Strange Death Of Liberal England, George Dangerfield tries to explain the implosion of the party which had dominated British politics for more than 60 years.
Between 1859 and 1922, the Liberals boasted seven prime ministers, one of whom, William Gladstone, won four elections. Then, quite suddenly, they lost their political compass and collapsed. It would be premature to say Labour is similarly doomed, but where does it go from here? What is its purpose? Who does it serve?
Labour MPs are not the sons of toil they once were, but human rights lawyers, think-tankers, single-issue activists, advisers, union hacks and assorted lanyard-wearing blowhards.
While they spend their time obsessing about trans rights, assisted dying and the dash to Net Zero, places like Gorton and Denton slip ever deeper into decline.
If Labour can lose in this working-class enclave, it can lose anywhere. But what to do? If it swings Left to ward off the Greens, it leaves its Right flank exposed to Reform and vice versa.
It would be easy to say a new leader would make a difference but none of Sir Keir’s potential leadership candidates have much credibility. This is a one-term government and they know it.
So how can the Right prevail in 2029? Reform did tolerably well yesterday, but not enough to suggest it could form a majority government.
Its odd choice of candidate, an academic most often seen on GB News, and lacklustre campaigning smacks of a complacency which must worry those who see Reform as Britain’s only hope.
The Tories were never going to feature in Gorton, but they are rebuilding well under Kemi Badenoch and should be battle ready come the general election. It may be too soon yet for any formal pact, but an arrangement must be made over the next three years.
The alternative to uniting the Right is a chimera coalition of Left-wing parties. If that materialises, this country will enter a doom spiral from which it may never recover.
