Psychoanalysis of the Labour Party
For those who enjoyed a similar exercise carried on the Tory leadership, (I personally did). I hope you will like this.
Think of the current leadership of the Labour Party as a family. Jeremy Corbyn is Your Ideal GrandPa. White-bearded, soft-spoken, he tries always to avoid controversies and disagreements, he spends much of his time in his allotment. Diane Abbott is The Mother. She keeps the house in order, she sacrifices herself for the family’s good name spending hours with unpleasant company (such as Andrew Neil), she suffers abuses but you know she is resilient. John McDonnell is The Rebellious Teen-Ager. Rebellion is his world. He befriends with Irish guerrilleros, archetypical fighters with no time for married life. Bobby Sands died as a virgin, remember? And remember also that scene of Bloody Sunday, James Nesbit as Ivan Cooper who complains that political fight leaves him no time for his fiancé. In such a family Seamus Milne is The Patriarch. He decides who can marry (ally with) whom. He has connections with the real power out there, Russia and Vladimir Putin.
This is a very close family, whose members have fought together, cemented their bounds in the political fight, lived together, vacationed together, been vigilant together against infiltrators. But it is also a dysfunctional family. There is no father. No ideological father. Karl Marx is far away, Leon Trotsky had been murdered by a relative, Noam Chomsky is American and lives in another world… There is no Father like figure. But there are rumours according to which Mother once slept with Grandpa. Highly disturbing, better not to talk about.
For those who at this moment are upset for what they are reading and feel offended already. I thought you like this sort of games. Or you do only when are about Margaret Thatcher? Come on, show some fairness.
Now we probably understand why this leadership is so popular among University students. University students nowadays live in a world without fathers. They are free to experiment, to challenge, to push boundaries, to break rules. But also, the current Labour leadership is popular in the intellectual, cultivated middle class. In families where the paternal figure is long gone and fathers want to be friends with their children.
Did you notice how often these people, the Labour leadership and their followers, identify Jews with power? If you spend some time skimming their posts on social media, you will see expressions such as “Zionist Lobby”, “Jewish Establishment”, “Israeli privilege” (and of course “oppressed Palestinians”, or “dispossessed Arabs”), repeated countless times, without any reality check. They even believe that The Guardian, long time supporter of the Two States Solution, is run by Right-wing Zios. Either you support their agenda 100% or you are sold to the power.
It is often said that Jeremy Corbyn and his comrades have a problem with the Jews. I think it is partly true. In reality, they have a problem with the concept of authority, and with paternal figures at large. They can accept in their midst fundamentalist Muslims, LGBT of every kind, Afro Caribbean of every background, including fundamentalist Evangelicals. They only accept revolutionary Jews, such as JewDas, that is ever rebellious Jews.
Think about it. When you come from a privileged and intellectual family such as the Corbyns, Jews are those who know your secrets. They most likely have had a Jewish doctor. Later in life, they had a Jewish psychotherapist. They have been fed with Stalinist propaganda about Jewish bankers who know the secrets of the Stock Exchange. In their childhood memory, there is a Jewish tailor who had the privilege to see their parents in briefs, half-naked, exposed.
So here you go. As much as we Jews can try to establish good relations with the members of this dysfunctional family, we have little chance to succeed. Because they will always perceive us a threatening power, affiliated to a kind of cabal who knows too much about their secrets and with whom no negotiation is possible.
It is either us or them.
July 2018