The British Obama

It seems that the British Labor Party is taking
a turn quite similar to that which the Democrat
Party here in the United States had taken seven
years earlier. The U.K. Labor Party has tacked
hard --- and I do mean hard --- left. This is
apparent from the election that party members
recently held to choose their new party leader,
who will now be their point man in the House
of Commons, leading them in opposition to
the ruling Conservative Party.

MP Jeremy Corbyn was elected in what can best
be described as a left-wing fever, fueling a desire
to return to the days when the Labor Party was
getting its collective clock cleaned by the Tories,
and Margaret Thatcher was Great Britain's counterpart
to our President Ronald Reagan who was our leader
during that period. The Conservatives were seen as
the party of prosperity and stability while the Laborites
were viewed as the part of stagnant statism and boundless
extremism. Labor finally succeeded in getting a Labor
Prime Minister elected when they ran Tony Blair,
a more moderate, reasonable left-winger who didn't
frighten the British electorate with totalitarian
views and plans for micro-managing the country.
So why the retrogression?

Blair realized that after the Labor governance
disasters in the 1970s, his party needed to demonstrate
that it was not hostile to markets and was not out
to undermine Britain's allies and cozy up to its enemies.
Corbyn, on the other hand, wants more exorbitant taxes,
renationalization of industries formerly run by the government
(such as the railways), Britain out of NATO, Britain's
backing of Hamas and Hezbollah, and cessation of military
action against Islamic State (ISIS). Corbyn makes our
President Obama look like Ronald Reagan!

Corbyn's ascent to the top of his party is causing consternation
among many of his party's faithful as well as mirth among
Conservatives, as both realize that this will make it very
difficult for Labor to be a viable force in British politics
for a long time to come. Further food for thought: even
if Corbyn never gets elected Prime Minister, his poisonous
ideas could become dominant in the Labor Party, and remain
so for generations; remember when George McGovern was
the Democrats' presidential candidate in 1972? He was routed
in the general election, carrying only Massachusetts and
the District of Columbia (he failed to win his home state of
South Dakota!), but his ideas took root and shaped the Democrats'
ideology for many years to come. And the late senator, arguably
our most left-of-center elected official in his day, was
nowhere near as rabidly radical as Corbyn is proving to be.

I just love it when our lefties admonish the Republican Party to
not lean to the right, warning that it would wander into extremist
territory and cease to be a viable political party and force here.
But they love it when Obama tries to push us into that very place
with his own radical brand of governance, bolstered by his
Executive Orders and absolute disregard and disrespect for
the Constitution. I suppose that they, and Obama, think of
Jeremy Corbyn as a political hero and soulmate!

The next few years in Great Britain should be most interesting
to watch.


MEM