THE anti-Corbyn candidates must be pretty desperate if they are prepared to allow ex-Labour Prime Minister Tony Blair to appear and give a speech supporting any candidate for the Labour leadership other than left-winger Jeremy Corbyn.
Blair is the man who was determined to go to war with Iraq alongside George Bush, produced ‘dodgy dossiers’ packed with lies to pave the way to war and clinched it with the big lie that Iraq had wmds and would not hesitate to use them against British troops in Cyprus.
Blair of course is aspirational – he aspires to make as many millions as possible, and has used his post-premier jobs as a platform for making millions. While being the Quartet’s UN Middle East peace envoy he did not advance the Palestinian cause by a single inch. However he did cultivate excellent relations with the Middle East’s feudal rulers, while not having lifted a finger to assist Palestine.
Blair stated on 22/01/15, on the death of the brutal dictator King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia, one of the world’s most repressive regimes: ‘I knew him well and admired him greatly. Despite the turmoil of events in the region around him, he remained a stable and sound ally, was a patient and skilful moderniser of his country, leading it step by step into the future.’
A previously secret contract with a Saudi oil company headed by a member of the country’s royal family has been leaked, showing Blair was charging £41,000 a month and two per cent commission on any of the multi-million-pound deals he helped broker. Mr Blair denied that there was any conflict of interest between these practices and his role as a Middle East envoy.
The contract between Tony Blair Associates and PetroSaudi signed in November 2010, said Mr Blair would personally arrange introductions to his contacts in China, such as senior politicians. Blair clearly is a ‘winner’ as far as providing lucrative services for capitalism is concerned. Yesterday, he declared that Labour has ‘rediscovered losing’ – because MPs voted against the Tories and defended the welfare gains of workers – as he went into bat for the anti-Corbyn candidates who are angry that a poll put left-winger Corbyn ahead in the leadership contest.
The YouGov poll suggests Corbyn is the first preference for 43% of party supporters, ahead of Andy Burnham on 26%, Yvette Cooper on 20% and Liz Kendall on 11%. Addressing the Progress think tank, Blair said that the ‘debilitating feature’ of the leadership contest was that it was being presented as a choice ‘between heart and head’, he said, adding that people who say their heart is with Mr Corbyn should ‘get a transplant’.
He also implied that he would oppose a Corbyn-led Labour government. He said of a Corbyn victory at the polls, ‘It would not take the country forward, it would take the country back,’ he said. His contention that a Labour government under Corbyn will take the country backwards suggests that Blair will support the forward looking Tories if Corbyn wins the ballot.
Former Tony Blair adviser John McTernan has perfectly captured the panic of the right wing with his advice that two of the three other candidates should withdraw in favour of an anyone-but-Corbyn candidate. He also said Labour MPs who lent their support to the Islington MP – who struggled to get enough nominations to make it onto the ballot – were ‘morons’.
Presumably, this is his opinion of the large numbers of workers who are supporting Corbyn and have nothing but contempt for the Labour MPs that abstained over the Welfare Bill and have brought Blair back as their champion. Workers now grasp that the Tories are determined to smash the NHS, to make strikes illegal and to destroy the Welfare State. This is why they are supporting the left Corbyn.
This is just the beginning of their development. In the days ahead, workers will take mass strike action against anti-union laws and in defence of the Welfare State. They are beginning to reason that, if capitalism cannot afford a Welfare State and an NHS, then capitalism must be dumped into the dustbin of history by a socialist revolution – and the sooner the better!