By Teka Lark and Christopher J.V. Loughlin (December 13, 2019)
Teka Lark
So, picking white nationalism over health care and common sense is global. In the English speaking world, I don’t want to hear your class reductionist arguments. The roots of the plant of oppression are fibrous, class does not trump white nationalism in the West, it works in conjunction. It is a lie that if you just speak to the economic needs of white people, the majority will come around. This idea was proven to be a lie again in the UK. The thought that POC might get a crumb is enough to inspire white people to cut off their noses in protest.
Christopher J.V. Loughlin
That was a brutal encounter, a brutal battle. There will be a dissection of what went wrong and what went right for Labour. But it seems clear a number of factors impacted the Labour vote at this stage: the Brexit policy hamstrung Labour; the print media waged a clear smear and disinformation campaign versus the left; it is unclear where the Tories electoral propaganda money for the election came from (watch out for more on that post-election).
Fundamentally, we lost this battle.
But losing a battle is not losing a war… the next months and years will see titanic struggles take place, on Brexit, the environment, the NHS, education, welfare, war, the national question. And we will keep fighting in the unions, in society, for a better future, a brighter tomorrow. The fight continues. It isn’t victory that will test us the most, it is defeat. There are too many hopes burning right now for any of us to take too much time to mourn.
In fairness to Labour, as Bruce Lee said, “In great attempts, it is glorious even to fail.” It is not much, but there is too much suffering, poverty and degradation in this world for us to be too demoralised. There is too much to do and too little time.