Good knight Sir Keir casts Corbyn into the night

So Jeremy Corbyn has been suspended from the Labour Party he led until a short time ago. He was ejected, not because he said he thought anti-Semitism was a good thing, or that he denied the existence of anti-Semitism in the Labour Party. He was dumped because he said that, in his view, the reports of anti-Semitism were ‘greatly exaggerated.’

Had he grounds for saying this? It seems very possible. In a survey of the general public, there was a belief that up to one-third of the Labour Party members were anti-Semitic. Research into the matter established that some 0.3% of members held or encouraged anti-Semitic thinking. In other words, 99.7% of the Labour Party members were not anti-Semitic.

For this – for expressing his views that reports of anti-Semitism were “greatly exaggerated”, Corbyn was suspended from the party he has served all his life.

Does this come as a total shock? Not really. We know that from the moment when Corbyn had a shock win in the contest for party leader, there has been a whole phalanx of opponents within the party who did their damnedest to topple him from the top. Shadow front benchers resigned, refused to be part of his shadow Cabinet. A second election for leader was held and Corbyn won again, much to the consternation of his internal enemies. The Labour Party grouping Momentum, which added huge numbers to the Party membership, was targeted by right-wing newspapers. Corbyn was a friend of the IRA, Corbyn was a friend of violent groups in the Middle East, Corbyn didn’t like the EU –  charge after charge was fired. Eventually and predictably,  the Tories under Johnson shredded the Labour Party in the last general election.

So now the Labour Party – once the party of the working man and woman, as its name indicates – is led by Sir Keir Starmer, a knight of the realm. The British establishment can breathe easy again: Labour has been neatly neutered, and all attempts to change Britain from an unjust society to one structured for the many, not the few, are over.

Arise, Sir Keir. Your mission is accomplished.