Chuka's Chicks Cluck Away

I’ll leave it to others to comment at length, as they have, on how the Independent Group (now joined by Soubry and the Sourpusses) epitomise irony. But in case you missed it, they think independence is a good thing for them, yet a bad thing for the UK  and secondly that despite them all backing a second referendum with remain as an option (but won’t say it out loud) none are willing to give their own constituents a vote... now they know all the facts. The irony horse has bolted from the stable.

Instead I’m taking a shot at the language, the bile and invective sprayed all around like a rampant muck-spreader on crack by Soubry about the imagined ‘far- right’. So determined is she to see the fingers of the far-right in every expression of disagreement she may as well morph into James O’Brien and get it all over and done with. She still manages to both oppose Brexit yet believe she is supporting the referendum vote by ignoring it; the level of cognitive dissonance she suffers must be like tinnitus.

Supporting Brexit does not make you far-right. Wanting an independent – oh look, there’s that lovely word again – Britain does not make you some kind of jack-booted fascist. Not wanting to be ruled from afar is as British as you can get and you might wish to recall the British have a bloody good track record at fighting fascism. Look it up, while history still reports it thus. Soubry’s hyperbole is as ridiculous as Owen Jones’s ‘Winston Churchill was worse than Hitler’ trope he was flogging last week. I mean what is wrong with you people?

Soubry, Allen and Wollaston are claiming to be real Conservatives, trying to save the Party from what has been described as far-right infiltration from top to bottom, when all we see is New-Labour-Lite. Heidi Allen even went so far as to say that the big parties “...want to crush the birth of democracy." This is the same Heidi Allen who has left one of those big parties in order to thwart the outcome of the biggest democratic vote this country has ever held.

Newspeak, is of course the inevitable result of doublethink and the Independent Group are displaying all the glorious traits of Orwell’s IngSoc as they whip up extremism of their own. In fact, breaking away and forming your own group is the very essence of revolution; how very Trotsky of them. And inciting the kind of anti-Brexit rhetoric they do, is so redolent of the two minute hate... except that it isn’t confined to two minutes; it is non-stop.

The only way this rabble can claim to be centrist is that they blend together the extremist tendencies of both left and right, speaking about democracy while opposing it, demanding action against hate while promoting it. Were it not for the voracious appetite of 24-7 news their disjointed message would have already been lost. Instead (much like the Labour Party of late) they are all popping up in interviews to renounce their earlier affirmed stances and to contradict each other in their aims.

If you see any of these lost souls, please inform their carers

If only they would decide to tell the truth and come out as the Anti-Brexit Party. But even the frothing Soubry, the remainer zealots’ zealot, for all her talk of ‘Bluekip’ and ‘Purple Momentum’ still cannot admit to herself that she may not be an actual Conservative. Also she may have been on the Sherry. Anyway, Independents, you were the ones who chose to leave a situation you couldn’t reform from within. Should you put yourselves up for re-election you really haven’t a leg to stand on, which is just as well, as you have no intention of standing.

Seven Deadly Sinners

The newly formed Independent Group of ex-Labour MPs say they want a new politics, not driven by ideology. But wait, what is politics, after all, if it doesn’t pursue a vision? Mere governance need not cleave to left or right, but simply acts in the best interests of the majority, surely? Yes, look after the helpless, but otherwise act for all. Ideologies on the other hand seek more, well, ideological outcomes. And Labour comes from the soak the rich, kill the rich, tax the rich, banish the rich (but still tax them), hate the rich, harry the rich end of the spectrum. Where does this put the band of seven?

There were said to be seven capital vices, otherwise known as the seven deadly sins: pride, greed, lust, envy, gluttony, wrath and sloth. Just for a bit of fun, let’s look at the sinners a little more closely.

Pride, they say, goes before a fall and Chuka Umunna simply can’t help himself. As a closeted gay Tory in real life, he clearly chose the Labour Party as one in which his dusky skin tones gave him more of a leg up than his natural parliamentary home. Alas his bid for leadership fell at the first hurdle and consigned him forever to be the bridesmaid and never the bride. No doubt he sees himself as leader of this new group... watch out for that tumble!

Chris Leslie, who supports a deeply unpopular soft Brexit with a customs union and single market membership, has criticised Labour for not demanding a second referendum, with Remain an option. He claims his Constituency Labour Party has been infiltrated by the intolerant hard left which seeks to deselect him. It doesn’t look as he has much to lose by quitting. Oh how he must envy Chuka’s suave, Tory presence and winning ways with the, er, laydeez.

Gavin Shuker (who he?) at only 37, is the whippersnapper of the gang of seven. But greedy for power he has founded a secretive company  ‘Gemini A Ltd’ who are said to be the backers behind The Independent Group. As the sole director, wee Gavin clearly hopes his grip on the purse strings will deliver him the attention he craves. And as for Mike Gapes carrying, as he does a few extra pounds, are we to detect a touch of the glutton?

Then we come to the ladies and who would wish to feel the wrath of a woman scorned? Still less the incandescent fury of Luciana Berger – the anti-anti-Semite’s anti-anti-Semite. Or indeed Angela Smith whose slip of the tongue over ‘funny-tinge-gate’ betrays, maybe, an obsession with the dusky. Methinks, however, her lust will go unanswered by the chhekily mocha Chuka. As for Ann Coffey, in a vox-pop from her ward a constituent claimed she had never done a thing for the area, so a sloth in sheep’s clothing, or simply the left, ever quick to turn on their own?

Still waters don't always run so deep

Of course, Ms Coffey has form in backing losers. She nominated Liz Kendall for the Labour leadership in 2015 and endorsed Owen Smith in same failed endeavour in 2016. Whatever the truth behind it all, what seems by now abundantly clear is how few ripples this has really caused in the political talent pool. If you are going to start a breakaway movement you really need some bigger headline acts than this. Maybe seven deadly sinners was too big a label; they are more like the seven dwarves, which begs the question: which one is the most Dopey?