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Much of the politics in Britain these days isn't even about Brexit. It's about how most of the elite political class (Tories, most of the press, and the Blairites in Labour) hate Jeremy Corbyn. The guy isn't beyond criticism and certainly if you don't agree with his politics you aren't going to like him. Brits have a slightly more open if still complicated and confused version of our own "what does it mean to be a journalist instead of an advocate" question. But it really is at the point where if Corbyn wears a hat one day they decide that's evidence he's unfit, and if he doesn't wear a hat one day they decide that's evidence he's unfit. In terms of Brexit, what the political press wanted (including the ones who are paid to be racist liars for right wing publications, mostly) was an Oxford debate between the anti-Brexit forces and the pro-Brexit forces, with the former led by a Labour leader who wanted nothing more than to dissolve his own party and form a new third party containing anti-Brexit Tory and Labour members, which would otherwise be basically a Tory party. The anti-Brexit forces would defeat the other side with Facts and Logic, Ben Shapiro-style, and somehow Brexit would be over. It's their version of the third party fantasies our press has here. Maybe Howard Schultz is a UK citizen?
In terms of Brexit, what the political press wanted (including the ones who are paid to be racist liars for right wing publications, mostly) was an Oxford debate between the anti-Brexit forces and the pro-Brexit forces, with the former led by a Labour leader who wanted nothing more than to dissolve his own party and form a new third party containing anti-Brexit Tory and Labour members, which would otherwise be basically a Tory party. The anti-Brexit forces would defeat the other side with Facts and Logic, Ben Shapiro-style, and somehow Brexit would be over. It's their version of the third party fantasies our press has here. Maybe Howard Schultz is a UK citizen?
Meanwhile, what of Comrade Jeremy? For somebody often painted as a dangerously impulsive radical, Corbyn's greatest political skill may turn out to be his talent for delay. He lets events come to him. Under his bo tree, he quietly sits, and sits, and takes the hits - as, for instance, on the referendum issue - waiting for his moment. Unblinking, he watches as Tom Watson launches his party-within-a-party. He knows that this will stop more centrist Labour MPs defecting to the Independent Group... and so he does nothing rash or angry. He is a radical socialist in his beliefs, no doubt, but he is a milky-mild Fabian in his tactics. Is this surprising? I think it is the result of all those long hours waiting in his allotment for plants to sprout, buds to uncurl, fruit to ripen. He is a watcher. He thinks a long time before acting. This is a new and largely misunderstood politics: gardeners' socialism.
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