The British ruling class is out to destroy Corbyn

The whole of the British establishment is united in a furious campaign to destroy left wing British Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn.

In the latest move, the Court of Appeal banned 130,000 Labour Party members who joined in the last six months from voting in the upcoming leadership election. Most of those 130,000 had been expected to back Corbyn against Owen Smith, who is the unity ticket candidate of the party’s soft left, centre and Blairite right wing.

From the moment he became a serious contender for Labour leadership, Corbyn has faced a hostile press barrage because of his radical politics. A recent study by the London School of Economics revealed that only 11 percent of coverage of Corbyn in national newspapers has been positive.

If Corbyn is to have any hope of implementing his progressive policies, the Labour Party needs to be thoroughly transformed.

It is not just the right wing Murdoch press that has heaped vile abuse on Corbyn, smearing him as an anti-Semite, a woman hater, a supporter of terrorism and a lover of Saddam Hussein. The supposedly left wing Guardian has also been viciously hostile, while the BBC has given twice as much time to Labor critics of Corbyn as his supporters.

Immediately following his election as leader last September, a serving British general warned that there would be “mutiny” if Corbyn became prime minister. The chief of the defence staff, general Sir Nicholas Houghton, followed up with an attack on Corbyn because he made it clear he would not be prepared to give the order to unleash a nuclear war that would kill millions of civilians.

This concerted assault on Corbyn, combined with the sabotaging campaign by the majority of Labour MPs, has resulted in a sharp fall in the Labour vote to just 26 percent in recent polls. But despite all the talk about the need for a new leader because Corbyn is “unelectable”, his challenger Owen Smith is doing no better in the polls.

The barrage of ruling class attacks has inspired Corbyn’s supporters to mobilise with a wave of huge meetings right across Britain. Most unions have come out in support of Corbyn because he has been a longstanding defender of workers’ rights.

So it seems highly likely that Corbyn will be able to fight off Owen Smith and retain the leadership. But that will not be even half the battle.

If Corbyn is to have any hope of implementing his progressive policies, the Labour Party needs to be thoroughly transformed. The right wing party machine and the great majority of the MPs need to be removed from office.

However, the fight cannot be confined to internal party machinations. Corbyn’s supporters need to be campaigning on the streets and in every workplace and university campus to turn back the tide of attacks on working class living standards and to popularise a socialist alternative to neoliberal capitalism.