What's Wrong With "The Left"

Another day another million or so articles trying to pinpoint exactly where "The Left" got it all wrong. The Guardian has one here and probably a dozen more from today and will continue publishing them in a unending display of self-flagelation.

Often there's a pointing out that people see "The Left" as telling them what to do, what with all the political correctness and climate change business and letting refuges in to the country. Just look, the article linked to above is about "the intolerance of the left".

And, of course, that is the prevailing media narrative: Brexit, Trump, the FPÖ, etc. are all the result of the left losing touch with their working class base and the working class looking for someone or some party or some issue that they can make their own. From a distance this is true enough, in and of itself, except for a very small point. "The Left" may very well have deserted the working class, Tony Blair and his ilk sold their principles for power and, at the time, the hope was, I feel, that getting rid of the Tories was worth this bargain. It's not the left, the actual left and not the media boogie-man "The Left", that has deserted it's base. The mainstream parties that should represent the left have moved rightwards.

The left is now represented by the odd old school politician and various small parties scurrying to pick up votes that might go to more populist alternatives.


The problem with "The Left" is that it isn't the left. The left hasn't forgotten its roots. The left is its roots. It's there and there are problems with it but it hasn't lost elections because people are fed up with it. People are fed up with "The Left" offering paltry-to-no opposition.