"Liberal centrism" an oxymoron

The news that a rally took place, the day after Corbyn won his second leadership election, where right-wing Labour MPs "spoke of the need for a fight to regain control" of the party is unsurprising, but, nevertheless, disappointing (Morning Star,26/09/16). How many times does the electorate have to shun their idea of "liberal centrism" for it to sink in that the ideas of New Labour have passed their sell-by date? If it wasn`t 2003, and the lies told by the Blair government to the British people to persuade them to support an unnecessary war, it was the 2008 financial crash, after years of grovelling to the City.

      If any support for centrist politics survived by 2010, it took another almighty hit with the duplicitous Clegg`s support for the Tories` callous austerity policies, notwithstanding his treachery over student fees.  The idea that the Labour electorate has become more leftwing, and will return to "a sensible middle ground"  is mistaken. From Blair to Miliband, it was the Labour party which did the moving, to the right; "intensely relaxed" about the rich amassing wealth on an unheralded scale, failing to regulate the financial services when uncontrolled greed was rampant in the City, and offering scant opposition to coalition austerity policies aimed at the weakest in society, are only a few of many examples of a party which had forgotten it had principles to follow and an electorate to serve. That same electorate abandoned it in droves in the 2010 and 2015 elections, for reasons more akin to justice and fairness than Trotskyism.

 "Liberal centrism", is as much an oxymoron as "compassionate conservatism"; the more Labour moves to the centre the more it is dominated by illiberal conservative values, making it, today, unelectable. The sooner these out-of-touch MPs get it the better!