As the debate in the Commons approaches as to whether Britain should extend air strikes to Syria (talk of going to war is rubbish; the RAF is already in action against IS, it is just an extension of the target range) another war is raging near at home. In the Labour Party.
It was, when one thinks about it, bound to happen sooner or later. The Labour party elects a leader by a landslide with the support of the trade unions, but the Labour members of parliament do not want him nor will they accept his leadership. The majority of Labour MPs are ideologically much closer to Cameron than to either Corbyn or Labour’s grass roots. They are more or less the left wing of the Tory party in temperament, ideology and politics.
The shadow cabinet is worse than a fiasco. Something has now to give. The best would be for Corbyn to fire the lot and build a new one containing the loyalists he already has in it plus left wing members from the back benches. The remaining New Labour members should take the Tory whip. Corbyn will lose about ninety MPs but he will have a loyal and close knit opposition from which, like Attlee, he can build electoral success. He has a good chance of succeeding because there is an increasing groundswell to the left.
On the other hand if the New Labour majority of the party’s MPs find a legal way to ditch Corbyn, Labour faces electoral oblivion. Nobody is going to vote for a cheap imitation of the real thing, which will be a left of centre Tory party likely led by Boris (Osborne’s figures are unlikely to add up according to his forecasts). To prevent that the unions may need to read the riot act. They have the power after all. Just shut off Labour’s funding.
Labour MPs have some grounds for complaining that Corbyn’s leadership has been uncertain; for one who has never lead anything and arrives in post as a popular hero (he gets as much media as Cameron, unusual for an opposition leader) it is bound to be bumpy at first. But to smooth out the way Labour MPs have to make themselves capable of being led. This is not the case at the moment.