“This is the way the world ends,” wrote TS Eliot, “not with a bang but with a whimper.”
Its a poetic line that resonated throughout the twentieth century, as long-cherished beliefs and structures fell like dominoes and heroism itself seemed to perish. The poem it comes from, the Hollow Men, was resonant enough sixty years later to make it into the script of Apocalypse Now, where it was voiced enchantingly by Marlon Brando, as the film reached its somewhat incoherent climax.
Things no longer end spectacularly, runs the received wisdom of the 20th century, not in slaying dragons, or the destruction of Valhalla, or even in the exploding of atomic bombs.
No, its whimpering that signifies endings now, not explosions, and nowhere is this more true than in the final stages of the tortured Brexit process.
A final whimpering indignity was heaped on the public in the half-hearted arguments about what sort of celebration should mark Brexit. For most of the nation the clear answer is no sort of celebration whatsoever. Not because people do or dont want to celebrate, but because the ending itself is largely without interest.
The nations moved on, the agendas moved on.
It remains for a rump of the Labour party to drag itself up to speed, but even when that does happen – as it will inevitably at some stage – it will be not with a bang, but with a whimper. No one will care that Labour, the party that has continued to fight the ideological battles of the 1960s into the 21st Century, is attempting to get with the Brexit programme. The Brexit programme is itself over.
True, in time there may be a groundswell of support for a renewed application to join the EU. But its nowhere near at the moment, and probably wont achieve any real momentum for at least a generation. For now the real issues are immigration, the regeneration of the North and the battleground territories of the Red Wall, economics, and identity. Labour scores poorly on all of these issues, and continues to tangle itself up in the self-defeating traps of woke politics. It looks to be out for a generation too, barring a major mis-step from Boris Johnson.
This is the real legacy of Brexit: the eclipse of Labour. Outside of the metropolitan middle classes, it wont be missed. It long ago ceased to fulfil the purpose it was founded for by Kier Hardie 120 years ago, and has become habituated to carping on the sidelines about other peoples moral compromises and preening itself on its own purity. But this is not the way to drive change, and achieve better outcomes for working class people.
After all, its no coincidence that Boris Johnson has recently started talking of “One Nation” Toryism. This is a phrase that was dreamt up by Benjamin Disraeli, the great Jewish (take that, intersectionalists!) Tory prime minister from the 19th century. Disraeli knew better than most radicals that as the British franchise widened to include more working class voters, it was likely to bring more conservative voters to the ballot box. He was subsequently trounced at the ballot box in 1880 by Gladstone, but heRead More – Source
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