Mr Benn - Yes or No?

THE WRONG TONY

A couple of days ago we went to see Tony Benn : Will and Testament at the Cameo cinema.  Long awaited (we first saw an excerpt from it over two years ago) it lived up to my expectations.  Often, sad, even moving me to tears at times, it was, largely, inspiring.  A man who stuck with his convictions, unless evidence were presented to the contrary.  A man who went up against the system no matter how much The Establishment vilified him for it.  Their efforts to marginalise him stand as the very testament to how much he hit raw nerves and came close to cracking the united facade that the rich and powerful put up to deceive the majority of us.

Benn wasn't always right - he freely admitted as much himself - but he was always honest (much to his cost when he was a minister) and spoke his mind according to his own beliefs.  Even his opponents admired (and feared) him for that reason.  That and his sharp intellect and analytical mind.  One of the few leading politicians who genuinely applied themselves to the betterment of their constituents and the wider society they served.

One the closing statements of the film struck a strong chord with me, one that has an additional resonance in the light of recent events.  "The battle is between Socialism and Barbarism.  And I know which side I'm on."  And in the decades since the Thatcher governments began to reverse all the progress which had been made by Attlee's administration, and kicked off the social decline which continues to see inequality in the UK grow and grow, the barbaric nature of capitalism becomes ever clearer.  The idea of "Capitalism with a human face" becomes ever more risible and evidence accumulates of the duplicity that those in power will resort to.  After the Tory domination of the eighties and early nineties the election of a Labour government felt like a chance for the slate to be wiped clean, for a new social direction.  But, despite some advances such as the Minimum Wage, in most respects the Labour of Blair proved to be no more capable of the kind of change needed than it's predecessors.  What we got was Tory-lite, a Thatcherite party in all but name.  And the death of any real pluralism of choice.

Is it any wonder that voters have become increasingly disenchanted with the political mainstream when all three of the old traditional parties look ever more and more the same?  The loss of Clause Four, and a commitment to state ownership, destroyed the socialist Labour movement that Benn had pinned his flag to.  Although he remained a Labour man to the end it was obvious he did so with only a few vestiges of hope remaining.  The Labour party of the Twenty First century has little in common with his honest values and commitment to a fairer society.  We did indeed end up with the wrong Tony B leading our state. Just look at Mandleson....

Benn was opposed to EU membership, throughout his life.  In this I think he was wrong, although I sympathise with the anti-capitalist thinking that guided this view, for the biggest failing of the EU, and the ECHR, is the commitment to the sanctity of property.  It remains a charter for the rich.  Equally he expressed his opposition to Scottish independence and might have even spoken on behalf of the No movement had been around to do so.  Or would he?

There are many reasons to be sad at Benn's demise, but from a personal view I'd have loved to know what he'd have made of the Yes campaign in the final weeks leading up to the Referendum.  Whilst many of the public faces remained the expected politicians - Salmond, Sturgeon, Harvie, Sheridan et al - the Yes movement had taken on a life of its own, above and beyond political parties.  It had become a genuine people’s movement, operating outwith the boundaries of party loyalties.  It had become exactly the kind of movement that Benn had inspired, and been inspired by in the past.  It had also, in the closing weeks, become a target for everything that The British Establishment could throw at it.

Benn was once described by a national newspaper as "The most dangerous man in Britian".  If only.  He received much worse than that, and only once they considered him relatively harmless was he accorded National Treasure status.  Most papers hated him.  The TV stations found him hard to handle, easier if ignored.  And he had opponents in both his own and opposing parties lining up to declare him borderline insane.

Tony might have recognised all this in those final days leading up to 18 September.  We'll never know what he might have made of it.  And I recognise my own confirmation bias, and wishful thinking, in imagining that he would have come over to our side.  Perhaps recognising the Yes movement for what it was - the biggest democratic attack on the UK's rich and powerful since the days of the Attlee government.  I wonder....?