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Harold Behr

Turn Left, then Right, for Cloud Cuckoo Land

You have probably heard of Mr Jeremy Corbyn, former leader of the U.K. Labour Party, who led his Party to a resounding defeat before being exiled by his successor, Sir Keir Starmer (now Prime Minister). He has recently retained his seat in Parliament as an Independent, which he construes as a magnificent victory for ‘The People’ and the turning of the tide against his former Party which, he believes, has been hijacked by reactionary politicians and will presently revert to its true colours.

For those of you whose memory might need further jogging, I ask you to picture a bordering-on-elderly gent with a neatly trimmed grey beard, wearing a resolute expression, marching at the head of demonstrations in favour of justice, peace and the establishment of a Palestinian State on Israeli soil. He declares that he is against all forms of racism and niftily dodges allegations of antisemitism by doggedly reiterating his opposition to racism of any kind. However, murderous attacks on Jews and the State of Israel seem to be strangely exempt from this blanket condemnation.

A curious aspect of Mr Corbyn’s belief system is that he is against everything for which he stands. In true Orwellian fashion, he sees love in terrorism, victory in defeat, truth in falsehood and justice in prejudice. At the same time he works diligently to undermine the Party of which he was recently the leader. For him, true leadership stems from below and he shows this by placing himself at the head of street demonstrations and addressing crowds in the fresh air, in the style of a certain Vladimir Ilyitch Lenin, instead of debating inside stuffy chambers with his fellow elected peers where he might, heaven forbid, get challenged. Moreover, he maintains that he has no personal aspirations but is simply a vessel for the true leaders of the people, those who normally never get heard. In short, he functions like a ventriloquist’s dummy, with an amazing talent for mouthing the voice of the people (or at least some of them).

At the opposite end of the red-blue spectrum, we find Mr Nigel Farage, a genial, exuberant chap, whose enormous grin would, if reproduced as a Halloween mask, be much sought after by children looking for a suitable way to terrify the grownups in their neighbourhood into parting with a treat or suffering a trick. His particular ‘trick‘ is to threaten a nightmare world in which Britain will be overwhelmed by hordes of immigrants impatient to devour the country’s wealth and bite the hand that feeds them without offering anything constructive in return.

Like Mr Corbyn, Mr Farage presents himself as a Man of the People, but that is where the similarity ends. He can often be spotted inside a public house, brandishing a jar of Best British Ale while holding forth on the various ways to sweep back the waves of foreigners threatening to invade British shores. In this respect he follows in the footsteps of Mr Enoch Powell who, in a ringing declamation delivered in 1968, drew on his formidable classical education to foretell that “Rivers of Blood” would flow through the country if the tide of immigration was not stemmed.

The road to Cloud Cuckoo Land continues to be trodden by starry-eyed disciples of both the Far Left and the Far Right. Fortunately, today’s Britain seems to be entering a state of sanity in which the Corbyns, the Farages and their unsavoury fellow travellers are being held at the margins of society.

About the Author
I was born in South Africa in 1940 and emigrated to the U.K. in 1970 after qualifying in medicine. I held a post as Consultant Psychiatrist in London until my retirement in 2013. I am the author of two books: one on group analytic psychotherapy, one on the psychology of the French Revolution. I have written many articles on group psychology published in peer-reviewed journals. From 1979 to 1985 I was editor of the journal ‘Group Analysis’; I have contributed short pieces to psychology newsletters over the years.
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