The Labour Party Has Been Hijacked

by Connor Storey

Since Jeremy Corbyn became leader of the Labour Party the shadow government has been rapidly moving away from the centre ground of politics. With its clear anti-capitalist agenda, at the heart of its manifesto, new policies have been recently announced; some of which would make communists blush. With the Conservative Government paralysed, the shadow government should be far ahead in the opinion polls, right? However, this seems like it's not the case. Most, if not all, recent general election polls show that the Tories are ahead with an average lead of 10 points and that the Liberal Democrats seem to be catching up with Labour. So why is this the case? I would put this down to two main reasons: their lack of clarity over brexit and the party’s shift to the hard left.

The shadow chancellor, John McDonnell, is a self declared “Marxist” who hoped for the financial crash in order to overthrow capitalism. He wants policies such as a £300 billion state raid on the private sector, which would be the one of the biggest state raids to take place in any western democratic country. In addition, he wants a “right to buy” scheme where private tenants would be able to forcible buy the home in which they’re living in (at a discount price set by the government) without the landlord's approval. With this policy in particular, most landlords would not rent out their property in case of tenants stealing their homes and this could lead to an increase in homelessness and exacerbate the housing crisis. Despite McDonnell not believing in private property rights, he ironically owns multiple houses himself. Like a true socialist he wants to tell people how to live without leading by example.

Another radical policy introduced by the Labour Party recently was the abolition of private schools. The plan would aim towards complete public ownership over schools by firstly ending private schools’ charitable status and redistributing their assets. Not only does this policy steal assets from schools, it would destroy some of our best schools in the country by giving compulsorily state school ownership. Policies such as these show that the shadow labour government are hypocritical. Politicians like Diane Abbott sent her own child to a private school yet doesn’t want others to send their children to one. It really is one rule for the those in power and another rule for everyone else.

A YouGov poll was released late September asking over 1,100 Labour Party members on their opinions on certain issues. Here are a few conclusions about this poll: 43% of members said they were “ashamed”of British history whereas only 15% described themselves as being “proud”. 62% thought Britain should become a republic rather than a constitutional monarchy. 69% showed support for strikes to overthrow the Conservative government. 79% said they would support laws to limit control of who can own national newspapers while 51% want a Labour government to take large control over the broadcast media. With these shocking statistics I think it is clear that the party that once represented working-class families have now been hijacked by the hard left in order for more government control over all of our lives.