So Hilary Benn decided to stage a coup?

Have they not seen the results of the referendum? Have they not seen that the conservative party is effectively leaderless and shredding itself into pulled pork?  Maybe they haven’t seen the Sky news clip explaining one of the main reasons why people have voted out?

A lot of commentators have said the vote out was about immigration.  But from what can be seen it’s more than that, its people throughout the country – with the exception of London – making a protest vote against the political elite.  They (to my mind) have confused what has been caused by this government’s push of austerity and what has been caused by the UK belonging to the EU.  

No matter now, the vote is done. Overwhelmingly, from all the evidence, the people outside of London are sick to the back teeth of career politicians, of broken promises, of politicians speaking condescendingly to them as though they are fools. They are tired of waiting for the trickle down to take effect. They are sick to the back teeth of trying to get a job, somewhere to live, a hospital appointment and being told it will come, just be patient, and therefore have bought into ‘taking back control’.

Cameron took a gamble, shame he let him ego get in the way, shame he didn’t quite realise that the country was really unhappy. Only a really unhappy country could have junior doctors go out on strike for the first time in 40 years, and almost overwhelmingly have the public support them.  That seemed to not sink in. The rise in food banks? well that couldn’t be a problem could it, because we have the highest employment in … forever apparently. Not sure when getting two hours work a week on a zero hours contract counted for a job to be relied on, but no matter, Mr Cameron had single-handedly saved the country, we now had a strong economy.

So, to silence the Eurosceptics in his party and to get rid of UKIP he said we’d have a referendum.  He forgot to say that as it was going to be such a momentous change if the vote went to leave that it would need a majority of x.  A few little points was good enough. No commission for truth and statistics like Scotland are saying they are going to do either, which allowed the leave campaign to say whatever fanciful tosh they liked (it has to be said the remain campaign were not whiter than white either).

The mendacious lies, the fraudulent claims, the half-truths that the disposed hung their hopes and dreams on. They weren’t challenged officially. If a risk assessment was done on what the outcome could lead to, it wasn’t done well enough, because so much of this was predicted and predictable and if it had been taken into account it would never have been allowed to happen.

We now have a country rent in two. Vile racist slurs are being heard again, and there seems to be nothing to stop it. People from the leave side are up in arms for being called racists, people from the remain side are beside themselves with worry about what this will mean for the country, for Europe and possibly for the world.

And this is the time Hilary Benn decides is a good time to pounce. Apparently phoning round all the PLP members to see whether they would join in a vote of no confidence and a mass resignation. Hilary Benn your timing sucks!

Has there ever been a time when a cohesive party was needed more than now? Has there ever been a time when career politicians have been despised more than now? And he would like to oust probably one of the very few honest decent politicians this country has ever known (his father being another). To oust a man not corrupted by the establishment, who is not one of the elite, who is trusted if not followed by so many.  A man who had one of the largest mandates of any labour leader. Who never hid his feelings about how he felt about the EU but still supported it. Who wouldn’t even share a platform with David Cameron for fear of being tarred with the same brush. Whose party managed to secure two-thirds remain vote.

So in the months ahead, when the conservative party eats itself up, when Boris Johnson finally discovers what lying to the British public feels like, when the country is so deeply divided one can almost feel riots bubbling under the surface, Hilary Benn decides now a good time to thrown a bomb into the labour party.  It beggars belief what he hopes to achieve. If that is not opening the country up to a potential civil war, god knows what is. I am a labour member and I know that I will cancel my membership tomorrow if he succeeds, I also know hundreds of others who feel the same way.

Hilary Benn, you should be ashamed of yourself, along with Heidi Alexander and whoever else is joining you.  Shame on you, this is the time to stand up for your party, not try to destroy it.

Main picture courtesy of the Mirror