Mick Hartley

Nick Cohen – Vlad the corrupter and the crisis on the left:

Leftists call themselves ‘anti-imperialists’. They mean they oppose the neo-imperialism of the United States – often for good reasons, as you should never forget. But when they are confronted with actual imperialism, when they see Russia send its armies to annex territory, their angry voices fall silent. It is not as if they can sustain the beliefs of their ancestors and comfort themselves with the thought that Russia is a socialist state. Russia is an unashamed plutocracy. Its political and military leaders plunder the nation’s resources, and risk losing their loot only if they lose Putin’s favour. Political parties can escape persecution only if they play the roles the state has assigned them. Gays are hounded. Investigative journalists and opposition politicians murdered. Putin exalts most obscurantist and nationalistic elements of the Orthodox Church, who treat him as the new Tsar of all the Russias in return. Russia ought to be seen by today’s left as the liberals and socialists of the 19^th century saw it: a great reactionary and oppressive power. Instead, it is indulged.

As always, the scandal is that there is no scandal. No scandal when Jeremy Corbyn appoints as his chief adviser Seumas Milne, a horribly subservient admirer of Putin. No scandal about Corbyn’s appearances on Russian propaganda networks, excuses for Russia’s imperial ambitions, and hints he would give Putin the freedom to move into the Baltic states if he could.

It has become commonplace to say that the radical left is so intellectually bankrupt and morally null that it is reduced to saying that any enemy of the West is better than none. Surely, we can now go further and say it has sunk lower than that? By endorsing and condoning Putin, Western leftists are not just making the West’s enemy their friend. Western leftists are allying with the West’s own far right. In foreign policy, Seumas Milne, Jeremy Corbyn, and all those who so contemptibly go along with them, stand with Marine le Pen and Donald Trump. A hatred of the West is not enough to explain the role swapping anymore. Better to think the similarities between the far left and far right so outweigh the differences today even they do not care about them.

It's the wretched Assange, though – still stuck in the Ecuadorean embassy – who's the real target of Nick's contempt.