Cosmo Corbynite Remainer goes Green

A possibly encouraging sign from teh Gurdina today. RL Cosslett, one of the more woke, has abandoned Labour and will vote Green. In an indication of the new moral syntheses of environmental concern and Remainering, she says:

My vote for the Green party in the European elections is a vote for a commitment to a better future – and a vote against Brexit 

The environment is my main motivation. In many ways, I’ve always been an ideal Green party voter. I grew up vegetarian, surrounded by people who grew their own veg, and living next to a lake filled with the rare fish, Arctic char, under threat of extinction because of poor water quality [doesn't sound awfully Northern working class so far] . I’ve always been aware of climate change, but a combination of weird weather, awareness campaigns, David Attenborough documentaries and political direct action have made me look the situation more directly in the face.... I’m sick of watching footage of sheets of sea ice collapse into the waves, of polar bears rummaging through rubbish for food, of reading about the destruction of wildlife on a global scale, and feeling a profound hopelessness. [posture cramp is exhausting for all of us,but the petiti bourgeois cannot handle risk] For years I have felt a kind of muffled panic that I didn’t know how to channel. The small gestures I would undertake – eating far less meat, calculating the food miles of fruit and veg, not using any aerosols, not having a car – seemed pointless on a global scale. But watching Greta Thunberg’s school strike for climate and the Extinction Rebellion protesters has inspired me. Voting Green is a way of registering my disapproval and alarm, and putting my support behind their aim to make the UK carbon-neutral by 2030.

I was vocally pro-Corbyn, and in favour of his anti-austerity message from the very beginning, and one of those younger people [ah] who felt galvanised by his manifesto to tackle social inequality. Despite being told that a Labour party led by Corbyn would be unelectable, I voted for him, as did quite a few of my peers because we discussed it and thought: “Screw tactical voting – how often do you get the chance to vote for someone with policies in which you truly believe?”...I left Labour a couple of years ago, feeling disappointed by its direction, and yet hamstrung by loyalty to it, which seemed problematic for a journalist. As I have watched Labour tear itself apart over Brexit, failing to fully commit to a course of action as the clock has run down, I have stayed mostly quiet, in the naive hope that there was some sort of long-term strategy at play. I no longer trusted Corbyn, but I believed in and trusted many of Labour’s other excellent politicians. Unfortunately, they seem to have little say, and the party appears torn between what it sees as its white working-class voter base and its middle class “ultra-remainer” supporters.

She feels no longer at home:

I don’t fit into either category, and I don’t think many others do, either. You could call me an “ultra-remainer”, I suppose, though it is my feeling that these people are also labelled “Waitrose-shopping” and “privileged”, as though Brexit is just about wanting to retain the services of their Polish builders and Czech au pairs (it never seems to be about solidarity with Polish builders and Czech au pairs, or our European colleagues and friends, somehow. Is a precariat consisting of EU workers not the right sort of working-class voter base for Labour?...) [first time I have ever heard this from a Remainer I must say] ...

I will probably never forgive Corbyn for letting down my EU friends and neighbours, for playing politics with their lives in this way....I couldn’t look my friends [precarious ones? Builders and au pairs?] from Italy and France and Romania and Poland in the face again.

What worries me most about Brexit is the impact it will have on the people whose lives have already been profoundly hurt by austerity. I have a personal stake in this. [She grew up in the North,her brother is severely disabled and her mother is 'a renter working on a casual contract' {could be a web designer in Islington, though?}] 

Time for the young and woke to move on:

Labour’s cowardice comes from not sufficiently attempting to change people’s minds, and mythologising a white working class at the expense of precariat workers, young people and EU citizens. [Last two are revealing]...it seems ridiculously obvious that banking on electoral success while alienating all the younger people who brought Corbyn to power in the first place is a foolish strategy [so now they are going to stamp their feet in this Oedipal tantrum]

 
At the end of the day,it is still about how you feel. Who gives you more self-satisfaction?

In contrast, a vote for the Greens is a vote against Brexit and a vote in favour of doing what we can to halt climate change. After all, what more can you do than cast your vote for the policies in which you believe? I want future humans to know I cared.