The ‘Indecent Left’: Bluster does not imply integrity

Those who have been reading this blog since it was launched in November of last year may recall that my first two posts were devoted to explaining why I believed that the radical left, as a whole, was bankrupt and reactionary. In particular, I singled out the readiness of the majority of the radical left to support or march alongside fascists, ethnic-cleansers and other ultra-reactionary elements. It is just possible that readers may also recall the bluster and indignation with which my argument was greeted by a certain Daniel Davies aka ‘Dsquared’ aka ‘Bruschettaboy’, the chief mover behind a blog called Aaronovich Watch (AW), which exists to cyber-stalk David Aaronovich and Nick Cohen, and to a lesser extent other members of the Eustonite or ‘Decent’ left, and point out petty inconsistencies in their writings. Indeed, Davies and his merry men at AW devote a large part of their time to expressing righteous indignation at the fact that Eustonites frequently portray members of the left as fascist fellow-travellers.

At the time, I was ready to attribute this bluster and indignation to the affront that an honourable if naive leftist of the traditional variety might have felt at a perceived attack on his political tradition. I was at pains to point out that the fact that the radical left as a whole was characterised by a readiness to support fascists and ethnic-cleansers does not mean that all its members were guilty in this regard; as I put it, ‘it is the good apples – the small number of honourable socialists, Trotskyists, anarchists, pacifists and others – who are in the minority in a barrel whose contents are mostly rotten. However well meaning the good apples may be, they are part of a movement that is corrupt overall.’

Well, it seems I was a sucker. Davies has now ‘come out’ and described an unabashed sympathiser of the neo-Nazi Serbian Radical Party – the all-round buffoon Splintered Sunrise – as ‘what I like to think of as AW’s extended family’.

How, you may ask, is it possible for someone to describe a neo-Nazi sympathiser as a member of his ‘extended family’, while giving vent to an unending stream of self-righteous indignation – sustained over a period of literally years – at the fact that Eustonites often accuse members of his political tradition of being fascist fellow-travellers ?

The only answer I can come up with is that it requires a total absence of integrity.

I’m still prepared to believe that there exists a handful of honourable socialists, Trotskyists, anarchists, pacifists and other radical left-wingers of the traditional kind. I’m even ready to believe that some of them can consciously reject Eustonite politics from the standpoint of principled disagreement.

But the more closely one looks, the fewer the number of honourable left-wing opponents that we Eustonites have there turns out to be.