“No mercy for these enemies of the people, the enemies of socialism, the enemies of the working people!” – Vladimir Lenin

One of the finest pieces of Conservative political advertising to come out of Saatchis was in 1987 when billboards carried a picture of a British soldier with his hands up and the slogan in bold “Labour’s policy on arms”.

It’s harder these days to suggest Labour have a defeatist attitude to defence, after Tony Blair took the country to war in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the Labour Government has John Healey as Defence Secretary, a man who both has control of battalions and commands cross party respect, in the main.

However the headache for Labour, at a time when they’ve boosted union members pay but tried to claw it all back from business and employers, is that the aim to raise defence spending to 2.5 per cent of GDP – or match Donald Trump’s desire for European countries to go to 5 per cent – seems impossible when, in the immortal words of Liam Byrne, “There’s no money”.

I don’t believe that Labour are the “surrender party” any more but it did give pause for thought about that wing of Labour that has been slowly squeezed out since Jeremy Corbyn handed the Conservatives a gift by becoming leader and nearly breaking his party in the process.

This weekend Germany goes to the polls and as per Patrick English’s excellent summary on ConservativeHome there is a real chance the left there will take a kicking. So what happened to the socialist left? How did the ‘be kind -for the many’ crowd make themselves irrelevant?

Quite apart from policies that tried to address the past not the future, I suspect it was the gleeful malice with which they celebrated their every win, and the bitter spite they shared at every set back.

In truth Corbyn’s problem was simply maths. Quite apart from a clown parade of policies that had a majority of people rolling their eyes, and despite mass membership and full stadia shouting his name, there simply weren’t enough people who thought like Jeremy to fill ballot boxes and win an election – let alone ‘the argument’.

However on top of that, the Corbynite mantra of “with us or you’re the enemy” – an enemy to be destroyed either on social media, on air or in print – and you ended up with the peculiar scenario, as Conservatives, of being told ‘they’re rattled’ whilst we were, in fact, quietly baffled at how much they were helping us stay in Government.

With Reform boasting of its membership and loud radicalism (without much thought of – to borrow a phrase of the hard left – ‘what is to be done?’) the temptation to avoid being branded ‘wet’ and join them on the edges is strong. It’s a mistake, and one I don’t believe the party will make – for all the derision from recent Reform converts.

Corbynites and Reform share a similar trait. Vicious online ‘with us or against us’ rhetoric and a belief (having never ever run anything) that the only way to change things is do all the ‘simple stuff’ they’ve dreamed up that nobody else ‘would dare do’, without ever stopping to think why it hasn’t been done before. The fringes only ever think the reason is others were too weak to enforce their will, which is a hubris that very quickly has its nemesis on first contact with cold reality.

We learned this the hard way, and despite it being a myth that good things were not achieved in 14 years, we should carry the taste of crippling defeat with us as a reminder not to suffer it again.

The one truly incredible thing I miss about ‘magic grandpa’ and his posh middle class media outriders is that even today they hate the Labour party’s current big players far far more than they hate Conservatives or Reform. Labour, having weeded them out, and humiliated them by actually winning an election brew an acid dislike that still burns furiously.

It comes to something when Owen, Ash, James and Grace find themselves siding with Tories if it means sticking it to Sir Keir.

Again it’s a trait being played out by Reform, who don’t just want to destroy the Conservative party but rub their noses in it if they manage it. Labour can’t believe their luck, as we didn’t when Jeremy was there (but not involved) back in the day.

Not rising to the bait, not caving in when the chips are down, is the real test of strength. The glib triumphalism of people who haven’t yet achieved their goal is what should feed those who are, and remain Conservatives, to stay in the fight.

I know with the certainty that night follows day, the Reform supporters (and possibly poorly camouflaged Labour supporters) who read this will have plenty to say with all the relish that comes with enjoying a once great party trying to get up off its knees. But as with every fringe that starts to go mainstream, they often celebrate too soon.

There’s a still quieter mass of people who want the Conservatives not to head off in search of those fringes but get back to doing what it used to do well, and then delivering what they say they will. It will be extremely hard to win back their trust, but do it we must.

Our opponents will crow as we try to do that, and happily revel in every set back, every loss, but sticking our hands up in the air and giving up would be a cowardice I don’t think the Conservatives I know, have.

Get to it.

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