The Left and the irredeemable Back Foot Syndrome

The dominant rhetoric over the Luton protests highlighted the way the 'Liberal Left' feels it's got to justify every single one of its moves.

I don't know if the British left is doomed, but they most certainly look terrified. Whether it's the economy, the welfare state or the military, large swathes of the self-appointed 'Liberal left' in the UK are plagued by the Syndrome of the Back Foot. Last week's major overreaction over the Luton events at a parade of troops returning from Iraq highlighted the Left's depressingly defensive approach.

Let me explain. Few now can deny the political discourse is increasingly set by Fleet Street. The tabloids hiss and diss and shout at every corner, rolling out story after story against 'political correctness', the foreigners, 'social workers', 'welfare scroungers', the Muslim or any of the usual targets.

But instead of challenging the right's myths and suffocating narrative, instead of regaining the initiative, the cornered liberal left appear permanently on the back foot, lest they cause an all-out conflict with the right wing media or get branded as 'loony', 'traitors' or similar.

Yet you'd have thought that, given the spectacular failure of the neo-conservative 'Us and Them' approach (enthusiastically backed by the British tabloids since 9/11), at least on Iraq the Left would have a field day, grab hold of the initiative and push back the tabloids' oily concoction of ignorance, opportunism, jingoism and goldfish memory that has caused this and other countries so much grief.

Dream on. Following the Sun's vicious onslaught against 'sick Muslim extremists' who "hurled abuse" at Our Boys, left-wing politicians have been queuing to show that they too can spell out the words "Our" and "Boys" and more generally ape the tabloids' jingoistic tone. But if hardly any better was to be expected from the Labour government (for it was them who actually started the war), the reaction from a number of journalists and bloggers has been remarkably disappointing.

Liberal Conspiracy is a case in point. Most (though not all) on their website expressed the opinion that protesters shouldn't conflate the troops with the political decision to go to war, which was basically the line given by the oh-so-authoritative Ross Kemp in the Sun. Nevermind conscription ended a long time ago. Nevermind the fact that thousands of new recruits joined after the first allegations of torture and WMD-related lies were already coming to surface. 'Our Boys' are never to blame.

Sunny Hundal, editor of Liberal Conspiracy and Guardian writer, wrote that rather than the troops, as far as Iraq is concerned, "we are even more responsible as voters" and, as such, we shouldn't "take an antagonistic attitude towards [the military]". So check this out. It is not the soldiers who are responsible for this. It's the voters, presumably even those who - repulsed by the Iraq war - did not back Blair in 2005.

Meral's musings and Obsolete also take it as a given that the Luton protesters were "extremists" and "idiotic". "Look", they seem anxious to point out, not all anti-Iraq war people are like them and only 20 people joined the protest.

Then there's the Independent. Their article is called The Enemy Within?, and in case you hadn't grasped the tone, it quickly describes the eerie background of "identical black tunics" and "long full beards".

So what we say is: come on, 'liberal left'. Challenge those myths. Tackle that empty rhetoric. Say it loud and clear: clutching at the "extremist card" will not deflect from the fact that the Iraq war was illegal, a murderous disgrace, a disaster, a massacre, a military aberration that seriously undermined Britain's reputation in the world and made us all less safe in the process.

Grab the initiative with both hands. Post this video everywhere. Stop being defensive. Stop having to justify yourself. Make it clear that the sickening 'Our Boys' rhetoric is exactly the type of crap that is at the root of most of what is going tits-up with this world. Don't let the tabloids turn it into something to be taken for granted - that chavvy concept that because they're 'ours' they can't do no wrong.

Stop whimpering that those banners were "bad taste". How about this for bad taste? And this? Or this? Don't hide behind the flimsy "but the Conservatives too" or the trite "but the politicians...".

The British Army went to Iraq to invade and did so on the basis of a lie. And in doing so they killed people. And in the process a number of soldiers got also tangled up in barbaric episodes of torture. That was wrong. Full stop. And I don't care if al-Muhajirounn also happens to be against what happened in Iraq. That doesn't make our position any weaker. You don't see the Tories mincing their words about the Euro because the BNP are also barking against the single currency, do you?

Like solicitor Phil Shiner said with regard to some of the evidence of abuse, "We do not want to be talked about in the same vein as the Japanese in the second world war or the Americans at My Lai, but unless we stand up and say as a nation that this cannot happen in our name, that is where we seem to be headed."

See also Chavs and the Psychology of Our Boys.