TARIQ ALI, tariq.ali3 at btinternet.com, @TariqAli_News

Ali is author of many books including Street Fighting Years: An Autobiography of the Sixties.

He said today: “Labour’s refusal to back implementing the referendum results and essentially ignoring its Leave supporters in the North has done them in. Some of us had already pointed out the dangers but a divided party and leadership (here John McDonnell should take the blame for insisting on a second referendum) has been punished by its own voters. This is the major reason for the defeat. A strategic blunder of enormous dimensions.

“The failure to combat the ‘anti-semitism’ was a mistake too, if on a lesser scale. And the combined mass media assault on Jeremy Corbyn had its impact as well. …

“There is, however, a radical social-democratic left both inside and outside the Labour Party. Elections aren’t everything. A self-mobilization by the new generation should not be excluded and must be both encouraged and supported.

“Johnson’s economic policies will accelerate a crisis and mobilization and strikes can be the only response as the French people are demonstrating.

“Scotland will want its independence now and the Irish some form of unity, so the English Tories won’t have it all their own way.”