Over the course of the past week the Labour Party has been rocked by carefully choreographed accusations of anti-semitism, as part of a campaign to damage the party’s popularity and electoral chances, and I am proud to say I have played a key role in this.
With local elections only days away, and with Labour and Jeremy Corbyn’s popularity soaring, my Blairite colleagues and my allies in the Conservative Party were left with no other option except to smear our opponents.
And that is why, with the willing collusion of the BBC and right wing media, we have grossly exaggerated the problem of anti-semitism and weaponised it exclusively for use against Jeremy Corbyn and his left wing supporters in the Labour Party.
But this is only the prelude to our coup attempt against Jeremy. Once the election results are in, my Blairite friends and I will immediately go to the media to denounce the result as a catastrophic failure, regardless of how many seats we get.
In the weeks that follow, we will agitate for a leadership challenge against Jeremy. If I had my way, we’d keep having leadership contests until the party membership votes chooses the correct candidate. Still, we are hopeful that somebody from the right of the party will win this time, or in a subsequent leadership contest a few months after that.
I have no evidence to back this up, but it’s a proven fact that the only way Labour can ever get elected is with centre-right policies that appeal predominantly to moderate Tory voters who are selfish, but would like to kid themselves that they do actually care about the well-being of anybody beyond their own immediate family.
I look forward to the day when Labour can move on from its pointless opposition to Tory austerity and the privatisation of the NHS, and start to work constructively with the Tories in building a country where the wealthy are rewarded for their contribution to society, and the poor and vulnerable are left to rot.
John Mann has been Labour MP for Bassetlaw since 2001.