Another way of looking at Syriza and its defeat is that of the all too evident betrayal by the Left of its base once in power. It is also misleading to characterise Syriza as the ‘radical Left’ after it had betrayed the people’s vote in the now infamous referendum that saw Tsipras and his circle of corrupt politicians force out those genuinely leftwing politicians who opposed the sell out. The Syriza leadership under Tsipras rather than make it more palatable to elect leftwing governments has made it now even harder. They have left a bitter experience for people to reflect on, in some ways even worse than the Social Democratic sell outs they replaced. The extent of the cynicism in their behaviour after the referendum on the Troika’s demands is enough to turn people away from putting their trust in politicians of the Left who claim to represent the people’s will. In the case of the referendum the people’s will could not be clearer. People have only to read Varoufakis excellent account of how this corrupt cohort of Syriza leftovers from the original Syriza betrayed the trust of the people. He refers to the whole sorry, sordid affair as one of lions led by donkeys. And the question posed by Mason ‘Can Corbyn learn from the Greek tragedy?’ has been sadly answered not without ill conceived prompting by Mason. Regrettably Corbyn failed to learn from the Syriza debacle and abandoned his political wit regarding the EU referendum under tremendous pressure from the likes of Mason and our current Labour Party leader with disastrous consequences. While there are of course differences in terms of Corbyn’s integrity compared to that of Tsipras, nevertheless Labour under Corbyn’s leadership repudiated a pledge to honour the result of a referendum. This conveyed a terrible message that even under radically different leadership there is no real difference in listening – ‘they say one thing but do the complete opposite.’ Tsipras and Syriza were of course so totally dishonest and knew they were because they did not have the courage it takes to lead a revolt against the EU establishment that was pauperising the Greek people and killing some of them. Corbyn’s behaviour over the EU referendum was more one of confusion and trying to hold different currents within the party together. But the net result is not very different from Syriza.
Another way of looking at Syriza and its defeat is that of the all too evident betrayal by the Left of its base once in power. It is also misleading to characterise Syriza as the ‘radical Left’ after it had betrayed the people’s vote in the now infamous referendum that saw Tsipras and his circle of corrupt politicians force out those genuinely leftwing politicians who opposed the sell out. The Syriza leadership under Tsipras rather than make it more palatable to elect leftwing governments has made it now even harder. They have left a bitter experience for people to reflect on, in some ways even worse than the Social Democratic sell outs they replaced. The extent of the cynicism in their behaviour after the referendum on the Troika’s demands is enough to turn people away from putting their trust in politicians of the Left who claim to represent the people’s will. In the case of the referendum the people’s will could not be clearer. People have only to read Varoufakis excellent account of how this corrupt cohort of Syriza leftovers from the original Syriza betrayed the trust of the people. He refers to the whole sorry, sordid affair as one of lions led by donkeys. And the question posed by Mason ‘Can Corbyn learn from the Greek tragedy?’ has been sadly answered not without ill conceived prompting by Mason. Regrettably Corbyn failed to learn from the Syriza debacle and abandoned his political wit regarding the EU referendum under tremendous pressure from the likes of Mason and our current Labour Party leader with disastrous consequences. While there are of course differences in terms of Corbyn’s integrity compared to that of Tsipras, nevertheless Labour under Corbyn’s leadership repudiated a pledge to honour the result of a referendum. This conveyed a terrible message that even under radically different leadership there is no real difference in listening – ‘they say one thing but do the complete opposite.’ Tsipras and Syriza were of course so totally dishonest and knew they were because they did not have the courage it takes to lead a revolt against the EU establishment that was pauperising the Greek people and killing some of them. Corbyn’s behaviour over the EU referendum was more one of confusion and trying to hold different currents within the party together. But the net result is not very different from Syriza.