Political infighting is nothing new but the Labour Party has taken the gloves off, then pulled the knuckledusters out and smeared them with poison.
Born of a movement that transformed the lives of ordinary people and showed how members of a society can unite to help one another, Labour has changed.
Gone, apparently, are the noble ideals that gave us universal healthcare and safer working conditions.
Instead, the British left is emulating American wrestling networks, in which aggressive people scream insults at each other in an all-comers battle that is every man (and woman) for themselves.
It’s hard to keep track of but as far as I can tell, the left of the left is in charge but the right of the left still has the TV remote and keeps trying to take the batteries out.
Meanwhile, some of the left of the left have moved right, or possibly left, or maybe they just left. Everyone is shouting, like parents who can’t stop arguing in front of the children.
Perhaps Jeremy Corbyn really is the leader Labour needs, at a time when the right has stopped its own infighting because everyone is staggering around bleeding from the head. Certainly, Corbyn’s ideals – opposition to austerity, strengthening public services, ending Trident and more – appeal to me. However, the rebels within his party never tire of furiously briefing that he’s just not good enough for the role.
Their repeated attempts to unseat him risk undermining the entire labour movement and recasting the party of the people as the party of the bampot.
It’s got to stop. Wherever you stand politically, it is undeniable that the UK needs an alternative to the Conservatives, because allowing a Tory government to go unchallenged is like going on holiday and leaving your front door open.
Scotland has a strong social democratic party in the SNP. But the whole of the UK needs a champion, a voice in Parliament to stand up to the cuts and selloffs.
Whoever it is, they will only be heard if the wailing stops and Labour remembers, collectively, why it’s needed as much as it ever was.