Though Cowards Flinch

David Davis has won the by-election and been returned to parliament. Hardly an achievement in his constituency, the temper of which was demonstrated by the third-place showing of the English Democrats – a bunch of nationalist twerps who seem to be everywhere these days, and the fourth place showing of the National Front. So not only has Davis’ re-election changed nothing, it has also brought out the very worst in British politics.

All the best statistics have been posted by Sunny over at Liberal Conspiracy along with a few good comparisons between H&H and other by-elections.

For me, Davis’ speech upon re-election was largely the Entr’acte between the last vote in the Commons and the next vote in the Lords on the issue, in October. Some have already come forward to suggest that actually David Davis’ re-election in a backwater Tory constituency has little enough to do with a change of heart amongst the Lords and that Dame Eliza Manningham-Buller’s maiden speech there bears more responsibility.

I must confess that I find a lot of strength in that argument. Say what you like about the Lords but many of those chosen to sit in that House are not so narrowly partisan and self-interested as many of the leadership lackeys of any Party in the Commons. It is entirely conceivable that Dame Eliza, with her expertise on MI5, has changed the votes of many Lords, and I can testify from firsthand experience that she’s a very good speaker.

Whatever the actual effects of Davis’ re-election, and I can’t seem to stress how little they shall be, from an altogether different point of view, they represent Act Five of a play. The plot of the play in question is the apotheosis of the film Taking Liberties into broadly held principle: work with Tories like Boris Johnson (or David Davis) and the consequences for every other issue be damned.

Yesterday a friend on the Socialist Youth Network email lists sent around a newsflash that all the amendments to the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Act were being postponed until after the recess. I wonder how all these Civil Liberties, single issue campaigners feel that should his vote be required, Davis will absolutely be there to vote against the extension of abortion rights to Northern Ireland or any of a dozen beneficial moves?

I’m not happy about his re-election, not even a little – and it shows how utterly pathetic both Labour and the Liberal Democrats are that they couldn’t get together with the Greens and every other remotely progressive Party and choose a candidate with equal claim to libertarian credentials to stand against David Davis and actually highlight Tory hypocrisy for what it is.

Maybe when it becomes clear after Anthony Barnett’s “ten year fight” that actually Davis’ “knight’s move” changed sod all, we’ll be sorry for co-operating with the arch-reactionaries of the political field. Somehow I doubt it; somehow I think it more likely that issues like these will be used for defections across the floor whenever the Tories mop up in 2010.