The predictable has happened: the candidates endorsed by Mahmood Mamdani, the intellectual godfather of identity politics and anti-colonial grievance, have swept the New York primaries. It is a moment that would make even the most jaded observer of Roman decline pause. The centre cannot hold, and in its place, a new kind of tribalism takes root.
Meanwhile, across the Atlantic, UK Labour frantically distances itself from its own far-left factions, as if a quick scrub with soap and water can wash away the stench of ideological rot. The parallels to the late Victorian era are striking: an empire weary of itself, a populace seduced by the promise of easy answers, and a political class that has abandoned reason for the narcotic of moral certainty. Mamdani’s acolytes speak of ‘decolonisation’ and ‘liberation’, but what they deliver is a new form of patronage: racial spoils dressed up as justice.
The New York results are a harbinger, not a fluke. Labour’s panic is instructive: they know that the virus of identitarian Marxism, once unleashed, cannot be confined. The lesson of history is clear: when a society loses faith in its own institutions and traditions, it does not embrace moderation.
It swings wildly, first to radicalism, then to reaction. The British Labour Party, in its desperation, may think it can hold the line. But the line has already been breached.
The Mamdani moment is here. The question is: who will be the Caesar to restore order, or will we all be witnesses to the Great Unravelling?
