Things are getting dark for the federal NDP.

How dark?

Distroscale

We’re talking Sylvia Plath reading Friedrich Nietzsche in a black hole with Radiohead playing on the radio. Or, if you want that translated into politics, it’s 1993 and the NDP are the Progressive Conservatives, on track to have their federal caucus fit into a phone booth. No, make that a coffin.

A recent poll puts NDP support at a miserly 11.8 per cent. The last time the Dippers came in at 11 per cent was the 1997 federal election under Alexa McDonough. And while her meagre result did produce a respectable 21 seats in the House of Commons, that was against a fractured right and a strong Bloc Quebecois. A similar result in today’s three-party race wouldn’t be so generous.

Now, one poll does not make a trend — indeed, it could be an outlier — but it’s a result that ought to provoke shock. And even more troubling are the signs the NDP are losing faith in themselves.

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We’re still a year away from the next writ and some veteran rats have already declared they’re leaving the sinking ship. That sounds like par for the course, until you realize it’s the perennial third-place ship of a party that believes wholeheartedly in bailouts. Things must be really bad.

David Christopherson, a man with more than 30 years’ experience serving the communist-loving people of Hamilton, is going. Hélène Laverdière, the two-time Gilles Duceppe slayer, is going, too. Kennedy Stewart is trying his luck in the race to run Vancouver. And Tom Mulcair, the former NDP leader who waaaay back in 2015 had the NDP one Trudeau misstep away from government, is already gone. Others will undoubtedly follow, too, once they realize, if they haven’t already, what a complete and utter zero their leader is proving himself to be.

Ah yes, Jagmeet Singh. Strange that I should leave it so late in the column to mention his name; I suppose I was only trying to mimic real-life conversation about the NDP, where Singh features about as regularly as the third-choice goalie on a last-place NHL team.

How does one describe a politician such as Jagmeet Singh? He’s like Stéphane Dion, but without the charisma. He’s like Michael Ignatieff, but without the commitment to Canada. He’s like Justin Trudeau, but without the intelligence. He’s like Tom Mulcair, but I don’t even know how or why, because Singh has never stepped on the floor of the House of Commons to fire a question at the prime minister.

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You’d think a politician having trouble cutting into the national conversation would try a little bit harder to speak up, you really would. But every time the opportunity to run in a federal byelection presents itself, our man Jagmeet pulls a hamstring. He’s like a Vietnam-era Donald Trump, but with less courage.

Memo to Jagmeet: Your invisibility problem will never resolve itself while you’re hiding from the House of Commons. Kennedy Stewart just vacated an NDP seat in Burnaby crying out for some opposition to Justin Trudeau’s Kinder Morgan pipeline. It won’t get any better than this, even if it isn’t in your hometown of Toronto. Or should I specify Brampton, as Singh has already turned down a chance to run in Scarborough.

At this point, it’s not even about issues, it’s about just showing up. Bleating about affordable housing and access to medication at town halls of NDP members is fine and all, but you’ve already got that job. You’re supposed to be aiming for the next one up the chain.

Then again, given Singh’s impressive track record of swallowing his own shoe leather I can see why some members of Team Orange might not want him around Ottawa. He’s like George W. Bush, but without the precision or clarity in speech.

Who could forget Singh’s car crash interview with Terry Milewski on the question of Sikh extremism? Or the time he said a judge who speaks an Indigenous language, but not French, should still be eligible for the Supreme Court. Or when he couldn’t quite nail down his party’s position on gun control?

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One man who is indisputably a fan of Singh’s “work” is Justin Trudeau, who now gets to focus all of his efforts against Andrew “Stephen Harper” Scheer. For his part, Scheer is soiling his khakis at the thought of Justin Trudeau rampaging through urban Canada unopposed.

So, what can the NDP do? Short of frog-marching their leader into the Burnaby by-election, not much. And although the party believes in assisted-dying, there’s no sign they’ve a syringe pointed Singh’s way. He’s here to stay.

At least until the day after the next election, when Jagmeet Singh will go. He’s like Godot, in that he’ll never arrive.

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Andrew MacDougall is a London-based communications consultant and ex-director of communications to former prime minister Stephen Harper.