For anyone pessimistic about the possibility of progressive change, Jeremy Corbyn’s epic victory should be a confidence boost.
Corbyn’s 62% vote to remain as Britain’s Labour leader was achieved in the face of bitter daily attacks from every branch of the mass media, and from a majority of his fellow Labour MPs.
The victory represents a fundamental transformation of the British Labour Party, from one led by timid centrists to one led by a man, Jeremy Corbyn, prepared to challenge the British establishment. Jeremy Corbyn’s opponents have focused on his alleged personal weakness rather than admit that his policies are hugely popular. As Owen Jones put it in the Guardian yesterday, the anti-Corbyn faction “should acknowledge that investment not cuts, tax justice, public ownership and a foreign policy that prioritises peace are now cornerstones of Labour party policy”.
Corbyn’s radical policies translate well into the New Zealand environment. For example, on housing his re-election plank was to “build a million new homes in five years, with at least half a million council homes, through our public investment strategy. We will end insecurity for private renters by introducing rent controls, secure tenancies and a charter of private tenants’ rights, and increase access to affordable home ownership.”
Corbyn’s critics, including those in New Zealand, harp on about how a party he leads is “unelectable”. But rarely do they explain which of Corbyn’s policies don’t resonate with the general public. The reality is that his policies are wildly popular and have led to an explosion in Labour membership. At over half a million members the UK Labour Party is now the biggest political party in Europe.
With such popular, progressive policies British Labour now has its the best chance in years of defeating the Conservatives, perhaps in an arrangment with the Greens, the Scottish National Party and Plaid Cymru – and even the Liberal Democrats.
But, the critics say, the Labour Party’s poll ratings under Corbyn are abysmal. In reality it is amazing that Labour is only 9 points behind the Tories (39% to 30%) when dissident Labour MPs have been attacking their leader in the mass media every day. What would Labour’s poll rating be here if Andrew Little was under such constant assault from within his own caucus?
And therein lies the problem. The Labour Party now has a more progressive, engaged membership, but the parliamentary caucus remains dominated by the centrists. Refreshing the caucus with new, progressive MPs will take some time, but it can’t be shied away from. The more immediate task is to stop centrist MPs taking over the shadow Cabinet and blocking Corbyn’s promotion of progressive policies. It would be a denial of Corbyn’s political mandate from the party if the caucus was allowed to elect a shadow Cabinet hostile to him.
Corbyn’s people are often labeled old-fashioned and accused of going back Labour’s failed policies in the 80s. And there is some resemblance between Corbyn’s stance and the pre-neo-liberal policies of UK Labour. But the best placement for the Corbynistas is in the forefront of the “new politics”, progressive politics attractive to a new generation. The Corbyn for Leader campaign was massive. One of those involved, Diane Abbott MP, noted “a Facebook presence reaching 6m people per week at its peak… signing up 40,000 volunteers… [with] donations from over 19,000 people… [and] 59 major campaign events… with 80,000 people attending.”
In preparation for next year’s election New Zealand’s Greens and Labour would benefit from studying the Corbyn campaign.
In Britain, Green MP Caroline Lucas welcomed Jeremy Corbyn’s re-election and said “we look forward to working with Jeremy to oppose the Conservatives and to bring about a progressive Government at the next election.” Incidentally the Green Party candidate in the Oxfordshire by-election (to be held following David Cameron’s resignation) is Larry Sanders, the brother of Bernie Sanders. That’s most appropriate, geopolitically.
I must admit I was surprised to see Corbyn hang in there and defeat the forces of neoliberalism.
Now the establishment will have to resort to even dirtier tactics to maintain their stranglehold on British society.
Actually I think it’s a rather smart political strategy to achieve real change albeit very slowly.
Yes Labour might be out of power for some time but the world is a dangerous place. Eventually the tories will become unpopular via a recession/scandal/crisis and the masses will vote for an alternative. Labour just need to survive long enough to be the alternative.
The trick to executing it will be surviving for long enough and to do that Corbyn will have to take over all the organs of power in the Labour party.
Go Corbyn, I read of the huge increase in membership in the Labour party BECAUSE of Corbyn. A man of real integrity, someone who they know won’t sell them out but keep to his principles which is not what happens in the land of milk and honey.
What the hell is up with all these idiots who keep on banging on about Corbyn being unpopular and unelectable, for christs sake the man just destroyed Smith in the face of relentless attacks from both his own party establishment and ALL establishment media from The Guardian through to The Daily mail.
He has saved Labour UK from it’s inevitable path to centrist oblivion, and built it into the strongest and most vibrant left wing party in Left wing politic’s.
Labour UK membership over 650.000
Tory membership 150.00
I know it is painful to know your ideology has become defunct and debunked, but the sooner the these centrist’s understand that they are on the wrong side of history, the sooner we can work together to built a more equal and fair society for all, which they most certainly did not.
Turn Labour Left.
I understand (from Craig Murray) that incumbent Labour MPs can’t easily be challenged as candidates for their seats, so if the parliamentary Labour party is full of Blairite MPs in safe Labour seats then Corbyn will have trouble finding friends among his fellow MPs despite having most of the Labour members on his side. I can’t imagine those MPs being keen on changing the party rules around candidate selection any time soon.
A steaming pile of ignorant horseshit is being paraded as fact in this thread.
Mr Corbyn is no fringe candidate, it must be appreciated that he increased his majority to 60% among those voters who had been members of the Labour Party for 5 years or longer.
The hundreds of thousands of new members certainly helped provide the momentum (pun intended) but even without the assistance of new members Mr Corbyn romped home.
The blairites seem determined to wreck the Party rather than run the risk of someone who isn’t a proven neolib getting elected. Their latest stroke, an attempt to gerrymander the NEC by stuffing a pair of neoliberal incompetents from Scotland & Wales onto the NEC is classic undemocratic self immolation which will cause incredible harm to the labour party in both nations. Branch meetings in Scotland & Wales will become toxic shouting matches.
The big question mark is how the mainstream plp will react – many are ropeable at the way the crap coup unfolded.
i suspect (hope) they can see the writing on the wall – that kissing blairite arse is no longer the way forward for an ambitious young pol.
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