Many people have given an opinion that if elected, Jeremy
Corbyn will be the end of the Labour Party and that he is completely
unelectable. This rhetoric has risen exponentially in recent days from the
center-right of the party with the like of Alasdair Campbell, Chuka Umunna and
ultimately with Tony Blair being the most vocal opponents of Jeremy Corbyn. It
is argued that Mr Corbyn will bring the end of the Blairite era and a full
return to socialism-proper.
Much of this mud-flinging is flawed. He won’t bring an end
to the United Kingdom as an economic powerhouse, it won’t be the end to capitalism,
it wont be the end of the Labour party and it doesn’t have to be the case that
this is the end of the “Left” being in power. As bold as it might be to say,
Jeremy Corbyn could be the one person to bring all corners of the United
Kingdom together.
It has been put forward that the Overton Window of politics
shifted towards the right post Thatcher and that Tony Blair killed the left of the
Labour party. Margaret Thatcher is ironically the most quoted individual during
this leadership debate, with her stating that New Labour was her greatest
achievement. As supportive of market forces and business as Tony Blair was, keep
in mind this is a man who introduced the Human Rights Act, removed the majority
of hereditary peers from the House of Lords, raised taxes, introduced a minimum
wage and increased child benefit by 72% in 8 years. You cannot claim that this
man was inherently Tory or right wing.
The biggest flaw by the Parliamentary Labour Party in the
last 5 years post Blair/Brown was to allow the conversation to be dictated by
the Conservative Party. They fell into the trap that meant they continued on
their drift towards the right, even Ed Milliband who was famously called Red Ed
when made leader became blue labour or to use that most Tory of labels, “One
Nation Labour”. They reinforced the idea that economic competence was
inextricably linked to austerity. By attempting to distance themselves from
Tony Blair and Gordon Brown, they actually pushed themselves further to the
right. The Paliamentary Labour Party may have followed suit with a new breed of
young “Blairites”, but they failed to bring their electorate with them.
Labour lost ground to UKIP in the north and the SNP in
Scotland. UKIP are often wrongly framed as a right-wing party but it’s more
appropriate to describe them as nationalist. This is not one and the same. In 2010 Labour lost the middle class because
of tax-heavy policies. Labour regained much of its Tory votes in the
north but those working class protest votes that left Labour in 2010 to the Lib
Dems didn’t come back in 2015 and instead went to UKIP. It’s also clear that
the SNP decimated Labour due to their abandonment of the left. Interestingly
the Conservative party whilst in government learnt a few tricks from their
Liberal Democrat partners. They took up the “One Nation Conservative” banner coined
by Disraeli. He devised it to appeal
to working class men as a solution to worsening divisions in society. In the
Liberal Democrat heartlands and following their betrayal in power, it worked
with the Conservative moping up most of the South West.
This brings us to
the Labour Party in the post-election hangover and effectively leaderless and
rendered totally neutered by there constants attempts to be better than the
Tories at their own game. It is all about business and not about social
fairness. We started the leadership contest with two sub-par center right, one
sub-par center-left and a quiet innocuous and rebellious hard-left candidate
let in to throw a bone to the activists. Very quickly Andy Burnham shifted his
position from the left and jumped right in with Blue Labour. This meant you had
a three person echo chamber and just the one dissenting voice. One voice that
was different and a voice that wasn’t about personal attacks, but about giving
an alternative. What the PLP has soon realised, is that the Labour Party doesn’t
consist of little Tony Blair’s. That the left of the party is very much real
and one that doesn’t like being either labeled as stupid or wrong.
Then came the
deciding factor came. The Labour Party failed to contest the deep cuts to the
welfare system. This was the final straw in the abandonment of the left and
sealed what seems to be a now inevitable victory. The surge from the left
supporting Corbyn doesn’t consist of angry coal miners from the Socialist or
Trade Union parties, rampant vegan feminists from the Greens or Tories trying
to undermine the process. It consists of run of the mill Labour supporters and
voters, the working class and middle class. Jeremy Corbyn speaks to what has
been missing for the last five years.
I don’t see him
becoming Prime Minister, but he will remind the Parliamentary Labour Party that
for them to be successful, the left must not be forgotten about. I will be
voting for Jeremy with the Labour’s best interests in mind. Labour cannot win
by trying to do what the Tories do best, but by doing what Labour does best.
Ensuring fairness and social equality for all.
When that becomes
the priority of a leader-in-waiting then the centrist position will be a
tenable one to hold.
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