Corbyn's campaign is about ideologically beating the rest of the left, not winning over the electorate
Photo credit: Lewisham Dreamer
At the Hay Festival event ‘What Do We Do Now?‘ with Nick Cohen, the left discussed the 2015 election result. Audience opinion during Q&A: the electorate had got it wrong. What they needed was left max to show them the error of their ways. Ed Miliband was left lite, not the real thing let alone the real deal as a prime minister in waiting.
Cohen’s recent must read article ‘Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour Party: one of them must go‘ talks about how the parliamentary system (which does not support Corbyn) is at odds with what party members want with a Corbyn presidential style support. I share the pessimism of the piece. It signifies a desire for sublime protest without compromise, rather than politics which appeal enough to win a General Election.
Electoral wisdom once was you had to meet the electorate with their concerns and wants. The left are rejecting this need to appeal for the centre ground.
Corbyn is meant to be the candidate worth voting for. He will give you the real thing – a left party in government. How he does that, without winning over enough of the electorate that voted Conservative, does not matter.
This is about rekindling enthusiasm for Labour members, having bought into the emperors new clothes that Labour had on for the 2015 campaign. The result showed to the party just how naked they looked to the rest of us.
The SNP, Greens and Plaid Cymru will never be allowed to upstage Labour again with the mantle of the left, seems to be the rallying cry of Corbyn supporters. Ignore the fact that the Greens lost about a quarter of a million pounds in lost deposits at the general election. Or that Labour membership has been quite solid in recent years.
Discount what Nick Cohen told the audience at Hay, that 58 per cent of the electorate voted for parties with the deepest cuts to the deficit planned. Labour members instead want to have the discussion among themselves to learn the lessons, and ignore those that had warned Ed Miliband was a disaster from the start.
They have concluded they just need a seasoned man of the left to inspire the electorate to vote for them. To hell, once again, with what the media is saying.
As Labour MPs plan coups, the media reports how Corbyn is no prime minister in waiting, that his associations with bigots are too numerous to be down to ignorance of their views. This misses what Labour members are saying by voting for Corbyn.
This is about The Labour Party becoming a protest movement to beat them all. The need for credibility on the economy, statesmanship in international affairs, understanding how the world actually works – the needs of government – no longer apply.
The Conservative Party have understood the electorate better. They get how legislation allows them to transform the nation on ideological lines. They get the need for compromise, negotiation and fancy presentation to win polling day by galvanising the centre ground to vote for them.
That is why they won in 2015 – by being a political party seeking power by getting a mandate from enough of the people.
Labour’s transformation from political party to pressure group may appeal to relatively new members and the old guard hard left activists. People who enjoy being on the streets campaigning for change, rather than in the corridors of power making it happen.
John Sargeant writes on Homo economicus’ Weblog and blogs for the Huffington Post.
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54 Responses to “Corbyn will transform Labour from political party to pressure group”
Cole
Oh come on. The Tories are rejoicing already. And why do you think Murdoch is supporting Corbyn.
trendsetter
You predict a mass exodus from Labour (to the Tories) simply because railways are to be renationalised following the German model, energy policy blueprint will carry on copying the German model, the NHS is transformed into a subscription-based system mimicking the German model and the economy is finally rebalanced back to manufacturing away from investment gambling further to Basel III? Well so be it, comrade.
TN
I’ve been eligible to vote since 2005 and haven’t voted for Labour in the past three elections. If Corbyn becomes leader next month I might be tempted to vote Conservative in 2020 for the first time.
I didn’t even trust the so called economically competent New Labour during the height of Blair and they sunk the economy, went on a spending splurge and built up a client state at the expense of private sector workers and the self-employed.
He offers nothing new to anyone. It’s the same discredited Bennite ideology which massacred Labour and promoted entryists the last time. The other candidates might be labelled Tories by middle class student Trots and Stalinists (the majority of Corbyn’s fan base) but they too will will squander the nation’s money.
The English public rejected a fairly left of centre Ed Miliband. Do you really think they’ll approve of an unreformed Bennite whose policies will enrich (and encourage) hoards of parasitic benefit scroungers, increase inflation and cause mass job losses? England is a moderate/conservative country and the sooner the left realises this, the better. Even when Labour shifts to the right like they did under Blair, they still managed to muck things up.
Borrow, spend and tax hardworking people in the most vindictive manner is the left’s only M.O. You don’t embrace the fact that most people have ambition and drive. Just reading Corbyn’s statements about not “demonising” people is scroungers should tell you all you need to know. He won’t be on the side of regular working people, rather the fat, lazy spongers who breed every 10 seconds, drink, smoke and take drugs while playing the system.
TN
You probably think it’s “racist” because it calls out your precious Islamic extremists. The hard left are their biggest cheerleaders.
Johnny Wong
Now, just hold on. Harry’s Place isn’t racist. Some of the left wing writers there employ black house servants FFS.