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”
Norfolk29
Because they are scared witless. Remember 1994? Blair was “Bambi”. Within two years they were losing every by election. John Major lost control of the Tory Party and had to resign and force another leadership election. Perhaps you are too young to remember but theTories have long memories and do no want a Labour leader who can penetrate their hypocracy.
Mason Dixon, Autistic
“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.”
This right here, this as where I stopped reading- the part where you started doing what the alleged ‘modernisers’ of Labour have been doing: you’re no longer telling us what to think, you’re telling us what you think we think. So still not listening. You can’t be bothered, so I’ll reciprocate.
I'm very cross about this.
Please point out where in my post I said an exodus from labour to the Tories. I think it much more likely that the least stupid of the PLP will refuse to take any shadow cabinet position under Corbyn and we may even see and SDLP type split. Mengele Burnham, Abbott and The Beast of Bolsover will be the calibre of shadow minister he would get and I wish him luck with that. If you believe the British public would trust a government of any colour to run the railways then that comrade is delusional. Comrade Corbyn will never lead the Queens government and bring about the socialist chaos that would ensue. I paid my £3 to vote for him and Tom Watson and hope beyond hope for their success.
Cole
Dream on. The Tories were rightly scared of Blair (he won 3 elections). They’re laughing their socks off at the prospect of Corbyn being in charge. Voting for Corbyn is astonishingly self indulgent.
Shan
What a strange article. The public are pouring into Corbyn’s meetings several times a day, 1,000 or even 2,000 at a time. Who else has galvanised this kind of interest (in politics) in living memory?
The Labour party has doubled its membership. Who else has done that?
Other Labour l;eaders have bled members. Blair caused a haemorrhage.
When has an election for party leader flooded the news like this? Not in my lifetime over 60 years.
The SNP showed that when people want to vote, when they feel they can make a difference, they will.
But when they feel it makes no difference, when voting can only bring more of the same misery, people stay at home.