The Left has a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity — we need the best candidate
There is a widespread assumption among commentators of all political stripes that Corbyn’s leadership constitutes a once-in-a-generation opportunity for the left.
Should he be deposed, the narrative goes, Labour would return to the Blairite comfort zone of the PLP, complete with all the associated spin, technocratic managerialism, and unquestioned neoliberal assumptions about how the world works and what the electorate wants.
Consequently, the Labour left—including the vast majority of its grassroots membership—is expected to emphatically re-elect the leader that Labour MPs overwhelmingly want to remove.
But there is also a danger for the left here: if Corbyn is the wrong candidate, if he is simply not up to the job, then we are about to squander this once-in-a-generation opportunity.
Should Corbyn lose the next election, the defeat will discredit us and our ideas, and embolden the careerists and architects of despair within the Labour Party to install another Blair.
The post-Brexit landscape presents possibilities for left-wing politics that are unrivalled in recent British political history.
The Leave campaign inspired vast swathes of disillusioned voters with a message of social justice, albeit it directed their righteous indignation towards the European Union, rather than the Westminster politicians who bear much of the blame for decades of underinvestment in public services and damaging social inequality.
The shock of the referendum result has detonated the case for austerity, as well as the career of its chief architect George Osborne.
We on the left need to ask ourselves: in Corbyn, do we have a leader ready to seize this opportunity? Or are we about to pass up on the best chance of radical change many of us have seen in our lifetimes?
This, then, is the left-wing case against Corbyn.
Corbyn and his team alienate their natural allies
True, some of the PLP have never accepted Corbyn’s victory. But looking at the list of MPs who resigned from the shadow cabinet, what is striking is that they came from all parts of the Party, both the New Labour right and the new generation left.
While all Blairites oppose Corbyn, this does not mean that all of Corbyn’s opponents are Blairite. Many Labour MPs genuinely wanted to give Corbyn a chance; many of those genuinely wanted him to succeed. Once these individuals start to say he is not up to the job, it is time for a rethink.
The same pattern of disillusionment can be found outside the PLP. The journalist Owen Jones and the tax activist Richard Murphy, both of whom shared a platform with Corbyn during his leadership campaign, have voiced serious doubts about his leadership – and been trolled for their troubles.
Two of Corbyn’s Economic Advisory Committee have resigned, and all its remaining members criticised the leadership’s performance during the EU referendum.
Corbyn is unable to reach out to a wider audience.
There is a broad constituency for Corbyn’s rejection of austerity, his resistance to cruel cuts to tax credits and disability benefits, his refusal to countenance the pointless academisation of state schools.
By contrast, his support for unilateral nuclear disarmament, unrestricted immigration from EU member states, and withdrawal from NATO is anathema to many voters. Corbyn is all too willing to allow his more controversial views the same amount of air-time as ideas that have genuinely wide-ranging appeal.
He refuses to downplay some of his long-held beliefs, even when doing so would make the achievement of other more important objectives more likely. To admirers, this is evidence of the seriousness of his convictions, and a refreshing lack of spin.
To the wider electorate, it shows a staggering inability to prioritise. A left-wing leader that was able to decide which parts of her platform were vital and which were dispensable, or who simply had fewer controversial commitments in the first place, would stand a much better chance at winning over a sceptical population in the face of a hostile media.
Corbyn has shown minimal interest in revamping left-wing solutions to deal with 21st-century problems
One of many depressing consequences of the New Labour era is that the idea of modernisation itself has become discredited, synonymous with selling out to the right.
However, Corbyn’s statist solutions, in which the nationalisation of industry features heavily, run a risk of centralisation and bureaucratisation that will frustrate rather than fulfil the hopes and aspirations of the working class.
There are ways that the left could empower workers: look at the ideas of stakeholder capitalism and workplace democracy that did the rounds in the 1990s, before Blair decided they sounded too much like socialism.
There are ways that the left could liberate working people from the necessity of work: for example, through the introduction of a Universal Basic Income. But these ideas remain underdeveloped by Corbyn and his team, to the extent that they are being considered at all.
A year ago, I was Corbyn-curious. But because of his inability to win over his natural allies, his inability to speak to the priorities of the wider public, and his inability to face up to the challenges of a post-industrial era, I no longer believe that he can win a general election.
This does not mean that the left is doomed: it just means that we need to find a different candidate.
Principle and competence are not mutually exclusive. Anyone who believes that they are has unwittingly bought in to the foundational assumption of Blairism.
We on the left should know better than that
Neil James writes about British politics and international affairs
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17 Responses to “Corbyn is not the Labour left’s only hope”
Lee
There is so much distrust and hatred within Labour that it is hard to decide whether expressed views (such as Neil James’ here) are authentic, or are devices to surreptitiously promote an outcome. And even if the views expressed are well-intended, its unclear how accurately they reflect reality.
There are some things we can probably all agree: that the Blairites leading the campaign to displace Corbyn, are not in any sense left-wing. They overwhelmingly supported Blair’s invasion and opposed an inquiry into the Iraq invasion. To imagine that a supporter of a war of aggression against defenseless people, based on lies, could be socialists, seems to me an absurdity.
On this basis, neither of the two candidates against Corbyn qualify as people who would preserve the left-wing tradition in the Labour Party. Neither are socialists. If anything, they are typical Lib-Dems, willing to mix reactionary and progressive views. As we know, that is the path to oblivion. There is also no evidence that either Smith or Eagle would make Labour electable.
What makes Neil’s article weak and low in credibility is that he provides no description of a residual left in Labour that could replace Corbyn’s mission to prevent the left tradition from being swamped by a right-of-centre Blairite return to power. Although its almost certainly true (although once again, there are no facts, and this is a guess) that not all the anti-Corbyn MPs are Blairites, there is nothing to suggest that they are left-wing either. They may simply be careerists who will go wherever the prevailing winds blow.
I am no more credible than Neil either, except that I admit that my position is an opinion, and dont try to put it forward as fact. In my view, the major crisis Labour faces is the sheer mediocrity of its MPs. You have quite a search to find many who deserve to be in office. The Tories may have a disgusting agenda (still not clear since the hand-over to May), but the calibre of its shadow cabinet and back-benchers, in terms of articulateness, intelligence, and all round competence, is well beyond what you find within Labour. I wont mention them by name, but there are Labour MPs that are so obviously cringe-worthy (and often in the media) that it may well be the inadequate calibre of Labour’s human capital that will ensure continuous victories for the Tories.
I have been a consistent and unapologetic supporter of Corbyn, but I dislke closed minds. If Neil really does have convincing evidence that there are alternatives to Corbyn who would keep alive the left tradition in Labour, I will listen. So far Neil has not said enough to convince me. A party that continues to keep Tony Blair as a member, and puts forward Chuka Umunna as a poster-boy for the new progressive direction, seems almost fatally flawed.
Law Man
Since May 12th 1994 we have not had a socialist leader and policies as desired by most members.
On that basis, given the very poor quality of the other 3 candidates in 2015, it is not surprising that members voted for Mr Corbyn.
However, now we have the prospect of a leader who is not ‘New Labour’ and yet does not have the associations of Mr Corbyn.
I understand this to be the argument made in the article, and it appeals to me. More important, it is likely to appeal to a large number of other members and the electorate.