UK: When politics go mad. Jeremy Corbyn's very likely win

If you took Bernie Sanders, drilled some true socialism into him rather than the mild case of social democracy he has, sent him into a cottage in the woods for a week without a razor, then you're getting a little closer to who Jeremy Corbyn is, politically and personally.

Jeremy Corbyn has puttered about in his allotment, between his visits to the House of Commons, for the last 30 years. A remnant of a long distant Labour party past. Except, now not so much.

A few months ago, Jeremy accepted the role of the sacrificial lamb. After the general election defeat in May, the leader Ed Miliband abruptly quit, and there was to be a leadership contest. Corbyn accepted that he, like Diane Abbot the last time, was to be the candidate that got 5 per cent of the vote. That way, Corbyn could go back to his allotment, and back to his constituency work. Except, that's not what is happening.

It is difficult to explain. The candidates for Labour party leadership are four:

* Andy Burnham, a slippery spin politician who leans in whatever direction the political wind is blowing. In one week he can deliver a speech to KPMG, the global accounting firm that handle the tax dodging of multinationals, and claim that the last Labour leader wasn't sensitive enough to the needs of big business. The week after he can deliver a full-throated attack on corporate greed and the corporate tax dodging that firms like KPMG handle for their clients.

* Yvette Cooper. If they built a politician robot, it would look and act like her. She doesn't offer any policy, except when it's absolutely necessary, and then it will be bland and carefully scripted.

* Liz Kendall is like if the Democratic Party had a Ted Cruz in it, and that version of Ted Cruz talked only about how the party must learn from its defeat in May and become like the real Ted Cruz in the republican party. That's Liz Kendall for you.

* And then you have the token leftie, the sacrificial lamb, the one who was invited to the leadership contest to “broaden the debate”, and who would then do the proper thing and lose really badly so that the proper politicians – Cooper, Burnham, or Kendall – could go on and do proper politics. Except he's not losing. He's winning. And it's driving the establishment absolutely nuts.

This is why this extraordinary article appeared in today's Observer newspaper. The former Prime Minister, Tony Blair, basically crashes onto the stage: tie undone, one side of the shirt hanging outside his trousers, the eyes blood-shot with alarm, and shrieking. “What the hell do you think you're doing?!” he howls to the voters in the contest. “You have to vote for one of the other three. Are you all mad?!”

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/aug/29/tony-blair-labour-leadership-jeremy-corbyn

Somewhere, on an allotment in Islington, the 66 year old Jeremy Corbyn is smiling smugly as he pours another mug of strong tea from his thermos. Then he wraps his disheveled jumper tighter around himself in the London chill. Corbyn is winning. And it looks like he's going to win big. When the leadership contest started, the odds was 100 to 1 that he would. But now, it looks like everyone in the party hierarchy is starting to concede.

Politics have gone mad over here too. Just thought I'd mention that to you.

RichardGarfinkle said:

This story is fascinating. It's as if Miliband's defeat has been taken as a repudiation of New Labour, and there might actually be a Labour party again.

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I think that's the root of it. Many, many people have grown very weary of the empty, vacuous machine politics that New Labour has become. After the Scottish referendum last year, Corbyn's brand of politics got a national airing for the first time in a long time. A lot of English people liked what the SNP were offering, but they couldn't vote for the party since the SNP only fields candidates in Scotland.

Analysis after the election, and during it, hinted that Nicola Sturgeon had the highest ratings of all the politicians in the GE, including in England and Wales.

RichardGarfinkle said:

Also great descriptions of the candidates, although I don't get the Liz Kendall / Ted Cruz analogy.

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It's just that Liz Kendall's pitch appears to be that since the Conservatives won, the Labour party must "learn from its mistakes" and become Conservatives.

waylander said:

Corbyn offers to Labour Party supporters is a real socialist vision, something Labour has not had for 15 years or more.
I think it highly unlikely this will play well with the wider electorate.

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Yeah, I think he'll have a difficult time if he's elected, and I don't think he knows what will hit him. I hope he can cope.

Don said:

Oh, I dunno. I understand Maduro's knockin' 'em dead in Venezuela, and #Babies4Bernie's a big thing here in the states.

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Bernie Sanders is a social democrat, Jeremy Corbyn is a democratic socialist, I'm a libertarian socialist, and Maduro is an authoritarian socialist. You have to get with the lingo, Don, or I'll start to call you an anarcho-capitalist, and then you'll roll your eyes and say "I'm an agorist, it's not the same thing!", which will make me eyewaggle and chuckle, and which will make me say 'Duh.'

Teinz said:

Yeah, the Third Way and all that. The social democrats overhere fell into the same trap. They have lost a big chunk of their natural electorate because of it. Those voters went to the socialists, who have almost no chance of getting into government.

So we see the same developments in a multiparty system.

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There was a long and interesting study about this very thing published in 2012 or 2013: Catchall or Catch and Release? The Electoral Consequences of Social Democratic Parties’ March to the Middle in Western Europe (pdf)

waylander said:

Which I find frankly amazing. Have we collectively forgotten how crap British Rail was? It it also worth remembering that Network Rail, who own the tracks and manage the infrastructure, are still publicly-owned. You will have your own opinions as to how well they do their job.

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I'll take the liberty of criticizing the auld home country and say this: British Rail was a disaster not because it was public or private, but because of how industrial relations have developed in the UK over the past century. In most of Europe - Germany, the Nordics, etc - people accept the need for both unions and corporations. Since both sides are relatively evenly matched, there's an equilibrium of sorts. Strikes are rare. When the unions grumble, the employers negotiate. When the corporations say 'we have to lay off because we're not doing so well", the unions on the whole accept reality with some muttering into their drinks.

This is not true in the UK though where there is an eternal conflict between unions and employers. Unions refuse to accept that a company does have to live within its means, and companies refuse to accept that workers can have legitimate grievances. So, you end up with 1979 and the Winter of Discontent. You end up with British Coal, British Steel, and British Rail which are wonders of strife, inefficiency, and political meddling, and where the whole point is to save jobs, not to deliver products or services. Also, you end up with a Margaret Thatcher who sees it not as her job to steer the whole mess onto sustainable grounds, but who sees it as her job to "break the unions".

Some day the left and the right in the UK will have to sit down and come to an agreement. A grand bargain. Just like they have in the rest of Europe. The unions will have to accept the iron law of economy, and the employers will have to accept that workers have aspirations. And everyone has to stop trying to compete with China and the BRICS on wages, and compete on productivity and technological sophistication instead.

Tomorrow (as I write this) we will find out if Jeremy Corbyn has won the Labour leadership election. All the signs say he has. All the media operate on the assumption that he has. All the Labour politicians who talk to the media concede that he has won. What remains to be seen is how big is win is.

A marker for how big the win is likely to be was the primary-like election of the Labour candidate for the London Mayoral elections in May next year. The result of the primary election was announced today, and Sadiq Khan beat the odds on favourite establishment candidate Tessa Jowell. It is being taken as a first sign of the rout of the Blairites from the UK Labour party.

http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/...cted-as-labours-candidate-for-mayor-of-london

Khan picked up 59% of the vote and it was clear he had won as soon as the first results showed that the votes of Khan and Diane Abbott combined would outnumber those for Lady Jowell. The results, announced at the Royal Festival Hall, suggest Jeremy Corbyn is going to sweep to victory in the national leadership ballot on Saturday.

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Friday’s result shows that the party membership in London is behind Corbyn’s politics and, contrary to expectations, turnout in the union-affilated section was quite high. Corbyn never endorsed Abbott, although she linked her voting record in the Commons to his and tried to ride on his coat tails.

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Jeremy Corbyn won, and it was an absolute slaughter of the Blairites.

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/sep/12/jeremy-corbyn-wins-labour-party-leadership-election

Corbyn won with nearly 60% of the votes in the first round of voting, which is bigger than the mandate for Tony Blair when he became leader in 1994.

The result was announced in front of an audience of party members at the Queen Elizabeth II conference centre, close to the houses of parliament in central London on Saturday.

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