Watching the race for the leadership, you couldn’t really be less than impressed by the Labour party’s ability to make something ostensibly so straightforward a little bit of a mess. But, even allowing for the accusations of ‘infiltration’ in registrations – from the left if anti-Corbyn and from the right if, let me see, anti-Corbyn, the margin of the man’s victory is still astounding.
Now that he is leader and has such a mandate, it will be fascinating to watch the story unfold. On the one hand, you have to admire a politician who over such a significant period in politics has never wavered from his principles and beliefs. You don’t have to agree with everything he says to feel that this is refreshingly novel in today’s political climate. He appears to be willing to engage with other parts of the party in a constructive, mature fashion, and at least possesses a steadfast and consistent vision for the future of the country. Does anyone want a party leader who spends every waking moment telling us that Labour needs only to reflect the views of those who voted for other parties. Ideally, don’t we want politicians who actually believe in something and try and win us over with the power of their arguments. Maybe encourage those so disenfranchised with the current set up they’ve pulled away from mainstream politics to actually engage and vote again.
And yet, can’t help but have this nagging doubt that this is not how it will pan out. Firstly, we have such an immature on-line and print media that it is unlikely Corbyn will get away with anything remotely resembling open dialogue. Witness the ludicrous response to his commitment to consult with women on the ‘possibility of women only carriages’ on trains, but only as part of an overall review of how to make the whole issue of travel safer for everybody. This morphed into “Corbyn says he will demand women only carriages on trains” and a typically hysterical reaction from the more extreme of the media, amid accusations by those pushing a very warped vision of the feminist agenda that Corbyn was simply an apologist for the abhorrent behaviour of men . Never let the facts get in the way of a good old rant about nothing. Unless we have a balanced, rational and reasoned response to ideas and dialogue, we will continue to read, watch and hear politicians speaking at considerable length but saying absolutely nothing and we will all have to take our share of the blame.
Agree with Corbyn or despise his views – that’s not really the point. The critical issue is that you probably won’t really be able to make a considered judgement, because a media with horrendously vested interests and its own sense of self importance will have headlined with the ‘news’ that Corbyn was Bin Laden’s best mate at school (i.e. he once had conversations with the same unsavoury characters to whom Tony Blair cosied up) and believes that when women get assaulted on trains, it’s all their fault (i.e. let’s discuss the possibility of women only carriages).
And so, what to feel?
There’s a sense in which all this is bloody marvellous. Well-heeled columnists and dinner-party commentators, let alone the moribund and tired old labour orthodoxy, had no idea how desperate Labour’s ‘tory lite’ agenda was looking. Corbyn understands it all too well. I wonder how many people who voted for him were prepared to overlook the things they overlooked (and there is much to concern), purely on that basis. At last something to hope for, something different.
And then there’s a sense in which all this is really, really worrying. Jeremy Corbyn? Backbencher all his life, never a minister, never a political decision maker, always the outsider. Undoubtedly a great deal with which to disagree, and his black and white view of the world is undeniably without nuance. It could all go horribly wrong and it might be the last throw of the dice for the Labour Party. Although boringly predictable, this response from the Telegraph is not entirely baseless. One of the fundamental problems in this election was the lack of credible, charismatic and principled alternatives. Andy Burnham, although possessed of many sound qualities, changed position so often he must have had a bad attack of haemorrhoids. And who needs a party that’s strayed so far from its core beliefs, the reasons it was founded? Yes, a party has to develop, respond to a changing world and the climate within which it operates, be electable – but it still has to believe in something. It’s facile to keep talking about the need “be electable” to implement its core values and so little time convincing the electorate that you actually have any to implement. If it doesn’t have a core set of values that are fundamentally different from the incumbent government, then maybe it should just fade away and be replaced. History shows us that political parties have no divine right to exist forever.
Whatever, the outcome, it shouldn’t be dull! How long will he be allowed to remain honest and refreshing in a world where both politicians and the London centric media prefer the status quo. And it’s not often a political party is led by someone who doesn’t share its aims and values 🙂