Corbyn

by Richard Seymour

  With this in mind, the future seems increasingly open. The odds have been stacked against Corbyn’s project from the start, but the consistency with which the odds are being defeated is not an accident. It bespeaks an underlying set of processes of radicalisation on the one side, and the breakdown of the governing class on the other, which means that the way we have calculated the odds has been incorrect. Labour has already begun to shift the balance of opinion on a number of issues, although lamentably it clings to nursey on such matters as police numbers. It is retreating somewhat, if unevenly and with some splendid moments from Corbyn during the electoral campaign, from the initial courage that Corbyn showed on migration and refugees. But it is setting itself up to win a general election on a more radical basis than we have seen for years.

  There is also an incipient, as yet politically undecided and open-ended, change in the alignments of global power taking place. The decline of Washington and Wall Street, capably overseen by the Twitter President, coupled with the political crisis for the EU posed by growing Euroscepticism (not least Brexit itself), is weakening the institutional framework and the ideological axioms in which the neoliberal centre has dominated. The global economy is being politicised, on both the Left and the Right, and that would provide potential opportunities – no more than that – for any Left government to increase its freedom of movement, if it was bold enough.

  In the first edition of this book, I thought it most likely that Corbynism would enjoy some successes but fail in its larger, longer-term objectives. My assumption, much as I preferred to think otherwise, was that at some point a variant of the old Labour Right would regain control, while incorporating elements of Corbynism for its own purposes. As such, the hundreds of thousands of new activists ran the risk of being demoralised, driven out, and left burned out and bewildered if they didn’t immediately begin to wargame all the possibilities, including failure. It is no longer evident that this is the most realistic reading.

  The obstacles before Corbynism remain considerable. And it would still be useful to take the long-term view, dampen down any triumphalism, restrain any knee-jerk loyalism, and think critically about how to react to setbacks, including defeat. Corbyn is still going to have to struggle to outrun the limits of Labourism – the very limits which brought us to this impasse. However, it would be absurd to talk about a crisis of knowing, and point the finger at the media for their illusions, and not acknowledge that the facts have overtaken parts of my analysis. Apart from anything else, this is one of those occasions on which it is a real pleasure to be refuted by history.

  Notes

  Preface to the Second Edition

  1Quoted in Nikil Saval, ‘Globalisation: the rise and fall of an idea that swept the world’, Guardian, 14 July 2017.

  2James Meadway, ‘What if we’ve reached peak globalisation?’, Guardian, 28 September 2015; Shawn Doonan, ‘WTO warns on rise of protectionist measures by G20 economies’, Financial Times, 21 June 2016; ‘Press release 793: trade statistics and outlook’, World Trade Organization, 2017, at wto.org; Kevin Yao, ‘China capital outflows stabilized in first-quarter as capital controls bite’, Reuters, 20 April 2017.

  3Gaby Hinsliff, ‘Labour still has to work out how it can speak for England’, Guardian, 4 February 2016; Vernon Bogdanor, ‘As a political force Englishness is on the rise – and Labour mustn’t forget it’, Guardian, 8 July 2013; John Harris, ‘Don’t let England be rebranded as a nation of bigots’, Guardian, 10 October 2016; Polly Toynbee, ‘Dismal, lifeless, spineless – Jeremy Corbyn let us down again’, Guardian, 25 June 2016; Andy Burnham, ‘Labour needs to take back control of the immigration debate’, Guardian, 16 December 2016.

  4Anthony Bond and Steve Robson, ‘Revenge of the youth! How 18 to 24-year-olds furious over Brexit gave Theresa May a disastrous general election result’, Mirror, 9 June 2017; Robert Ford, ‘The new electoral map of Britain: from the revenge of Remainers to the upending of class politics’, Guardian, 11 June 2017; ‘Media coverage of the 2017 general election campaign (report 3)’, Centre for Research in Communication and Culture, Loughborough University, 2 June 2017.

  5Alan Travis and Caelainn Barr, ‘ “Youthquake” behind Labour election surge divides generations’, Guardian, 20 June 2017.

  6Charlotte Catherine Gill, ‘Corbyn’s promises to under-25s are nothing but a con’, The Times, 5 June 2017.

  7Rod Liddle, ‘Sssh … let your kids lie in’, Sun, 7 June 2017.

  8There are better schemes. The British Election Study uses an occupational grading system called NS-SEC, which is more subtle – it allows for the existence of an employer class, and the traditional petty bourgeoisie of lone traders and small businessmen. Unfortunately, this is not widely used.

  9YouGov itself, working on the same premises, offered this analysis. Chris Curtis, ‘How Britain voted at the 2017 general election’, YouGov, 13 June 2017.

  10Laurence Dodds, ‘Was this the revenge of the liberal metropolitan elite?’, Telegraph, 9 June 2017.

  11Bart Cammaerts, Brooks DeCillia, João Magalhães, and César Jimenez-Martínez, ‘Journalistic representations of Jeremy Corbyn in the British press: from watchdog to attackdog’, Media@LSE report, London School of Economics, 1 July 2016; Dr Justin Schlosberg, ‘Should he stay or should he go? Television and online news coverage of the Labour Party in crisis’, Media Reform Coalition and Birkbeck University of London, July 2016; Jane Martinson, ‘BBC Trust says Laura Kuenssberg report on Corbyn was inaccurate’, Guardian, 18 January 2017; Justin Lewis, ‘Newspapers, not BBC, led the way in biased election coverage’, The Conversation, 15 May 2015; Tom Mills, ‘The General Strike to Corbyn: 90 years of BBC establishment bias’, Open Democracy, 6 May 2016; Tom Mills, ‘Post-democratic broadcasting’, LRB blog, 18 May 2017; Stephen Cushion, ‘The Tories are the big winners in the TV airtime war’, The 650, 12 May 2017; ‘Media coverage of the 2017 General Election campaign’, Centre for Research in Communication and Culture, Loughborough University, April–June 2017.

  12Teemu Henriksson, ‘World Press Trends 2017: the audience-focused era arrives’, World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers, 8 June 2017.

  13‘Newspapers: daily readership by age’, State of the News Media 2016, Pew Research Centre, 15 June 2016; Jasper Jackson, ‘National daily newspaper sales fall by half a million in a year’, Guardian, 10 April 2015; Roy Greenslade, ‘Suddenly, national newspapers are heading for that print cliff fall’, Guardian, 27 May 2016; Roy Greenslade, ‘Popular newspapers suffer greater circulation falls than qualities’, Guardian, 19 January 2017; David Bond, ‘UK newspapers team up to combat falling revenues’, Financial Times, 23 October 2016; Teemu Henriksson, ‘World Press Trends 2017: the audience-focused era arrives’, World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers, 8 June 2017; Peter Preston, ‘TV news faces a threat familiar to newspapers’, Guardian, 17 April 2016.

  14Teemu Henriksson, ‘World Press Trends 2017: the audience-focused era arrives’, World Association of Newspapers and News Publishers, 8 June 2017; Peter Kellner, ‘The problem of trust’, YouGov, 13 November 2012; James Grierson, ‘Britons’ trust in government, media and business falls sharply’, Guardian, 16 January 2017.

  15Tom Mills, The BBC: Myth of a Public Service, Verso: London, 2016

  16Matti Littunen, ‘An analysis of news and advertising in the UK general election’, Open Democracy, 7 June 2017; Jim Waterson and Tom Phillips, ‘People on Facebook only want to share pro-Corbyn, anti-Tory news stories’, Buzzfeed, 7 May 2017; Giles Turner and Jeremy Khan, ‘U.K. Labour’s savvy use of social media helped win young voters’, Bloomberg, 11 June 2017.

  Introduction: Against All Odds

  1David Smith, ‘Tony Blair admits he is baffled by rise of Bernie Sanders and Jeremy Corbyn’, Guardian, 23 February 2016.

  2‘Tony Blair: If your heart’s with Jeremy Corbyn, get a transplant’, Guardian, 22 July 2015; Peter Mandelson, ‘The Labour Party is in mortal danger’, Financial Times, 27 August 2015; Rowena Mason and Josh
Halliday, ‘Gordon Brown urges Labour not to be party of protest by choosing Jeremy Corbyn’, Guardian, 17 August 2015.

  3Robert Mendick, ‘Tony Blair gives Kazakhstan’s autocratic president tips on how to defend a massacre’, Telegraph, 24 August 2014.

  4Tony Benn, Office Without Power: Diaries 1968–72, London: Arrow, 1989.

  5Tony Benn, speech to the Engineering Union, AUEW Conference, May 1971. In Ruth Winstone, ed., The Best of Benn: Letters, Diaries, Speeches and Other Writings, London: Hutchinson, 2014, Kindle Loc. 621.

  6Hilary Wainwright and Leo Panitch, ‘“What we’ve achieved so far”: an interview with Jeremy Corbyn’, Red Pepper, December 2015.

  7Quoted in Nigel Cawthorne, Jeremy Corbyn: Leading from the Left, London: Endeavour Press Ltd, 2015, Kindle Loc. 180.

  8Rosa Prince, Comrade Corbyn: A Very Unlikely Coup: How Jeremy Corbyn Stormed to the Labour Leadership, London: Biteback Publishing, 2016.

  9Jessica Elgot, ‘Jeremy Corbyn caught looking gloomy on night bus’, Guardian, 1 August 2015.

  10Quoted in Nigel Cawthorne, Jeremy Corbyn: Leading from the Left, London: Endeavour Press Ltd, 2015, Kindle Loc. 238.

  11Jeremy Corbyn, ‘Building the Social Movement’, in Tom Unterrainer, ed., Corbyn’s Campaign, Nottingham: Spokesman Books, 2016.

  12Hilary Wainwright and Leo Panitch, ‘“What we’ve achieved so far”: an interview with Jeremy Corbyn’, Red Pepper, December 2015.

  13Phil Burton-Cartledge, interview with the author, 19 February 2016.

  14Hardeep Matharu, ‘Britain could be more left-wing than people assume, study finds’, The Independent, 15 January 2016.

  15Sam Webb, ‘Jeremy Corbyn gets hero’s welcome at refugee rally on day he becomes Labour leader’, Mirror, 12 September 2015.

  16Larry Elliott, ‘OECD calls for less austerity and more public investment’, Guardian, 18 February 2016.

  17Will Dahlgreen, ‘British people keener on socialism than capitalism’, YouGov, 23 February 2016.

  1. How ‘Project Fear’ Failed

  1Michael Crick, @michaelcrick, Twitter, 28 May 2015, twitter.com/michaellcrick/status/603845352727453696.

  2‘Labour leadership latest odds: can Jeremy Corbyn really win?’, Week, 19 August 2015.

  3Cruddas’s spin on the findings was reported by the Guardian’s resident Blairite, Patrick Wintour, with the following headline: ‘Anti-austerity unpopular with voters, finds inquiry into Labour’s election loss’. Guardian, 4 August 2015. In fact, the research did not ‘find’ any such thing.

  4Ross Hawkins, ‘Ed Miliband did not lose election because he was too left wing – study’, BBC News, 17 September 2015.

  5Steve Coogan, ‘Andy Burnham is Labour’s best hope’, Guardian, 14 August 2015.

  6Interview with Marsha-Jane Thompson, 14 January 2016.

  7Interview with Ben Sellers, 12 February 2016.

  8Interview with Marsha-Jane Thompson, 14 January 2016.

  9Chi Onwurah, ‘My nomination for leader of the Labour Party’, Chionwurahmp.com, 11 June 2015.

  10Luke Akehurst, ‘Why Jeremy Corbyn should be on the leadership ballot’, LabourList, 9 June 2015.

  11The speech can be viewed at: ‘Jeremy Corbyn – End Austerity Now – June 20 2015’, YouTube, 20 June 2015.

  12Stephen Bush, ‘Why are we so certain that Jeremy Corbyn can’t win?’, New Statesman, 23 June 2015.

  13Helen Pidd, ‘Jeremy Corbyn: “Welcome to the mass movement of giving a toss about stuff”’, Guardian, 30 August 2015.

  14Jon Stone, ‘More people have joined Labour since the election than are in the entire Conservative party’, Independent, 8 October 2015.

  15Interview with Marsha-Jane Thompson, 14 January 2016.

  16Interview with Ben Sellers, 12 February 2016.

  17Statistic quoted in Ben Sellers, ‘#JEZWEDID: From Red Labour to Jeremy Corbyn: A Tale from Social Media’, in Tom Unterrainer, ed., Corbyn’s Campaign, Nottingham: Spokesman Books, 2016.

  18Interview with Jeremy Gilbert, 19 January 2016.

  19Interview with Ben Sellers, 12 February 2016.

  20Kiran Moodley, ‘The video which shows why Jeremy Corbyn is winning in the Labour leadership race’, Independent, 23 July 2015.

  21Magpie Corvid, ‘The Multitude of Fishes’, Salvage, 3 September 2015, salvage.zone.

  22Interview with Marsha-Jane Thompson, 14 January 2016.

  23Nicholas Watt, ‘Communication Workers Union backs Corbyn as antidote to Blairite “virus”’, Guardian, 30 July 2015.

  24Tom Gordon, ‘One year on: will Better Together change their tactics?’, Sunday Herald, 23 June 2013.

  25Kiran Stacey, George Parker, Mure Dickie and Beth Rigby, ‘Scottish referendum: How complacency nearly lost a united kingdom’, Financial Times, 19 September 2014.

  26Nicholas Watt, Patrick Wintour and Severin Carrell, ‘Scottish independence: Queen was asked to intervene amid yes vote fears’, Guardian, 16 December 2015; Severin Carrell, ‘Civil servants accused of bias during Scotland’s independence referendum’, Guardian, 23 March 2015; John Robertson, ‘BBC bias and the Scots referendum – new report’, Open Democracy, 21 February 2014.

  27Mikey Smith, ‘Labour leadership race “should be halted” over hard-left “infiltrators”’, Mirror, 26 July 2015; Glen Owen, ‘Now top Labour MP warns his party is on the brink of catastrophe’, Mail on Sunday, 8 August 2015.

  28James Lyons and Robin Henry, ‘Hard left plot to infiltrate Labour race’, Sunday Times, 25 July 2015.

  29Dan Hodges, ‘Jeremy Corbyn proves the lunatic wing of the Labour Party is still calling the shots’, Telegraph, 15 June 2015; Dan Hodges, ‘Sadiq Khan winning in London will be bad news for the Labour Party’, Telegraph, 19 January 2016.

  30Andy McSmith, ‘Jeremy Corbyn is a stranger to responsibility and will loathe leadership’, Independent, 25 August 2015.

  31Andrew Sparrow, ‘Miliband wins vote on Labour party reforms with overwhelming majority’, Guardian, 1 March 2014.

  32Andrew Rawnsley, ‘Ed Miliband boldly goes where even Tony Blair feared to tread’, Observer, 2 February 2014.

  33Isabel Hardman, ‘Labour “members” object to “purge”’, Spectator, 20 August 2015; James Walsh and Frances Perraudin, ‘Labour leadership election: rejected supporters express their anger’, Guardian, 20 August 2015; Stephen Bush, ‘Is Labour purging supporters of Jeremy Corbyn?’, New Statesman, 20 August 2015; Oliver Wright and Matt Dathan, ‘#LabourPurge: Long-time supporters of party claim they have been barred from voting’, Independent, 20 August 2015; Rowena Mason, ‘Labour bans trade union head from voting in leadership election’, Guardian, 25 August 2015; Peter Taheri and Kapil Komireddi, ‘With up to 100,000 now barred, Labour has become less a broad church and more a secret society’, Independent, 25 August 2015.

  34Louise Ridley, ‘Jeremy Corbyn “Systematically” Attacked by British Press the Moment He Became Leader, Research Claims’, Huffington Post, 26 November 2015.

  35Peter Dominiczak, Christopher Hope, Ben Riley-Smith and Kate McCann, ‘Union bosses threaten to use Jeremy Corbyn’s victory to cripple UK’, Telegraph, 14 September 2015; Janet Daley, ‘The hard Left wants to seize power on the streets, not at Westminster’, Telegraph, 16 August 2015.

  36David Thomas, ‘Prime Minister Corbyn… and the 1,000 days that destroyed Britain’, Daily Mail, 22 August 2015.

  37Philip Stephens, ‘Jeremy Corbyn for UK Labour party leader? Blame the bankers’, Financial Times, 10 September 2015.

  38Editorial, ‘The key questions Jeremy Corbyn must answer’, Jewish Chronicle, 12 August 2015.

  39Eddy Portnoy, ‘Simple, Offensive and Out There’, Forward, 18 December 2008.

  40‘Raed Salah Mahajna -v- The Secretary of State for the Home Department’, Courts and Tribunals Judiciary, 10 April 2012, judiciary.gov.uk.

  41Dan Hodges, ‘Jeremy Corbyn will be cheered by racists and terrorists’, Telegraph, 25 August 2015; Simon Walters, ‘Labour’s “Mayor” savages Corbyn: Party star Khan damns l
eader over anti-Semitism’, Daily Mail, 20 September 2015

  42Jonathan Freedland, ‘The Corbyn tribe cares about identity, not power’, Guardian, 24 July 2015; Suzanne Moore, ‘Corbyn’s Labour is a party without a point, led by a rebel with a cause’, Guardian, 16 September 2015; Anne Perkins, ‘Labour party members, please think before you vote for Jeremy Corbyn’, Guardian, 22 July 2015; Anne Perkins, ‘What the trials of Chris Froome can teach us about Jeremy Corbyn’, Guardian, 23 July 2015.

  43Andrew Rawnsley, ‘Why Labour is gravitating towards the Conservatives’ dream candidate’, Observer, 19 July 2015; Andrew Rawnsley, ‘Labour downs a deadly cocktail of fatalism, fury and fantasy’, Observer, 26 July 2015.

  44Ed Vulliamy, ‘Why I take issue with the Observer’s stance on Jeremy Corbyn’, Observer, 20 September 2015.

  45Andrew Sparrow, ‘Labour donor: Jeremy Corbyn win could cause SDP-style split’, Guardian, 24 July 2015.

  46Polly Toynbee, ‘In Labour’s leadership race, Yvette Cooper is the one to beat’, Guardian, 23 June 2015.

  47Editorial, ‘The Guardian view on Labour’s choice: Corbyn has shaped the campaign, but Cooper can shape the future’, Guardian, 13 August 2015; Selma James and Nina Lopez, ‘Yvette Cooper supported sexist austerity; Jeremy Corbyn has always opposed it’, Letters page, Guardian, 18 August 2015.

  48Suzanne Moore, ‘As Jeremy Corbyn was anointed leader, not one female voice was heard’, Guardian, 12 September 2015.

  49Will Dahlgreen, ‘With one month to go, Corbyn’s lead increases’, YouGov, 10 August 2015.

  50Daisy Benson, ‘If it’s truly progressive, Labour will have voted in a female leader – regardless of her policies’, Independent, 11 September 2015.

  51Michael Wilkinson, ‘Has Jeremy Corbyn got a woman problem?’, Telegraph, 14 December 2015.

  52Cathy Newman, ‘Welcome to Jeremy Corbyn’s blokey Britain – where “brocialism” rules’, Telegraph, 14 September.