There are so many articles floating around the internet with this basic theme, it has become a cliché already: the right and soft left of Labour like to go on and on about electability while having no ideas of how to create a different sense of how to be different from the Tories. Meanwhile Corbyn represents a new, radical agenda.
Let’s put aside the fact that electability is incredibly important and that being 16 points behind the government at this stage of a parliament is reason enough to chuck aside an opposition leader. Let us forget about that completely and just focus on the policies of Corbyn and his supposed radicalism.
I associate with Corbyn three policy ideas: all women carriages on trains; reopening the coal mines; renationalising the railways. Some will say that he laid out a whole agenda in his latest leadership candidate speech, all that rejigging of Beveridge stuff. But I’m talking about actual policies here – things you take and starting writing a white paper around.
The all women carriages thing is so retrograde and awful an idea, let’s just dismiss it and move on. Reopening of the coal mines really demonstrates Corbyn’s lack of radicalism. Putting aside the environmental and practical problems involved, it is all about the far-left’s obsession with the 1980s – an endlessly looping of the Thatcher v Scargill battles. I am struggling to think of anything less radical than this mindless nostalgia. Finally, renationalising the railways. Fine, no problem. I think most people in Britain would be up for this – provided it was cost effective. Fine idea, but again, not really all that radical.
When Corbyn got elected leader I braced myself for some real radicalism coming our way. A lot of it I expected to disagree with, but I looked forward to some real meat, some genuinely new, left-wing ideas invading the body politic. Instead we’ve just had the word “socialism” thrown at us a lot, which even that in and of itself is confusing and confused on the Left. When you ask a Corbynista what they mean by socialism, you get a lot of vague identity politics back – coupled with refutations of actual socialism, oddly enough.
“So you want actual socialism then, like USSR style stuff.”
“No, no. I just mean more social services, better public services, less cuts.”
“So you want social democracy, not socialism then.”
“No, no – social democracy is wedded to neoliberalism.”
“So you want actual socialism then, like USSR style stuff.”
“No, no…..”
Try this with a Corbynista some time. It can go on for literally hours if you have the patience.
Yes, Labour’s right and soft left factions are incredibly short on ideas. Now is a time of great existential crisis for the Left in Britain and elsewhere. But some should take the time to notice that Corbyn and his mates have no ideas either – or at least ones they are willing to talk about in public.
Corbyn came to power on a wave of popular support. With little experience of such a position it was always going to be a tough first year or so. All the more so when the entire msm and plp have it in for you – regardless of what you might say or do. Surely the thing that he has brought to the table is the attempt to open up the Labour party to a wider, more responsive constituency of new members who, in the longer term will contribute to a more democratic development of policy. Is it fair to heap it all on his shoulders when, clearly, it is not just about him? Is it fair to dismiss the enthusiasm and engagement of those he has drawn to Labour as a “cult” or “fan club”? And isn’t the real issue, how far the plp have drifted into tory-life politics – all to no avail vis-a-vis “electability?
I think it is fair to hold him accountable for the policy vacuum. At least part of it is caused by his failure to set up and keep on track suitable policy working groups – this is a management failing. Also in part his background is about disagreement with the powers that be it does not involve the hard grind of thinking what should be done in workable detail. That takes experience – he has none. Also I have to keep coming back to this – covering a wide range of policy issues and forming your own view of what policies should look like in broad form requires real intellectual horsepower. I don’t think he has it. Society is complex and fast moving you have to be very smart to deal with it.