All but the most left of commentators have declared that if Jeremy Corbyn wins the Labour leadership contest, the effect on that particular party will be deleterious. Some of the stuff written about Corbyn, particularly from a centre-left perspective, has been verging on hysterical. I myself have joined in, remarking on many on occasion just how damaging I think a spell of Jeremy’s magic would be for the Labour Party.
But today, I want to try and be objective: would it really be that bad for Labour if Jeremy won the thing? The guy does seem to really reach people, particularly young people, in a way that is extremely rare in this age of anti-politics. Perhaps, whatever I personally think of his world view, all of us who are shouting about what a car crash it would all be are howling into the wind, if I may use two clichés in one sentence? In better English: what if Corbyn is a lot better than we’ve all made him out to be?
To answer these questions, let’s look at all of the individuals who have ever led Labour to parliamentary majorities. There are only three: Clement Attlee, Harold Wilson, and Tony Blair. Despite them each being from very different eras, examining them closely tells you a lot about how a Jeremy Corbyn leadership would go.
Let’s start with Attlee: he’s often immortalised at CLP meetings and Labour conferences as some sort of purist, the real deal; spirit of ’45 and all of that. In reality, arguably Atlee’s greatest strength was his pragmatism. He was monumentally committed to getting the Labour Party elected, for a start. Comparing him to Corbyn reveals two very, very different men: Atlee was a hero of WWI, injured at the Battle of Hanna. Moreover, he chose to go and fight himself (he was a lecturer at the LSE and in his early-thirties when the conflict broke out). A very apt wartime spell as Deputy Prime Minister to Churchill demonstrated his gravitas.
Harold Wilson served in government throughout the Attlee years, and after the Tories won in 1951 served as both shadow chancellor and shadow foreign secretary before becoming the leader of the Labour Party in 1963. He won the 1964 and 1966 elections with an image as a sort of technocratic social liberal (although he would have run a mile from that actual description himself). Like ’45, part of the appeal of Labour was the Tories having become out of step with what the public wanted (although the Profumo Affair certainly helped Wilson in ’64).
Finally there was Blair, who was actually the most radical of the three. He figured pitching Labour further to the right of where they had ever been, combined with a Conservative Party in meltdown, would result in a large parliamentary majority. Whatever else you can say about the man, he was right on that account.
In each case, the public wanted change of one sort or another and the combination of the Tories seeming to be unwilling or unable to action said change, with Labour seeming credible and competent meant that Labour won. Each victorious leader had the ability to reach beyond their base and into middle England.
If it looks like all I’m doing is comparing Corbyn to the three greatest leaders in Labour’s history only to show him come up short, that isn’t the point of the exercise. Rather, I’m trying to demonstrate that it was no fluke that Attlee, Wilson or Blair got majorities. They each had what it took to unite their own parties and convince enough of the rest in the outside world. So that’s the real problem that a Jeremy Corbyn leadership represents for Labour. Not whether or not he’d make a great, good, terrible, abysmal prime minister – but that he will never, ever get close to having the chance to prove it one way or another. Because Corbyn isn’t Attlee – he’s someone visibly on the far-left of the Labour Party who has never had a frontline job; a purist who has been out of step with his own party for most of his political career. No one like that has ever come close to being prime minister. I doubt Jeremy can buck the trend.
You didn’t keep up the devil’s advocate position for very long in this article. But at least you made a good point about why you should think twice before backing Corbyn. The trouble is the unfavorable comparison applies to the other candidates nearly as much. If there was a Blaire, Wilson or Attlee available I am sure the race would be very different.
In highlighting these three great Labour leaders you didn’t make the point that they were very much men of their times. They were what the public wanted because of a combination of circumstances prevalent at the time they were elected. Personally I think Jeremy Corbyn is the man for this time. The Conservatives are destroying the country and are arguably the worst government for the people in living memory, the LibDems aren’t in the running and neither are the Greens; the other leadership candidates offer very little that’s radical enough to make a difference. We want a politician who is honest and really cares about the environment, the vulnerable, the well-being of the whole country. The other candidates are more like watered down Tories than Labour party representatives.
Hmm.
“… a purist who has been out of step with his own party for most of his political career. No one like that has ever come close to being prime minister.”
A renegade purist, a serial resigner, who won the leadership of his party by opposing everything going, eclipsing the ‘moderates’ and then proved shockingly well able to work pragmatically and opportunistically in response to events and to be able to shut out alternatives to his party, securing longterm hegemony?Lord Salisbury.
I don’t see why corbyn cannot move the party to then left, in the same way as Blair moved it to the right. Should be easier in theory. Has his work cut out.
Corbyn isn’t Attlee, he’s Laski.
I think the Corbyn surge has become a media driven story mainly because the long leadership contest has, well, not been a contest at all. Ordinary people see nothing different in the 3 centre candidates in terms of policy, delivery and plain language. Corbyn is different. But, are his policies viable? I think not. Greater public ownership, particularly of the banks. A good soundbite, get those nasty bankers out of the system! However, the masses of income made in international finance would be severely reduced as the “money men”moved their operations elsewhere. We are where we are in this world and the need is for a better regulatory system rather than outright nationalisation.The same applies to his ideas about the economy. A left wing Labour MP talking about Quantitative easing? This was besmirched when Osborne went down the same path. The big elephant in the room would be the unions. Already we suspect entryism to be occurring in Labour and that will quickly spread as the left wing seek to strengthen the outdated institutions of unions. Yes, workers need protection but the actions of the Tube Drivers serves as a reminder to what greed does even to those “working class” trade unionists once they get a sniff of a power position. Corbyn will be shackled by union ideology, something that held this country back for many years in the 70s and 80s. I’m not saying that there is no need for unions, but just like the banks, regulation and not a free reign is needed.
You’ll have to come up with a better argument than ‘I think not’, comrade.
The last time Corbyn had any sort of ‘proper job’ was nearly forty years ago – and that was as a union official. Since then his bio shows that he has had no experience of anything remotelt resembling leadership.
And he is now 66, which means he will be 70 by the time the next GE comes around. His likely rivals will be one of Johnson (55 in 2020), May (64) or Osborne (49).
He is, by all accounts, an uninspiring to poor public speaker. Part of his leadership job would be PMQs – a weekly ritual that Cameron is increasingly good at.
Please elect Corbyn as Labour leader. It’ll make politics fun again..watching him lead the party to splits, disunity, electoral collapse and public humiliation.
I agree Corbyn becoming prime minister is unlikely, but he could successfully shift Labour to the left, allowing a more centre-left candidate to be a viable option.