The end of the Corbyn project

The results are in and it’s the worst result for Labour since 1983. Labour have been all but wiped out in Scotland and pounded to dust in England and Wales. Although he didn’t quite win a landslide, Boris Johnson will go down in history as a huge winner for the Tory Party.

It’s not easy for me to write those words as someone who has been a Labour Party member since they were 18. The next words are harder to write, but they need to be said: Jeremy Corbyn is to blame for this defeat.

On the evening of the election I was happy with what Labour was offering policy wise, but I had my concerns about Corbyn’s leadership and whether he could hold together Labour’s electoral coalition. It turns out those concerns were well placed as they led to a huge Labour defeat.

Owning the result

On the left we need to be clear: this is not the fault of the hostile media or the electorate being stupid. This historic defeat was caused by Corbyn’s massive unpopularity. This was especially a problem in the working-class areas of the North and Midlands where the Tories won safe Labour seats. Many people were strongly opposed to the idea that Corbyn should be Prime Minister.

Corbyn didn’t adequately explain his vision for a fairer society. It’s a vision I supported. More money for schools and hospitals, tackling homelessness and the looming environmental disaster. What’s not to like? The problem was that despite voters wanting all these things, Corbyn couldn’t convince them that he could deliver them. Corbyn also failed to explain his position on Brexit (a position arrived at after a painful long period of dithering). He also failed to deal with antisemitism in the Labour Party, was not seen patriotic enough and failed to deal with issues that many people from his activism for peace.

We must be clear: because of this failure, there will be another five years of Tory rule at least. Five more years of NHS underfunding. Five more years of cuts to schools, social care and local government. Five crucial years to do something about the environment emergency that will be wasted. People will die because of the failure of the Labour Party on Thursday.

The broader picture

Generally this election was a complete shitshow on all accounts. The Tories lied and spread fake news (such as a totally made up story about a Labour activist punching a Tory). Many media outlets repeated these fake stories without scrutiny.

There was insufficient scrutiny of what the parties were actually offering. Johnson’s Brexit plan is the most significant change to our national economy since 1945, yet he was able to present it as business as usual. He also plans to completely change our economy by the end of next year, whilst also cutting or maintaining tax rates and reducing the deficit. Again there was a massive failure to scrutinise this series of contradictory, overly optimistic pledges. Just because I feel I should hang my head in shame right now doesn’t mean that there aren’t a lot of other people who need to take a good long hard look in the mirror and ask themselves whether it’s wise to report a serial liar’s words without scrutiny.

Whilst I’m on this diatribe of things that look awful in retrospect: moving Labour to a stronger Remain position was a terrible idea. Many seats that voted to Leave have now voted Tory. Now that taboo has been broken it will be much easier to do again in the future. Labour Remainers who pushed for this policy change share some responsibility for the defeat and will be duly rewarded with Johnson’s very hard Brexit.

Speaking of Brexit: Labour MPs really should have voted through Teresa May’s slightly softer Brexit and got the issue done with before the election. Hindsight is 20/20 I know, but voting down May’s deal has ultimately led to the certainty of a harder Brexit and a massive Tory majority.

Coalition collapse

The Tories have used Brexit to crowbar apart the traditional Labour coalition. Brexit has created a fissure between Labour Leavers and Remainers and now Johnson has used it to turn the fissure into a chasm, maybe even a schism. This would have been a problem for any Labour leader, and it will be the chief problem for the new leader.

The final collapse of the traditional Labour coalition of working and middle class lefties is not a problem that began with Corbyn or Brexit. It was a problem for Ed Miliband in 2015 and partly lead to his defeat, although Corbyn has made it worse (or at least it has worsened under his watch). However, this coalition breakdown is a problem across the western world and can be seen distinctly in America and Germany too.

Corbyn became Labour leader in 2015 partly because of the collapse of this coalition. After Cameron’s unexpected majority no-one knew what to do. Moving to the left was an unknown quantity at the time and therefore a potential solution. Now that Corbyn has lost, Labour is back to facing the 2015 conundrum: what do we do when our traditional voters are moving in different directions? How do we hold the coalition together? What’s the best Brexit stance to take (there are still lots of people strongly opposed to Brexit)? There are no clear answers to these questions.

What happens next?

What happens next? Right now, I don’t know. I’m still coming to terms with the result. I’m interested to hear from any prospective Labour Party leaders who have answers to the above questions. They need to be seriously engaged with, in a way that hasn’t happened since 2015.

What I won’t support is “let’s do centrism because centrism always wins”. That’s not an answer to Brexit as most centrists I know are strongly opposed to Brexit and making Labour an anti-Brexit party doesn’t seem like the best way to win back Leave voting seats. Also, can centrism unite working class people in small towns and metropolitan liberals? Are centrists pro-free movement? Are they in favour a Green New deal? Do they want to get involved in the culture war? Simply saying “let’s do centrism” doesn’t answer these questions.

Personal reflection

For myself, a time a personal reflection will follow. I was wrong to support Corbyn for so long. He should have gone earlier if this disaster was to be averted. Again, hindsight is 20/20.

I still believe in the policies I have always believed in. What I call socialism. In the short term, more money for schools and hospitals. Less inequality, child poverty, homeless and environmental collapse. In the long term, moving away from a market-based economy to something fairer that gives people more of a say in their lives and is less dominated by entrenched social power. Nothing that I want has changed.

I’m thinking about the best way to achieve these things. Maybe first past the post means the binary nature of UK partisan politics will always be hostile to proper left policies. Maybe our minimalist proposition needs to be more minimalist. Maybe the left needs to be in people’s communities more and on their social media less.

Like the questions above I don’t currently have answers to these questions. However, a defeat of this magnitude should give us all pause for serious thought. That’s the only way we’ll win the future.

Picture of Jeremy Corbyn taken by Garry Knight and used under creative commons.

The final moments of Jeremy Corbyn’s term as the leader of the opposition

We are in the final moments of Jeremy Corbyn’s term as the leader of the opposition. Before long he will either become the Prime Minister or he will have to stand down as Labour Party leader (more on the second bit later). It’s been an interesting few years in Labour - in a ‘may you live in interesting times’ sort of way - so I thought that with the outcome, for the moment, still undecided this was a good opportunity to reflect on the last four and a bit years.

Corbyn’s successes

Looking at the Labour Party on election day there’s a lot that I like. The manifesto offers many strong policies that I am proud of as a party member. From a strong commitment to do something about the looming climate emergency, to enough money for schools and hospitals that will actually make a difference for people’s lives, Labour is offering genuine progressive change. Corbyn also deserves a lot of credit for rebuilding the party from the low point of 2015 and bringing so many young people into it.

Under Corbyn Labour has offered a proper alternative to austerity and the shameful decline of the public realm that the Tories have presided over, epitomized by a recent story of a child with pneumonia having to sleep on a hospital floor. I’m very glad that the party has left behind the daft idea, which that Ed Miliband and Ed Balls embraced, that Labour must be as equally committed to dismantling public infrastructure as the Tories to in order to appear credible on the economy.

There are also some really radical policies that Labour are offering that will challenge the neoliberal orthodoxy that has dominated Britain since the 1980s. Public ownership, redistribution and investing in infrastructure are back on the table. A vote for Labour is a vote to do something about the long term economic problems that have afflicted this country since the 2008 financial crash.

The challenge

None of this will matter unless Corbyn can win today’s election. The challenge that Corbyn faces is one of holding together Labour’s electoral coalition, which would have been a problem for any Labour leader.

Brexit has cut across the Labour coalition. After much debate, the party has ended up in a strongly pro-Remain position due mainly to effective organising and application of pressure from the committed Remainers in the Labour Party. Unfortunately, Labour cannot win power by being a solely Remain party. They need to hold their pre-2016 coalition together if they’re going to win.

If Corbyn loses the election today then it will most likely be because he failed to win the support of working-class Northern and Midlands Leave voters, the famed Workington Man or M62 voter. Although such descriptions of people are so reductive that they don’t really reflect the complex nature of individuals, the truth is that Labour’s biggest weakness right now is on their Leave side and not their Remain side.

My criticisms

The fact that this weakness might allow Boris Johnson to win a majority is a serious problem. Some of the blame should lie at the feet of ardent Remainers who want Labour to be a Remain party regardless of the consequences. However, if the Tories win by flipping safe Labour seats along the M62 then the majority of the blame rests with Corbyn as party leader.

There many things I’m not happy about Corbyn’s leadership. Allowing the Tories potentially gain a foothold in Leave seats is one. Corbyn has shown poor leadership on Europe and squandered his greatest asset through dithering, obfuscation and triangulation, i.e. He now looks just another politician and not the breath of fresh air promised in 2015.

There is also his failure to tackle antisemitism in the Labour Party. The Labour Party should not a place where people who have hateful opinions about a minority should feel safe to express their views; it should be the opposite. Corbyn’s time as leader has been dogged by the darker side of the left. It has revealed how many in our movement are willing to abuse their political opponents, share divisive narratives, propagate fakes news and amplify hyperpartisan content so long as it backs up their opinion.

There were also missed opportunities to be more radical on the environment, Brexit, immigration and welfare. If Labour is going to lose today, then I would rather lose saying something radical and not have a compromise position on freedom of movement.

The chances of Corbyn becoming the Prime Minister tomorrow morning are low, but the central issue of retaining Leave voters would have been a problem for any Labour Party leader. The breakdown of the traditional left coalition of working-class and middle-class lefties is a problem across the western world that the Labour Party is not immune from.

Vote Labour

I’m encouraging anyone reading this article to go out and vote Labour. We need a Labour government to undo the damage of austerity, tackle rising child poverty, rising homelessness, the housing crisis, the crisis in the NHS, the loom environmental catastrophe and all the other problems the Tories have made worse over the last 9 years.

Realistically I feel the best we can hope for tomorrow is another hung parliament and Johnson to not get a majority. Then again, the 2015 result was an unpleasant surprise, so maybe we’re due a pleasant one.

If Corbyn doesn’t become Prime Minister after this election, then he needs to step down as leader and allow the Labour members to decide what direction they want to go next. If the British electorate won’t make Corbyn Prime Minister then he cannot keep losing elections, this is not advancing the cause of socialism.

What happens in the next few hours will be decisive. As I said before these are the final moments of Corbyn’s time as leader of the opposition. Whatever happens next, Labour needs to learn the lessons of the success and failures of the last four years.

Picture of Jeremy Corbyn taken by Garry Knight and used under creative commons.

Good luck to us all and vote Labour.

Is this election the last opportunity to stop Brexit?

Once again an election looms over the country. This time, Brexit is the most pressing issue facing the nation. Despite it being three years since the referendum, it’s still unclear if and when Britain will actually leave the EU. Let alone what our relationship will be afterwards. 

It has been said that an election is needed to resolve Brexit and after months of parliamentary deadlock I can see the logic in that. British politics has been paralyzed since parliament voted down Theresa May’s withdrawal agreement in January. No way forward has commanded a majority in the House of Commons, so it makes sense to send the decision back to the voters.

I can see the logic to this explanation of recent history, but I don’t believe it to be true. An election is not needed to resolve Brexit as parliament looked likely to pass Boris Johnson’s new withdrawal agreement in October. The reason why we’re having an election is that both Johnson and Jeremy Corbyn feel that winning a parliamentary majority is possible, and not because we need it to resolve an impasse on Brexit.

Is this the last chance to stop Brexit?

If parliament was about to pass a withdrawal bill, it follows that this election is the last chance to stop Brexit. A new parliament might vote to hold a second referendum or even stop Brexit entirely; the parliament elected in 2017 was never going to do either of these. Alternatively, a new parliament might pass Johnson’s withdrawal agreement, which means that the composition of this new parliament is essential for stopping Brexit.

For those of us who think that Brexit is a bad idea - sucking the oxygen out of politics and preventing action on crucial issues from NHS funding, to rising inequality and the collapsing natural environment - this election is crucial. The only way to stop Brexit is to return a parliament of Remainers. Tactical voting websites have been set up to tell the electorate exactly how to vote in their constituencies to achieve this; with various degrees of legitimacy. 

I can see the logic of voting Labour in clear Labour/Tory marginals and Liberal Democrat in clear Lib Dem/Tory marginals. Especially for constituencies where the other party is as likely to win as Donald Trump is likely to voluntarily published his tax return. The problem with this approach is what should Remainers do in seats where it’s not a two-horse race or in Labour/Lib Dem marginals? I’ll tell you now that if the Lib Dems hold the balance of power in the next parliament it’s more than likely they will prop up a Tory government.

As much as I would like the Lib Dems to beat the Tories in rural South West constituencies where the last person to represent the seat who wasn’t a Tory won by opposing the Corn Laws, the Lib Dems will not win enough seas to be an influential player in government. To adapt a phase Remainers are fond of using, the Lib Dems will be a rule takers and not a rule makers. If Remainers vote Lib Dem in large numbers and deny Labour a majority they will be rewarded with a Tory hard-Brexit. Even in a coalition, the Lib Dems won’t be able to stop the Tories doing what they want on Brexit, just as they couldn’t stop austerity after the 2010 election.

The only way to stop Brexit is to return a Labour government

The only way to stop Brexit is return a Labour government who can deliver on their election commitment of a second referendum. Corbyn is clear: vote Labour and get a second referendum with the option for Remaining in the EU, and if that option is taken, no more Brexit. Gone forever. Into the dustbin of history.

My biggest concern about this election is that this won’t happen. The Remain voter has hardened since 2016 and hardened a lot in the last year. Now, Labour’s second referendum pledge is not enough to convince many Remainers. This is partly Corbyn’s fault, as his inaction on Brexit has allowed the debate to be filled with chancers who promise a lot that sounds good and press the emotional buttons of Remainers, but ultimately offer things that will never be delivered on. It’s Nick Clegg in 2010 all over again.

Labour’s impossible position

Corbyn has been put in an impossible position. One of the reasons why Labour are not seen as Remainy enough is that Labour need to hold onto some Leave voters to have any chance of winning this election. Brexit has divided the Labour coalition and any Labour leader would have found navigating this issue a serious challenge. Corbyn’s approach of trying to please both sides has not worked, but in the worlds of Harold Wilson: “If you cannot ride three horses at the same time, you should not be in the circus.”

Brexit has also cut the Tory coalition in half and Johnson’s plan to deal with this is to be the party of Leave, including pressing as many cultural war buttons as he can. This has risks and the Lib Dems are openly flirting with Tory voters through Jo Swinson saying she would use nuclear weapons. Johnson is hoping that pro-EU, pro-business, socially liberal Tories (we might call them Osborne Tories) will stick with his party out of fear of Corbyn’s plans to tax and spend. 

Labour cannot respond to the Johnson’s grab for the leave vote - aimed at Northern and Midlands Labour seats and stereotypes of Labour voters such as Workington Man - by becoming the party of Remain. Partly this would leave open a Labour flank to the Tories, but mainly because Osborne Tories will never vote Labour, whether the party is led by Jeremy Corbyn or Tony Blair. They curse Thatcher in economically depressed former pit towns (and maybe Johnson can win over some of these people through a single-issue campaign on Brexit, but I have my doubts), but remember they still curse Blair in leafy rural Oxfordshire, as was so brilliantly parodied in Peep Show.

Vote Labour. Stop Brexit

Labour are caught in the middle of the Brexit divide, and I don’t believe that Yvette Cooper or Chuka Umunna could have steered the party between the Scylla of Leave and the Charybdis of Remain either. Due to this, the Tories currently look like they might win a majority (although frankly anything could happen in the next week).

If the Tories are still in power in January then we’ll get Brexit and not just Brexit, but a hard-Brexit, a Brexit that will make us cry out for the Norway Plus that was Labour’s position a few months ago. Even if we get a Tory minority government propped up Lib Dems or even a Tory/Lib Dem coalition then we’ll still get a hard Brexit. 2010-2015 shows how good the Lib Dem are at restraining the Tories in government.

This is the last chance to stop Brexit and the only way to do it is to vote Labour. Remainers need to get over the fact that Labour is not Remainy enough. I know it’s not fun to do the sensible thing, to grow up and stop throwing tantrums whenever you don’t get everything that you want, but voting Lib Dems will get you a Tory government and a hard-Brexit. Vote Labour and you get a second referendum. If you want to stop Brexit then vote Labour.

EU flag image created by Yanni Koutsomitis and used under creative commons.

#FCKBoris are organising to unseat Boris Johnson

Campaigners are working to unseat Boris Johnson in his Uxbridge constituency in the general election this December.

A group called #FCKBoris organized a protest in Uxbridge on the 16th of November to encourage young people to register to vote.

Rosa Caradonna, a member of #FCKBoris, said: “On every issue that matters to ordinary people - on climate change, the NHS, poverty, women’s rights, racism, Boris and his government are intent on making things much worse.”

You can see our report from the protest below:

Why this should be the environment election

Will the 2019 election be the Brexit election that 2017 wasn’t? It’s still early in the campaign and the main debates of this election are yet to be set, but it looks likely to dominated by the various party’s stance on Brexit and how much of it there should be. 

This is a shame, as this should be the environment election. We have only 12 years to cut carbon emissions by 45% to limit the rise in global temperatures to 1.5 degrees and most of the key decisions on that will affect whether we make this target or not will be made in 2020. This means we don’t have long to make a substantial change to our society in order to avert a climate catastrophe. We need to start the debate as to how this will be achieved as soon as possible.

Huge effects on politics

The breakdown of the natural environment will affect every other area of politics. It will have huge implications for our economy, energy production, health, transportation, immigration, defence, food production, education, science and many other areas. It will touch every aspect of our lives and have any number of as yet unforeseen effects. Destruction of the natural environment will cause more conflicts and more movement of people, which will further make politics unstable. It will be hard to achieve any other political goals whilst dealing with the fallout from a climate catastrophe. It’s important that we use this election to raise everyone’s awareness of this and to begin the discussion about what we want our politicians to do about it.

Why won’t it be a major issue?

There a few reasons why this won’t happen. Ultimately, most people don’t care enough about the environment, certainly not enough for it to change their vote when weighed against other issues. It’s becoming a more politically salient issue, especially amongst younger voters who will have to deal with more of the long-term effects of climate change. This is partly because of the hard work of people like Greta Thunberg and groups like Extinction Rebellion who are keeping the profile of this issue high, despite a lot of other political noise.

In Britain, Brexit is sucking the oxygen out of the political debate. It’s hard to get the attention of the voters and start a conversation about a different issue when Brexit is in the news so much. Brexit is the issue that is right in front of us and it’s getting more attention than climate change, which seems far off and abstract.

An election to resolve Brexit

It has been said that an election would be a way out of the quagmire that is recent British politics. Months of deadlock in parliament has paralyzed politics and made it impossible to get anything done. One way to look at this, is that the environment might be better served by using this election to resolve Brexit, one way or the other, and thus allowing the system to move again so that the climate can be the focus of politics.

I’m not convinced by this argument, as we don’t have enough time to wait until Brexit is resolved before we look at stopping a climate catastrophe. Whatever happens in this election it won’t resolve Brexit; it will run on for years and years and by then it will be too late to stop the rising global temperatures from causing massive devastation. Also, this election isn’t needed to resolve Brexit as the last parliament looked it was going pass Boris Johnson’s withdrawal deal.

A warning from Australia

The UK needs a debate on climate change. This would allow everyone to understand how serious the situation is, have all the facts and options at their disposal (or as much of this as possible during the brief time where most people focus on politics) and then we can make some kind of collective decision about what we should do, or at least indicate a vague direction.

There are risks to making this election all about the environment. For example, what happened in Australia earlier this year. With record temperatures and huge wildfires burning, the environment became a major issue in the 2019 election. The Labour Party promised to do something about it and the Liberal Party (who are, confusingly, the centre-right party in Australia) said not only that they would ignore the issue, but turned it into a battle in the never-ending culture war. Scott Morrison’s Liberal Party won, which set the cause of reducing carbon emissions and tackling rising temperatures back by years. The fact that this happened in a country already experiencing serious problems due to the climate emergency is very worrying.

Despite this warning, we should be taking the opportunity of a general election, that almost no one wanted, to focus on the most important issue affecting the country. Politicians of all parties need to acknowledge the seriousness of this issue or else it will derail their entire agenda for decades. There should be a public debate on how we can avert a climate catastrophe. This is the only way to begin to find a solution to the problem of rising global temperatures that threatens everyone.

"Extinction Rebellion-11" by juliahawkins123 is licensed under CC BY 2.0