Corbyn has won more seats than expected—but his beliefs are still deplorable

The electoral and parliamentary arithmetic has altered; the issues of principle have not

by Oliver Kamm / June 9, 2017 / Leave a comment

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn leaving campaign headquarters today. Photo: NurPhoto/SIPA USA/PA Images

Labour lost the election, the third in succession since Tony Blair stepped down, despite a prolonged squeeze on household real incomes. Yet many pundits, including me, were mistaken. We expected Labour to suffer a historic defeat; evidently, so did Theresa May. The measure of our error is not the gains of 29 seats and 9.5 percentage points in the vote share, or the huge majorities built up in major urban constituencies, but the fact that Labour at the start of the campaign looked at risk of annihilation.

Voters were unimpressed with the Tories’ chaotic, ugly and intellectually risible campaign. Given the opportunity to endorse a hard (or rather, dogmatic) Brexit, they demurred. Yet the early evidence suggests that Jeremy Corbyn attracted votes, especially from young people, who would not have gone to Labour under any likely alternative leader (say, Yvette Cooper) with a different manifesto. Where I live, in Hackney in east London, the capable, moderate pro-European Labour MP, Meg Hillier, was returned with a majority—not her vote, but her majority—of 38,000. By strengthening Labour’s relative position and increasing its vote, Corbyn has ensured the parliamentary party’s loyalty and nullified any notion of a breakaway centre-left grouping.

And this is wrong. Critics of Corbyn within the party stressed that he was leading Labour to oblivion. They were confirmed in this belief by the Copeland by-election and last month’s local elections. Now that Corbyn has confounded these expectations, they have nothing left. So it needs to be said: Corbyn’s politics are not a reputable or coherent stance for a progressive party to take.

It’s perfectly possible to construct a rational, redistributive left-wing programme for government. Labour’s manifesto isn’t it. On the contrary, it fails to attack the biggest obstacle to intergenerational equity—a dysfunctional housing market, granting tax privileges to homeowners—while entrenching the protected position of pensioners. The party’s commitment to abolish tuition fees is, by comparison, minor in principle while being regressive in practice. These spending commitments are pork-barrel politics targeting a source of revenues that probably doesn’t exist. There’s nothing wrong with raising corporate taxes so long as you’re aware of the trade-offs: the likelihood that companies will reduce dividends, headcount and spending on research and development.

Corbyn meanwhile promises to retain all the benefits of the EU single market while not being in it and not paying for them. To this day, he says Labour is “ready to undertake negotiations on behalf of this country to protect jobs and have a sensible trade tariff-free trade arrangement with Europe,” heedless of the fact that the biggest obstacles to trade are non-tariff barriers, which are eliminated within the single market.

“It’s perfectly possible to construct a rational, redistributive left-wing programme for government. Labour’s manifesto isn’t it”

These are huge lacunae in Labour’s message. To address them would cause unpopularity with sectional interests. It’s good politics to pretend that tough choices need not be made because someone else will pay but it has the demerit of being false. It’s as absurd in its own way as the Tory insistence that leaving the European single market and erecting barriers to immigration will have no costs because, respectively, other countries and native-born workers will make up the difference.

Corbyn’s politics are not only fanciful: they’re reactionary. His record on international affairs is not anti-war, as he claims, but anti-Nato. That’s why he called for the abolition of a voluntary alliance for collective security that the Attlee Labour government was instrumental in founding. And if you abjure the use of force under all circumstances rather than just particular ones, you’re ineluctably driven to underestimate the capacity for evil among malign actors in the international order. Corbyn is evidence of this tendency: he outright denies the war crimes of the genocidal regime of Slobodan Milosevic, which Nato stopped in Kosovo in 1999. His revisionist account of his role in the Northern Ireland process might as well have been written by Paul Nuttall, the departing Ukip leader, for all its fidelity to autobiographical accuracy. Corbyn opposed the Anglo-Irish agreement of 1985 and has ever after declined to specifically condemn the IRA’s terrorist campaign. His description of Hamas and Hezbollah as his “friends” remains a testament to his naivety and incomprehension of the need to fight anti-Semitism and defend secularism and women’s rights.

The structure of the British political system makes it hard to break out of the main party duopoly (as it now is). It’s why, on a personal level, I never supported or voted for the SDP in the 1980s but stuck with Labour. But a generation later, there is a moral issue that didn’t arise then. Corbyn is not Labour and not even left-wing in any historically recognisable sense. The electoral and parliamentary arithmetic has altered; the issues of principle have not. Corbyn’s politics need to be fought and his leadership undermined. In the minor capacities available to me, I’ll do my best.

YOU’VE HIT THE LIMIT

You have now reached your limit of 3 free articles in the last 30 days.
But don’t worry! You can get another 7 articles absolutely free, simply by entering your email address in the box below.

When you register we’ll also send you a free e-book—Writing with punch—which includes some of the finest writing from our archive of 22 years. And we’ll also send you a weekly newsletter with the best new ideas in politics and philosophy of culture, which you can of course unsubscribe from at any time

Prospect may process your personal information for our legitimate business purposes, to provide you with our newsletter, subscription offers and other relevant information.

Click to learn more about these interests and how we use your data. You will be able to object to this processing on the next page and in all our communications.

11493591605cbd2819711607.19617625

Go to comments

Brexit and the Corbyn effect: an accident of history?

Robert Saunders / February 6, 2019

Historians will ask: how did a pro-European party elect a Eurosceptic as leader?

If May's deal is in flames, Labour should not seek to put out the fire

Jonathan Lis / February 8, 2019

Corbyn should hope that May rejects his Brexit olive branch. Then Labour must redouble...

Share with friends

Comments

Alyson
June 9, 2017 at 18:52
Jeremy Corbyn has been shown to be on the right side of history: honest, consistent, prepared to work towards peace. In this era of post truth politics he has been a breath of fresh air, determined to call time on the Austerity policies which have caused untold harm to the young, the old, the weak and the vulnerable in the UK. His economic policies are popular with those voters who are able to access the facts in his manifesto. Cuts to health, social care, education and income are optional. The people have voted for those cuts, but only by a narrow margin this time.
1. Andy
  June 10, 2017 at 11:37
  I'm not so sure about the 'honest, consistent' part. I remember during his leadership campaign him promising to reopen the coal mines in the northeast, then two days later in a Camden ecopark promising the greenest energy policy in history. He has prevaricated on his continuing links with and support for armed revolutionary movements while posing as a pacifist. And he's prevaricated about the extent of nationalisation he actually wants, as opposed to the taster in the manifesto. And I think he has been calculating about promising everything to everyone, in the (correct) expectation that he would not be elected. In other words, he's a much better politician than we thought ... :-)
2. goedun4
  June 10, 2017 at 12:13
  I do not understand why Prospect seems so anti-Corbyn? He won more votes for Labour since 1945 and I for one found his policies the most encouraging from Labour in decades. I must confess finding Prospect bias against Corbyn irritating. I say well done to Corbyn and like it or not I find his policies refreshing. There must come BIG social changes ahead and let us not forget 2008.
3. jimmymack
  June 10, 2017 at 23:35
  'The right side of history' - the Marxist notion of inevitability; the left's weird equivalent of the Calvinist notion of predetermination.
ShockDiamond
June 10, 2017 at 09:33
A truly sinister individual. Parents know that young people are easily conned (ok - influenced) and this old (ok - mature) individual should act more responsibly than make such unsustainable promises that "the few" have the money to pay for his bribes. I can never get out of my own mind that he "achieved" two grade E at GCE A level -
Denis Mollison
June 10, 2017 at 11:25
I don't know about Ireland, but his anti-Zionist (NOT anti-semitic) position is admirable. And if you oppose Israel's apartheid you have to talk to Hamas and Hizbollah, just as successive British governments secretly talked to the IRA all through the 1980s and 1990s.
1. Andy
  June 10, 2017 at 21:40
  @Denis - There's the question of selectivity. JC and co always always focus on Israel and the Palestinians. Yet they have remained consistently quiet about much more brutal suppression of minorities in other countries - not least in Arab countries. And much less vocal about Russian intervention in Ukraine, Georgia and Syria. The almost exclusive focus on Israel seems a product of anti-Semitism, with anti-Zionism as a convenient justification
2. jimmymack
  June 10, 2017 at 23:22
  It was incumbent on the British government to talk to the IRA, Northern Ireland being a part of the UK and bombing taking place on the mainland. Corbyn supported Hamas and Hizbollah and, indeed, the IRA because this is where his anti-imperialist posturing led him. However much his supporters might wish to present him to young know-nothings as a twinkly-eyed wise old peacemaker, a sort of Gandalf with a haircut, those of us who moved in left circles at the time know the truth: Corbyn's worldview is that western imperialism, the US and its allies, is responsible for all the world's ills and any group, however revolting, which opposes the west is by definition on the side of right.
Richard Gravil
June 10, 2017 at 13:03
What a revolting article. I've no idea who Oliver Kamm is, but anyone who fails to grasp the necessity for Palestinian liberation, and to talk to people in the middle East that the British establishment does not talk to, richly deserves the term 'odious'. He is right that the Labour manifesto is quite conservative on property and taxation matters, but it is absurd to imagine that any part of the education system should be treated as a bought commodity, or that it makes any kind of economic sense to charge fees to go to university. I hope Prospect Magazine is not one of the organs that pursues this absurd 'anti-Semitic' smear campaign, and wants to replace Labour by a centre party camouflaged as 'centre-left'.
Theo M.
June 10, 2017 at 13:31
The general jist of this article is correct... he didn't win.
PAUL_GREATBATCH
June 10, 2017 at 14:08
Following on from Brexit and Trump, this is the third "shock" in twelve months. What do they all have in common? People who were left behind and unprotected voted for someone, anyone, anything looking out for their interests and promising an easy, quick, and (to them) costless solution. What's not to like about the end of tuition fees and end of student debt? Who can argue with an extra £300 million a week into the NHS? Why shouldn't the Mexicans pay for The Wall and China for be punished for stealing American jobs?). Of course, this is the arithmetic of the National Lottery, but that doesn't matter - you know you've little prospect of the jackpot, but if you don't take part you've no chance whatsoever, zero, of ever winning. So this explains the improbable personalities and types who are meant to bring about this salvation: right-wing Tory Brexiteers, an ignoramus plutocrat, and now (in the form of Citizen Smith meets Chance Gardener) Jeremy Corbyn. They are the vehicles for hopes of something better and outlets for (justified) anger. Questions of competence, judgment, experience and honesty (the latter in the form of outright lies, alternative facts, or fantasy promises) just don't matter - you can never disprove a hope. Forget talk of re-fashioning a comfortable area of centre ground: we have to look after the hopeless, which will mean Labour asking a lot more people than the London rich to pay more taxes and the Conservatives having to revive their so-called Dementia Tax. There are no good choices left, but intellectual honesty might be a good place to start. There's a prize there for whichever party choses to follow this route - as JC will need to learn unless, like Brexit, he just wants to end up as last week's (losing) lottery ticket.
Peter Fisher
June 10, 2017 at 19:24
Kamm, I'm afraid, is on the wrong side of this argument. Since the 1970s this country has been subject to a creeping, vicious right-wing radicalism. And the so called centre-ground of British politics represented by New Labour was intrinsic to this movement. Underpinning this ideology is the myth that the British National interest is paramount, and the interests of the people who actually live in the country are secondary. Fortunately, the almost daily news items about the underfunding of the National Health Service, the educational system, police and prison cutbacks, the obvious suffering of the poor and the inequality in society are enthusing a movement towards fairness and social justice, which is perfectly encapsulated by Corbyn. This new movement is under-recognised by the media and the establishment, and this is why they keep getting caught out by the electoral results. If the Labour movement stops responding to this movement, and is seen as being part of the establishment the electorate will move away from it.
Stephen K. Mack
June 11, 2017 at 02:00
@OliverKamm Did you think that your history of being an avid supporter, or better yet call you a close ally of Tony Blair, would remain outside this comments section. You've even blocked me from your twitter feed! How prescient of you. But the Wikipedia entry tells the mildly curious reader all she wants to know about who you are, and more importantly where your political loyalty is 'invested'! 'Oliver Kamm (born 1963) is a British journalist and writer. Since 2008 he has been a leader writer and columnist for The Times. Before that he had a 20-year career in the financial sector. Predominantly identifying with the left and liberal issues, he is a prominent supporter of former British Prime Minister Tony Blair. An advocate of the foreign policies pursued by the Blair government, Kamm wrote a short book, Anti-Totalitarianism: The Left-wing Case for a Neoconservative Foreign Policy (2005), which puts forward the case for an interventionist neoconservative foreign policy.' https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oliver_Kamm But that is only the beginning of your self-asserted 'Left-Wing Politics' as fiction! 'Kamm describes his politics as left-wing.[7] His early activities in Labour included canvassing in Leicester South in the 1979 general election, which saw Margaret Thatcher become Prime Minister. While he continued to vote Labour into the 1980s,[8] he eventually became dissatisfied with the party's leadership and policies, particularly its stance on nuclear disarmament, and left the party in 1988,[9] but has continued to vote for the party on the majority of occasions.[10] He worked for the 1997 election campaign of Martin Bell, who is his uncle,[11] against incumbent Neil Hamilton, drafting a manifesto "so right-wing that Hamilton was incapable of outflanking it."[12] That year saw the election of the 'New Labour' government of Tony Blair, which Kamm strongly supported, particularly its foreign policy and 'liberal interventionism'.[13] Although generally supportive of the Labour Party in the 2005 general election, Kamm stated that he could not support Celia Barlow, the Labour candidate in his local constituency, Hove, because of her opposition to Blair's foreign policies. Instead, he stated that he would vote for the Conservative candidate, Nicholas Boles, who supported the Iraq war.[14] Despite believing the Labour Prime Minister Gordon Brown was unsuited for office, he voted for the party at the 2010 general election.[10] Kamm supported the 2003 Invasion of Iraq, and asserted that "the world is a safer place for the influence" George W. Bush had during his presidency.[15] Although critical of George W. Bush linking Saddam, Iran and North Korea in a combined "axis of evil",[15] in 2004, he outlined a case for supporting the re-election of George W. Bush.[13] Kamm was a patron of the Henry Jackson Society at its inception in 2005,[16] but is no longer connected to, or a member of HJS.[17] In 2006, he was a signatory to the Euston Manifesto, arguing for a reorientation of the left around what its creators termed 'anti-totalitarian' principles. He favourably commented on Peter Beinart's The Good Fight: Why Liberals—and Only Liberals—Can Win the War on Terror and Make America Great Again, which has similar themes to Kamm's own book, arguing that the left should look to the policies of Clement Attlee and Harry S. Truman in the early days of the Cold War as a model for response to Islamism and totalitarianism.[18]' Your animus to Corbyn and his actual Left-Wing Social Democratic politics is rooted in your Neo-Conservatism, in the guise of the New Labour of Tony Blair.
1. samakhval
  June 12, 2017 at 19:57
  Bang on. Kamm is of the class that was at home with the social liberalism that came with Blair but also, and more importantly, was in raptures at the green light to finance capital to continue picking at the bones of UK PLC in its destructive project to turn the country into a rentier economy. The likes of Kamm colouring the policies of the Labour Party was, as she Thatcher said, her greatest victory.
Gerald Holtham
June 11, 2017 at 18:48
Corbyn is the citizen of a country that has been engaged in no fewer than 15 foreign wars since 1950. Not all of them were ill-advised. illegal or immoral but a good half of them were (Kenya, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya....). In the circumstances a certain reticence about using force abroad seems appropriate. As for Russia and Ukraine, this country imposes sanctions on Russia but does no such thing in response to Israeli seizures of Palestinian land. Indeed it frequently defends Israel at the UN while excoriating Russia. Corbyn's positions have to be seen not in isolation but as a corrective to the prevailing double standard.