"The people's flag is deepest red, It shrouded oft our martyred dead, and ere their limbs grew stiff and cold, their hearts' blood dyed its every fold."
The strains of Labour's sometime semi-official anthem The Red Flag rang out over Parliament Square today, sung by protest singer Billy Bragg as new left-wing Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn finished his first public appearance in his new job—a speech at a pro-refugee rally in central London. It was the third time since the day began that the ballad, once a staple of Labour conferences, weeded out during the New Labour years, had been sung in Westminster. The first rendition was by Corbyn's supporters as he arrived at the leadership results ceremony. The second was led by Corbyn himself, standing on a rickety chair in front of activists at a pub following his victory. The song marked the arrival of a firmly socialist, dissident Labour leadership.
But Corbyn's speech itself was more remarkable than the return of an old left-wing rallying cry. For a leader of the opposition to make his first appearance at such a rally was striking. Eschewing the sterile lecture halls in which much of modern politics is conducted, Corbyn stood on a makeshift stage on the back of a truck, surrounded by cheering campaigners with placards, and spoke without notes to a crowd of cheery young people, hippies, trade unionists and other protest staples.
The content of his speech wasn't what made it significant. The address was not unlike many Corbyn has made before in his years of campaigning. He celebrated the humanity of desperate refugees and migrants coming to Britain from war-torn countries. He decried the media for portraying them as a "problem." He called on the government to do much, much more to help them. "Together in peace, together in justice, together in humanity," he cried to the crowd as he concluded.
It was the fact that Corbyn made such a speech—unreconstructed, free of euphemism, unashamedly pacificist—as leader of the opposition that was important. In the short term, it boded ill for David Cameron's plans to get licence from parliament for military intervention in Syria. Reports suggest that Cameron plans to call a vote for October, but he is determined to avoid a repeat of 2013's vote, when opposition from then-Labour leader Ed Miliband led to a government defeat on the issue. It looks like if he is to succeed this time he will need to rely on Labour rebels. I can't see Corbyn, who today declared that "surely, surely, surely our objective ought to be to find peaceful solutions to the problems of this world" deciding that a spot of bombing is just what Syria needs.
Read more on Corbyn's victory:
How Corbynomics could work
Jeremy Corbyn needs to take Scotland seriously
Seven things we learned from Labour's leadership race
But in the longer term, it is clear that Corbyn envisions the leader of the opposition's role as something different from any of his recent predecessors. "We as ordinary decent people stand up and say to our government: 'recognise your obligations in law,'" he said today. In so doing, he positioned himself less as a Prime Minister in waiting, and more as a dissident railing at the high and mighty.
He also railed against the processes by which governments take the country to war: "I've been in parliament a long time and I've seen many decisions taken," he said. "In moments of clamour and moments of fervour, decisions are made: 'go here, invade there, bomb there, do this, do that... there's lots of apparently simple and easy solutions." That goes far beyond criticism of any one government. It's an implicit criticism of Parliament per se, a statement that in recent decades, those who govern us have not performed their role in a way which is fit for purpose. It is a very dramatic position for someone who now holds one of the highest offices in Britain's political establishment to take.
"When those figures went up on that board... the earth moved," Corbyn's chief ally in parliament John McDonnell told the new leader's supporters at the pub this afternoon, "you've changed the world today." Many of those who voted for Corbyn did so in search of a "new politics." For now, they've got it, and the consequences could be huge.
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