Assessing the Performance of UK Opposition Leaders: Jeremy Corbyn’S ‘Straight Talking, Honest Politics’
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Politics and Governance (ISSN: 2183-2463) 2016, Volume 4, Issue 2, Pages 15-24 Doi: 10.17645/pag.v4i2.567 Article Assessing the Performance of UK Opposition Leaders: Jeremy Corbyn’s ‘Straight Talking, Honest Politics’ Patrick Diamond School of Politics and International Relations, Queen Mary University of London, London, E14NS, UK; E-Mail: [email protected] Submitted: 22 January 2016 | Accepted: 22 March 2016 | Published: 23 June 2016 Abstract This article contributes to a burgeoning literature on political leadership, offering an interim assessment of Jeremy Cor- byn’s tenure as leader of the UK Labour party. At the time of writing, the candidate of the party’s Left had been leader for a mere seven months. Media commentators and pundits have been critical of Corbyn’s platform and performance, gleefully predicting his imminent demise. On the other hand, the ‘Corbynistas’ who swelled Labour’s ranks in the af- termath of the 2015 defeat have remained steadfast and committed supporters. Their hope is not only that Labour will win the next election, but that Corbyn can recast the landscape of British politics by challenging the economic and polit- ical establishment which has assented to the growth of inequality and austerity. Keywords agency; Labour party; political leadership; statecraft; structure Issue This article is part of the issue “New Approaches to Political Leadership”, edited by Mark Bennister (Canterbury Christ Church University, UK). © 2016 by the author; licensee Cogitatio (Lisbon, Portugal). This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribu- tion 4.0 International License (CC BY). 1. Introduction opposition (Bale, 2015; Buller & James, 2015; Clarke & James, 2015; Heppell, 2012; Theakston, 2012). A set of Making predictions about what might happen in 2020 criteria has been developed within American political on the basis of Corbyn’s leadership since September science, analysing leadership through the investigation 2015 is a perilous task. His leadership style will inevita- of behavioural and cognitive traits (Foley, 2008; Green- bly evolve while Corbyn’s strategy is likely to adapt in stein, 2009). However, these leadership attributes are response to events. Nonetheless, empirical evidence not necessarily appropriate to the context of Britain indicates that ‘leadership image’ is defined early in a and continental Europe, particularly when applied to leader’s tenure (Bale, 2015); leaders of the opposition non-presidential political systems. have found it almost impossible to escape negative Corbyn offers an intriguing case-study for under- perceptions formed at the beginning of their period of standing the performance of British opposition leaders. office, as the Conservative party discovered under Wil- Firstly, his victory in the Labour leadership contest was liam Hague and Iain Duncan Smith, and Labour found unexpected: ‘one of the most extraordinary political under Ed Miliband (Richards, 2016). Examining Cor- sagas in recent decades’ (Richards, 2016, p. 17). At the byn’s position now cannot tell us with any certainty outset, members of the Campaign Group in the Parlia- how events will unfold, but provides an interpretation mentary Labour Party (PLP) debated whether it was of prospective political developments. worth running a candidate; of 1200 party members The concept of ‘party leader image’ is examined in surveyed in the summer of 2015, only two believed the emerging scholarly literature on political leader- Corbyn would become leader; another demoralising ship, particularly on Labour leaders and leaders of the defeat for the organised Left, on the defensive since Politics and Governance, 2016, Volume 4, Issue 2, Pages 15-24 15 the demise of Tony Benn’s influence in the 1980s, ap- Finally, Corbyn has claimed he would be different to peared inevitable (Bale & Webb, 2015). Corbyn told previous leaders, in particular, Tony Blair. In style and The Guardian in June 2015 that his chances were slim: disposition, Corbyn is the antithesis not merely of Blair, but of almost all previous post-war Labour leaders in- “We had a discussion among a group of us on the cluding Attlee, Wilson, Callaghan and Kinnock. There is Left about how we might influence future devel- a passing resemblance to Michael Foot given his com- opments of the party. All of us felt the leadership mitment to anti-American unilateralism and pacificism; contest was not a good idea—there should have however, Foot attained high office in the 1974-79 La- been a policy debate first. There wasn’t so we de- bour administration and was regarded as a conciliator cided somebody should put their hat in the ring to in party terms. The most telling comparison is between promote that debate. And, unfortunately, it’s my Corbyn and George Lansbury (Fielding, 2016), leader hat in the ring.” (cited in Hattenstone, 2015) from 1931 until 1935: to those who found Ramsay MacDonald’s ‘betrayal’ in 1931 repugnant, Lansbury Secondly, Corbyn arguably possesses few conventional was a ‘prophet’ and ‘poet’, an inspirational figure who attributes of a ‘successful’ political leader: he is inexpe- would have led Labour to a great election victory; to rienced having never previously held high office either others his ‘ritual martyrdom’ and ‘woolly-minded sen- in a Labour government or within the party bureaucra- timentality’ threatened the party’s status as a serious cy (Richards, 2016). Ross McKibbin (2015, p. 26) con- contender for office leading to his defenestration at cludes Corbyn ‘is probably unique in his lack of conven- the hands of Ernest Bevin, who famously told Lansbury tional qualifications for the job’. His experience of at the 1935 party conference, ‘stop hawking your con- handling the national media and overseeing the party’s science around from body to body asking to be told organisational machinery was non-existent. Corbyn what you ought to do with it’ (cited in Reid & Pelling, served as an official in a public sector union, but his ex- 2005, p. 69; Fielding, 2016). perience of trade union politics was limited (Wintour & Corbyn rejects the moderate and pragmatic tradi- Watt, 2015). He was regarded as a maverick and serial tion of post-war leadership espoused in very different rebel with few allies in the parliamentary party; he had ways by Attlee, Wilson, Callaghan, Kinnock, Smith, Blair long-standing ties to Irish republicanism (Fenton, 2015) and Brown. In this sense, Corbyn’s ascendency marks a while allegedly expressing sympathy with Hamas and watershed in the politics of the Labour party, and in Iran in the Middle-East (Finlay, 2015). It was precisely the nature of British political leadership. The parallel Corbyn’s lack of conventional qualifications, his status with Lansbury is apposite: Corbyn and Lansbury be- as the heroic ‘anti-candidate’ that enabled him to win came leader following an economic crisis in which (McKibbin, 2015). According to his colleague, Clive moderate social democracy was discredited; their op- Lewis: ponents, MacDonald and Blair, were both subject to a ‘betrayal myth’; having attained high office they alleg- “Jeremy is Jeremy. He isn’t a rock star politician, he edly abandoned socialism and were often willing to col- doesn’t have the looks, he doesn’t wear slick laborate with the Conservative party. MacDonald and clothes, but in a way he is an anti-hero. He’s genu- Lansbury were reputably polar opposites in the 1930s; ine, authentic and he just seems to have resonated Corbyn is the reverse of Blair in the contemporary con- with people.” (cited in Wintour & Watt, 2015) text (Fielding, 2016). In particular, Corbyn’s victory has been interpreted as a repudiation of Blair’s approach Thirdly, the circumstances of Corbyn’s victory were un- to ‘managing’ the Labour party, apparently centred on usual: the new leadership election procedure had been tactics of covert manipulation of party institutions that intended to strengthen democratic participation in the led eventually to the New Labour leader’s downfall Labour party, as well as dealing with adverse publicity (Minkin, 2014). encountered by Labour over the parliamentary selec- Having clarified what makes Corbyn’s leadership tion in the Scottish seat of Falkirk (Syal, 2014). The clas- distinctive, this article will proceed in the following sical thesis of ‘the cartel party’ is that power within so- way. The first section will delineate the criteria by cial democratic parties across Europe is shifting from which the performance of opposition leaders has been the grassroots to the ‘party in office’ (Katz & Mair, assessed in the academic literature. The paper will in- 2009); yet the Corbyn phenomenon appears to refute corporate yardsticks for evaluating political leadership Katz and Mair’s thesis. Centre-left parties are experi- developed by Stuart Ball (2005) and Tim Bale (2015). menting with new methods of democratisation intended The second section addresses Corbyn’s performance to revitalise their social base and political appeal (Fau- since his election in September 2015, drawing on aca- cher, 2015). Nonetheless, it is unclear whether democra- demic commentaries, journalistic accounts and survey tisation makes opposition parties more electable; it may data. The final part of the paper will indicate what we produce less predictable outcomes in leadership elec- might expect from Corbyn’s tenure as Labour leader. tions, as the Corbyn ascendency underlines. While assessments of leadership traditionally focus on Politics and Governance, 2016, Volume 4, Issue 2, Pages 15-24 16