Corbynism and Its Aftermath

The Political Quarterly, Vol. 92, No. 2, April–June 2021

Introduction: Corbynism and its Aftermath

LEWIS BASSETT AND JEREMY GILBERT

IN THE SUMMER OF 2015, all but one of dramatic social change. A common, though Labour’s leadership hopefuls committed to always tendentious, interpretation of this ‘austerity’: that blend of cuts to public spend- dilemma sees Labour’s voter-coalition as ing and tax increases that might more divided between a socially conservative but accurately be labelled ‘Osbornomics’.The fiscally liberal group of traditional Labour contrast between Jeremy Corbyn and voters located in towns, and a socially and fis- the other candidates competing to take the cally liberal base in cities. Attracting crowds place of Ed Miliband was sharp. Corbyn, until along his spectacular campaign trails, from then a relatively unknown MP who had spent Mansfield to Manchester, Corbyn initially his entire career fighting for lost causes on appeared capable of speaking to both camps. Labour’s back benches, had been a vocal critic The shock election result in 2017 surpassed of Blair. New Labour, for its part, had success- what even his admirers had hoped for. Yet, fully hegemonised the Labour Party: its style, by the end of 2019 it was over. The general personnel and ‘realist’ outlook persisting election that year was a chilling experience even after five years under the more left- for activists, re flected in party members’ pref- leaning Ed Miliband, a fact that the preference erence for the leadership of Sir Keir Starmer for ‘balanced budgets’ held by Labour’sother over the Corbynite candidate, Rebecca Long- leadership candidates testified to. Often seen Bailey. as a deeply principled politician, it is fair to Why has it proven so difficult, to date, for suggest that context had caught up with the discussion of Corbynism as a political phe- outlook of Jeremy Corbyn, rather than the nomenon to go beyond either the uncritical other way around. adulation of his advocates, or incurious dis- In the wake of the financial crisis and its long missal by his critics? In part, the answer must after-effects, the persistence of New Labour’s lie in the fact that the very deep divisions style and content as defining idioms for between the left and right of the Labour Party Labour politics was looking increasingly in the 1980s have never really been overcome, anachronistic by 2015. Many economic experts and to some extent were only exacerbated by had declared that the era of fiscal conservatism the period of New Labour’s internal hege- was over. In 2014, Thomas Piketty’s Capital in mony. These differences, as became apparent the Twenty-First Century—with its robust during the years of Corbyn’s leadership, are denunciation of the inherently inegalitarian not merely questions of individuals occupying tendencies of advanced capitalism—was well different points along a continuum of opinion, received far beyond the fringes of the radical from centre to centre left, to radical left. Rather, left. If anything needs explaining in such a con- they involve fundamental epistemological and text, it’s not why Corbyn emerged as a popular analytical disagreements over the core ques- figure, but why no other member of the profes- tions of what has happened to Britain since sional political class had the sheer ambition or the 1970s, what forms of knowledge about that imagination to grasp the moment, presenting issue might be considered legitimate, and themselves as a post-austerity leader for post- what forms of political intervention may be austerity times. possible. One possible explanation was uncertainty As Eric Shaw points out in his book on Blair’s about exactly who Labour’s political coalition party, New Labour was created through the con- now was or should be, after decades of struction of a stark contrast with a supposedly

172 © 2021 The Authors. The Political Quarterly published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Political Quarterly Publishing Co (PQPC). This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited and is not used for commercial purposes. ‘older’ traditional and left-wing Labourism. those offered by Eunice Goes, Steven Fielding ‘Old Labour’ was, according to these critics, a and Phil Burton-Cartledge concerning the ‘spent force irretrievably bound to a stockpile leadership of Keir Starmer. For both Goes of ill-conceived, irrelevant, dogma-driven and and Fielding, the criticism that Starmer lacks damaging polices’.1 Philip Gould played a vital combativeness is misguided; rather, his first role in the making of this narrative. Gould pro- task is to clear away the dead wood of Corbyn- vided Blair with insights into the views of swing ism in order, however, to arrive at similar pol- voters that, in turn, received a selective briefing icy outcomes in the end. Burton-Cartledge is to the press, who printed the findings of New more cautious. For him, Starmer runs the risk Labour’s research uncritically (no mention was of losing Labour’s metropolitan base, whose ever made, for example, of voters’ persistent experience of affective labour make them pre- support for the ‘old’ policy of nationalisation).2 disposed to issues that Starmer has thus far This apparently ‘post-ideological’ approach to been weak on. In a similar vein, Jeremy Gilbert ’ Blair’spoliticswashardtodismiss,aswasthe also sees Starmer s current strategy as unlikely accompanying language. One woman in a focus to resolve the problems proceeding from the ’ group apparently told Gould that ‘When I was a gap between Labour s members and sup- childtherewasawardrobeinmybedroom.I porters and the political assumptions shared wasalwaysscaredthatonenight,outofthe by most of its MPs. His essay examines various possible explanations for the unremitting hos- blackness, a monster would emerge. That is ’ how I think of the Labour Party.’3 tility of many Labour MPs towards Corbyn s In the minds of many Labour MPs in 2015, ‘old leadership, even after the relative historic suc- Labour’ was exactly what Corbyn stood for. The cess of the 2017 general election. forging of the ‘old’ versus ‘new’ consensus—in In his contribution, Eric Shaw unpicks the ’ ways in which anti-semitism became a key which Britain s news media played an essential ’ part—meant a powerful army was assembled issue that undermined Corbyn smanagement of the party, one which was ‘hopelessly againstCorbynfromthemomenthiscandidature ’ was announced. In the five years of his leader- polarised . Jeremy Gilbert considers some of ship, more often than not, commentary from the the same themes as Shaw, but from a different ‘ ’ angle. Tim Bale provides original data on centrist mainstream demonstrated no capacity ’ to seehis agenda and any support for it as rational Labour s members, outlining the distinctions on any terms. Inadvertently, the shunning of between these members and the voters that Corbyn by ‘establishment’ institutions lent an Labour must win over. This point has been underdog and populist quality to his campaigns, made many times before, especially where the giving them a populist vitality and attracting a subtext is a criticism of radical policies, yet it fan-like following. Both sides in this battle over should also be seen as a persistent reality, pos- the Labour Party, one out of fierce opposition to ing questions to which left-wing campaigners Corbyn, the other largely of necessity, thus dug must offer answers. Bassett and Mills also offer the trenches still further in which progressive pol- original research, showing in their essay the rel- itics in England and Wales remains currently ative isolation of Corbyn and his closest allies immobilised. from the editors of popular news outlets on Twitter, comparing the Corbyn movement to This special issue represents an attempt to ’ overcome this impasse. No doubt, few politi- the campaign for a People s Vote. Their argu- cal differences will be settled here. Rather, in ment also helps to explain distinct political editing this collection of essays we have strategies according to their contexts. Jonathan sought to foster debate. Several essays in this Dean and Bice Maiguashca show how the poli- collection certainly stand at odds, particularly tics of feminism under Corbyn was cross cut with factionalism. Their essay argues for, and is an example of, reflexivity on the part of 1E. Shaw, Losing Labour’s Soul?: New Labour and the Labour Party activists. Blair Government 1997–2007, Abingdon, Routledge, Florence Sutcliffe-Braithwaite hones in on 2012, p. 151. ’ 2D. Wring, ‘Focus group follies? Qualitative Corbyn s initial desire, articulated in 2015, to research and British Labour Party strategy’, Journal re-open British coal mines, and thus the degree of Political Marketing, vol 4, no. 5, 2007, pp. 71–97. to which the masculine figure of the miner con- 3Shaw, Losing Labour’s Soul?, p. 153. tinues to resonate in left-wing politics. This

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© 2021 The Authors. The Political Quarterly published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Political The Political Quarterly, Vol. 92, No. 2 Quarterly Publishing Co (PQPC). essay reminds us of the extent to which Corbyn political relevance? Given that Corbyn made confirmed the ‘old Labour’ narrative, in which less dramatic progress than Ed Miliband arguably he remained trapped. The distance that towards the classic Bennite goal of democra- both he and John McDonnell travelled from tising the Labour Party, we might expect these commitments was quite far indeed, even so. But this would be to attribute too much sig- where the road ahead—paved with futurist nificance and too much uniqueness to Corbyn sounding slogans like ‘socialism with an iPad’ himself, and to the specific and peculiar forms and commitments like free broadband—was ini- which left politics took under his leadership. tially unmapped. But as Sutcliffe-Braithwaite’s The fact is that the political and economic con- analysis suggests, that journey may have been ditions to which Corbynism was a popular rather too slow to get started. response have not gone away, but have Christine Berry and Patrick Diamond’s anal- instead been wildly exacerbated by the pan- ysis of Corbyn’s policy agenda tempers some demic. The pro-Corbyn movement also raised of the near-hysterical commentary on Labour’s crucial questions about the nature of party plans for government (see, for example, the membership in a world of constant online baseless claims made in the press that Corbyn communicative participation. Those questions was a former Soviet agent whose primary will not stop being asked, even when much of intention was bankrupting Britain). Diamond the current Labour leadership would like shows the extent of policy alignment between them to be. It is simply too early to say McDonnell’s plans under Corbyn and the whether the desire for radical democratisation flurry of progressive ideas that appeared in of the party that Corbynism re-ignited has response to economic depression in the 1930s. really been snuffed out or permanently con- Both crises produced an intellectual outpour- tained by Starmer’s return to Blair-era party ing which Labour has ridden. Diamond’s managerialism. essay challenges sensationalist interpretations At the time of writing, the parallel experi- of Labour’s agenda from a hostile media, and ments of Corbynism and the Bernie Sanders also the view of many of his supporters that movement seem to have produced very differ- Corbyn was an authentic tribune of socialism. ent outcomes. President Biden has laid out ‘Social democracy’, as Diamond makes clear, plans for a public investment programme far might be a more accurate description of in excess of what most commentators were Labour’s ambition in this period. Taking a step expecting. This progressive turn is attributed further, Berry identifies the democratising, loc- by many to the impact of Sanders’ four years alist and mixed-economy spirit of the Corbyn of campaigning, and the widespread popularity movement, even, as she outlines, where this of his egalitarian message. Corbyn’spersonal remained unrealised. Berry presents an elo- difficulty in communicating anti-capitalist poli- quent case for the Corbynite programme as a tics, in a popular and persuasive idiom, is one prospectus for democratic socialism. reason for the rather different fates of their Finally, having been at the centre of many respective movements. But another is simply events relevant to his essay, James Meadway, the UK’s absurdly centralised political system. a former advisor to John McDonnell, offers a It is very difficult to accommodate different critical assessment of Labour’s 2019 election political traditions (such as the American ‘pro- defeat. Like Berry, Meadway argues that gressives’ and ‘centrists’ who jostle for influence decentralisation should form a central focus within the Democratic Party) in a system for future democratic socialist endeavours. wherein all power, privilege and decision- Labour’s current strength in winning metro making capacity effectively lies with the single mayoralties could well point left-wing activ- figures of the party leader or the Prime Minister ists in this direction. [Correction added on (who of course only wields power, technically, 27th May 2021, after first online publication: on behalf of the sovereign). This system now New paragraph was included.] poses a very serious set of problems for Labour. What are we to make of Corbyn’slegacy? Since its inception, the Labour Party has Will he, like his hero and mentor Tony Benn, included revolutionary Marxists and cau- ultimately leave nothing but a residual, mar- tiously reformist liberals, as well as many ginal tendency within the party, that waits shades of reformer in between. It has always three decades for a brief moment of apparent struggled to contain these differing traditions.

174 L EWIS B ASSETT AND J EREMY G ILBERT

The Political Quarterly, Vol. 92, No. 2 © 2021 The Authors. The Political Quarterly published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Political Quarterly Publishing Co (PQPC). During the era of effective two-party politics, way to reconcile the differences between its 1945–1983, Labour leaders managed to unite constituent tendencies. We certainly do not these tendencies, some of the time, by appeal- expect this collection of essays to resolve this ing to a greater shared goal of defeating the problem; but we do hope to foster a degree of Conservative Party. Since the return of multi- open and honest dialogue. In the face of a party politics in 1983, the only period during resurgent authoritarian nationalism, there which party unity has been achieved has been could be common ground yet for progres- that during which Blair and his allies effec- sives, even if all that this rests upon is some tively suppressed all internal dissent and most shared understandings about the terms of internal democracy. Since the general loss of our disagreements. legitimacy suffered by ‘third way’ politics, in the wake of the 2008 ﬁnancial crash and Lewis Bassett is writing a book on the Labour the failure of neoliberal governments to Party; Jeremy Gilbert is Professor of Cultural mitigate its consequences for the poor and and Political Theory at the University of East for the young, Labour has not found any London.

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