On Replacing Corbyn

So, the last few sorry months for the Labour Party appear to be culminating in a leadership election. Despite having voted for Corbyn last September, I am becoming ever more convinced that I won't be again this time around, although there's still plenty yet to happen, so I guess anything is possible. All that I can say with total certainty at this point is that I'm quite disheartened with the Labour party, but nevertheless, I've decided to put down some of my thoughts on the whole sorry affair below.

I think it's a fair criticism of Corbyn to say that he hasn't really shown the energy that many wanted from him when he was elected. If we're being honest, aside from John McDonnell's brief (red book aside, I think he's done a good job as shadow chancellor) we haven't really formulated any policies which weren't already supported by Miliband. This applies not only to external party policy, but also to internal party reform. Of course, Corbyn's been in a horrible position regarding PLP opposition, so it's easy to understand why he's chosen to tread carfeully, but a Nye Bevan quote comes to mind when it comes to Corbyn's reservedness on the policy front.

On the issue of winning elections, while I don't think he's done all that badly in local elections/by-elections compared to what one might have expected from a disunited party, I was quite disappointed to see Corbyn in the Vice documentary expressing such a negative view of the media in public. I can understand his anger towards the facile nature of media debate, and I've always been quite happy for him, once he's stepped down as leader, to encourage a national conversation regarding how well-suited the modern media is to British democracy - but leaders need to make the most of the hand that they're given. Considering that his image was always going to be the biggest obstacle that he would have to have overcome in the face of Conservative opposition and tabloid ruthlessness, Corbyn declining vital press coverage, and not particularly trying to win over wavering journalists seems to have been very naive on the part of him and his team.

Such mistakes have undoubtedly hindered the Party's bid to navigate its way out of the electoral rut that it has found itself in. Sadly, due to the nature of public perception, I also fear that too much political water has passed under the bridge since September for this to be achieved while Corbyn's still in charge. This problem was summed up for me when I went to get a haircut and the barber wanted to talk to me about politics, after asking me what I studied at university. He said that he'd had enough of politicians lying, that he hated the likes of Boris and Cameron, and that he opposed the cuts being forced through by the Tories. He said that he felt like he couldn't bring himself to vote for anyone, even though he had strong opinions on political issues. So I asked him how he felt about Corbyn, and I suggested that Corbyn's politics were seemingly aligned with his own, all he really replied was "I don't know much about what he's been saying to be honest, all I know is that everyone seems to hate him". I apologise if extrapolating general problems from one example is cringey, but I think it sums up our current electoral predicament quite well. Evidently, I don't enjoy politics being such a ruthless environment at the top level, personally I think a focus on rational debate over image and personality would result in better policy formulation and a more efficient politics in general, but when it comes to convincing the electorate within actually existing British democracy, first impressions such as these are difficult to overturn, even amongst those who you would rationally expect, considering their views, to be sympathetic. Many people thought Miliband was good in the 2015 short campaign, but by then the mass view of him as "weird" and "weak" was already cast, regardless of how irrational that may or may not have been. It's for this reason that I probably won't be voting Corbyn, in September I knew that voting for him was a risk, and that there would be many challenges for him to overcome, but I felt it was worth the risk because a) an election was 5 years away, so he had plenty of time to try and shape his own image, and b) I supported his policy platform. I thought (and still think) that many of his causes were worth standing up for, and more so felt that they could ceteris paribus be worked into a winning manifesto. The difficulty in this situation is that I just can't see him winning, and I don't really see how sticking with an unelectable candidate could be justified by the values which led me to support him in the first place. Or, for that matter, see how him staying could pragmatically benefit the left in the long run.

I do, however, feel like I ought to say that our current situation hasn't arisen out of personal failure alone, PLP disunity has dealt him, and the party, a great deal of damage - it's quite clear that this week's events haven't sprung up out of nowhere. I do think it's the case that the majority of Labour MPs are loyalists, so it would be unfair to say that all 170 odd MPs who voted in favour of a no-confidence motion against him were plotting for months on end, but there has been a committed groups of Labour figures who have decided to brief against him and criticise him ruthlessly in the media from day one. I think that they were wrong to do so. Of course all MPs should be allowed to express concerns and disagree, and I don't begrudge anyone who publicly disagreed over important decisions if they were issues of conscience. But I think this last point can be overemphasised, the most likely reality is that a minority within the PLP weren't ever willing to give him a chance. It may still be an ungratifying response to an overwhelming democratic vote, but I really hope that this was genuinely because they felt that his image and record would render him unelectable, because it's rather depressing to think that the party could potentially never be able to implement a left-wing manifesto, even in an alternative (and seemingly distant) reality with an Obama-like figure in charge, without sections of the PLP trying to sabotage the party's chances.

Some might think I'm exaggerating in highligthing this possibility, but I am of the belief that party politics is a lot more about personal moral disagreements over policy than those who sometimes talk almost entirely in terms of 'electability' would admit. For example, the argument supposedly justifying the mutiny which has taken place this last week is that remaining in the EU was of such moral importance, whether that was in order to defend immigrants and their right to a secure future, free from prejudice, or to guarantee Britain's economic wellbeing and the living standards of the vulnerable - that Corbyn's lack of enthusiasm towards the Remain campaign in itself served as grounds for his dismissal. If this was the case, then I don't understand why Miliband or the other 2015 leadership candidates weren't widely castigated for not supporting an expansionary fiscal policy when interest rates were low, particularly as it may well be the case that austerity has in fact been more damaging to the economy than Brexit will prove to be in the future. On a moral level, if Labour politicians and members are happy to accept this economic argument (although it goes without saying that some would dispute this claim), then I don't understand why supporting cuts to 'keep in touch with the electorate' is any more acceptable than supporting Leave to 'keep in touch with the electorate'. Likewise, I don't understand why some would argue that supporting Remain was morally necessary in order to protect immigrants and the principle of free movement, particularly considering the fallout from Thursday's vote, but would then still be happy to argue, like Andy Burnham did last summer, that Labour ought not be 'soft' on people who 'want something for nothing', not necessarily because adopting such a position is justifiable in a nation with 1.1 million people using foodbanks, but because the public don't trust us on welfare. It strikes me as totally hypocritical to criticise the Leave campaign, despite its electoral success, for fanning the flames of xenophobia, when it appears to be equally obvious that feeding the myth of an army of scroungers industrially defrauding the taxpayer has equally negative material effects on the lives of the individuals who rely on Britain's social safety net. The foodbank problem has reached such a large scale for three reasons, low benefit levels, benefit sanctions, and the bedroom tax. The latter policy was opposed by all of last summer's leadership contenders, but only Corbyn supported measures beyond a 'review' to the first two, I think anti-Corbyn figures should be more sympathetic to why this might gain Corbyn support.

Hypocrisy aside, however, I also fear on behalf of those who would like to see Corbyn replaced that there is no easy escape route. It is the membership who decide who should be leader, and the thinly veiled pretexts which have been wheeled out almost weekly by those most opposed to Corbyn about how he's responsible for all of the world's ills have merely alienated them from the membership more than they already were to start with, which has been truly awful planning on their part. If they were so sure that Corbyn would fail all electoral tests before him, they should have let him fail on his own accord. As it has turned out, results have been mediocre, yet the plotters' target audience, instead of questioning "is this because of Corbyn?", have been left to ponder whether results would have been favourable if it weren't for the constant undermining of his leadership from a vocal minority of MPs.

From this point on in the leadership campaign they really ought not to overplay themselves, and when they do make the case against Corbyn it should be along the lines of: We aren't going to dismantle large bits of his policy platform if he's replaced, we simply think that he won't be able to win a snap election in the next 12 months, and due to the chaotic effects of Brexit upon the Tories, we have a great chance of winning an election under a new leader. It has to be said though, their lack of a plan beyond perpetual resignation, and the drastic failures of the 3 non-Corbyn campaigns to adapt to the membership's mood last summer, doesn't fill me with much hope of a victory, let alone in their ability to organise a positive general election campaign based upon anything innovative beyond 'not being Corbyn'.

As for what Labour ought to do if it does find itself with a new leader and a general election on its hand, my views haven't changed all that much from last summer. And while I'm happy to concede that I don't have perfect judgement, in my mind Corbyn was closer to Labour's ideal strategy (trident excluded, as we clearly won't win that debate with the public) than any of the other candidates, even if Corbyn himself wasn't the ideal figurehead. Labour doesn't tend to win on negative messages, I think it's right to stand on a platform of investment and growth, rather than one which says that we need to be 'sensible' on the economy whilst appearing to hold too many moral commitments towards the poor to carry through with our own promises. This is what Simon Wren-Lewis seems to mean when he talks of a 'radical centre'. As such, I, amongst others very much hope that much of the 'New Economics' continues if Corbyn goes.

The very absence of a more mainstream figure supporting ideas such as Wren-Lewis', particularly when many Labour members view the subject matter at hand to be so morally important (myself included), is what I suspect got Corbyn elected in the first place last year. Not necessarily because of him - but because of his platform. Some people may dismiss this reasoning out of hand as naive, but I don't think that would be fair. As I've argued above, moral debate over policy is never as clear as merely compromising until you become 'electable'. Following Thursday, it appears that taking a very hard line against immigration, more so than the Tories, could help us win an election. We could promise to drastically reduce immigration apart from where it is needed to prop up the NHS and public services, such a platform might, although I appreciate that this is speculation, be enough to carry us to victory, and allow us to implement a wide ranging investment package which could not only raise people's incomes (although admittedly, at least partially offset by leaving the Single Market), but also see a material improvement in deprived working class areas. I imagine most members, pro or anti Corbyn, myself included, would see this as wrong. Why? Not because it's unelectable, but because it's wrong to stoke anti-immigrant sentiment, to risk abetting racism, and to damage the economy out of an expedient yet false narrative about the social and economic damages caused by immigration. I may not agree with the conclusions he reaches, but Ben Cobley is right to state that nearly the entire Labour membership, both left and right, is united by an absolute moral support for liberal policies concerning liberation groups, which as a whole results in an innate distaste for 'anti-immigrant' sentiment or policy. In a similar process of reasoning, I hope that eventually everyone in the party comes to realise that the factors which push many people towards Corbyn are therefore not all all that different from some of the moral tenets which very few people in the party openly dispute, and I hope that as a result internally organised campaigns will in the future be shaped with this in mind. Because if the challenge against Corbyn, as was often the case last summer, frames itself as the 'grown up' campaign taking on the middle class placard holders, on behalf of those members who are really in favour of bettering the working class, then it's difficult to see how Corbyn could lose.