Owen Jones' Blog Post

Despite being a bit late to the affair, I thought I would use this blog to note down a few of my thoughts corresponding to Owen Jones' recent Medium post on the Labour Leadership contest. The crux of his post is an identification of the various practical challenges which Labour will likely face if Corbyn continues as leader, while in a more indirect fashion Jones also gives air to the moral implications involved with continuing on our current path - notably in uplaying the importance of winning. Owen pre-empted many of my own thoughts regarding this matter, and in a very succinct manner at that, which I suppose is why he's a bestselling writer and I'm not, but nonetheless I thought I'd add to Owen's concerns by voicing my own thoughts on Corbyn's situation, as well as by explaining my reasons for supporting Smith. Now, I'm wary of responding in a manner which makes me appear as though I'm trying to appropriate Jones' 'left-wing' persona in order to provide leverage for my own views, and I also appreciate that Jones himself hasn't endorsed Smith, so I hope that it doesn't come across as though I am. For what it's worth, like Owen Jones, I consider myself as belonging to Labour's left. As a teenager I was an unaffiliated left-winger, only deciding within my own mind to support Labour after listening to an MP3 copy of a Tony Benn interview online when I was about 17. Since then, under Miliband's leadership in the year before the 2015 election, I was consistently on the left of the party, particularly regarding economic issues, and I also wholeheartedly opposed the accusation that our 2015 manifesto was too 'left-wing' after our defeat. In what has, admittedly, been a short time as a member, I have also joined Welsh Labour Grassroots, and myself supported Jeremy Corbyn in last year's leadership election. So without wishing to self-indulge too much, it is via this route that I've ended up supporting Smith.

Moving onwards to the substance of Owen Jones' piece, in my view, and as I've alluded to above, Jones very clearly and rationally elucidates many of the real concerns held by many members from all sides of the party regarding the current leadership. This has, rather inevitably, led to a few (although as Owen Jones has stated, the scale on which this occurs is often expediently exaggerated) accusations that he is not really left-wing. This is clearly a reductionist point, for there are self-evident differences between arguments as to what Labour ought to do if it were to be guaranteed power, and arguments concerning whether it is morally right to make certain concessions in order to win a general election. Regarding the former point, I would suggest that there probably isn't a huge difference between the views of Owen Jones, Corbyn, and many Owen Smith supporters when it comes issues such as austerity - the real political differences, no matter to what extent they exist, are likely to lie in the latter arguments over the morality of gaining power. In my view, very few party members honestly believe that gaining power isn't a moral imperative, there is of course likely to be a small minority unwilling to engage with any policy positions contrary to their own particular views, but I think it is indeed right to describe this group as a minority.

For example, as much as many laud Corbyn for his plain speaking and his honesty, I doubt, and rightly so, that there are many in his camp who genuinely want to place a commitment to abolishing the monarchy in the 2020 (or possibly sooner) manifesto. Why? Because if republicanism was unpopular enough to lose us an election, it would prevent gains in other, more morally significant areas of policy such as housing, investment, and welfare. So, we can quite conclusively establish from this that Owen is right to ask questions about our electoral prospects, and that we ought not be content with reducing the argument to picking whether you are 'left' or 'right' and sticking to that choice, but rather debate what Labour ought to sacrifice in order to pursue power, what should be seen as red lines, and what ought to be done if Labour ever ends up in a situation in which defeat not only looks likely, but near certain and catastrophic in magnitude.

If such discussions are necessary, we should really therefore be asking whether evidence suggest that we could ever possibly win going forward, or even in fact come close to winning, with Corbyn remaining in charge. I would argue that the evidence suggests we can not. Many disagree, in fact, while few think that we are doing well,the most common response I've seen to Jones' artcile has gone along the lines of:

"politics has changed, Owen Smith's strategy is also doomed, to win we need a social movement, and only Corbyn can build that".

It is, in my view, fair to say that Labour needs to make a greater effort to reconnect with its working class areas, which are rapidly becoming removed from Labour politics, if it is to guarantee its future relevance. In previous decades, the presence of traditional industrial jobs and their associated unions led quite naturally to high community solidarity and support for the Labour party, this is clearly no longer the case. We may need to change the manner in which we operate, and invest a lot of effort into grassroots initiatives if we are to ensure that our 'safe seats' remain safe, Owen Jones himself, for example, has in the past floated ideas such as Labour run food banks. Such steps would in of themselves require a radical overhall of the party structure, and we would collectively have to assess the risk/reward balance of developing such a strategy before committing to it, seeing as it is possible of course that we could never muster the resources to attempt such a strategy without sacrificing our core electoral machine. But even if we could guarantee the successful building of a 'social movement', I can't see how it could be built in a manner which would provide Labour with any sort of electoral boost within the short term, or even in the medium term for that matter. A general election may be only months away, how are we realistically going to transform the language of community activism into effective action within such a short time frame? Besides, even if we were to totally outdo ourselves in developing a 'social movement', is there any reason to believe that such a movement could ever fully overcome the tide of presidentialisation rapidly engulfing British politics? Put frankly, most people in Britain (certainly not most 'floating voters') do not decide how they'll vote based upon manifestos, they vote based upon who they believe will be the best Prime Minister, and which leadership team they see as having the best common-sense solutions to Britain's problems. As someone who supported him last summer, I of course believe that most of Corbyn's ideas are 'common-sense' in nature, and I still believe that a policy platform similar to his own has the potential to be protrayed as such, but public opinion certainly doesn't imply that Corbyn is widely viewed as worthy to govern. Corbyn is currently miles behind May on personal ratings across nearly every demographic, and this is quite clearly one of, if not the most important reason, that we are doing so badly in the polls. Arguments over whether this is a result of Corbyn's own failures, or due to PLP dissent, is nothing more than academic, going forward the most salient point to consider is one Jones himself raises, which is whether Corbyn will ever be able to shake off the public's poor first impression of him, no matter how well he performs from here on in.

Ed Miliband faced a similar problem, during the short campaign, many members credited Miliband with having conducted a decent-ish operation (Ed Stone aside, of course), and many hoped that his stronger than average performance would help erode earlier public criticisms of him being 'weird', 'soft', and/or a 'backstabber', following his triumph over his brother in the 2010 leadership contes. But this didn't happen. In fact, as the dust settled following our defeat, it became all too clear that these early concerns had never gone away. So by all means say that Corbyn's strategy and campaign last summer were better than those of the other candidates, and by all means say that Corbyn would be in a better position now if certain members of the PLP hadn't fed the media narrative that he was dangerous and idelogical, but these points don't change the fact of the matter, we are on our way to a massive defeat unless perceptions change quickly, and for all the benefits a large membership brings, I can't see any Tory voters in marginal seats seeing past the fact that Corbyn doesn't even have the support of 172 of his own MPs.

Most members probably don't find the idea controversial that there are indeed risks involved with continuing down our current path, but they might go on to ask why this serves as its own independent reason to support Smith, as opposed to a mere reason to suggest that things aren't going well for Corbyn. Firstly, as Jones points out, we might lose so heavily in a snap election that the left is once again marginalised within politics, and/or the Labour party could split, either formally or informally, which could ruin the hopes of achieving a left-leaning Governent in Britain for decades. If the moral aims of the left ought to come first, this possibility has at least got to be considered. But secondly, amongst the bitter nature of this contest, with the unsightly coup leaving a bitter taste in the mouths of many supporters, I feel that the extent to which Smith's campaign has adopted so much of what was good about Corbyn's platform in terms of positivity, promoting investment, and tackling inequality, has been underappreciated.

If I were asked to sum up why I supported Corbyn last time around, I would say something along the lines of:

• There were, and still are, very real negative social effects of bashing welfare claimants out of political expediency, similarly to how many in Labour are uncomfortable with immigrant-bashing, One million people are using food banks, this is a scourge on our society, as a result we ought to properly oppose policies such as benefit sanctions, along with proposing to meaningfully reform the way in which the welfare system operates, our welfare policy ought not to be limitied to opposing the bedroom tax (Although I appreciate that welfare shouldn't be at the heart of our political agenda due to its narrow appeal).
• And in addition, in my view the cuts regime implemented by the Tories was so harmful to ordinary households (potentially on a larger scale than Brexit in the short term), and our 2015 strategy so poorly messaged and 'halfway-house' in nature, that Labour ought to have adopted a positive pro-investment strategy going forward so as not to repeat Miliband's mistakes.

It's worth noting that I may have felt differently about these issues if I believed that neither of the above concerns could have ever been adequately addressed without necessitating electoral defeat, but I didn't feel that this was the case, and I still don't. I don't feel that we live in some dystopian society in which people are happy about 1 million people using food banks, even if, sadly, this issue isn't enough in itself to dictate electoral results. And I also don't think that Labour wins off the back of negative messages, and the lack of positive strategy on behalf of Labour prior to 2015, and on behalf of the three ABC candidates when Corbyn initially triumphed, was frustrating, particularly with the stakes so high and so many people suffering at the hands of the Tories. However, the political landscape is now very different. Their actions will no doubt be different to their words, but the Tories' rhetorical abandonment of austerity is significant, it will make pro-investment and pro-growth arguments easier to make without facing media hostility, in particular by reducing the derision of those lamenting Labour's unwillingess to 'balance the books'. This seems to be playing out already, Owen Smith for example has already committed to a similar pro-investment approach to that advocated by Corbyn. And while he has yet to talk about welfare in his campaign, his work as Shadow DWP Minister under Corbyn gives me hope that his approach to benefits will be equally as sensible. As far as I'm concerned, Corbyn's camp have achieved what they initially set out to do this time last year, shift the terms of Labour's debate to one characterised by positivity as opposed to reserved prudishness, and a recognition of the sheer moral and practical misgivings of many Tory policies. We are now moving towards a philosophy sensibly described by Lisa Nandy in her interview with Owen Jones as 'meeting the public on their terms, but seeking to lead public debate rather than follow it'. Of course, I'd have loved for this to have happened consistently over the last nine months under Corbyn, we wouldn't have to be having this internal fight for a start, but numerous factors mean that we simply haven't led debate in this time, and more worryingly, we potentially won't be able to lead debate going forward in the face party disunity and public distrust. Smith evidently doesn't have all the answers, no candidate is ever perfect, but that doesn't mean that he isn't the best option for Labour in our current circumstances. I don't see the purpose in playing up a platform of 'shifting debate' when it is perfectly clear that our current mess in parliament ensures our inability to do so.

In supporting Smith, however, I do understand the concerns of those who fear that a vote for Smith is nothing more than the first push back towards ruthless 'triangulation', or towards the approach favoured by Labour's right, which in my view despite being (often patronisingly) explained as 'pragmatic', is in reality a manifestation of core moral and political disagreements. It goes without saying too that I have concerns that certain PLP figures, who notably advocated a coup against Miliband as well as Corbyn, will soon get the knives out against Smith if he wins, hoping that the left will be too disenchanted following Corbyn's loss to allow their behaviour to go unnoticed. But this is precisely why I hope that the membership, instead of focusing on personalities, continues to contribute to party debate and hold in check the line that Labour can't win without adopting an explicitly 'centrist' approach (For what it's worth I don't think it's really adequate to analyse politics purely in terms of left and right - see Chris Dillow's post for example).

Others are worried about the nature in which this contest has come about, wondering why the Party is going into civil war over the face of Labour's marketing operation whilst ignoring the reality that for the last 10 years very few people have been interested in the Labour product. It is indeed true that Labour faces numerous existential problems, and that this goes beyond personality. For a start we need to decide how we will address immigration, whether we ought to oppose freedom of movement in particular, but also whether we ought to agree with the idea that immigration places strain upon local communities, but in a manner which is contingent upon arguments against Government underfunding and inadequate employment regulation, or whether we adopt a fully cosmopolitant approach. We need to address how we reconcile our liberal urban base with our frequently more authoritarian (for want of a better word) working class areas, how we equate 'economic responsibility' with delivering the substantial infrastructure investment which, in hindsight, if delivered under the last Labour Government might have put a halt to the growing regional inequality which undoubtedly contributed to the recent leave vote. In this situation the image of two bald men fighting over a comb might seem like an appropriate summary of this election.

But again, as far as I see it, the presence of one set of problems isn't a reason to avoid others. Labour has undoubtedly, like many other social democratic parties, failed to adapt to a post-2008 world, yet there is an awful lot that could still happen in the next year. The Tories could rip themselves apart even more violently over single market membership than over EU membership more generally, whilst there could also be a substantial recession as a result of our vote to leave Europe, particularly if we leave the single market. In this situation, if we are to at least have the potential to capitalise on future oppurtunities, we need a leader with a degree of credibility with the public, and Corbyn doesn't have that. Strategy is of course important, and it's wrong to view a leadership change as a panacea, but it's also clear that, whether we view it as rational or not, that having a leader the public believe to appear as a 'Prime Minister' is an essential part of winning an election, and I fear that if we decide to take a gap year from political relevance in order to do some soul searching, we will simply make it even more difficult to find effective answers to these long term questions. Labour will not progress if every policy announcement, every response to Tory Brexit negotiations, and every reaction to economic news will be caveated with some variation of "but X from the PLP says that Jeremy is doing a shit job in arguing our case". It wouldn't necessarily be Jeremy's fault, but it would still be a disaster.


So while it may not be an inspiring response to Owen Jones' post, in my view if the Labour left's political aims and objectives are deemed to be the most significant purpose of our campaigning, as opposed to pushing transient personalities, we need to be willing to recognise when certain avenues become untenable, even if we wish that they weren't. We have to be willing to play a long game, to think about how we will sell these ideas to the public effectively, and in the mean time continue to engage in rational debate over party policy and strategy, as well as ensure that internal selections remain open. For in my view if there has been one positive regarding Labour's future in the last two years it has been the quality of the 2015 intake, and the hope that this gives regarding the prospect of the left succeeding in the future. I don't want to be overly cynical, as noted above I do believe that there are positive reasons to support Owen Smith, and that he genuinely is a figure of Labour's soft left, as opposed to an oppurtunistic charlatan, but even if you are of the view that Smith is nothing more than a compromise figure, better than Miliband or Burnham but still not ideal, it's worth asking whether in the long run a tactical withdrawal could be preferable to a catastrophic defeat.

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.

Brexit

Thursday's vote to leave the European Union was certainly, to steal a quote from Jim Callaghan, a 'lesson in democracy'. I'm entirely certain now, just as I was immediately before the vote, that this wasn't a sensible thing to do. Economists are almost entirely united over the notion that Brexit will prove to have a damaging effect on the economy in the short to medium term, while the majority are also of the belief that GDP growth will continually be held back in the future if we are denied full access to the single market - which will presumably be the case if the Leave campaign prove to be genuine in their opposition to EU regulation and free movement.

In the face of this decision, many, such as Labour MP David Lammy and the Lib Dems - although in their case, pending and imminent election, have called for the Brexit vote's mandate to be ignored altogether, while others have merely called for a second referendum. I'm interested to see how the Lib Dem strategy works, clearly, if they win a majority Government next year then the widespread conversion to Remain which social media seems to be convinced has happened post-Thursday has clearly materialised, with a degree of force at that. A Lib Dem majority would probably (quite rightly) result in its own anti-Brexit mandate, although while the Lib Dems with their 8 MPs have little to lose with this decision, I do wonder if this will reinforce their image as a non-serious party, which I'm not sure is beneficial to them in the long term.

Lib Dems aside, I am not in favour of ignoring the Brexit vote, it has happened and it ought to be respected. The only circumstance in which I would support another referendum would be if a choice needs to be made as to whether we ought to remain in the single market or not, and if it became clear that opinion was heavily in favour of Single Market membership, then it might be worth considering whether Remaining in the EU ought to be considered, due to the blatant downsides of the Norwegian model for single market membership.

This is very unlikely, however, and would require a very particular set of circumstances. So in general, I think that ignoring the democratic choice to leave is a dangerous path to go down. I've seen many people call the working class voters who opted for Leave either stupid, or worse, too stupid to deserve the vote. Considering that many people like myself  are of the belief that the facts were heavily stacked in favour of Remain in this debate, such a slide towards JS Mill style elitism is understandable, and while I know it's mostly meant in jest, in a serious context I don't think it's either particularly justified or constructive moving forward. After all, we did have a system up until the early 1900s in which only well educated and wealthy men could vote in elections, yet it didn't end up in rational fact based policy and debate, it just resulted in much of the population starving to death while those at the top convinced themselves that the contemporary status quo was a result of the poor's fecklessness (although to say that this doesn't happen in today's Britain would also be a mistake).

Democracy is a good thing, and it ought not to be the target of the fallout of Thursday's decision. It might not be particularly popular, but I don't regret having supported an EU referendum for the last couple of years. There are problems with referendums, they force binary options concerning issues which often require deliberation, but there has clearly been a large proportion of the public who have been long opposed to EU membership, and I still feel that effectively denying them a say in democratic debate would be unsustainable and undesirable. For me, if there is a worthy target for scorn following Thursday's result, it shouldn't be democracy in general, it should be the woeful nature in which expert opinion prior to the vote was disseminated to the public. Of course the likes of the Sun and the Mail get away with telling absolute lies, and I'm sure I'm not alone in hoping that the press regulatory board recommended by Leveson comes into existence soon - and that it will have the powers necessary to enforce large scale front page apologies in clear instances of deception, but the broacast media were also awful in covering this debate. The economic arguments surrounding Brexit were largely summed up by the likes of the BBC as "experts disagree", ignoring not only the fact that the vast majority of economists opposed Brexit (IPSOS Mori found this to be around 90%), but also the clear and accesible economic logic which dictates why leaving the Single Market would be bad for Britain's economy. In the midst of the Tories' political games with the BBC, many are keen to jump to its defence, but its obsession with 'balance' proved to have devastating consequences in this referendum. I'm just amazed that in its reporting of HSBC threatening to move 1000 jobs to Paris if we leave the Single Market, the BBC felt it newsworthy to state that there are 'concerns' that leaving the single market 'could' result in banks losing their passporting rights within Europe. This isn't news, it's a tautological statement, and I'm quite confused why this is being reported today but wasn't widely reported on within the last 6 months. It's not like the result of a leave vote wasn't forecastable, ever since the referendum was announced it has been crystal clear that the only two options following Brexit would be to follow Norway's model which would keep free movement and Single Market access, or abandon passporting rights to some extent, either through relying on WTO trading guidelines, or through spending years and decades negotiating various bilateral treaties with the EU. This should have been clear to every voter before Thursday. The likes of the BBC shouldn't have pandered to the deliberate deception of Leave when they tried to conflate both potential outcomes in order to avoid political scrutiny, nor should they have repeated the £350m a week lie ad nauseum. Democracy is necessary to ensure stability and to protect the vulnerable from those making decisions which heavily impact their lives, but it does require an attentive and informed public to work effectively, so I suppose you could sum this situation up with Churchill's claim that "democracy is the worst form of Government except for all those other forms that have been tried from time to time".

However, while I've spent the above paragraphs detailing why I think this Brexit vote was a mistake, it would be rather hypocritical to defend democracy without addressing the numerous, and often justified questions regarding the EU's accountability. Unlike me, Tony Benn may have supported an EU exit, but I still largely agree with his assessment of the institutionalised problems within the current EU. Notably, the fact that the Commission, rather than Parliament, proposes legislation, the secrecy which surrounds decision making within the Council/Council of Ministers, and the problem of low turnout and lack of care on behalf of the public towards EU Parliament elections. While I would also add that there exists a wider cultural/media problem which means that few people are ever aware of decisions being made on an EU level, harming accountability. These are difficult issues to address, and to be honest, even though I supported Remain I wasn't particularly confident in achieving meaningful reform any time soon, the Single Market is largely what drove me to support Remain. In fact, these problems, until now anway, don't seem to have concerned The EU to the extent that they should have. If anything, the EU's contentment with passing important measures such as the Single European Act, the Maastricht Treaty, and the Lisbon Treaty, with only the tacit consent of national populations shows that they have all too often used a lack of accountability to push their agendas without really thinking whether this could danger the EU's sustainability in the future. I can't help but feel that if the EU engaged with national populations more when making important decisions, political events such as Brexit wouldn't be happening now. Some people may oppose this sentiment, after all, it's quite clear that the overriding contention the British public have with the EU concerns free movement. Many might feel that conceding ground to any opposition to immigration helps feed prejudicial and often false narratives about immigrants (For example, nearly twice as many people think that immigration is bad for the NHS than good, even though the facts suggest the opposite is true), while others may fear that it could have very material effects in terms of encouraging outright racism towards EU migrants (and ethnic minorities) already living here. This is a difficult debate to address, and it will be a difficult one for the left to address amidst rather rudderless calls to seek electoral compromise. But on a realist level, in relation to the EU, it strikes me as incredibly naive to have ever thought that ignoring the overwhelming democratic resistance to free movement could have lasted indefinitely. Maybe, if 30 years ago the EEC tried to reach a transnational consensus on free movement, we could have achieved the sensible compromise on immigration which wouldn't have led to the reactionary, and often outright racist debate that we are having now.

Political Context

A lot has been said and written following the tragic murder of Labour MP Jo Cox on Thursday afternoon, with many moving and heartfelt tributes having been made from across the country by her friends and colleagues, with the eloquent and inspirational call from her husband to unite against political hatred standing out like a beacon despite him being in the the midst of a personal loss on a scale that is difficult to even comprehend. Like many who have been shocked by Jo's death, I never had the oppurtunity to meet her personally, however, it is clear that as someone who spent her life fighting not only for her constituents, but also for those in danger across the world who lacked the voice they so desperately needed, that politics has lost a true asset. This loss is made to seem even more stark by the current nature of politics, in which all elected representatives are assumed to be liars and crooks, irrespective of the hard work that they do or of the sincerity through which they act. I simply don't think this is fair on most MPs - and such a climate sadly means that politicians such as Jo Cox, who had a background in working for charities such as Oxfam and the NSPCC, and who also possessed a proven track record of serving and representing her constituents, are often dismissed, hated, and ignored until a tragedy such as Thursday's forces a degree of retrospection and rational defence of our elected representatives, something which I feel is a massive shame.

Following Thursday this point comes across almost like a truism, however, the argument as to whether instances of far right political violence ought to be linked to the increasingly hate-filled nature of political debate has proved to be a far more divisive issue. The claim that politics is degrading is of course one that shouldn't be used lightly, but I simply can't see how one could properly repudiate such accusations following recent developments. On the morning of Jo's murder, Nigel Farage unveiled a poster which featured an overlay of the words "Breaking Point" above a photograph of queueing Syrian refugees. Now, on a mere humanitarian level, irrespective of opinion regarding so called 'economic migration', this poster is absolutely disgusting. Farage is a mainstream political figure, yet on Thursday morning he was proudly stood in front of a photograph of refugees fleeing war, which also shockingly features a seemingly scared crying child on the billboard's right side, to aid his case for leaving the EU. This is pure political charlatinism, our obligation to take in refugees has nothing to do with our EU membership, and Farage knows this, Thursday's stunt was merely an expedient attempt to avoid sensible debate on immigration by reinforcing public fears about migrants clogging up housing and public services, it goes without saying that Farage's willingess to plumb such depths indicates that he has little concern for the very material effects such scaremongering could have upon these refugees themselves.

However, it is one thing to condemn these shameful political tactics, but another to imply that such tactics increase the liklihood of political attacks such as the one on Jo Cox. Some have gone as far as stating that to debate this to any extent, particularly so early into the investigation, is speculative and offensive, while others have quite clearly set out their stall that attempting to do so equates to using Jo Cox's death to political advantage. However, as others have already observed, the very nature of Thursday's attack, one carried out by an individual who we can assume with increasing certainty is a right wing extremist, against a pro-refugee politician, in the midst of a very bitter and at times overtly prejudicial debate regarding the EU, makes it unavoidably political. Of course it would be ideal to have all the facts on the table regarding the killer's motives, but that might be impossible even when investigations have concluded and he's locked up for the rest of his life.

Lack of certainty certainly hasn't stopped the press from giving their view as to the causes of this attack. The Sun and the Telegraph have both run front page stories either implying that the killer was a 'loner' and 'deranged', or that he was in the throes of serious mental health problems. It is easy to see why such outlets, particularly the former, adopt this line, for such a conclusion extricates Jo Cox's murder, and the neo-nazi views of her killer, from wider political developments, which, as exemplified by Farage's poster, have normalised  the demonisation of fellow human beings to an alarming extent. It would be very difficult to word an argument which linked the behaviour of mainstream political actors such as the Sun and UKIP with the rise of 'individual' violent right wing extremists without at least indirectly burdening them with some degree of responsibility for the resulting vioence. The image of a psychotic mental health patient, on the other hand, allows such introspection to be avoided. For a psychotic mental patient can be written off as totally irrational, and by extension their opinions can be deemed to exist in total isolation from real world developments, immune from the sorts of change in political culture which has led the UN's High Commissioner for human rights to compare the Sun's coverage of the refugee crisis to that embedded within Rwanda prior to the 1994 genocide. This isolationist view is totally unjustifiable, very few mental illnesses are characterised by total detachment from reality, and mental health illness isn't an excuse for crime. 25% of the public have some mental health concern, yet 25% of the population aren't murderers. This is an obvious point, and seems to apply particularly in this specific case considering the suspect was deemed lucid and fit for interview by police. Even if, as an aside, Owen Jones is right to highlight the hypocrisy of the likes of the Sun in being quick to blame mental health above ideology in this case, in contrast with their coverage of Lee Rigby's murder in 2013.

Such observations do not, of course, suggest that the Sun and UKIP are to blame in the very specific case of Jo Cox's murder. That would be unfair and unsupported, the left often canonizes Nordic countries such as Norway for their more mature approach to politics - yet Nordic political culture didn't prevent the attack carried out upon young members of Labour's sister party by Anders Behring Breivik in July 2011. On an individual level, each attack is clearly a result of numerous personal and environmental factors which render any clear causal relationship impossible. In light of this, implicating the leave campaign with Jo Cox's murder is likely to result in a degree of offense, for I'm sure that those at the Sun, along with the likes of Farage are just as shocked and saddened by this attack as anyone else, which is likely to be somewhat justified if it does indeed turn out that the perpetrator has held neo-nazi views for decades. Nevertheless, it is still the case that politics doesn't exist in a vacuum. All political actors ought to know that their arguments impact people. It appears that the prime consideration for most voters regarding this referendum is economic security for their families, which, for most people, according to Britain's leading economists is not negatively impacted by immigration (unlike leaving the EU). However, the overriding atmosphere across the country in the run up to June 23rd is not one regarding debate over economic policy, but one concerned with fear, fear that immigrants will block off their already tenuous access to vital public services, and fear that this will be made worse by Turkey's inevitable and imminent accession to the EU - a sense which exists irrepsective of the fact that Turkey almost certainly won't be an EU member state for at least 20-30 years. I don't think Farage or Boris Johnson seriously believe in any of these arguments, yet they serve as useful subterfuge for their real, less visceral reasons for favouring Brexit, which would provide a far less stable base from which to win a referendum.

So while it would be wrong to park responsibility for Jo Cox's murder at the door of the likes of Farage and the Sun, there should be no uncertainty that those who continue to politically fan the flames of fear will almost undoubtedly add to a political environment in which attacks such as the one upon Jo Cox become ever more likely. And I hope that if one positive comes out of Thursday's events, it's that the political class as a whole is forced to realise that the price of preaching hate over solidarity is far outweighed by any expedient political gains it may bring.

Drawing Red Lines

I’m writing this at the end of what’s been a very busy week for the Labour Party. The start of the week, like the entire week previous, was marked by the seemingly interminable sage regarding antisemitism on the left. While the last few days as far as the Party is concerned have largely revolved around campaigning for, and commenting on, Thursday’s election results, which, despite not being as positive as Party members would have liked moving towards 2020, certainly had their positives. Labour supporting journalists are certainly justified in asserting that a collective sense of pleasant surprise ought not to cloud any critical appraisal of Labour’s performance, however, such arguments work both ways, and I think it’s fair to say that many Labour supporters in Wales, if offered Thursday’s results on the 8^th of May last year, irrespective of who was to win the leadership contest, would have been happy to take them. After all, we have gained 29 seats and held all 4 marginals we conceded to the Conservatives in 2015.


So in this context, while no one should be getting carried away with what we’ve achieved, the constant sniping at Corbyn by a certain band of MPs is getting increasingly grating. Not only because of the damage it causes to the party and its electoral prospects, but also due to its tactical ineptness. I may disagree with proponents of such a view, but I can fully appreciate the argument that Corbyn being in charge is of such moral detriment that he ought to be deposed at all costs. However, the process through which Corbyn's PLP critics are trying to carry out this coup seems to be entirely reliant on almost weekly pretexts along the lines of 'X has happened, this shows that Corbyn must go', and the longer time has gone on the more it has become painfully obvious that their plan is totally unresponsive to changes in political context, changes in Corbyn's personal performance, and more importantly, to the mood of the general membership. They've only really had one job to do, to gain support for deposing Corbyn by fooling members into believing that their discontent is in response to real world events, not because it's what they've been planning for since the day Corbyn was elected. Needless to say, neither their acting skills nor their sense of timing have as of yet been up to this task, the anti-Corbyn campaign has lacked even the smallest semblance of Machiavellian elegance, so it should probably come as no surprise that their own campaigns failed to succeed in last year's leadership contest. This is somewhat of a harsh message, but I think it's fair to say that Corbyn looks set to remain leader for at least two years, and if his critics want to change the party in their own vision they should focus their efforts on retreating and trying to build a coherent message and policy package that they can sell to the membership and the public in the future, because the status quo seems to be doing no one any good.

Moving on, the main reason I wrote this post was to address an issue which has been alluded to on various occasions during internal policy ‘debates’ since last summer, even if it is rarely mentioned explicitly, which is where ‘red lines’ ought to be drawn, below which policy substance ought not to be diluted in search of ‘electability’. I am, as I suspect most other party members are, a consequentialist when it comes to evaluating policy and formulating manifestos. For all of the occasional despair from some quarters that many Labour members seem to prioritise beliefs over election victories, I don’t think such a summary is particularly accurate. Clearly, Corbyn himself isn’t of this disposition, otherwise he wouldn’t be so equivocal over the trident review, nor would he push the issues of republicanism and NATO under the rug. Likewise, Liz Kendall in her campaign for the leadership held back on certain issues which could have on face value gained her support from the general public, such as reintroducing the death penalty (arguably), or drastically reducing JSA payments below their current austere levels, which, as an aside seemingly rely on public misconceptions for their popular support. But she chose not to, so the issue here doesn’t seem to be ‘principles vs electability’, but rather where different people draw the line between the two, and where politicians personally deem policies to fundamentally contradict their own moral outlooks.

Now, it's worth stating that I don’t want to oversimplify the important differences between moral positions, or overlook whether some doctrines are more sensible than others, and for that matter I don't want to seem like I’m using simplifications to justify Corbyn’s victory either. For how these red lines are drawn clearly depend on the calculations which conclude them, what’s included in the ‘weighing up’ process, what’s omitted etc. As it could of course be argued that the death penalty being reintroduced would be unjustifiable even if it enabled more progressive policies to be implemented elsewhere. However, these issues, which I can't really elaborate on here ought not to provide any excuse for inconsistencies in judgements made by the same people using the same moral criteria, and it is once such potential example of moraly inconsistency, between the cases of 'austerity' and the 'EU debate' which I'll discuss below.

Austerity

In last summer's leadership election, fiscal contraction was a clear dividing line between Corbyn and the other three candidates. They differed in extent, however, Burnham, Cooper, and Kendall all supported fiscal contraction, and all three cited the need to appear ‘fiscally responsible’ to the electorate as a justification for doing so. Corbyn disagreed with this approach and instead supported fiscal expansion, with this approach being the one I, and presumably many other members, align with the most closely, even if I didn’tagree with everything he suggested from the outset of his campaign.

There are of course potential situations in which I'd abandon this plan if I believed that doing so could achieve a better overall outcome, and indeed, one reason why I supported Corbyn's stance on fiscal contrction was a pragmatic one, I was uncertain that towing the line regarding ‘fiscal sensibility’ would produce a result any different from 2015 unless we committed to more savings than the Conservatives themselves, which would be pointless, seeing as I don't believe that they're good for the economy. But there was an important second reason too, being that the cuts since 2010 may have cost an amount of GDP equivalent to £1500 per UK resident (potentially up to £4000), something I thought at the time we ought to oppose if for no other reason than for how large a sum of money was at stake, in addition to a slightly more vague sense that parties ought to be honest on issues of such large importance so as to help the democratic system produce effective results.

Similar thoughts about rawing red lines shaped my views on our benefits levels and sanctions policies. Low levels of benefit payments in Britain, alongside the pernicious presence of benefit sanctions have quite clearly played an instrumental role in food bank usage rising to over 1 million people per year. Frankly, it is injustices like these, as personified by heartbreaking cases such as this LBC phone-in, which demonstrate why the Labour party ought to exist. And it was this which made me so disappointed when even Andy Burnham, who I was overall quite happy to give my second preference to after supporting him at the outset of his campaign, refused to offer anything regarding sanctions beyond a ‘review’. This, to me, without trying to sound pious, was a sort of red line, in that I believed that the myth perpetuated by various Labour and Tory Governments about an army of scroungers was having a massively detrimental effect on the lives of the UK’s most vulnerable, and as such I decided that I ought to vote for the candidate who opposed this view, even in the face of popular opposition for ‘pro-welfare’ policies. This isn’t to say that anyone who disagreed with me was decisively wrong on the issue, they simply decided that this wasn’t an appropriate place to draw a red line. However, I believe consistency is important in this, which brings us onto another polcy debate.

Europe

Before I start regarding inconsistencies in approach, I ought to be clear that I’m supporting the In campaign. I’ve never been particularly enthusiastic about Europe, there are many flaws in how it’s currently organised, and for all the messages of hope regarding its reform by some on the left, I am less hopeful. I’d love to see a Europe which was less bureaucratic and more directly accountable to the European people, however, currently, even the European Parliament, which is the most accountable aspect of the EU’s Governance, lacks any real semblance of a system which would allow real Governmental competition, partly due to institutional design and partly because the public do not care enough about EU democracy. This isn’t to say that the EU doesn’t achieve a lot of good, it does, regarding a lot of policy areas where the UK parliament couldn't act sufficiently, but it's still safe to say I'm not a Europhile.

Nevertheless, I am supporting In as I a) don’t personally disapprove of intra-EU migration, and b) think a No vote would put the economy at risk in the short-medium term. Again, for me, the prospect of damage to the economy (although notably, forecasts of economic damage aren’t on anywhere near the same scale as Simon Wren-Lewis’/The OBR’s regarding austerity) wasn’t worth the risk of supporting Leave.

However, despite myself agreeing with Labour’s current position, I do believe it possible to construct an ‘electability’ argument in favour of Labour supporting Leave. For one, many of our working class supporters, UKIP voting ex-supporters, and Tory swing voters back Brexit. What’s more, polling last year suggested that Labour backing Brexit could in fact tip the balance in favour of a Leave vote, something which could in of itself be portrayed as a personal victory for Corbyn over Cameron and Osbourne. This is certainly an argument that could be made fairly reasonably, although I have doubts as to whether it’s conclusive, seeing as it relies on numerous events transpiring in certain ways, while as always there’s a danger of oversimplifying factors which attract electoral support. But this isn’t to say that this debate shouldn’t happen, just as austerity and/or benefit cuts could be seen as a necessary compromise on the path to election victory, perhaps backing Brexit could be considered as a beneficial policy compromise which could enable us to make gains elsewhere? Even if in isolation leaving the EU would leave the UK worse off.

Such debate about our EU position clearly hasn't happened in recent months, however. Some might respond by stating the argument I've outlined above is so far fetched that it isn't worth discussing, and I might agree that backing Brexit is surrounded by too much uncertainty to make it worth a gamble, even if 'electabilty' were to be prioritised above other considerations. But equally, I don't think this argument adequately explains the sheer extent of unanimity on Europe amongst those who oppose Corbyn on electability grounds. In reality, I think such unanimity resides with a much simplier explanation, which is that ever since Delors’ speech to the TUC in 1989 the Party has been ideologically wedded to the EU as an institution, and this has been reflected in the personal ‘red lines’ drawn by many incumbent MPs on the issue. It's probably fair to say that, quite simply, many Labour MPs evaluate issues surrounding benefits/austerity in a morally different fashion than issues surrounding the EU, with 'red lines' based on personal views seemingly playing a disproportionately greater influence in the latter debate than the former. So bering this in mind, perhaps instead of bandying about accusations of 'protest politics' and 'self-indulgence' on the left, members of the Party across all of its ideological persuasions ought to take a greater appreciation of the fact that drawing red lines always has been, and always will be, an important aspect of determining the content of Labour's moral crusade.

Why I'm voting for Corbyn

Much has been said and written about the potential consequences of a Corbyn victory, most of which hasn't been particularly positive. From talk of Corbynites requiring heart transplants to cries of economic naiveity and inelectability - the debate has been unedifying to say the least. However in the spirit of the Corbyn campaign I won't make this post one long moan. After all I'm not a fan of deontological reasoning, and if I felt that a Corbyn vote would help destroy the party's future, resigning the country to indefinite Conservative rule in the process I certainly wouldn't be voting for him. Nevertheless I don't share this negative view, and partially for cathartic reasons I'll explain why below.

1 - His outlook exemplifies why I joined the Labour Party

As previously alluded to this isn't the be all and end all in politics, but it is definitely a positive. I don't consider my views or the views of Corbyn to be "hard left", he's not arguing to transform Britain into an anarchist commune, most of the policies he's advocating are in my view simple common sense. It probably won't help Corbyn's cause that he is being portrayed as an ideological lunatic by much of the establishment (the Labour establishment's derision is particularly damaging), but it is firmly my view that Corbyn's supposedly "hard left" platform could gain widespread public support if marketed in the right way. This isn't to say that Corbyn could definitely achieve this, I suppose he'll have to prove this if and when he's elected. Sadly at first impressions this might be quite difficult if much of the party continues to adopt a top-down authoritative stance on issues which concern the future direction of the party.  Neverthless, I hope that if Corbyn does win the rest of the party will be mature enough to accept his democratic mandate and wholeheartedly support him. I think there's a lot to be said for Tony Benn's mantra that politicians should "say what they mean and mean what they say", the public want and deserve honesty in politics and I wholeheartedly believe that being honest is the best way that we will achieve a more caring and equal society.

2 - We need to win back some of Scotland before we can win another general election
I've heard many times, and from many sources that we "let down our core support by not being elected". It is certainly the truth that no matter how many faults the Blair governments had they were infinitely better when acting on behalf of vulnerable people than the heartless government we have currently. Having said this I do wonder what the reaction of this deliberately vague mass of working class people would be to being told that their Labour politicians were formulating policy not on principle, but on what they perceived could best win elections on their behalf. My best guess would be that the general response would more closely resemble "you lying politicians are all the same, you're only in it for yourselves" than "thank you ever so much for thinking about my family's needs". Respect for politicians, and for conventional politics has reached a nadir. In this context, and without wishing to oversimplify the argument, I'm not particurly overjoyed with the idea of embracing the same old "if it goes well we can be honest in a few years' time" politics that ushered us towards this point in the first place.

Getting back to the subtitled matter in hand, even without considering what the public expect of their politicians - this is a somewhat flawed vision, if only for the reason that we'll find it very difficult if not impossible to win a majority in parliament without regaining some previously held Scottish seats. It seems quite likely that fears of an SNP coalition contributed towards Labour's 2015 defeat, and there's no indication that I can see that this won't happen again in 2020 unless the SNP can be properly challenged. I'm not trying to imply here that Scottish voters are left wing compared to English voters, and it's true that even if this were the case a Corbyn leadership could still prove to be too little too late in terms of loosening the SNP's grip on Scotland. However I would argue that the SNP and the independence movement more widely managed to utilise the anti-Westminster sentiment prevalent across that whole of the UK far more effectively than the likes of UKIP in England and Wales. Corbyn, who doesn't fit the politician stereotype and who isn't afraid to confront the establishment is in my view best placed to tap into this sentiment. Initial polling (which sadly I can't find the link to) did indeed seem to indicate that Corbyn was disproportionately favoured by UKIP voters and Scottish voters relative to the other leadership candidates. There's a large degree of cynicism about politics in Scotland and more generally across the UK, as such treating the future of the Labour party purely as a debate that can be represented on the left-right spectrum in my view overlooks many of the problems that the party faces, particularly in regards to the decreasing turnout amongst our "core vote". If the way to win in '97 was simply to "move to the right" then I certainly don't think the same applies now.

3 - Individually his policies are quite popular

It feels like the umpteenth time that I've written this, and even the staunchest critics of Corbyn by now are probably well aware that when polled the public consistently support policies such as rail nationalisation, energy nationalisation and higher taxes on the rich and big business. Critics of these sorts of tables quite sensibly point out that if the public were so overwhelming in favour of these ideas Labour, or TUSC for that matter would perpetually be in government. I agree with Corbyn's critics that perceptions of competence matter, and I will go on to discuss this in more detail along with the implications of Cruddas' recent polling in the next section. However as for integrating these specific policies into a wider perception of the party, it seems to me a stretch too far to say that these policies make our image too publicly toxic. It may be true that voters are turned off by parties that they view as overly ideological, but refusing to try and mix highly popular policies into a broader economic perception as far as I can see is nothing more than throwing the baby out with the bathwater. If someone who wants nationalised railways refuses to vote for Labour because they think that we will cause another recession through over-borrowing, this is because we haven't done a good job at constructing our more general economic arguments, not because nationalising rail is some form of electoral kryptonite.

4 - He's meaningfully addressing Labour's perceived economic incompetence

After having emphasised the importance of economic perception you may well be wondering why I'm supporting a candidate who has been persistently portrayed as insane by most of the mainstream media. The right wing press would almost certainly ramp up their efforts against a Corbyn led Labour party, even relative to their nasty smear campaign against Miliband. This would certainly be a hindrance to Labour's efforts going into 2020, perhaps terminally so if it were to be mixed with high levels of internal briefing and leaking from certain figures within the PLP. I don't however believe that the right wing press on their own can win an election, their readership is relatively small compared to the size of the overall electorate and even regular readers most likely take their judgements with a pinch of salt. The likes of the BBC on the otherhand do hold a large degree of influence when it comes to elections. I don't at all believe for one minute that the BBC ever tries to be biased in its news coverage, particularly with the hawkish gaze of the Murdoch press analyzing its every move. However I do agree with what Robert Peston (who I think it's fair to say isn't a lefty) has previously said about the BBC's preoccupation with re-reporting stories from the Mail and the Telegraph, which I would assume is a result of the BBC repeatedly being accused by certain sections of the media of lacking credibility.

In my view Labour is disproportionately inhibited by this tendency - as particularly in relation to the economy the nexus of mainstream news reporting often centres around preferred right wing narratives such as "cutting the nation's credit card bill", rather than focusing on academic macroeconomic arguments. A prime example of this would be the "Top 100 business leaders" letter featured in the Telegraph before the recent election. This story remained BBC news online's number one story for two days. Three days earlier the Centre for Macroeconomics released a survey of academic macroeconomists in which the majority of respondents supported the claim that the coalition government had damaged the economy, this story only made a brief non-headline appearance on the BBC, tucked away in Robert Peston's blog. In my view neither story should have constituted "news", the 100 business leaders letter was blatantly cherrypicked by the Telegraph and Conservative HQ whilst the CFM survey was of a small sample size and as such wasmnot particularly reliable, even if as an aside it did provide enough evidence to show that not all economists believe in "cutting the nation's credit card". Yet despite both pieces of conflicting evidence lacking any true veracity, only one was given a mainstream platform. I should at this point clarify that I didn't just mention this example in order to rant about perceived injustice within news coverage, and in a stereotypically left wing fashion. I did so because no matter how tentatively the BBC reports issues such as these it will always provide space for a counter-narrative, which then plays a part in shaping future coverage. It should have been the Labour party spearheadng the anti-austerian message on mainstream news for the last 5 years, saying regularly how the coalition cost every person in the country an equivalent of at least £1500 a year. We shouldn't have let ourselves be so easily caricatured as the party of the bottom 10% against the top 90%, or indeed as a party that didn't understand economic reality. Cruddas' polling in my view was enticing a certain response by using phrases such as "living within our means" in its questioning, however there is certainly a lot of truth in the argument that the public support cuts. But this is why it's such a great shame that we failed so horribly in arguing that the cuts were damaging to everyone in society, and more importantly that they weren't necessary. Our chosen path prior to 2015 was a mixture of staying silent and using our public platforms to send mixed messages about the effects and desirability of cuts, in the end this probably served no purpose other than to contrbute towards our own negative image. I've been glad to see many of the leadership candidates take on the myth that Labour caused the 2008-09 recession, however only Corbyn is making the positive message about the economy that we should have been making since 2010. Don't get me wrong, I'd like to hear Corbyn say more that the cuts directly damaged the wages of the middle class through lowering GDP, and that these people haven't just indirectly suffered through damage to health and welfare protection that they may one day require. But aside from this I think Corbyn's orchestrated his message very well, Labour should be maximising its public exposure to make strong moral and economic arguments against the Conservatives' deliberately oversimplified ideology, and at the minute Corbyn is the only candidate who I'm convinced is up to this task.

5 - The economy isn't in a healthy place, it needs reforming

As well as having the right approach when it comes to perception, Corbyn is also appreciating the full scale of change that the economy currently requires, this will probably necessitate a wider attitude change and as such won't be achieved in one term, but progress needs to start somwehere. I might struggle to write this paragraph without sounding depressingly pessimistic, but to be clear I'm not making a prediction that the economy will crash before the 2020 election, or at any point for that matter. I don't want to take my arguments about the need for reform too far. However on the other hand - despite all the talk from across the political spectrum of recovering growth, the economy is still in a fairly parlous state. There are fears amongst some that confidence is still too low in the financial system, which may in turn cause the present small bubble of growth, up until now financed by the inflation of asset prices - to burst in the not too distant future. Others are particularly worried about Britain's current account deficit, which could be the potential source of a future crash if the foreign investors subsidising this deficit through their contributions to the UK's capital account see this as a problem and as such refuse to continue their investments. This problem is somewhat representative of Britain's over-reliance on the finance sector, which seems to have only become apparent to many after the '08 crash. You don't have to be Minksy to see that it may not be sustainable or desirable for the UK to continue pursuing the 1980s dream that a large share of GDP and tax revenue should be based upon the financial sector. It may be an issue that doesn't fit into electoral cycles particularly well, but it's my view that the public sector should play a large part in this rebalancing through infrastructure spending and a comprehensive industrial strategy, only Corbyn is prepared to do this. So when people argue that "any Labour government is better than the current Tory government" it's worth wondering (on top of everything else I've said about this argument) whether or not they're taking for granted that another crisis such as the recent recession can't happen again, even if another crash before 2020 is unlikely I think it goes without saying that the economy needs change far beyond what much of the Labour establishment is willing to consider. It's also worth noting that while policies such as benefit sanctions are cruel and un-necessary even in today's economic conditions (the fact that Corbyn's the only candidate to unequivocally support the abolition of sanctions is one of the main reasons I'm supporting him), the fact of the matter remains that every British man, woman and child could currently be better off by £4000 a year each if the recession had not happened in the first place. I'm no fan of the Tories and I'm sure that no matter what the economic context is there will always be those who the party refuses to represent, but overall the vulnerable individuals Labour seeks to stand up for would have probably been on average better off under a 2015 Tory government had the crash not happened than a post-crash 2015 Labour government.

In dealing with crises Labour also needs to consider new methods of kickstarting growth without resorting to "deficit fetishism". The one unconvential expansionary policy which occured during the last recession was QE, and while it did help the government to borrow easier at lower interest rates it also had its flaws. QE seems to have failed in reinvigorating bank lending and economic growth in the fashion that was originally hoped. The Bank of England has injected £375bn of newly created money into the economy (equivalent to 20% of GDP), but the Bank itself predicts that these measures only boosted the economy by 3% of GDP, with evidence also suggesting that 40% of this £375bn ended up directly in the hands of the richest 5% of the population, mainly due to the fact that much of this new money manifested itself in the form of rising asset prices predominantly owned by the well off. QE may well have still been on balance a worthwhile policy for allowing the government to issue debt easier, but in my view it should in future be joined by other more equitable policies. Corbyn advocates a form of helicopter money in the event of a future crash, which in my view is a more effective and more equal form of economic stimulus than QE on its own. The only downside of this stimulus relative to regular QE is a risk of higher inflation - which unlike in regular QE can't be undone purely by selling the bonds used to create the new money. But it should be considered that in all likelihood any resultant inflation could be relatively easily offset by the BoE raising interest rates or through the government raising taxes/ issuing more debt. Although in my view this policy should manifest itself in a slightly different form than the one Corbyn suggests, it's good that he's at least talking about innovative economic policies that could help alleviate suffering in the event of another crisis, even if by his own admission they're sketchbook policies at this moment in time. Arguably even more importantly Corbyn favours a slower pace of deficit reduction than the plan Labour supported in 2015, this probably won't be particularly relevant come 2020 unless there's another recession, but if another recession does occur Labour shouldn't accept the same policies enacted by Osbourne, which as previously mentioned cost everyone in the country at least £1500 per year. On top of all of these previous issues Corbyn is tackling the issue of low productivity head on in the form of investment, workers' rights and a National Education Service. Increasing productivity is the only way to consistently raise the stagnating wages of the British workforce, and quite honestly I'm surprised that these sorts of positive supply-side ideas haven't been adopted by the centrist wing of the party, but as things stand when it comes to sustainable pro-growth policies Corbyn is the only candidate I could say I have confidence in.

So in conclusion while there's been a lot of hysteria surrounding the possibility of a Corbyn victory I would urge you to have strength in your convictions and your ideas, the future of the party is far more complicated than simplified analogies about how to beat the Tories. Of course a Corbyn vote is a bit of a risk, if for no other reason than the fact that it's a step into the unkown. However we have five years until the general election, and with Corbyn striving to make sure that the position of leader becomes more accountable to the party membership the risks involved may well be fairly minimal. On top of this, while poll data should always of course be treated with scepticism and is never definitive, but polling recently released indicates that Corbyn could be even more popular amongst the general public at this stage of the electoral cycle than even his most optimistic supporters could have imagined. Labour is a party that can't afford to stand still, this isn't a case of idealism versus pragmatism but instead a choice about how we will in the future rectify the failings of our previous leaderships and go on to provide a clear and beneficial alternative for everyone in society.

Corbyn's "economic illiteracy"

Recently Chuka Umunna made an appearance on Channel 4 news in which he revealed that he would refuse to serve in a Corbyn led shadow cabinet as a result of Corbyn's "economic illiteracy" when it comes to the deficit. Now before I go into why I don't think that Corbyn's plans are illiterate in any sense, I should first stress that I do agree with one of Umunna's much repeated statements, which is that there is "nothing progressive about paying out huge sums to the city in the form of debt interest repayments". Sadly however I suspect that this is as far as my accordance with his view on the matter extends.

Umunna of late has been keen to stress his distaste towards Osbourne's "austerity fetish" as he terms it, but on the other hand has also been in favour of Osbourne's rhetoric around "balancing the books" and "living within our means", even expressing sympathy towards Osbourne's entirely political policy of forcing the state to run a surplus in "ordinary times" - whatever this means. From this I take it that Umunnas's ideal deficit reduction plan lies somewhere in between Labour's plan before the recent election and Osbourne's projected one parliament surplus plan. Umunna certainly has a right to favour a certain pace of deficit reduction, however I think it's somewhat absurd to represent a slower reduction plan, even a dramatically slower plan as "economically illiterate", doing so without providing any proper analysis beyond platitudes is merely indulging in tabloid economics.

Umunna is keen to emphasise the desirability of surplus, however one of the main arguments behind the idea of a slower deficit reduction (which I will come onto) is that for a growing economy even a relatively large deficit can see debt as a percentage of GDP fall. All the talk of "living within our means" ignores the fact that with growth at 3% and debt at 80% of GDP, an annual deficit of under 2.4% would see the debt ratio fall. Conversely, a slightly larger deficit wouldn't see debt rising to a dangerous level. This is also why I disagree with Umunna about how it was irresponsible for Labour pre-2008 not to run a surplus, the consensus at the time was that the economy was in good health and that therefore a small deficit was sustainable. This turned out to be hideously wrong due to the financial crisis, however on the issue of regulation, which is ultimately what's required in order to prevent a similar recession in the future, all of the leadership candidates bar "economically illiterate" Corbyn are disappointingly quiet.

As previously alluded to, in my view there is much to be said for pursuing a slower pace of deficit reduction. Britain is not in the same boat as Greece, the current debt/GDP ratio of 80% is most likely too high to be sustainable, but there's also no indication that it poses any immediate danger to the economy, nor to the government's ability to borrow at reasonable interest rates. There has even been an IMF paper released suggesting that developed economies which possess independent central banks, such as the UK - aren't in any need to pursue further savings in any form. I disagree with this conclusion as I believe that a slow reduction in debt is desirable in the pursuit of long term sustainability, however I included this paper purely because it is far beyond what Corbyn's proposing, yet I rarely see the establishment calling the IMF "economically illiterate" for floating such ideas.

New Keynesians would in the short term go even further into the realms of "economic illiteracy" by arguing that because interest rates can't be lowered further than their current level, something that is desirable in order to offset some of the economic damage caused by cuts, the government's prime aim at this point in time should be to expand government spending - irrespective of the deficit in an effort to boost the economy. Thus, when the economy has reached a higher degree of stability savings can then be made, although at a much slower pace than what Osbourne follows. Crucially at this point interest rates could then be reduced to counteract the damaging economic effects of cuts, helping to avoid a lot of the hardship currently being inflicted upon ordinary people.

Nevertheless, this Leadership should really be seen as a debate about economic policy come 2020, sadly it looks as though Osbourne's economic masochism will make the debate in this last paragraph merely academic. The economy, despite suffering a lot of damage will probably limp upwards towards mediocre rates of growth, albeit at the expense of a lot of unfulfilled capacity that will never be reclaimed. Interest rates will also have risen, making large, short term debt sustained investment too expensive. The main debate about the deficit will be the pace at which it is gradually reduced, and how the debt/GDP ratio will be prioritised relative to other areas of economic policy. Certain IMF economists mightn't value debt reduction, however Corbyn and other economists have, sensibly in my view appreciated that debt should be gradually reduced, although at a slower rate and therefore with less hardship than what's being suggested by the Tories, and for that matter also what Labour proposed prior to the 2015 election.

Bearing this in mind, although Iain Dale may have accused Corbyn of wanting a permanent deficit in the LBC debate, this shouldn't be seen as anything more than lazy, evidence free journalism. So now that we've cleared up why not talking about "pragmatism" doesn't necessarily make you economically illiterate we can properly talk about the fact that there's also a government income side to this equation. The current overall budget deficit including government investment is roughly £90 billion, Corbyn has rightly pointed out that estimates of the UK's lost income through tax avoidance/evasion range between £30-£120 billion per year. Even an eternal optimist wouldn't expect for all of this to be recovered, however currently there isn't really a concerted effort within government to crack down on this lost income, a proper effort to do so could do a lot to shift the burden of any deficit reductions from the most vulnerable to those who really should be paying these large sums of money anyway. Although - as a side note the effects of Osbourne's strategy have by no means been limited to the poor, there's good reason to believe that the amount wiped off of GDP is equivalent to between £1500 and £4000 per person per year, this information might be useful to those saying that it's impossible to convince the middle classes from "the left". Corbyn is also right to talk about the prospect of tax rises, it's clear that taxes in the minds of many across all parties have gained the status of electoral kryptonite. However with inequality rising and many of the most vulnerable suffering I think that there couldn't be a better time to make a proper coherent case for a more progressive tax regime that is fully capable of funding necessary public services whilst building a more cohesive society, particularly if made clear that in reality this would only affect a minority of earners and businesses, notably large businesses with high degrees of market power.

Finally, as we're talking about economic incompetence, we shouldn't really be talking about the issue of deficits without mentioning the UK's worryingly high current account deficit. Even Peter Mandelson, hardly a standardbearer of the left's economic arguments views this as a problem that needs to be addressed through a proper industrial strategy, one which requires a degree of indicative planning. Yet despite the attention that this issue blatantly deserves, Corbyn once again seems to be the only leadership candidate prepared to address it. So much for economic incompetence.