The Corbynite wing of the Labour party is becoming more comfortable with shrugging off unhelpful ideological baggage in the pursuit of success, finds Conor Pope
You can often learn more about a politician from a friendly interview than a hostile one. They are more likely to put their guard down and, given an open platform to extrapolate on sensitive topics, are more willing to reveal more about their thinking.
That is why it is worth watching Jeremy Corbyn’s interview with the revered anti-capitalist author, Naomi Klein. Klein is certainly no tough interrogator, lobbing questions about the Labour leader’s ‘progressive, hopeful ideas’ for him to deal with. That is no bad thing, as it allows Corbyn an open field in which to lay out his arguments.
There are some telling moments. At one point, Corbyn claims that 2017 general election saw ‘the highest Labour vote in England for many, many decades’. In fact, Labour’s voteshare was lower than in 1997 and only a fraction higher than in 2001. At another, Klein points out that, unlike Corbyn and Labour, Bernie Sanders supporters were not successful at taking control of the Democratic party last year, and asks whether they should carry on fighting for the ‘soul of that party’. Corbyn’s reply is startling: ‘Well, it’s the soul of the people, isn’t it?’
Largely, he deals in the nonspecific, and works in the vague. He is ‘trying to create’ a society where people ‘do things collectively’, and while he is disappointed Labour did not win the election, he encourage that ‘we changed the debate’.
However, it is one of Klein’s remarks that particularly struck me.
During the interview, Klein marks the election of Margaret Thatcher as the beginning of a ‘so-called consensus’ in politics and economics, that is now ‘crumbling’. Yet for the Bennite left, the period – the start of what they might term ‘neoliberalism’ – began earlier, on 15 December 1976, when Labour chancellor Denis Healey announced to parliament the acceptance of the International Monetary Fund’s terms for a loan. The move, in fact, appalled rightwingers: The Sun called it ‘Britain’s shame’ on its front page splash the next day, Margaret Thatcher was indignant at the country being dictated by foreign power, and George Osborne referenced the incident in speeches 30 years later to justify the need to quickly cut the deficit through public spending cuts. The mini-budget Healey was forced to deliver under IMF conditions included big spending cuts; the hard-left viewed this as a betrayal that allowed Thatcherism to happen, and signalled the beginning of Britain’s participation in the economic ‘neoliberal’ globalisation consensus.
But this is no longer a useful analysis for the Labour left. Rather than stick to the long history of supposed ‘betrayals’ and ‘sell-outs’ in the party, it is now better to portray the last Labour government as uniquely traitorous to true Labour values, and totally out of step with any of the party’s traditions. This is something New Labour itself created, or at least inadvertently allowed to flourish. It is something I have noted before – as has Peter Mandelson, who wrote in the April issue of Progress magazine: ‘We were so determined to present the party as New Labour that we went too far in distancing ourselves from Labour’s past. Our origins, history and roots in previous Labour governments were more important than we realised at the time.’
That narrative is not new; that the party left assert it with such accord is of interest, however. It is not just Klein who asserts that 1979 was a ‘year zero’ moment for what she describes as ‘the war on the collective, on the idea that we can do good things when we get together’; it is now an integral element of the Corbynite analysis. Labour’s left flank has historically been chided for its attachment to ideology without compromise. But it now ignores what was once such an important touchstone for them.
It is convenient now to point to the 1979 general election as the moment of rupture for a number of reasons apart from viewing the history of the Labour party.
It is a much more widely recognisable juncture than 1976, and raises up the spectre of Thatcherism, which still carries plenty of weight, even outside of specifically political circles. It also ties the hard-left to a fashion of anti-globalisation that dominates the longstanding Euroscepticism it now seeks to downplay.
The 1976 to 1979 narrative shift is obviously quite small in the grand scheme of things, and is not the most important aspect even of this interview. But it is indicative of something broader going on. What we are seeing is a Labour left that has become much more at ease with shedding its baggage in order to better control its message. Doing that shows a political project that understands its coalition of support quite well, and will transfigure according to what suits best. This does not mean it is any less dogmatic at its core, but that it is willing to be more flexible about how that ideology is portrayed. Through this, it can appeal to those who would not consider themselves socialists, those for whom membership of the European Union is deeply important, and even resist the inevitable fractures that come along with any large coalition of the radical left. It is an indication of intellectual confidence and political intelligence.
If you are looking for an integral key to the recent successes of the hard-left, look no further.
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Conor Pope is deputy editor of Progress. He tweets at @Conorpope
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