Jeremy Corbyn: A Response to Tristram Hunt

Labour MP Tristram Hunt has written an article in The Observer, calling for the replacement of Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader. Here is his article, annotated with my response.

On Friday morning, I watched my son’s school play. It was a joyously chaotic mix of mythology, mathematics and a walk-on part by “astronaut Tim Peake”. But all I could feel was sadness — about how this Year 3 was not going to grow up enjoying the possibilities my generation has enjoyed as part of the European Union. They face a Europe of work permits and suspicion, cultural disconnect and denied opportunities.

And then I thought of the conversation I had with a teacher in Stoke-on-Trent, planning to vote Leave. She was a Labour supporter who had given her career to educating some of the least advantaged. But she was upset at how growing levels of immigration had put pressures on school budgets and led to fewer resources for children. She thought the poorest in society were being adversely affected by our membership of the EU and she wanted out.

I hope you explained to her that it is not immigration that puts pressure on school budgets, it is Tory Government cuts. And for those who say it is both, no. Immigration increases the size of our economy, and so, all things being equal, increases the resources available for spending on education and other services. In fact, the figures show that EU migrants (ie the only migrants at issue in the referendum) contribute more than they receive, so EU migration should increase the resources available, even after taking account of corresponding population increase. “Controls on Immigration”, as we are about to find out, will make us all poorer, and under a Tory government, the pain will disproportionally be felt in poorer communities.

I also hope that you apologised for the message put out by pre-Corbyn Labour, that austerity and cuts were necessary, which only reinforced the Tory idea of “there is no alternative” and left people vulnerable to being taken in by false narratives like blaming immigration and immigrants, welfare “scroungers” and the rest. Labour was complicit in the oldest Tory strategy in the book — divide and rule.

There are no easy answers to this referendum result — and many of the 52% who voted Leave had fair cause. The citizens of Sunderland, Lincolnshire and Wrexham have felt the sharp end of globalisation without adequate compensation for too long.

Since 2003, their wages have slipped, towns changed, industry departed. And they did not think the Labour party had shown nearly enough appreciation for their loss. In the brutal judgment of Nigel Farage: “The election (sic) was won in the Midlands and the north and it was the old Labour vote that came to us.”

Indeed. Again, we need to apologise for New Labour’s fantasy that such problems could be suppressed for ever through tax credits paid for by an unsustainable financialised boom, and easy credit and a housing boom based on the same thing. “The end of boom and bust” wasn’t just the political boast it was taken for at the time; it was a fundamental misunderstanding of economics, which led to New Labour becoming entranced by the possibilities of financial rent-seeking and completely ignoring the need to develop a high-tech economy based on real wealth creation (i.e. production of actually useful things), which would have provided a sustainable basis for the regeneration of our (sadly now ex) industrial heartlands.

Edward Heath, in criticism of Thatcher’s economic strategy, which sadly New Labour continued, once said that it was all very well building an economy on taking in each other’s washing, but sooner or later we would need some new clothes. I should add that the problem he identified is even greater when you finance the taking in of each other’s washing with credit based on unsustainable asset price bubbles.

By contrast, the cosmopolitan, more highly skilled, Labour-voting Remain residents of Brighton, Bristol and London — and those, let’s not forget, of Liverpool and Manchester — are now furious at Britain cutting itself off from the continent; rightly, they do not think the leadership campaigned with any of the urgency required to save our place in Europe. Across age, class, geography and educational background, this referendum has cut to the core of the party and, in the greatest act of national self-harm since Suez, the leadership has been found wanting. So as we face the prospect of a Tory-driven Brexit and another general election, our experiment with Corbynism has to end. If Labour members care about Labour voters, we need to do something about the Labour leader.

Please, Mr Hunt, do not take us for fools. The official “Better In” campaign concentrated solely on the economic risks of Brexit to national prosperity — the same prosperity which as you have already said, has bypassed the old industrial heartlands. Working class people in those areas laughed in the face of this message, and were right to do so. Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell had a different message. Their starting point was to accept the problems faced by working class communities, to admit the role of globalisation and the single market in intensifying some of these problems, and to offer solutions based on government action (including ending austerity) and stronger trade unions. As Corbyn said in February: “Labour will be running a positive campaign for the real change we need: to unite opposition to austerity and build a Europe of sustainable growth, jobs and social justice. That can only be achieved by working with allies who share our aims across the continent.”

Unfortunately (though inevitably) this message was completely drowned out by the media’s obsession with the “Boris versus Dave” psychodrama as well as their inability to engage with an argument which went beyond the neoliberal “truisms” of the past 35 years. But it was the only message which would have stood a chance of gaining traction in areas where globalisation (and by association, the EU) has demonstrably failed to improve people’s lives. There were many major events during the campaign, especially those organised by “Another Europe is Possible” but it took me hours some nights to find shaky mobile phone footage on Youtube of these events, even though I knew they had taken place. The mass media completely ignored them.

Then, to add insult to injury, we get Peter Mandelson and Tony Blair complaining over the last couple of days that Corbyn’s message was confusing because it didn’t fit with that of the official Better In campaign. So Jeremy Corbyn is simultaneously accused of not campaigning for In and of campaigning in the wrong way!

Our communities are going to be hit first and worst from the coming EU retreat and we need a leader with the strategic insight and tactical nous to ensure Labour values are protected in the Tory renegotiation. Just as the late John Smith ripped the Tories apart over the Maastricht treaty, Labour has to take a scalpel to the Brexit imbroglio of lies over immigration, NHS funding and the single market.

Jeremy is not that leader. The shadow cabinet needs to act or MPs will. As one of the many angry emails I have received from a Labour member puts it: “The economic repercussions of leaving the EU will lead to many more years of austerity and job losses, the very thing the Labour party should have been resisting… Effective Labour leadership would surely have swayed public opinion by the few percent required. I do not think Corbyn is a bad person, but he has proved utterly ineffectual.”

I wonder how your correspondent knows that Labour didn’t sway public opinion by more than a few percentage points? Perhaps it would have been even worse without at least a section of the In campaign articulating the reality of blighted working class communities, accepting that not everything in the EU garden was rosy? In any case, I wish you would be honest. Your objections to Corbyn have nothing to do with “strategic insight or tactical nous”. Your objections are political. Political debate in the Party is something which should take place, but by your a priori call for Corbyn’s dismissal you show you are not interested in debate.

This catastrophe is not all of his making. The referendum exposed with terrifying clarity tensions within the Labour movement that have built up over the last decade. First of all, the growing divide between England and Scotland, which hurt Labour as the only credible unionist party. The aftermath of the 2014 Scottish referendum and then general election saw Labour punished as “red Tories” for lacking a credible enough patriotic case north of the Tweed. Thursday’s poll exacerbated the divide as Scotland voted in, England out and left Labour in the middle.

You mean, of course, the aftermath of 30 or more years of neoliberal de-industrialisation and cuts, supported, or at least not reversed, by New Labour. Fortunately for Scotland, the SNP provided an alternative pole of attraction on the generally progressive side of politics. Opportunists they may be, but they are infinitely preferable to UKIP’s racist populism.

But a strong sense of Englishness was equally at play in this campaign. This has been coming for years, as more and more people identify themselves as English rather than British and place greater stress on their cultural identity. These socially conservative, working-class voters feel the Labour party’s cosmopolitan, liberal ethos is not for them and used this referendum to underline their frustration. The rejection of the EU in Labour heartlands was the latest indication of a growing values divide between membership and voters. In the self-reinforcing Labour Twitter-sphere, the case for Europe was obvious; on the tight-knit terraces and postwar housing estates, it was never a “slam dunk”.

The “Labour Twitter-sphere” was more divided that you think. There was rigorous debate between “In” supporters and “Lexit” (Left Exit) supporters. More importantly, I wonder what you are proposing that we should do about our “cosmopolitan, liberal ethos”? Play down our commitments to equality regardless of race, gender, sexual preference? Or is this just another attempt on your part to raise the question of immigrants? In any case, you do working class people a disservice — the vast majority are not racist, sexist, homophobic, anti-immigrant, etc. Labour needs to offer an alternative to the pretend “anti-establishment” narrative of UKIP. We need to build unity between the economically depressed ex-industrial areas and the “liberal” precariat of the big cities. To do that we must oppose the common enemy, which is unrestrained financialised capitalism, not look for the lowest common denominator.

For many traditional Labour sympathisers, what brought together the economic discontent, cultural anxiety and party disconnect was immigration. It was the touchstone for a broader series of changes in the labour market and income distribution — agency work, zero-hours contracts, manufacturing decline — which have undermined employment and pay.

In the words of the Unite general secretary, Len McCluskey, “In the past 10 years, there has been a gigantic experiment at the expense of ordinary workers… The result has been sustained pressure on living standards and a systematic attempt to hold down wages and cut the costs of social provision for working people.” The unequal effects of globalisation and “social dumping” in post-industrial communities topped the ballot last Thursday.

Unfortunately, Corbyn’s answer to this anger was, first of all, to frame the question of immigration within a lineage of anti-fascist struggle stretching back to Cable Street. Then to muse on how there could be no upper limit on inward migration and, after all, he had no problem if there were more Spanish or French nurses than British ones. That might be the consensus in north London, but in the north of England, Labour voters take a different view. As his own policy adviser, Paul Mason, rightly puts it: “Labour movement activists have to stop dodging working-class objections to low-wage inward migration or assuming it can all be resolved by an appeal to anti-racism.”

You really do need to look at what Corbyn and McDonnell have been saying. They have been raising precisely the economic issues that you mention, much more so than those in the Party who are more nervous of being painted as “anti-business” by the right wing press. They have also quite rightly stood in solidarity with immigrants who find themselves the victims of xenophobia and racism. Is that wrong?

As far as Corbyn saying there was no upper limit on inward migration is concerned, he was answering a question in the context of the EU Single Market. It is a fact — the single market includes free movement of people. He was simply stating that fact. Would you prefer that he tie himself in knots, like some Labour and Tory MPs, who try to pretend that this is not the case, in effect telling lies? But he didn’t leave it there — he explained how greater regulation and trade union action could mitigate the effects while remaining in the single market.

Paul Mason is not Corbyn’s policy adviser, as a moment’s research would have confirmed. However, Corbyn has already agreed with the point Mason makes, as I hope I have made clear above.

But Corbyn’s real crime during the campaign was a failure to insert Labour values about workers’ rights and European solidarity into the debate. His absence of leadership gave space to Project Fear and a narrow, econometric case for Europe that failed to stir Labour voters.

Truth be told, he was never that interested in keeping Britain in Europe and the public clocked it: on the streets of Stoke-on-Trent, Labour voters kept on asking just what the party’s position was. As we now face the prospect of a Boris Johnson-led scuttle, bankrolled by Tory donors desperate to dismantle labour protection and offshore industry, we cannot have those Labour values missing in action again.

I don’t know what to say. Please read this article: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/feb/20/jeremy-corbyn-comment-britain-eu-reform . The arguments within were repeated and elaborated upon throughout the referendum campaign by Corbyn and McDonnell. I do doubt the sincerity of your argument, at this point.

Yet my real anger is at the hideous cynicism of Boris Johnson, Daniel Hannan and Vote Leave.

“Take Control” as a slogan is appealing for those who don’t have much of it. It speaks to a nostalgic idea of a time, pre-1975, when governments by and large did have control over the forces that shaped their citizens’ lives. That is simply not the world we live in anymore and mainstream politicians, who know this, implicitly collude in it by playing up to a fantasy notion of themselves as politicians: “Vote for me and I will make it all better.”

Of course, it is Corbyn, above all others, who argues that it’s not about the leader or politicians, but about the movement, acting together. This was the cornerstone of his leadership campaign — building a movement. And what was New Labour if it wasn’t “leave it to us, and shut up”?

I don’t think a smaller, poorer England is going to make things better for the prospects of my son’s Year 3 or the struggling teacher in Stoke. In fact, we are now more at risk from the whims of global capital and multinational corporations than we were last week.

So my belief that we need a new leader is not rooted in Westminster but on the streets of Stoke-on-Trent. This is the deepest peacetime crisis in our country for decades and our party cannot afford to continue with self-indulgence.

We need a leader who can hold Boris Johnson to account, stand up for Labour voters and be ready to walk through the door of Downing Street in as little as a year’s time.

The British people have been sold a pup and now we need the Labour lion to roar.

Nice rhetorical flourish to end your article, Comrade Hunt, so why not end your own self-indulgence and devote your considerable energies and talents to attacking the Tories? After all, if there are deficiencies in the Party leadership, political, tactical or otherwise, they will become apparent in the struggle, and if you sincerely play a full part in that, you may well find people start listening to you.