Mugged Off
Jeremy Corbyn’s halo has started to slip a little after the election. The fact that he is a Eurosceptic has always been the one issue alienates him from much of his core support, but it was always a small issue that could be ignored because everyone agreed that more cash for the NHS and ending tuition fees was a cause everyone could get behind. Also, people did understand that Corbyn’s opposition to the EU was for different reasons than Nigel Farage’s opposition to the EU. Since arguments about the EU on both sides are more about identity and values than actual legislative measures, liberals were prepared to vote for a man who got arrested in the 80s fighting Apartheid even if he was going to end passporting for UK banks.
However, due to the fact Brexit is now an actual thing, not just an ominous cloud on the horizon, those fissures are beginning to grow. But what has really tarnished Corbyn in the eyes of those who once believed is his comments regarding immigration on the Andrew Marr show. Discussing free movement of people Corbyn explained that it would end, that there still would be two way immigration between Britain and Europe, but that: “What we wouldn’t allow is this practice by agencies, who are quite disgraceful they way they do it — recruit a workforce, low paid — and bring them here in order to dismiss an existing workforce in the construction industry, then pay them low wages. It’s appalling. And the only people who benefit are the companies.”
While many people were prepared to overlook the Labour leadership’s stance on the EU for as long as they saw Corbyn as protecting their values they will feel differently if he begins to use the language of Farage.
Of course, what Corbyn will claim he was referring to was the Posted Workers Directive that allows agencies to hire people based on the labour laws of their home states, not the ones that they are working in. This is a very specific rule which is only applicable in certain circumstances — though, obviously, big business is trying to take a crowbar to the current opening — it allows for the gross exploitation of immigrants and any socialist should oppose it. Yet when you use the sort of lose language he used you open yourself up to a number of substantiall darker interprestations. There are two responses to this: one is to accept Corbyn’s forthcoming clarification, and urge him to be more careful with his language next time; the other is to question whether he was, in fact, fully aware of how his language would come across, and also fully aware that his supporters would buy a later clarification.
There was a consensus around Corbyn when he took over the Labour that he represented a naif-like figure, either too stupid for the world of politics, or too pure. In reality, he has been in politics for almost four decades now, an MP since 1983, and leader of a party that tore up the rulebook and denied Theresa May a parliamentary majority that the British press were insistent she deserved. I can’t believe Corbyn wasn’t cognisant of how his words would play, and who they were designed to play to.
There’s an argument that says this is fine. That university towns and diverse inner cities are now solidly Labour, and that Corbyn needs to sure up and expand into smaller, whiter Northern towns. I do understand how difficult Corbyn’s job is — of holding together a coalition of voters with wildly different views on immigration. It’s telling that as Labour leader Blair would have used this kind of language, in the hopes of maintaining Labour’s support in places like Morley, and Corbyn, whose role was merely to represent his constituency of Islington North, would have condemned him. Now Corbyn is Labour leader, and needs to broaden Labour’s appeal if he wishes to put his radical program into action, while Blair is freed from the shackles of electability, pressuring Corbyn into taking a line on the EU referendum that he himself never would have as party leader.
Understanding Corbyn’s predicament should not obscure how high stakes this argument has become: one of Corbyn’s own MPs was murdered by a far-right activist during the EU referendum while hate crimes in general spiked. I also question how much ground there is for Labour in using language around immigration which confirms people’s worst prejudices: if you are told immigration is a problem you will vote for the party that can best fix it, and the Tories are always going to win that argument.
Corbyn was elected, in part, in response to a “Controls on Immigration” mug, he should be careful he doesn’t turn into one.
(Sadly my new job has decided not to give me any hours this week, so I’m gonna be a massive mark and pop my ko.fi account up if any of you particularly like this/anything I do. https://ko-fi.com/nyebev.)