
The Corbyn platform is falling apart
As Labour figures backtrack and scramble for a position on student debt, the leadership begins to tear up its platform.
When Labour launched its manifesto for the General Election, it did so after weeks of leaks. Whether these leaks were ultimately good or bad for the Party is a matter of some contention: The Party managed to grab the spotlight on some of its policies a week before it launched them, and ended up with a week-long launch of its manifesto, while the Conservative Party remained elusive over its own pledges. The launch itself was bold. The title, For the Many, Not the Few, drew attention and summed up Labour’s campaign aims. It rang back to Corbyn’s first leadership contest, when he turned up to vote against the Government’s Welfare Bill, while Yvette Cooper, Andy Burnham and Liz Kendall all followed the Labour whip and abstained.
That was what, ultimately, led to Corbyn’s victory and continued leadership of the Labour Party. The message that he was different, bold, and unapologetically committed to his left wing, progressive principles rang home across the Labour membership and then, supposedly, into the general electorate, giving Labour its highest share of the vote since 2001. Now, we face another summer recess. Corbyn has been leader for two years, and this is the first time he will go into the summer and not face a leadership election. The all-round good results for the Corbyn’s Party in last month’s General Election leaves him more secure than he has ever been as Party leader, with his group on the hard left able to ensure his policy platform and ideas for the future of the Labour Party are implemented.
The issue for Corbyn, is that whereas he now has the authority and the political capital to install his platform and agenda, he seems to be shaking away from it. The manifesto came under serious criticism from the soft left of the Party, with the accusation that it was simply ‘reheated Milibandism’, offering to be a little bit more radical on tuition fees and rail nationalisation, but ultimately offering the same set of policies to voters in a package that was deemed economically illiterate and unsafe. Meanwhile, having laid the platform out properly in early May, it seemed to move away from some of the aspects of Corbyn’s leadership bid.
The Welfare Cuts, by and large, would remain had Labour won the election. That’s despite Jeremy Corbyn being the principled man of the left standing with the poorest in society — and his Shadow Chancellor, John McDonnell, proclaiming in 2015 that he would “swim through sick” to vote against that round of Welfare cuts. Instead, Labour offered a rail fares freeze and subsequent price cuts, abolishment of university tuition fees that would overwhelmingly favour and help middle class students, and allowing councils to nationalise bus services without any action on fares or improvement of those services in rural or suburban areas outside of London — a move that would overwhelmingly help “ordinary working people”.
Even the pledges Corbyn’s manifesto made in eventuality, however, the leadership has since rowed back on multiple. On student debt, while Corbyn promised that he would seek to “deal with” some debt of those students paying £9000 per year during the election campaign, John McDonnell appeared on the Andrew Marr show to inform everyone that was just “an ambition”. Shadow Education Secretary Angela Raynor later clarified that it was not Labour policy to attempt to eliminate any student debt — despite Corbyn’s election promises. Labour has possibly become the first opposition to row back on its own policies this soon after an election it apparently did well in.
Meanwhile Jeremy Corbyn’s apparent new-found popularity is hardly transferring into extra votes. Polls remain stagnant and show the Tories, even as they debate over the future of their leader, level pegging or only slightly behind an emboldened Labour Party. While one YouGov poll gave Corbyn a 6% lead – enough to garner a Commons majority – most polls do not show such a Rosie picture. With that, it would be foolish to expect any poll boost as time goes on an Brexit rips both the Tories and Labour apart. When both parties are divided, who do voters turn to? Whatever happened, however, the row back by Corbynistas on policy matters has been staggering – enough to say that Corbyn’s platform is falling apart.
