I’m an enthusiastic Berniecrat, but I’m no Corbyn fan…
There are undoubtedly a lot of parallels between Bernie Sanders and Jeremy Corbyn, insurgent populists running to the left in one of the two largest parties, with some similar policies such, as abolishing tuition fees. There are however differences, both in the policies that they support, and the extent to which those policies are emphasised. There are several areas where I agree or am close to Corbyn’s position, such as the fracking ban (which, by the way, all of the smaller parties to the left of the conservatives and maybe even a tory or two are also in favour of) and abolishing tuition fees (although I prefer the green plan to abolish current student loan debt too), but there is one crucial aspect of the Bernie Sanders platform missing from Corbyn’s:
Campaign Finance Reform
In the 2016 Democratic Primary, getting private money out of politics was an important focal point of Bernie Sanders’ campaign. Every speech, on every issue, he tied to the role of the corrupting influence of money in politics preventing legislation that the American people want and talked about how the US is moving closer to an oligarchic form of society. Fundamentally, addressing the corruption in the system shined a light on why elected representatives don’t represent their constituents and provided a strong, post-partisan, cohesive, simple, and logical reason for change.
The argument is fierce, but impersonal. It is about a broken system, rather than personal corruption. And it forced his opponents, and his allies, to talk about it too. Many senate Democrats, and Hillary Clinton, now stands for overturning the supreme court’s 2013 Citizens United decision. That meant that they stood for getting unaccountable money out of the political system. Or, in plain english, they want people to be able to know who is bribing them. Whilst unacceptable, that is a step in the right direction.
Corbyn does not talk about corruption very often, if at all. A search for ‘Corbyn Corruption’ or ‘Corbyn Campaign Finance Reform’ reveals nothing about his stances on either. And yet, it is the issue at the root of virtually all other issues. His campaigns have been funded largely by grassroots donations, but he needs to not only walk the walk, but talk the talk.
That does bring me to another isue I have with Corbyn, albeit it is not a policy issue. He does not have that same drive which Bernie Sanders possesses, to talk about the issues at every given opportunity, that drive to talk about the injustices facing the people every day. Yes, the mainstream media is not friendly and does not want a progressive agenda being argued for over their airwaves, but by not taking every opportunity to make your case, you are aiding and abetting them. To highlight this contrast, look at how Bernie Sanders has taken practically every opportunity offered to him, and then created additional opportunities to share his message as well as to interact with his constituents on top of that. For example, several years ago he regularly appeared on Sirius XM Radio on Thom Hartmann’s show, and now he regularly streams live on Facebook, both from the senate floor and in interviews, and has his own podcast which he regularly contributes to.
I think this is one of the biggest reasons that Sanders’ favourability is and has always been sky-high (at least once people had heard of him), whilst Corbyn put Labour at risk of a haemmorhaging hundreds of seats when a snap election was called.
An End To Austerity?
Corbyn had a great opportunity. He could provide an economic choice alternative to the current system. And to some extent, he did. Labour, under his leadership, advocated paying more for some public services, such as the NHS and the Police force, in their manifesto, which was fully costed — unlike that of the tories. Nonetheless, the tories attacked him, and Labour, as fiscally irresponsible, in spite of having failed to balance their budgets over the last 7 years, blaming it all on “the mess left over by Labour” under the previous administrations. In some ways it was a good idea that made a lot of political sense, as it made the Conservative attack fall somewhat more flat. But it still buys into the notion of requiring a balanced budget, and it was not met by attacks from Labour, naming the last prime minister who left a balanced budget to the next administration, or telling them to take responsibility for not having balanced the budget in spite of having control of the government for 7 years.
What I would have preferred them to have done is to reframe the debate: don’t talk about public spending, talk about public investment. For every Pound invested, some amount is returned to the government coffers in the subsequent years as a result of that investment. The logic behind austerity is the assumption that for all of the money invested by the government, there is a poor return on investment, in which case the sensible thing to do would be to slash the budget repeatedly. As Margater Thatcher, who brought forth the transition in the UK from a Keynesian economic system struggling with stagflation, to the system which we have today struggling with inequality, said,
“The problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people’s money.”
If you make the case against this, framing the debate in terms of public investment rather than public spending, then that gives you the political capital to invest money where it needs to be spent: not just abolishing student loans, but destroying abolishing student loan debt. It justifies putting money into welfare, reversing the harsh cuts to benefits, which the Labour manifesto maintains. That is what a real alternative to austerity looks like. It is not cow-towing to the ridiculous idea that the government needs to maintain a budget surplus.
Naturally, I do have to fault Bernie Sanders in this area too, but much of his campaign’s agenda amounts to catching up to the modern world, as the USA is so far behind the UK — healthcare is treated as a priviledge, rather than as a right, the infrastructure is crumbling, thousands of communities’ water is undrinkable, higher education and housing is unaffordable, there is an incredible amount of gun violence, the political system is corrupted by private money, and so on — so I gave him strong support, since his campaign was about addressing the most fundamental problems in the USA. Whilst the UK doesn’t have all of its problems totally figured out, it’s much further along than the USA, and so tackling the myths of austerity is a crucial part of a progressive campaign in the UK.
Growth and the Environment
Economic growth is fundamentally, mathematically, unsustainable, when you have finite resources (as we do). Corbyn’s more Keynesian approach fails just the same as the Neo-Liberal economic approach of the past few decades, relying on growth to improve society, and seeing growth as an end in itself rather than a means to an end. Pursuing economic growth further continues to damage our environment and threatens the future of human civilisation. Whilst Corbyn’s Labour, as well as other, smaller parties, endorsed a ban on fracking, making them less cavalier about the environment than the tories, their continued reliance on economic growth means that they are still a threat to humankind.
Conclusion
So overall, whilst I support or am sympathetic to much of Corbyn’s agenda, I see areas it is seriously lacking, where I see the Green Party’s agenda offering a much better alternative (albeit, they need to be stronger on campaign finance reform too!). If Corbyn begins seriously addressing corruption, and moves the whole of the party in a more progressive, uncorrupted direction, then I would consider supporting the movement. But, especially living in the Labour stronghold I am in, it makes much more sense to me to support the Green Party’s efforts.
Whisper of a dream!
