Apparently I’m in a Cult Now…
Do I like Corbyn?
Yes I do. Back in the dark days of the 80’s when my mum was a GLC activist he was even a part of my families social circle. He came to my house once. I would have been about seven or eight I guess, but I remember him; tall, beardy and genial.
Would I rather this leadership had fallen on younger shoulders? Sure. Clive Lewis would have been excellent. And seeing someone you personally like being pilloried and worn down is a miserable experience. I worry helplessly about the toll on him this must be taking.
But Lewis didn’t stand. Corbyn did. And he did so reluctantly I’m sure, in the belief that a red Labour candidate should be on the ballot just like John McDonnell was is 2010. Remember that? No of course not, no one cared.
And then something entirely unexpected happened. The people of Britain seized upon the Corbyn challenge and chose to put all of their hopes on Jeremy’s slender shoulders. They knew he was their only chance to break the Blue Labour hegemony that had prevailed in the party since Kinnock broke the back of the Labour left in the dog days of the Thatcher ministry.
It was their choice and their aspirations that drove the Corbyn campaign headlong and breathlessly into the center of British politics. They turned up; at rallies, at CLP meetings, at elections, on the internet. They are still turning up; day in, day out in their hundreds of thousands. Because they made a choice and the choice they made was Corbyn. That’s democracy for you.
The reason behind their choice is simple; they don’t believe the economics anymore. They don’t believe it because they’ve had to live with its consequences. They’ve seen their communities and services being decimated for thirty years with only slight repite during the squandered hopes of the New Labour 90’s. They’ve watched as corruption, exploitation and intolerance have been allowed to thrive unchecked and recessions come, wave after wave. They know the political center offers no solutions except to shrug and tell them to stop complaining. Because that’s all they have done. For. Thirty. Five. Years.
Every politician and every institution associated with the coercive lie of Neoliberal economics is tainted in the eyes of the populace. That’s why they voted for Corbyn. That’s why they voted out of the EU. That’s why Owen Smith is fielding rallies of a hundred whilst Corbyn is fielding rallies of five to ten thousand. They want a candidate utterly disassociated from the economics of the past thirty years and they won’t be browbeaten into letting go the one they have already chosen.
And they’re right.
