Finding the right track
In November 2016, Donald Trump upset the odds by beating Mrs Establishment — former First Lady, Senator and Secretary of State — Hillary Clinton. The win was emblematic of Mrs Clinton’s unpopularity, but also the wider issue of public distrust in establishment politicians. Boris Johnson was a champion of the Brexit cause, managing to stir up anger and resentment against unelected bureaucrats in Brussels and equate the EU with status quo. Trump and Johnson identified the air of disillusionment and presented themselves as the remedy — anti-establishment “men of the people” — despite the former being a real estate billionaire and the latter an Eton-Bullingdon Club graduate. In December, Corbyn and the Labour Party suffered an historic defeat. Among other reasons, Labour were accused of soft politics, becoming a metropolitan, liberal think-tank overly concerned with trans-issues, for example, as opposed to concrete policies which would substantially improve lives. Johnson excelled in speaking to the electorate’s demands; most did not want sweeping nationalisation, a crusade against private schools or free broadband as much as they wanted to “Get Brexit Done”. In order to regain public favour, the left must persuade voters they have changed.
In 2015, a socialist and vocal critic of the Blair premiership became leader of Labour, shifting the party’s weight leftwards overnight. Mr Corbyn has essentially endorsed Rebecca Long Bailey to be his successor, referring to the MP for Salford and Eccles as “our candidate”. The two worked together on penning the ambitious 2019 manifesto which offered Britain a socialist alternative to Conservative capitalism. Despite dismissing claims that she is a “continuity candidate”, Mrs Long Bailey rated the outgoing leader “10/10” and maintains a close relationship with him while campaigning. Speaking to the BBC, she refused to rule out giving Corbyn a place in the Shadow Cabinet.
Having been Shadow Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy for the past three years, Mrs Long Bailey’s signature proposal is the “Green New Deal”, involving the rapid and radical decarbonisation of the economy and investment in renewable energies. The self-described socialist also wants a “democratic revolution”, taking power from the Westminster establishment and distributing it to the people. She supports the abolition of the House of Lords in favour of an elected senate which could perform the same “checks and balances” on legislation. She wants to combat the influence of big-money donors, making voters the customer to which parties must speak. Mrs Long Bailey is an opponent to “big money” corporations, billionaires and media organisations, whom she accuses of a campaign to vilify Mr Corbyn, turning voters against him. She believes the solution is changing the man — or rather, woman — at the top, but staying loyal to the ideals of socialism, democracy and progressivism.
Lisa Nandy, MP for Wigan, wants to “bring Labour home” to the towns and workers she claims it has abandoned. She believes that the party must undergo drastic changes in order to regain the support of traditional voters, epitomised by her uniquely optimistic message: “change or die”.
Mrs Nandy believes that the problems lie deeper than Brexit, or even Corbyn — suggesting that Labour has long been drifting away from the interests of ordinary working people, becoming instead a metropolitan think-tank. She accused the party of treating Leave voters as “irrational”, when it should have been listening to their real grievances. The ten-year parliamentarian has performed well in hustings and TV debates with her frank and often scything remarks about the mistakes of the past.
In 2016, Mrs Nandy resigned from the Shadow Cabinet and called for a new leader to replace the divisive Corbyn. Some MPs encouraged her to run for leadership, feeling she stood in the “soft left” sweet spot, championing progressive yet realistic policies. Standing aside for Owen Smith, Mrs Nandy didn’t run in 2016. But she is running in 2020 — promising to return Labour to sensible, local politics, so its sorely-missed presence can be felt again in towns.
According to polls, the favourite to win is London-born Keir Starmer. Before joining the House of Commons in 2015, he was a lawyer specialising in human rights disputes. He was appointed to the Queen’s Counsel and later became Director of Public Prosecutions, junior only to the Attorney General and Solicitor General. In parliament, Mr Starmer was the three-year Shadow Secretary of State for Exiting the EU, whose role it was to expose the incompetency of the government in handling Brexit. While Labour failed in stopping Brexit, Starmer’s skill in speaking to the opposition was clear to see. The former lawyer has emphasised in his campaign the importance of forming an effective opposition in the years before a general election, holding Mr Johnson to account every step of the way.
Starmer recognises that the left has been divided while the Conservative Party have enjoyed ten years of near-perfect harmony, allowing them to appear as a cohesive force. He refused to fall into the same trap as Mrs Long Bailey by rating the current leader out of ten and refused to answer whether his politics were closer to Corbyn or Blair. He is attempting to be the man with no label and appeal to all corners of the membership: young and old, progressive and traditional. He attributes the 2019 loss to a myriad of factors, including the mistake of promising too much in a manifesto which voters decided to be unrealistic and expensive. At the same time, he refuses to disagree with any individual policies, saying that Labour’s next manifesto must offer solutions to the problems of the 2020s and 2030s.
Across the Atlantic, the Democratic Party prepare today for Super Tuesday — the most conclusive day in deciding who will face Donald Trump. Bernie Sanders is experiencing a wave of support from young people, Latinos and workers across the country. After winning primaries in Iowa, New Hampshire, and Nevada in a landslide, the Vermont Senator is the current frontrunner. His campaign has raised a record-breaking amount of money from donations, from an unprecedented number of supporters. Mr Sanders’ slogan — “not me, us” — captures the zeitgeist of the movement. As a democratic socialist, he rejects the influence of big-money interests on democracy; one can imagine his blood boiling when stood alongside ninth-richest man in the world, Mike Bloomberg, at the Nevada TV debate, who is also aiming for the presidency.
Sanders’ supporters believe he would make the best representative of the people, unafraid to face the injustices of modern America with a bold agenda: raising the national minimum wage to $15 an hour (which now most Democrats support), cancelling all student loan debt and making university tuition free. His marquee policy, “Medicare for All”, calls for an upheaval of the healthcare system by creating a national service funded by taxpayers. While he is justified in highlighting the injustice of the market system, where insurance and treatment become expensive commodities, most Americans and elected representatives oppose the move to ban private healthcare altogether. In implementing his ideas, Mr Sanders would take America further left than Europe, which largely allows public and private options to coexist.
Former Vice President, Joe Biden, wants to restore normalcy to the Oval Office. After immediately becoming frontrunner by virtue of his decorated resumé, Biden started shedding percentage points in the polls, as voters succumbed to the bold progressivism of Sanders and Warren. In most TV debates, he has appeared slow and sleepy. After poor results in Iowa and New Hampshire, he needed to win in South Carolina — a state with high African-American population, with whom he enjoys strong support — to maintain viability. He secured over 48% of the vote, winning every county and heading into Super Tuesday as the moderate with the best chance of stealing the nomination from Sanders.
Mr Biden’s proposals are less exciting than those of Sanders, but supporters are enthusiastic about him as a candidate — one with integrity, experience and humility. He wants to support nuclear energy as an alternative to fossil fuels, tax carbon emissions instead of criminalising them and make gun manufacturers liable to crimes committed with their weapons. Before Super Tuesday, former Mayor Pete Buttigieg and Senator Amy Klobuchar dropped out of the race and thereafter endorsed Biden as the man to carry the moderate flame. The former VP offers a progressive agenda without throwing the kitchen sink at the status quo.
On Super Tuesday, former Vice President must compete with former New York Mayor Mike Bloomberg. The latter has spent over $200m on advertising in the fourteen states, hoping to buy his way into voters’ minds through television screens, radio sets and social media. Some years ago, Mr Bloomberg donated to the Republican party. He holds relatively conservative views, primarily wanting to replace the man in the White House rather than make radical change. In splitting the moderate vote with Biden, the billionaire might gift victory to the man he is trying to stop: socialist Bernie Sanders.
Mr Sanders will compete with former Harvard professor and Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren for the progressive vote. The only (relevant) woman left in the race, Warren is a “capitalist to her bones” but believes the system needs new regulations and mechanisms to stop corruption and redirect the fruits of economic growth to the middle class. The early-voting states suggest that Sanders has cemented the progressive vote, but Warren still stands in contention for Super Tuesday.
Currently, the Atlantic left is leaderless. It could take a number of paths, ranging from socialism to billionaire philanthropy, or anywhere in between. They must quickly find a new identity which appeals to a wider electorate, looking for the right answers to the questions of the future. How should climate change be addressed? Should big-money be vilified? How do you protect jobs from the wave of automation? And should buses come before broadband?
The direction taken by the left will set the parameters for the next decade of British and American politics. Whether they return to government or not, the world needs a reinvigorated left to balance the unchallenged authority of the right.
