Home

Corbynism

£4.00
Combination/copies

What went Wrong?

Jeremy Corbyn, facing away from the camera slighty, white text overlaid says "Corbynism: What went wrong? by Martin Thomas"
by
Martin Thomas
2021
Short book
-
60 pages
ISBN
978-1-909639-54-6

In summer 2015 things suddenly “went right” for the left in an unexpected way, with Jeremy Corbyn’s election as Labour leader. By December 2019, they had evidently “gone wrong” again. That can’t be explained just by ill-will from the media and the Labour right: those were always there. This booklet offers an attempt to analyse the setbacks, learn lessons, and sketch a way to renewed efforts.

Promotions & Offers

Corbyn, Socialism and revolution
£11.00
Corbynism: What went wrong?; Socialism makes sense; Democracy, direct action and socialism (Three books)
Variations 

These three texts bring together a perspective on what it means to be a socialist in the Labour party. Corbynism: What went wrong? tracks reflections on the 2015-20 period, analysing the mistakes that the Corbyn leadership made. Socialism makes sense confronts head-on the strongest arguments against socialism now in circulation, inside the Labour Party and beyond, and argues for a society based on human solidarity, social ownership of industry and banks, and on political, economic, and social democracy. Democracy, Direct action and Socialism brings together head-to-head debates between the revolutionary left (Sean Matgamna) and the traditional Labour left (Michael Foot), focused on the alternatives posed to the labour movement in the fight against the Thatcher Tories from 1979 to the mid-1980s. The core political arguments remain crucial.

Included publications 
A Disoriented Left
£14.00
Failures and disorientations of the contemporary Left (two books)
Variations 

Despite things "going right" for the left in 2015, they have clearly gone wrong again. Politically, the left is still weak and disoriented. It needs to emerge from defining itself primarily in a negative and reactive way, and rediscover what, positively, the real left must be for. Corbynism: What went worng? is a reflection on the period of Corbyn's leadership assessing its various failings. The Left in Dissarray Makes the case This book charts the turns and realignments imprinted on the left over decades through the ascendancy of Stalinism to its collapse and the subsequent global reshufflings. it argues the working class needs an independent politics with its own compass and path. Paired together, one can see the paralells between the some of the failings of Corbyn's leadership and the overall trends of disorientation that have mired the left in recent decades.

Included publications 
Files 
Links 
Table of Contents 
  • Introduction
  • The real lost promise
  • How Corbyn won in 2015
  • How Corbyn held on in 2015-16
  • The June 2017 general election
  • The Leader’s Office
  • The unions in the Corbyn period
  • Corbynism on the streets. Or not?
  • Labour and young people in the Corbyn period
  • The Corbyn leadership, Momentum, youth, and activism
  • Corbyn and socialism
  • “False brothers”
  • Momentum
  • The Momentum coup of January 2017
  • The pre-2015 Labour left
  • Brexit
  • Antisemitism
  • April 2016 and Ken Livingstone
  • Curbs on debate, curbs on development
  • Corbyning Alone?
  • Protesting too much?
  • Manifestos, policies, and “real change”
  • Globalisation
Related / Further reading 

Like it or not, Stalinism is still a live force

Stalinism is a live political current today, and a reactionary one. The central place in the Labour Leader’s Office of Stalinists such as Seamus Milne and Andrew Murray, and the support for the Morning Star by a number of national trade unions and many Labour MPs, are dangers.

Labour’s manifesto and the right to strike: a welcome step forward, more to fight for
In the general election, Free Our Unions is working to kick out the Tories and win a government led by Jeremy Corbyn. In the words of a Fire Brigades Union general secretary Matt Wrack, a Labour government can “deliver a shift in power away from wealthy elites and towards workers. The Tories and Liberal Democrats have left the country… in tatters. We must remove them from power.”

We welcome the range of policies to strengthen workers’ rights contained in Labour’s manifesto. This statement is focused on the section covering the anti-union laws and the right to strike – because that is crucial to all aspects of workers’ rights and to many other issues, because it has been most controversial in the party, and because it is where there is most room for improvement.

On this, the manifesto is encouraging. There is a lot to be strengthened and clarified, but two years of campaigning in the labour movement seems to have shifted the leadership in the right direction. More campaigning and pressure can shift things further.

Fight for free movement!

Labour generally criticises the Tories from the left, i.e. from a more anti-Brexit position. It has rightly denounced the government’s concessions on the right of EU citizens to stay in Britain as “too little” — because as the campaign Another Europe is Possible and numerous migrants’ rights groups have explained, the offer is hedged round with all kinds of very bad limits. It’s “too late” because it should have been done a year ago, when Labour proposed it. More generally, however, Labour’s position is as clear as mud. With one, decisive exception: senior Labour spokespeople are very clear that they support an end to free movement from the EU. In other words, the position they have tied themselves to is to the right of that taken by Anna Soubry.

We use cookies on our website to support technical features that enhance your user experience.

We also use analytics & advertising services. To opt-out click for more information.