Martin Thomas is to be thanked for his useful and objective account (Corbynism: What Went Wrong?) of the years 2015-2019 when Jeremy Corbyn was the leader of the Labour Party. The lack of equivalent critical analysis by other socialists of this recent period is in itself evidence of the problem of Corbynism.
The Corbyn times have been idealised by many on the left, and its strategic mistakes and inadequate class politics remain hidden behind a betrayal narrative.
During the Corbyn leadership his alleged exceptionalism as the only incorruptible politician, indeed as a saintly man, encouraged an unhealthy cultism. This had more in common with the anti political moralism found in all forms of populism than socialist tradition.
The essential flaws of Corbynism; its failure to argue and organise for class politics; its hypocrisy on Party democracy and equality (not just antisemitism, but also its bro-socialism, and tolerance of homophobia and transphobia), flow directly from a tendency to left populism.
Corbynism as a phenomenon was not a working-class movement, or even a Labourist one. Few of those involved in its activism during 2015-9 were class-struggle socialists, or indeed lay union activists. Thomas is right to point out that many of the main movers of Corbynism were infected by the culture of the NGO and quango, a continuation from Blairism, but in a more “left wing” or “grassroots” form.
An honest assessment of the Manifestos of the Corbyn leadership in 2017 and 2019 shows there is little clear red water from that of Miliband in 2015. The radicalism on policy of the Corbyn leadership was exaggerated and mainly existed in soundbites. There was little consistent work done on how to articulate radical policies within Party structures, let alone how to organise for them in the country. There was little change offered in certain key social and economic policy areas including public ownership and humanising the social security system. In the House of Commons there was an acceptance of an economics of “keeping to fiscal rules” and supporting employee share ownership by the Shadow Chancellor. The Shadow Home Secretary proposed abstention on Tory plans to strength immigration controls.
Commitment
On wider issues Corbyn failed spectacularly to articulate or organise to deliver change for working people given his commitment to socialism. Thomas points out there was no surge in left lay activism in the trade unions affiliated to the Labour Party (or indeed those not affiliated) to match the Corbyn surge in the Labour party. Whilst Corbyn and McDonnell did what they had always done and attended picket lines, there was no concerted effort during 2015-9 to encourage working class action and to inspire and develop union activist in industrial struggles. Thomas also points out the lack of encouragement of street and community activism. And of course there was no engagement with the biggest street protests since the 2003 invasion of Iraq, i.e. those against Brexit.
Where was the democracy?
Thomas points out how the meagre culture of debate in the years 2015-19 affected the younger people attracted to Corbynism. But , contrary to the spin, Corbyn failed to inspire a youth-based movement. The real experience of Labour members in CLPs was a greater preponderance of older people joining the Labour Party under Corbyn. Mainly those had been politically formed in previous decades. They bought a lot of bad habits resulting from political fights of the past, now frozen in aspic. This is the root of much of the destructive and counter-productive factionalism of Corbynism.
Some of the most shocking actions of the Corbyn leadership were a result of leadership control worthy of Blairite times. The unchanged use of an over staffed personal office of the Leader of the Opposition and the appointment of well-aid advisers led to a top down structure disposed to manipulation. There was the imposition of favoured Parliamentary candidates without consulting local Parties (more under Corbyn than any other leadership); the organisation of Party delegates to Annual Conference to break their mandates from the CLP because of loyalty to the leader (most obviously in the Brexit debates); and the use of the Party machine to defend the indefensible actions of members because they were in the Corbyn camp. There was also a distasteful nepotism in appointments to the Leader’s Office and elsewhere in the Party.
Prize
The prize for democratic failure between 2015-9 however must go to the startling fact that a hard left leadership never set up a democratic organisation. Momentum remains more democratically unaccountable than other Labour factions and organisations to its right. Thomas rightly describes in detail how social movementism and the social media/data model stopped the development of a properly broad left in the Labour Party. The influence of the Communist Party on Corbynism is, as Thomas catalogues, also a major contributing factor.
The presence of members of the old Straight Left faction (Milne and Murray) in the Leader’s Office stalled taking trans and non binary rights forward. The culture of many of the older Corbynites was often more socially conservative than the average CLP activist who reflected the progressive changes within the labour movement on women’s rights and LGBT rights over the decades, when many older Corbynites had opted out of political activity.
Mistake
The big mistake of many who joined the Labour Party during or after the leadership campaign was their belief it was they who had delivered victory to the hard left in the Party. This is simply not true. Despite the Miliband rule changes to election of leader which allowed the participation of registered supporters, Jeremy Corbyn got elected in 2015 on the votes of those who had already been Labour Party members.
The centre of gravity of Labour Party activists and members has always been to the left of the PLP. The potential of tapping into their discontent with previous accommodation with austerity economics was never properly followed through.
No attempt was made to form an alliance with those soft left MPs, who, unlike the Brownite and Blairites, were prepared to join the Shadow Cabinet and work with Corbyn as the elected leader of the Party on central Labourist issues of economic policy and social justice.
Dividing
The dividing lines between left and right in the Party became Brexit and antisemitism, and Thomas is right to point out this is where Corbynism ran aground. The “common stock” leftism on these issues was never challenged and there was little opportunity to hear a coherent case for internationalism or the need to remove the stain of antisemitism from the British left.
This has miseducated a new generation of Labour left activists, led by those in the Corbyn “wonkosphere” who saw the Brexit vote as an incoherent expression of working class aspiration to “take control” from the metropolitan elitist establishment.
Similarly antisemitism has become even more entrenched, with the common left wisdom that claims of antisemitism in the Labour party were exaggerated to discredit Jeremy and his associates. Corbyn supporters were expected to defend their leader rather than consider the issue itself.
The underlying reason that Brexit and antisemitism became fundamentally problematic during the four years of his leadership was the failure of the Corbyn project to focus on, indeed have any coherent strategy for, key issues for the British working class.
