Corbyn: you can smell the fear

Its really about time I blogged about something other than Jeremy Corbyn's leadership of the Labour Party but I have to admit that I've been fascinated and appalled by the daily round of smears and attacks on him orchestrated by the mainstream media (msm), and the Parliamentary Labour Party. The latest example of putting the boot in was the now infamous 'revenge reshuffle' of the Shadow Cabinet. Whilst the Labour leadership could be criticised for its handling of the reshuffle, 'revenge' filled the headlines for days, only to be replaced by 'ineptitude' when Hilary Benn survived at foreign affairs, and the msm sang in unison from the same hymn sheet throughout. Corbyn started out as a Stalinist dictator determined to wield the axe and ended up as weak and incompetent. Nothing he ever does can possibly be the right thing.

The highlight was the 'live on air' resignation on the Daily Politics of Stephen Doughty that Labour stalwart that .. er .. no one had ever heard of, but after his five minutes of fame we learnt that he was of course an excellent chap, vital to Labour's future. Then someone spotted that the live resignation had been orchestrated by the BBC and just happened to be timed to cause maximum damage to Corbyn before PMQs. 

As I said in my previous post on Corbyn bashing the constant barrage of attacks is motivated by fear, fear on the part of the political and media class that Corbyn could win in 2020 and end the Tories cosy stitch-up of our society and economy which looks daily more like a racket than government. It also exposes the neoliberal groupthink which pervades this class, not only in the UK, but throughout the 'Western' world.  

How can 'Mr Incompetent and unelectable' possibly win? By having policies which are supported by the majority and are popular like the nationalisation of the railways - something which the Green Party has been calling for for years. Corbyn has a lot of work to do to win that election in 2020 but even the slightest chance he might do it fills our 'ruling class' with dread. 

Jeremy Corbyn Bashing - Award of the Week

Jeremy Corbyn was elected leader of the Labour Party on 12 September with a whacking great mandate from the Party and its supporters. The 'Blairites' who had run the party for so long suffered a crushing defeat. Since that day he has been almost under constant attack from the mainstream media. Every move has been scrutinsed and criticised. 

One of the early attacks was his 'failure' to sing the national anthem. This was backed up by a widely published photograph which showed him 'not singing'. Apart from the fact he was entitled not to sing the national anthem, the photo was cropped. I've seen the original on Twitter and it showed that many other people weren't singing at the same time as him, including Army officers in uniforms covered in medals. Did they get any flak? Er...no they didn't.

So this is my Award of the Week for Corbyn Bashing - a non-story in the Independent reporting that Corbyn was 'mocked' for sending and Xmas card. The report said:

"The photo - showing a snow-covered bike locked to a bike rack in front of a red telephone box - was widely ridiculed for its lack of Christmas spirit and its austere appearance". 

Although the Independent acknowledged that Corbyn is being regularly attacked it still chose to rub it in. So well done to the Independent.

As a member of the Green Party why am I bothered about this? Shouldn't I be enjoying the Labour Party's discomfort over Corbyn? I'm bothered because I know that Corbyn is under attack because he is perceived as a genuine threat to the cosy and iniquitous stitch-up which the UK has become - a nation run in the interest of a narrow ruling elite, who fear him. I also know that the Green Party is also a threat albeit a much smaller one. If we had more than 200 MPs our leader would be getting exactly the same treatment.

Corbyn's policies are moderate, sensible and can win an election for Labour

Today at 3pm the chance to vote in the Labour leadership election closed. Ballot papers go out on Friday and then the result is announced on 12 September. According to YouGov and the bookies Jeremy Corbyn is the favourite to win, and if he does it will bring about a seismic shift to the left in British politics.

To be honest I've found the whole contest 'compulsive viewing'. From the very early stages when it became clear that Corbyn was beginning to gather support and the attacks on him started, I've followed every twist and turn. Except so far there haven't been any twists and turns - support for him started as a trickle, then became a torrent and now appears to be a flood which means the veteran left-winger may win the contest outright. 

The attacks on Corbyn, from within and without the Labour Party, have ranged from the vicious to the hilarious, and as support for Corbyn has grown so has the hysteria amongst the media and the establishment who sense they are in danger of losing control - so damned inconvenient democracy isn't it? We've had Tony Blair and his 'heart transplant' comment and Alastair Campbell with his plea for 'anyone but Corbyn' but the more Corbyn is attacked the stronger he appears to become - it is almost like science fiction.

The reason for Corbyn's strength and success isn't difficult to work out - although it hides the fact he has played a blinder - he remains calm, sticks to his beliefs, refuses to engage in slanging matches with opponents, sets out clear and popular policies, and because of this, in contrast to his lacklustre opponents, he comes across as completely authentic. And the 'opponents', tainted by their embrace of the neoliberalism of New Labour, have had nothing to say for themselves, preferring to attack him and parrot out tired and vacuous soundbites. No wonder they are losing and Corbyn is packing halls all over England and Wales.

Many of the policies Jeremy Corbyn has unveiled so far are remarkably similar to the anti-austerity pro-public services policies you will find in the Green Party manifesto. These include support for a publicly delivered NHS, nationalisation of the railways and quantitative easing (QE) for investment in jobs and housing. On the latter point there are differences but the fact that QE is being proposed at all by Corbyn is very significant. All of these are common sense responses to the economic crisis we are in which are popular with the public and which could win Labour the next election if they united behind them.

"Jeremy Corbyn No More War crop" by Garry Knight 

The real significance of the 'Corbyn effect' is that it scares the pants off the neoliberal establishment - they know that Corbyn could win, that his ideas are popular, and that they are a genuine backlash, and threat to the the cosy 'free' market, tax dodging, asset stripping, stitch-up that has been established in the UK over the past 30 years or so. Of course that anti-austerity backlash had to happen, and indeed has been happening for several years. The Green Party, which occupies the space vacated by Labour, and UKIP, which is largely a working class protest against austerity aimed at the wrong target (immigrants and the EU) together garnered 5 million or so votes at the last election. But how much more threatening if the Labour Party could turned against austerity?

At this point its worth quoting Owen Jones on Alastair Heath - the Deputy Editor of the Daily Telegraph:

"A Jeremy Corbyn victory would have a “disastrous effect”, he [Heath] warned, because it “would become acceptable again to call for nationalising vast swathes of industry, for massively hiking tax and for demonising business. The centre-ground would move inexorably towards a more statist position”."

Although there are significant differences between the Green Party and Labour, which mean that labour hasn't got the wherewithal to deal with climate change and move to the no growth economy that we all need, like my Green Party colleague Derek Wall, I would welcome a Corbyn victory. This is because, as Derek says, it would benefit the entire left not just Labour. Will Corbyn win? I'm not so sure. The knives will be out. He may well be defeated on second preferences. Yvette Cooper as the 'stop Corbyn' candidate may just edge him out, but whatever the result, the genie is out of the bottle, the Labour Party will have changed for the better, and anti-austerity will be firmly on the agenda in England and Wales.