I would like to use this article to dismiss some wholly false claims about Jeremy Corbyn and his election as the leader of the Labour Party:
People say that Corbyn will retake Scotland. Firstly that is factually incorrect. This view fails to take into account the nationalistic element of the SNP. Scotland voted for the SNP NOT because of policies but because the Scottish people wanted a presence in parliament, where they felt their voice wasn't being heard. As Alex Salmond said, "The Scottish Lion has roared."
Next, I would argue it doesn’t matter if Scotland is taken back by the Labour Party. To summarise what happened in the election, Labour lost a load of seats to the SNP in Scotland and the Conservatives gained a lot from the Liberal Democrats in the south west. And Labour had a lacklustre performance in the English marginals. So if Corbyn somehow manages to retake Scotland with their further left-wing and socialist policies (which won’t happen by the way) that means they will alienate voters in the English marginals, and alienate voters in the previously lib-dem controlled areas that were snatched by the Conservatives in the last election. And visa-versa would happen if a too Blairite candidate was elected. In that situation the Labour Party would then manage to regain the previously lib dem controlled areas and lose Scottish votes. You could say that Labour is stuck at an impasse, but shifting towards the centre would enable them to take back more seats in the general election.
What Labour needed was an unpolarising candidate capable of reaching out to the both sets of voters mentioned above. Corbyn is quite literally the opposite of that. He is the most polarising candidate I have ever come across (excluding Donald Trump of course). He only appeals to a small minority of very left wing minded people in safe seats, where there is already a comfortable Labour majority. He will in no way appeal to voters in swing seats. Corbyn is also WAY too easy to attack. Conservative strategists and the right wing press will be all over him. He has been filmed calling Hamas and Hezbollah “friends.” He has some dodgy ties to a holocaust denier. He is stridently anti-American and anti-Israel—though he is a “friend” of Venezuela. To him, Britain’s nuclear weapons are unnecessary and evil. The army will never have to be deployed. NATO is a warmongers’ plot to enrich the military-industrial complex. Corbyn is quite literally just donating the right-wing press the weapons to attack him with.
Corbyn is also a disaster for the Labour Party itself. He does not have the loyalty of Labour MPs. He barely scraped together the 35 MP nominations he needed to stand. And the funny thing is, some backed him only because they thought he would broaden the debate. In fact, I listened to one of these MP’s that nominated for Corbyn (to broaden the debate) on the radio. The irony is just too much to bare… J. As party leader, Corbyn will control the levers of party power; the hard left and the unions will help him use these for their own ends.
In fact, this can be seen in the latest strikes. The BMA- the main source of doctor’s leadership, is heavily infiltrated by Labour ideals who regard Jeremy Corbyn as God. Unions now feel free, under Corbyn’s leadership of the Labour Party, that they can strike at will (even though the government has offered them a 11% pay rise in response to strikes). Jacky Davis, a BMA council member, tweeted “Now we can all vote Labour again”, when Corbyn was elected. Another council member said, “With Corbyn in charge we can beat the Tories and make this country great again”, demonstrating the highly political nature of unions and their ties with the Labour Party.
This will create a chaotic power struggle within the party. Already we see the beginnings of an ideological and political discrepancy within the party that may lead to it breaking up into different factions (this is my prediction). For example, high-profile politicians, such as Tristram Hunt and Yvette Cooper, have already decided to resign in light of the Corbyn election.
Just to name a few reasons why Corbyn was the wrong choice.
Another fair claim that people make is that Corbyn is a fresh new face in politics. People claim that Corbyn is more trustworthy, more in touch with ordinary people, and more intelligent than the other candidates. I don’t disagree. At the moment…ish….
It is important to note that Corbyn was not expected to win this leadership race. He was not even expected to come close. The fact that Corbyn was under no pressure to gave Corbyn the freedom to express all his views honestly and openly, since he had nothing on the line to lose. He did not have to “play politics” and carefully tread along the lines of the political establishment. He was open and honest and indeed refreshing. This is why people like Donald Trump, Bernie Sanders and Nigel Farage succeed(ed) in rallying popular support. However, Corbyn will soon find that he will have to suck up to the political establishment. He will have to play politics sooner or later. This is inevitable. That means withholding certain personal views back from the Labour Party’s official agenda. One has to recognise that in the leadership race he was only appealing to Labour Party voters, whilst in the real world he will have to appeal to everyone. He will simply not get away with expressing his controversial views about Hamas and Hezbollah and Venezuela and NATO without serious retaliation from the press. He will have to put a cap on these kinds of views. His trustworthy element will soon start to fizzle out. Then he will be nothing more than another politician.
Already, his “dirty” political side is already showing with the cabinet reshuffle. During the reshuffle, he essentially fired all people that did not agree with him. Corbyn promoted Emily Thornberry, a critic of Trident, to shadow defence secretary and he fired Pat Mcfadden from shadow Europe minister, as he criticised Corbyn over his subdued and not very vocal condemnation of the Paris attacks. Hillary Benn, the shadow foreign secretary, who was in favour of bombing Syria was not fired, but Corbyn’s party has now made it clear that issues of foreign policy will be taken into Corbyn’s hands, essentially leaving Hillary Benn with very little power.
The Labour Party is soul searching. But they are going in the wrong direction. And the Tories need to have a good opposition party, which is currently extremely ineffective. The Tories are occupying the central ground by creating initiatives, for example, allowing low income people not to pay tax, and redeveloping deprived housing estates in London. These policy areas were traditionally occupied by Blairite Labour and the Liberal Democrats, but now the Tories are taking that ground. If Labour does not act soon, it could be in the shadow of a Tory government for a long time.
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