It’s been a remarkable day for British politics, if you care about that sort of thing. Jeremy Corbyn’s victory has seemed likely for some weeks now, but today’s result was overwhelming. Even accounting for any Tory saboteurs who slipped through the cracks, 60% in the first round is extraordinary. It’s an indisputable public mandate. In the face of party calls for a more centrist response, a Labour base who were seemingly unsure about the party’s last choice in ‘Red Ed’ have rallied unanimously around an even more radical candidate.
Commentators beckoning in the end days are easy to ignore. These are, after all, the same people who didn’t think Corbyn could get elected, and when it became clear he could, agitated for soundbites from key players; evidence of fractures to be deployed against a united party. But the number of Labour supporters lamenting another decade out of power is baffling. Corbyn is clownishly extreme, they say. Too polarising. He doesn’t look like a world leader. His lengthy record of dissent in Parliament leaves him open to attack, particularly from a media he and new deputy Tom Watson have heavily criticised. Labour haven’t won an election since Blair ushered in the era of New Labour – a direct response to the dwindling support for similarly left-leaning leaders.
I understand some of the concerns. At a delicate point in the EU debate, Jez’s Euroscepticism worries me. But quibbling over policies ignores a crucial fact: everyone already knows what they are. In a few months, the new Labour leader has done what Ed Miliband failed to do in five years. Corbyn has become a figurehead.
Eurosceptic, yes. But also anti-austerity; anti-war; anti-Trident; pro press regulation and pro-equality. His honesty and commitment to causes will cause problems, but at this point, nothing will win over the Sun or Mail. Corbyn’s greatest campaign achievement has been to bypass them, to generate the sort of excitement and frenzied debate, online and in pubs and workplaces, that has forced everyone else to take notice. Andy Burnham’s most distinguishable quality, principled though he is, has been looking good in a suit.
The malcontents may well have cause for optimism. Doubtless a couple of his policies will fall by the wayside, as front-benchers jostle and harry for the ideas they’re willing to proselytize. But the need for a principled stand is simply more important than bowing to everyone’s own interests. It may be disagreeable, but Euroscepticism could be precisely the tonic to encourage disillusioned voters back into the fold. Whatever stance the party ultimately assumes, Corbyn’s views are well established, and if concessions have to be made he will have a leg to stand on. If his ideas prove to be a hard sell, they make for an easy pitch.
It took Ed Miliband until the final debate to discover that, in spite of conceding the issue on immigration figures and austerity, people didn’t trust him to achieve any of it. The criticism raining down from the Question Time galleries was political, in as much as people thought Labour had spent all the money, opened the doors to immigration and generally ruined the country, but it came from a place of frustration and miscommunication. Cameron’s government does not have unanimous popular support, far from it – yet people could not justify voting Labour. They were looking for a reason to break rank, and all Miliband fed them was reassuring platitudes.
His willingness to fight back against the audience and defend the party was a rare moment of character, but it was all he could do to disagree. Rather than exhibit his own ideas and champion the causes he truly cared about, he focused on moderation and reparation. Instead of highlighting the failures of the opposition, he became pre-occupied with proving that Labour had changed.
In Jeremy Corbyn’s first speech as leader, he announced he was off to a Refugees Welcome rally, and attacked the newspapers so many of his predecessors and competitors have tried so hard to court. After “Jez We Can”, this finally looks like change we can believe in.