Would-be Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn with the late Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez
Following a surprising election defeat in May, Britain's Labour Party will elect a new leader this fall. On Aug. 14, ballot papers will be sent out to party members (
who number 221,000 as of May), who will be able to vote for a new chief after one of the wildest leadership contests in recent memory. While Labour's previous leadership election was notable for pitting Ed Milliband against his brother David, this year's contest has come down to the very essence of what the Labour Party represents and how it should govern.
Back in June, we covered the original trio of contenders, who ranged from the party's center (Andy Burnham and Yvette Cooper) to its right (Liz Kendall). But in early June, longtime Labour Member of Parliament (MP) Jeremy Corbyn jumped in, citing his dissatisfaction with the lack of any left-wing alternatives. At the time, most observers regarded Corbyn's entry an afterthought or at most an inconvenience. But instead, Corbyn has has completely upended the contest and now has real shot at victory when the results are announced on Sept. 12.
A Corbyn win would have massive ramifications for British politics as Labour works to retake power in 2020—and they wouldn't be positive for the party he's seeking to lead.
Head below the fold to learn more about these stunning developments.
This leadership contest is essentially a very early party primary for the next general election in Britain, which is not until 2020. Barring resignation, death, or the petition of 20 percent of Labour MPs to force a new contest, the winner will compete against Conservative Prime Minister David Cameron's successor to lead Britain. (Cameron has pledged not to seek a third term, and some Tories think he'll actually step aside before his current term is up.) So the stakes are already very high, and that's why Labour party leaders are panicked by Corbyn's rise.
Corbyn was first elected as an MP for London's Islington North district in 1983. Islington North is the smallest and densest constituency in the UK, and, much like the small, dense congressional districts in America's big cities, it's also very left wing. Corbyn's a member of the Socialist Campaign Group within the Labour Party (which plays a role akin to that of the Congressional Progressive Caucus) and has consistently been about as far left on every major issue of the past 30 years without leaving the Labour Party completely.
Much of Corbyn's domestic priorities signal a return to the British left of the 1970s and 1980s—a time when Labour's fortunes waned badly. Among other things, Corbyn wants to nationalize the energy industry and railways and reopen shuttered coal mines. Corbyn would also significantly raise taxes, particularly on the wealthy, and end spending cuts while increasing welfare benefits and abolishing tuition fees. He also supports scrapping the Trident nuclear submarine program; Labour was divided over the sub in the '80s, but the resurgent Scottish National Party, which opposes the program, recently revived it as an issue. One new idea Corbyn has proposed—using the Bank of England's quantitative easing program to invest in infrastructure—has been praised by some mainstream progressive economists.
Foreign policy, though, is where Corbyn really goes off the rails. He wants the UK to withdraw from NATO and blames the United States and the west for the crisis in Ukraine. Unsurprisingly, Putin's Russia is a big fan of Corbyn. Corbyn's also friendly with Hamas and Hezbollah, and he's defended 9/11 conspiracy theorists who blame Israel for the attacks. Former MP George Galloway, Britain's most notorious anti-Semite whose defeat by Labour was a rare bright spot in the last election, has said he would rejoin the party if Corbyn won. And as you might suspect from the photo illustrating this article, Corbyn was an admirer of the late Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chavez.
With a background like this, Corbyn's entry was originally looked like more of a protest candidacy than anything else: Since no one imagined he might win, the focus was more on how he would affect the other candidates. Indeed, Corbyn barely made it on to the ballot in the first place, earning the support of only 36 Labour MPs backing—just one more than the minimum 35 required. But since then, Corbyn's candidacy has shot off like a rocket, winning grassroots support across the country for his uncompromising views and his criticism of "New Labour," the centrist platform adopted by former Prime Minister Tony Blair in the 1990s. Corbyn proceeded to win endorsements from over 150 district-level party committees, more than any other candidate.
The biggest shock came in late July, when YouGov released a poll showing Corbyn leading the race, winning 43 percent on a hypothetical first ballot and 53 percent after all second- and third-choice votes are reassigned. (The election uses instant runoff voting.) YouGov's August poll went even further, showing Corbyn extending his lead to an outright majority on the first ballot and hitting 60 percent in head-to-head matchups against either Burnham or Cooper.
To say these developments have concerned prominent Labour leaders would be a massive understatement. Blair came out stridently against Corbyn, and leadership contender Liz Kendall said that his election would be a "disaster" for the Labour Party. Meanwhile, more left-wing elements of the party have fully embraced Corbyn, including many of the largest unions in Britain, such as Unite and Unison.
With ballots getting sent out Friday, and Corbyn's lead still growing, Labour leaders have gotten even more desperate. On Thursday, Blair published a column begging left wingers who despise Blair not to "drive the party over a cliff." Former Prime Minister Gordon Brown, who took over from Blair and is more respected on the left, has a big speech planned for Sunday in Edinburgh, where he's also expected to push against Corbyn.
Cooper, who like Burnham has basically spent the campaign expecting Corbyn to fade on his own, has finally attacked him out of desperation. She's gone after his more extreme positions that don't play as well with younger leftists, such as his desire to reopen coal mines and quit NATO, and has tried to frame Corbyn as the past and herself (Cooper would be Labour's first female leader) as the future.
The press has started speculating about what would happen if Corbyn actually won, ranging from a formal split in the Labour Party to the UK leaving the European Union (Corbyn is undecided on the upcoming referendum on Britain's future in the EU, while most current Labour party leaders support staying in). And if Corbyn does win, there will be constant speculation about a new leadership contest before the next election. It only takes 20 percent of Labour MPs to force a new election, so it wouldn't take much intra-party opposition to at least force a challenge to Corbyn. Meanwhile, the conservative Daily Telegraph has endorsed Corbyn as a way to destroy the Labour Party.
A Corbyn victory is not, however, a foregone conclusion: A Research Now poll from late July put Burnham ahead of Corbyn, and ultimately Burnham or even Cooper could still prevail. The vast majority of non-Corbyn voters will list him as their last preference, meaning he will probably need 40 to 45 percent of votes on the first ballot in order to stay in front.
Still, he's rightly seen as the favorite at this point, though parties have often flirted with extreme candidates who appeal to the base before voting for a more mainstream option in the end. It would not be a surprise to see any of the top three candidates (Corbyn, Burnam, and Cooper) prevail.
But this contest has been about more than just Corbyn or even the next election. It's really about the soul of Labour itself. Since Blair, and particularly since the Iraq War, the grassroots members of the Labour Party have not felt represented by its leaders. This same dissatisfaction has shown itself with the Liberal Democratic Party's success in 2010, the Scottish National Party's triumphs in Labour's Scottish heartland this year, and the rise of the Green Party and even the xenophobic UK Independence Party across Labour strongholds in Northern England.
The modern Labour Party has yet to learn how to lead in a way that wins elections without turning off large parts of its own base. Corbyn is no more likely to win a general election than Barry Goldwater was in 1964 or George McGovern was in 1972. While some of Corbyn's ideas poll well (such as nationalizing the energy companies), there's no evidence that the British electorate overall wants to significantly increase taxes, significantly increase the deficit, and significantly expand the welfare state (without even getting into the grave foreign policy concerns Corbyn would ignite).
It's also important to point out that nothing suggests Ed Miliband lost the most recent election because he was insufficiently left wing, and in the history of UK elections (and in similar Anglo countries like the U.S., Canada, and Australia), parties that have moved away from the center toward an extreme have rarely met with electoral success. Indeed, since 1974, Labour has won with the now-loathed Blair and lost with everyone else.
The Labourite left wants someone like Corbyn to win a general election, but there's no evidence that such a thing is possible in today's UK. A Tony Blair ally once claimed that a far-left colleague told him, during Labour's long sojourn in the wilderness that lasted from 1979 to 1997, that there can be "no compromise with the electorate." That sort of view is motivating Corbyn's supporters, but until Labour can solve this deep conundrum, it's doomed to face either ongoing rebellion on the left, or to remain in the minority.