On Corbynism and Electability

Unless you've been living in a media-free void for the last three months, it's likely you've heard the name of Jeremy Corbyn, the long-time labour MP, anti-austerity activist, and apparently thoroughly nice bloke who is currently among those running for the Labour leadership. If you are aware of him (I don't like to assume) you're probably also aware that he's tipped to win, and that the Labour establishment is in the throes of a hissy fit the magnitude of which has it one Corbyn-favouring poll away from demanding a copy of his birth certificate to prove he's not actually Kenyan before curling up in the foetal position and screaming 'I don't want to go to the election because the other parties will laugh at me' over and over again.

I have my own opinions on Corbyn and his campaign and, like even some of his supporters, I have certain reservations about the pragmatism of some of his policies. However, as always it's difficult to tell which of these reservations are informed and which are subject to media prejudice. My reservations on so-called 'corbynomics', it would appear, are largely informed by a media who instantly condemned them as lunacy when, in fact, many leading economists and writers have since come to their defence. After all, there's been a significant narrative shift in economics in the last thirty years, and it's important to recognise that many of Corbyn's policies were, not so long ago, considered mainstream. Although I don't have the knowledge to make an educated statement as to whether or not corbynomics will fix all the country's problems, the wide participation of well informed parties on both sides of the debate suggests it's at least an open question, and thus merits more serious discussion than the dismissive and often sneering approach of many in mainstream politics and media.

Ostensibly, Corbyn's policies are fundamentally about helping people, promoting peace, creating a fairer society, all that good stuff... It's hard to imagine that anyone in the Labour Party, or anyone at all, would come out and say they think these are bad things. Even the right wing of the party – it would be nice to assume – would not be supporting a programme of austerity that's ravaging our public services and leaving people destitute if they thought there was another way. Their argument, without really acknowledging their own ethical or practical standpoint, is that Corbyn's policies simply won't resonate with the public, and Labour under Corbyn will thus be destined to lose election after election (providing there isn't a coup before we even get to the first one).

The argument here is that, while Corbyn's ideology may be (ideologically) great, it's not going to win any elections, and there's no glory to be found in opposition.

There are two problems here: the first is that this kind of thinking betrays what I'd argue is a serious misunderstanding of the British Constitution; the second is that, though nothing's certain, Corbyn's chances of winning in 2020 deserve more serious consideration than they've received.

Think back a moment to before the May 2015 election. Try and forget what you know and what you've read since, and ask yourself what the generally accepted reason was for Ed Milliband's being unelectable? Largely, it was somewhere between his being unable to eat a bacon sandwich correctly (yawn) and his being 'too weak' to lead the country. Since the election, however, the accepted narrative is that Milliband lost by taking the party too far to the left, which people simply didn't want. This idea of 'what people want' is largely why Harriett Harman whipped the party into abstaining on the now infamous Welfare Reform Bill.

Harman claimed that the party couldn't vote against something the British people had given the Tories a mandate for; however, with a voter turnout of 66%, and a conservative vote share of 36%, only 22.3% of the UK's adult population actually provided this mandate.

There's a serious problem here. The British constitution has a fairly ambiguous approach to the separation of powers: some have described the system as almost completely fused, and at the very least it's fair to say the legislature and the executive are very close. The point of having separation is to prevent any one branch of the state having excessive power, and this is particularly important where – for instance – the elected executive represents only 22% of the population. Having an active parliamentary opposition is important because, if you don't, the executive, on the mandate of that 22%, are able to turn bills into laws with remarkable ease, and when these bills represent an ideologically driven austerity programme, that's something we should be worried about.

The point is, when people say that it's no good being a party with principles if you're going to be in opposition, they are totally, dangerously wrong. To be a party with principles who manages to present serious opposition to ideological legislation is far more valuable than pandering to the narrative of the incumbent party in the hope of skimming off swing voters, presenting no resistance to harmful bills, and mandating yourself into keeping the status quo even if you do win. This is without mentioning the fact that, let's face it, if you're a dyed in the wool supporter of conservative fiscal policy, who are you going to vote for anyway: the conservatives? Or a labour party presenting the same policies, but a little less defined and with a shakier hand?

Ultimately, though, arguing the value of being a strong opposition party is predicated on the assumption that Corbyn, if elected Labour leader, would lose the 2020 election, and this is not as much of a certainty as some people might have us believe.

People often look to Tony Blair's landslide victory in the 1997 general election as proof of that New Labour style policies are the only credible politics for a modern Labour Party. However, a look at election statistics since Labour's low point in 1983 shows a steady raise in its vote share starting before the emergence of New Labour (27.6% to 30.8% to 34.4% to 43.2%), and a consistent decline amounting to five million votes lost under them (from 43.2% to 40.7% to 35.2%, 29%...). New Labour's 13 years in power also saw the party's membership shrivel to the lowest level in its history. Take all this into consideration, and arguments that the party would stand a better chance of winning if everyone would just go back to deregulating the banks and listening to D:ream just don't seem that credible. And yes, I know New Labour did some great things too. But if the Conservatives have co-opted a lot of that progressive social legislation that made New Labour credible (the minimum wage, gay rights), and taken it one step further (the living but not really living wage, gay marriage), what is the Labour Right's claim to being anything but so-called 'blue collar conservatives'? 

In any case, showing that the answer doesn't necessarily lie to the right doesn't automatically suggest that it lies to the left*.

In May 2015 Labour lost by 7 percentage points (just under 2 million votes) and, in our First Past the Post System, this translated into a disproportionately high number of seats.

The vast majority of the seats Labour lost were to Scotland's SNP - a party who are at least rhetorically to the left of Labour - and Given the Scots' historic voting habits, it's hard to imagine any of the four leadership candidates standing a better chance of winning back some of their support than Corbyn.

Additionally, although it's difficult to speculate as to the effect it would have had under a more proportional electoral system, the million votes that went to the greens and the nearly 4 million that went to UKIP, if spread out across constituencies, would not have been insignificant. The mention of UKIP voters might sound bizarre, but it's important to remember UKIP is in no small part made up of working class people disillusioned under New Labour. A survey has even shown Corbyn to be as popular among UKIP voters as Labour ones.

The movement of seats is also attributable to the total devastation of the Lib Dems in 2015 and the redistribution of their members' votes among the other parties. Interestingly, while he was not on the scene in the last election as he his now, the same survey cited above shows that Corbyn is also popular among these voters, and thus might have attracted more of them towards Labour than came in the last election. Finally, let's not forget how the Lib Dems got into parliament in 2010 in the first place: charismatic leader, hype around hustings and debates, mass appeal to the student vote... sound familiar?

What's interesting about the Lib Dem example is that Nick Clegg and his party came to share power, and lose it so spectacularly, by courting and then betraying the interests of the young. And if there's one demographic (apart from Old Labour voters returning to the fold) who Corbyn really appeals to, it's the young...

The vast majority of the Conservatives' lead over Labour in the 2015 election was provided by the 65+ vote, a demographic with a 78% voter turnout. However, in the three age bands between 18 and 44, which represent the majority of the population of the UK, the Conservatives either had no lead or had a smaller vote share than Labour, indicating a more general leaning towards Labour values among these age groups. The difference is that these demographics see a considerably lower voter turnout (43%, 53%, and 64% respectively). In fact, since 2010 Labour has seen a bigger percentage gain of the vote share than the Conservatives in all age bands except the 65+ group, it's just that the over 65s are more likely to vote. Were Labour to mobilise younger voters - which the Corbyn campaign is undeniably doing – they would stand a very real chance of significantly outnumbering the older Conservative support base, and this is only one among the above-identified groups to which the Corbyn campaign seems to appeal more than any other candidate.

My point here isn't to prove that Corbyn will win an election in 2020. I can't. But the arguments doing the rounds appear to be that he is unelectable, and that there's no value in being principled if you're in opposition, both of which I think are worth refuting.

If you're on the fence about Corbyn because of his policies, providing they actually are his policies**, that's totally reasonable. But if what's holding you back is a fear of losing in 2020 and being left powerless in opposition, neither of these are inevitabilities, and principle might just be the thing that ensures they aren't.

* Assuming that Corbyn is, actually, to the left. This is something about which he's often reticent, preferring to be defined rather by his policy, some of which doesn't share roots with either the traditional Left or Right.

 **See: Chris Leslie on Corbynomics; the women only train carriages thing (where a man consulting women on an issue that effects women instead of legislating for them without consultation is somehow framed as sexist); Corbyn's 'friends' in Hamas and Hezbollah (where treating people you're trying to negotiate peace settlements with amicably is seen as supporting terrorism instead of reasonable diplomacy...) etc.