Against 100 to 1 odds
by Tom Sullivan
This news from across the pond broke while I was writing yesterday morning:
Jeremy Corbyn has been elected leader of the British Labour party, in a stunning first-round victory that dwarfed even the mandate for Tony Blair in 1994.
He won with nearly 59.5% of first-preference votes, beating rivals Andy Burnham, who trailed on 19%, and Yvette Cooper who received 17%. The “Blairite” candidate Liz Kendall came last on 4.5%.
Minutes after his victory, Corbyn said the message is that people are “fed up with the injustice and the inequality” of Britain.
“The media and many of us, simply didn’t understand the views of young people in our country. They were turned off by the way politics was being conducted. We have to and must change that. The fightback gathers speed and gathers pace,” he said.
I can't profess a grasp of the nuances of British politics, but given the insurgent campaigns on these shores, it has been fascinating to watch Corbyn's rise over the summer. The initial odds against the left-wing Corbyn winning were around 100-1, reports the Guardian, "but his campaign was boosted when he won the support of two of the biggest unions, Unite and Unison, and became the only candidate to vote against the Conservatives’ welfare bill while the others abstained."
Within hours of victory, more conservative Labour members refused to serve in a shadow cabinet under Corbyn. One had already described a prospective Corbyn win as "a disaster for the party." He's been accused by rivals of trying to "turn back the clock." The "left-of-centre" New Statesman warned that a tilt towards the Corbyn wing of the party would consign Labour to "permanent minority status." Tony Blair (now there's the voice of authority) argued against Corbynistas and, essentially, for more centrism.
Nigel Green of the deVere Group, slammed Corbyn's tax and economic policies as "disastrous" for business:
“He seems utterly determined to drag Britain back to the 1970s, an era in which the UK was strangled by high taxes and an inflexible labour market.
“Mr Corbyn seems so far removed from reality that he is unwilling or unable to accept that if you significantly increase taxes and disincentivise work and investment, people will change their behaviours.
Yet in Old England, Corbyn's policies seem to have wide support among voters. Go figure.
The echoes on this side of the Atlantic with regard to Democrats in general, and Bernie Sanders in particular, are obvious. Republican candidates, reports the New York Times, are anything but hopeful, even though "by Republican standards" the economy is doing well. "Even if the debate is held under GOP rules," writes Steve Benen, "looking at Obama’s economic record, it’s hard to know what Republicans are complaining about." They are complaining because it is their job to.
If Bernie Sanders' political insurgency continues to grow, expect to hear more of the same, and a prediction that unless Democrats support more center-left policies, America faces doom. Doom, I tell you.
Back when I got into this game around 2004, old Democratic hands whispered that "those progressives" were going to ruin everything. Then with a little help from a guy named Obama, our county won every race on the ballot in 2008 – 36 for 36. And in an off-year election when Democrats across the South lost big, we were the only state to pick up seats in the legislature, two from our county. Doom, I tell you.