Saturday 12 September 2015

Labour takes a jump to the left with Corbyn landslide

LABOUR LEADERSHIP RESULT
Jeremy CORBYN251,41759.5%
Andy BURNHAM80,46219%
Yvette COOPER71,92817%
Liz KENDALL18,8574.5%
Turnout422,66476.3%

LABOUR made its most radical shift in decades as the landslide election of Jeremy Corbyn as leader marked the end of the New Labour era.

Mr Corbyn enjoyed an overwhelming victory in the first round of the ballot, taking 251,417 votes (59.5%) to finish well ahead of early favourite Andy Burnham (19%) and another former government minister, Yvette Cooper (17%).

The Blairite candidate Liz Kendall limped home in last place with just 18,857 votes (4.5%).

Already, though, Mr Corbyn has faced some internal opposition.

Within minutes of the result, shadow Health Secretary Jamie Reed had resigned, while - only a little later - Ms Cooper, former leader Ed Miliband and another shadow minister Rachel Reeves all confirmed they would not serve in a Corbyn Cabinet.

Of course, none of this is an unexpected turn of events or even a complete disaster for the new leader - bemused former Deputy PM Lord Prescott even pondered "who?" when asked about Mr Reed live on the BBC.

Nevertheless, even these minor enough ructions demonstrate amply the extent of the work which Mr Corbyn faces to keep his party united.

In fairness to the 66-year-old Islington North MP, he did offer a few olive branches in his opening speech to those on other wings of the party to himself and his many grassroots supporters.

He joked amicably about his differences of opinion with fellow candidate Ms Kendall and their sharing of late-night trains heading home from hustings meetings.

There was also a conspicuous absence of any mention of his views on the UK membership of NATO or the renewal of the nuclear deterrent Trident.

He did, however, attack the media directly, describing parts of it as "abusive" and "intrusive".

Notably, his newly-elected deputy, Tom Watson, is perhaps best remembered for taking on the News of the World over phone-hacking allegations in the last Parliament.

It is fair to say then that neither Mr Corbyn nor Mr Watson will be doing any Blair-style cosying-up to the likes of Rupert Murdoch's Sun newspaper or Paul Dacre's Daily Mail.

This will undoubtedly work against Mr Corbyn - he will be seen as fair game by the right-wing media which will dig for dirt and shriek hysterically at every perceived misstep.

But, at the same time, this is something which Mr Corbyn appears willing to accept as he moves Labour in an entirely different direction.

Indeed, he is aware that far greater damage will come opposition on his own side as he shifts Labour away from so-called austerity-lite policies and towards the renationalisation of the railways and major utilities.

Additionally, the road to national electoral success is mathematically difficult anyway, to say the least.

For, even if an anti-austerity Corbyn-led party won back the votes of every supporter of the Scottish Nationalists, the rump Liberal Democrats and the Green Party, there would still be a Conservative majority.

Boundary changes, due in this Parliament, will also favour the Tories - and so, while it is an uncomfortable proposition, Labour simply must do better against the Conservatives in Middle England to win.

Yes, there are the many - mainly younger - non-voters who could be swept up by Mr Corbyn before the next general election.

All the available evidence suggests, though, that the Conservative-dominated over-65s demographic will continue to out-vote their younger counterparts.

The worry then is that Labour has thrown a Corbyn-shaped comfort blanket around itself, and will do no better in 2020 than it did in May this year.

Perhaps a more pertinent worry for democracy generally, though, is that Mr Corbyn may not even be afforded the opportunity to make his case if the internal party disputes force him out.

This would be despite his huge mandate in having won almost 60% of the total vote, and having won in each of the three sections - comprising of party members, registered supporters and affiliated supporters.

Rightly, right now, there is scepticism over whether Mr Corbyn has a widespread enough appeal to win an election against the Conservatives.

But at least the election of Mr Corbyn will decisively end a previously accepted view that the two main parties were just the same.

Mr Corbyn is ready to give British politics a shake - indeed, it might never be quite the same again.

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