Corbynism in 2018

Going in to 2018, Corbynism was presented with a challenge it hadn't encountered before: the relative peace of continuity. The movement began with an event to mobilise around in the 2015 leadership contest, ditto with the the coup that failed in 2016, and last year we had the general election and its fall out. There was nothing scheduled on the horizon for 2018, nor was there likely to be a mobilising moment. The old establishment had nothing to commend themselves, no avenues for striking back, nor any hope of destabilising Corbyn and snatching control of the party away from the membership. And Theresa May wasn't about to call a general election what with Brexit negotiations and a Tory party more divided then any time in, well, perhaps ever. How then has Corbynism fared over the course of the year? How is it developing? What are its successes? And how is it coping with threats and challenges?

In the metrics that matter most to conventional politics, Corbyn's Labour has a good story to tell. Polling is either level pegging, a little bit behind, or a little bit in front of the Tories. "Oh", wail Corbyn's opponents, "if he was any good we'd have double-digit point leads over this shower of a government". And perhaps Labour would if it wasn't for the political circumstances we find ourselves in. As noted previously and many times since, political polarisation has persisted throughout the year. It's not just a matter of the Tories and Labour mobilising different constituencies of voters, but that Brexit plays different roles in gluing these coalitions together. For Labour voters, as a general rule Britain's relationship to the EU is important, but other concerns like housing, the NHS, jobs, a better future, etc. more or less successfully keeps the coalition together. For the Tories, Brexit is absolutely central. It keeps the former kippers on board, it helps keep the Scottish unionist vote on board, and works as an attractor for the flotsam and jetsam of voters who buy the delusions of Brexit. If Brexit was a minority pursuit, which it isn't, then the Tory coalition would be smaller. To reiterate, the reason why the Tory vote remains large is because they are the party of Brexit. They're negotiating it, they're its custodians, and millions of people - who wouldn't necessarily vote Tory under other circumstances - are backing them for as long as it takes to get it done. Whether this falls away after 29th March or persists while the government prats about with a trade deal is a question we might be able to answer this time next year.

But this post is about Corbynism, not the Tories! May's local elections weren't a thumping success, though getting the best result in London for 50 years is worth shouting about. Nevertheless it demonstrated steady-as-it-goes progress with a polarised electorate in the background. Though, without indulging official optimism, it is worth remembering that turn outs for local elections are low and tend to flush out two groups of people; the super hard core who follow local politics and, disproportionately, older people. For Labour to do well in contests whose demographics favour the party's Tory opponents isn't to be sniffed at.

With electoral consolidation, um, consolidating, how are things looking in the party? Well, in 2018 we find a similar story. Momentum's membership grew massively over the year, passing the 40K mark in the Summer and with trolling talk of it soon overtaking the real membership of the Tories. It's possible! The year also saw the left firm up its control. 2018 began well with the left making a clean sweep of the three extra seats introduced to the NEC. There was plenty of argy-bargy in the last round of selections for this year's local elections, with the right claiming the left are racist/sexist/homophobic for deselecting councillors with awful politics - the sort of absurd logic which, turned the other way, damns every one of them for supporting white boy David Miliband over Diane Abbott in the 2010 leadership contest. In March, Corbyn flexed his muscles in the sacking of Owen Smith from the front bench for continuing to peddle his own line about a second referendum as opposed to the party's position. His forced departure occasioned the usual bellyaching, with Peter Hain going so far as to describe it a "terrible Stalinist purge". Neither it nor the fall out of the Skripal affair, where Corbyn used the occasion to draw attention to Russian money propping up the Tories, made any dents on the left in the Labour Party, and following May's elections it was a fairly easy task to get left wing delegates elected to conference and returning a full slate of leftwingers to this year's NEC.

The only real setback the project suffered internally were the shenanigans around mandatory reselection. Readers will recall there was an on-paper majority for it, and sundry rightwing Labour MPs were getting sweaty. Even Westminster colossi like Mike Gapes openly pondered their resignation of the Labour whip. And, in the end, there was some sort of deal done and instead of a simple reselection process we got a reform of the present trigger ballot system. This was disappointing, but not surprising. The leadership wanted to avoid headaches from the parliamentary party, and trade unions wanted to continue to have a hand in who does and doesn't get selected. Calling it a betrayal, as some did, is a bit much but it is an own goal and one bound to bite both the leadership and trade union general secretaries on the backside in the future. Nevertheless, what it did demonstrate was a tension in the relationship between Corbynism-in-the-party and Corbynism-in-the-unions.

Throughout the year, Corbynism's opponents in the party have either resigned in despair, as per John Woodcock and Ivan Lewis (neither, of course, had anything to do with a studied refusal to face sexual assault allegations), thrown tantrums like Frank Field, or trailed the prospect of a new centre party. If these people can't marry up a coalition of recalcitrant MPs and 50 million quid of LoveFilm money, how can they hope to be decent ministers? Well, we know they can't. But as far as the old Blairism and the Labour right are concerned, they did hit upon two weapons that have caused damage to the project and will no doubt be reached for again in 2018.

The first is anti-semitism. Jeremy Corbyn isn't an anti-semite, and neither are the overwhelming majority bulk of the Labour Party. But as explained here, there is a culture of anti-semitic carelessness on the left that has come into the party, which has been amplified by ones and twos of Labour people on social media sharing anti-semitic conspiracy idiocies, far right memes, defences of Gilad Atzmon, and Rothschild obsessions - all of whom are seized upon with alacrity by the media and the Labour right. This climaxed over the summer with the row over Jeremy Corbyn's attendance at that funeral. Unfortunately, while the right should be condemned for their disgusting and dishonest behaviour on this issue - where were most of them before anti-semitism became something you could damage the Corbyn project with? - the left needs to take responsibility and stamp this shit out. Better, quicker disciplinary procedures, a programme of party-directed education, and zero tolerance of anti-semites, conspiracy fools, and "leftist" liabilities who deny there's any such problem are good starting points.

The second is Brexit or, to be more accurate, the movement for remain. Broader and more politically amorphous than the FBPE cult on Twitter, it is nevertheless a bourgeois social movement, and one used by sections of the Labour right to try and drive a wedge between Labour members and Labour voters, who the polls tell us are mostly anti-Brexit and want a second referendum, and the party leadership. There was the pre-Christmas poll from YouGov that boldly claimed the LibDems would surge to second place if Labour was seen enabling Theresa May's Brexit, and there was the Graun interview in which Corbyn restated Labour's 'all options on the table' policy, which was taken up as some great betrayal by sundry Labour MPs and their friends in the Liberal Democrats. Of course, Labour has a tricky tightrope to walk. Brexit is damaging and a load of crap, but unless you think a bit of dodgy funding and a few Facebook adverts invalidate the result (especially when remain spent more overall, including on Facebook), seeing it through is the democratic thing to do. Unless another general election comes along and rewrites the rules. As noted earlier, Brexit does play a different role in Labour's voter coalition vs the Tory vote, but different role doesn't mean no role. In my view, calling for a general election with the promise to try and negotiate a different deal with the promise of a referendum at the end to confirm it is the best approach to take. Whatever happens, the party cannot be put in a position where it "reluctantly" votes for May's deal - Scotland and the fate of the LibDems shows what happens when other parties become the Tories' meat shield.

Overall, Corbynism is more or less politically united. More activists are more regularly involved, and provided the party carefully steps its way through the Brexit mess it remains well placed to win a general election. But there is still much to be done. Corbynism conceives of labour as a party/movement, a collective active in community struggles, trade unions and wider campaigns while simultaneously being a contender for power. The two are not mutually exclusive as the cretinists of the right maintain, but central to winning an election and transforming our society. Therefore we need to be aware that Corbynism hasn't spurred wider radicalisation. At least not yet. Tied up with this is building the network of ideas, thinkers, publications and websites, broadcast media, institutions - which is central if you want to frame the battle for the country's soul in terms of hegemony and counter hegemony. This is coming together and Corbynist outriders, mainly from the left of the movement are regularly getting themselves in the media to push the new common sense. However, the problem of what John McDonnell calls 'cadre development' remains. When you have a Labour Party culture historically antithetical to, well, thinking, and a social media culture productive of conspiracy theorising, instilling a sense of history, capacities for informed social critique, and hunger for new knowledge is a big ask. Nevertheless this is happening and, fortunately for the left, the experience of tens of millions tallies with what it is saying about the world.

Corbynism then leaves 2018 in good shape, in better shape than when it entered it. 2019 isn't going to be a walk in the park, but when you look at the state of our opponents in the party and outside of it, we could be in a much worse place.