As our media and political establishment continue to impress upon us, the Labour Party has no hope of entering office with Jeremy Corbyn at the helm. Whatever the truth of this claim, it needs unpacking.
It could mean that his politics are so intrinsically unattractive that even if they were presented dispassionately to the voting public he would remain unelectable. We might call this the democratic reason to call him unelectable. On the other hand it could be taken to mean that certain people, more powerful than the average voter, simply will not tolerate him being elected. They will strive to misrepresent him and his agenda, so that the public will be dissuaded from voting for him – not least by ceaselessly impressing upon us his un-electability – who wants to back a loser? We can fairly and dispassionately call this the undemocratic reason he is judged unelectable – a transparent case of power usurping democracy.
A clue can be inferred from his opponents’ focus on the personal and irrelevant. If his policies are so unattractive why the need to concentrate on his beard, or shoes, or reluctance to sing patriotic songs, or pledge commitment to acts of genocide against as yet unformulated enemies? If his social and economic policy is intrinsically abhorrent, and such a sure turn-off to the public, why not concentrate on that? He’d be very happy to discuss it, and presumably dig his own grave that way.
Indeed the sheer ferocity of the attacks against him don’t suggest complacency on the part of his critics, not as one would expect if there really was no chance of him winning. He can’t be hopelessly unelectable and the most dangerous man in Britain. So let’s assume he could win. Let’s imagine that, given a fair hearing, the public really might vote him into office. Why then the campaign to write him off?
First there are his obvious enemies. As a man of the left, we can assume that he is opposed by anyone significantly to his right (as equally we can assume that almost everyone to his left supports him – beggars can’t be choosers.) Obviously this includes default enemies of Labour – the current government and any other rival political parties. In addition, given his economic plans, much of the world of big-business and finance; companies benefitting from tax avoidance and zero hour contracts; companies benefitting from a cowed and demoralised workforce. He will certainly find few friends in the boardrooms of those industries he has earmarked for renationalisation, or amidst our large and happy band of arms manufacturers. Membership of CND, Stop the War and the Palestine Solidarity Campaign conjures a wide range of highly vocal adversaries. Likewise, humble flag-wavers from Alf Garnet to Lord Helpus will see him as a threat to all they hold dear. Last but not least, there is the corporate world’s mouthpiece - the corporate mass media.
Trickier to untangle are the motives of the enemy within, within the Labour party that is. We can again usefully divide these nay-sayers into two distinct groups. First there are those who oppose him ideologically, for many of the same reasons as above: Those who remain wedded to the Thatcher/Blair economic project; Atlantic patriots, those pro-NATO pro-Trident diehards who can’t abide the idea of the UK losing its long-lost world player status; and of course there are those who directly assisted Blair in his war crimes. The last thing they can stomach is being led by someone who had the good judgement to oppose the disaster from the start.
Finally, we move onto potentially the most interesting group – those within his party who secretly agree with his policies but oppose him for reasons of political expediency. While many of them first joined the party in the hope of enacting policies well to the left of anything Corbyn would dare to suggest in 2015 they now see him as a threat to their seats and a threat to the party gaining office. After years of campaigning against project-Thatcher presumably they now see its consequences as irreversible. Too much has already been privatised, the unions have been crushed, and the mainstream media are uniformly satisfied with the consequences. Maggie won - there is no alternative.
The choice as they see it then is electoral disaster with Corbyn, or another stab at Thatcherism-lite under the leadership of one of the translucent figures to his right. It’s certainly a schizophrenic strategy. They find themselves shouting down their own political convictions, coming as they do from the mouth of someone braver than themselves. All this in the hope that they can get themselves and their party re-elected on an agenda contrary to their true desires.
The great shame is that the one thing that certainly will render Corbyn unelectable will be lack of support from within his party. Labour’s opponents can be relied upon to continue the blitzkrieg of slander and smears – politics as usual. But if those within his party won’t struggle to deflect and correct the misrepresentations, and argue the benefits, it really will be game over. A sad irony for those who secretly support his policies.
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