This book, a study of Jeremy Corbyn's unexpected landslide victory of the Labour Party's leadership race and its implications by Richard Seymour, is a riveting and challenging read. I bought it as a Fathers' Day present for my dad, whose interest in politics has been stirred by the resurgence of the meaningful alternative to neoliberal hegemony that Corbyn provides and that is increasingly becoming a powerful force in British politics: I took it to a festival he was lined up to speak at but given certain events this week (BREXIT) he's been facing even stronger than usual criticisms, culminating in Labour MPs calling for this democratically-elected suppported-by-majority-of-party-members highly-principled man to step down, and so he pulled out.
To be honest I'm too disgusted with the British public at the current news to bother writing much reflection about this book. I'm just going to briefly say what it's about then rant a lot.
Seymour is a keen historian and commentator, and while his left-wing bias does show through it's clear that he's not an unthinking Corbynista - the book delves into some deep scrutiny of problems with Labour and with British politics in general that have been developing for decades, and which Jeremy Corbyn is uniquely poised to try to change (or, as currently looks more likely, to fall victim to). There are incredibly complex and well-rooted defence mechanisms of the conservative establishment in British society, supported by the anti-intellectual culture and non-proportionally-representative structure of our 'democracy': Richard Seymour does an excellent job of walking us through the last few decades of the Labour Party, its slow and deliberate killing-off of grassroots working-class support through New Labour, its desperation for electability-at-all-costs dragging it relentlessly to the right, these two factors robbing Labour leaders of the possibility of countering the status quo and promoting social justice by establishing clear narratives about what is wrong with our societies and economies. Corbyn has been hounded, ridiculed, aggressively targeted by the government, by corportate powers, by the mainstream media, by vast swathes of Middle Englanders, and by his own party. I fully recognise that his leadership style is not the slick presidential one of Blair or Cameron, his voting record is led so consistently by principle above the whip and so many in Parliament distrust his capacity for uniting the party, his ideology is distinctively one of democratic socialism which (given neoliberal hegemony) it is fashionable to say is dead these days. He doesn't wear expensive suits or show adequate respect to monarchs whom, to be fair, he doesn't believe should exist in the privileged aristocratic vacuum that they do. But the Labour Party has been dying slowly for years (hence why self-indulgent liberal lefties like me often lend support elsewhere) - maybe our current state of affairs is so royally messed up that the advocation of peace and equality truly is 'completely unelectable'; nevertheless he has the mandate of Labour's members, and for the party to have spent the year since his election trying their best to oust him one way or another is a disgrace and makes a shambolic mockery of the British political left. How can we have enough solidarity to make meaningful gains against the conservative establishment if we can't accept an (admittedly quite boring but by pretty much everyone's account very nice) imperfect leader and make the best of having him in that position? Corbyn's leadership should prompt opportunities to completely challenge and change the way we do politics: both reframing narratives about social and economic issues to re-engage working-class voters with the political system and help them understand policies that will actually benefit them, as well as reforming the manner in which political conversation is held in the public eye to make it kinder, less grounded in tribal rhetoric, appealing to reason and people's propensity for goodness rather than stimulating fear and division. We somehow find ourselves in a Britain in which people trust Eton-Oxbridge-educated professional defenders of the privileged elite telling them that what's best for them are policy sets that anyone with a scrap of economic literacy should be able to tell are thinly-disguised entrenchments of that very same elite privilege. Yet on that same austerity-swallowing Brexit-voting island, a gentle bearded man, who wears cardigans knitted by him mum to the House of Commons, who has spent his entire adult life campaigning for social justice, for the poor, against war and racism and discrimination of all kinds, is reviled as a national traitor because of the angle at which he bowed at a memorial.
Anyway. My own furiously bubbling intent to emigrate aside, this book is an excellent insight into the problems facing our contemporary democratic system and the Labour Party's place in it, putting Jeremy Corbyn into a context in which he is shown for what he is: an opportunity for real tangible change. Maybe he won't win a general election, maybe he will - but with the support of the Party and its members he is the perfect leader to reshape the way in which British politics occurs, and shift its parameters to the left. This is something definitely achievable, and of urgent importance in our political climate, where the gap between rich and poor continues to grow and far-right sentiments boil into personifications like Nigel Farage who have contributed to a normalisation of xenophobia. Richard Seymour writes well and clearly, and at no point slips into either the empty utopian vision-spouting nor the empty dystopian scaremongering that books on party politics often do. He maintains balance and objectivity, showing Corbyn as a genuine figure of possibility and hope.
[If you're interested in these problems but can't be arsed to read a whole book, check out this, this, and this Guardian opinion pieces, or even better this and this blog post from Another Angry Voice.]
To be honest I'm too disgusted with the British public at the current news to bother writing much reflection about this book. I'm just going to briefly say what it's about then rant a lot.
Seymour is a keen historian and commentator, and while his left-wing bias does show through it's clear that he's not an unthinking Corbynista - the book delves into some deep scrutiny of problems with Labour and with British politics in general that have been developing for decades, and which Jeremy Corbyn is uniquely poised to try to change (or, as currently looks more likely, to fall victim to). There are incredibly complex and well-rooted defence mechanisms of the conservative establishment in British society, supported by the anti-intellectual culture and non-proportionally-representative structure of our 'democracy': Richard Seymour does an excellent job of walking us through the last few decades of the Labour Party, its slow and deliberate killing-off of grassroots working-class support through New Labour, its desperation for electability-at-all-costs dragging it relentlessly to the right, these two factors robbing Labour leaders of the possibility of countering the status quo and promoting social justice by establishing clear narratives about what is wrong with our societies and economies. Corbyn has been hounded, ridiculed, aggressively targeted by the government, by corportate powers, by the mainstream media, by vast swathes of Middle Englanders, and by his own party. I fully recognise that his leadership style is not the slick presidential one of Blair or Cameron, his voting record is led so consistently by principle above the whip and so many in Parliament distrust his capacity for uniting the party, his ideology is distinctively one of democratic socialism which (given neoliberal hegemony) it is fashionable to say is dead these days. He doesn't wear expensive suits or show adequate respect to monarchs whom, to be fair, he doesn't believe should exist in the privileged aristocratic vacuum that they do. But the Labour Party has been dying slowly for years (hence why self-indulgent liberal lefties like me often lend support elsewhere) - maybe our current state of affairs is so royally messed up that the advocation of peace and equality truly is 'completely unelectable'; nevertheless he has the mandate of Labour's members, and for the party to have spent the year since his election trying their best to oust him one way or another is a disgrace and makes a shambolic mockery of the British political left. How can we have enough solidarity to make meaningful gains against the conservative establishment if we can't accept an (admittedly quite boring but by pretty much everyone's account very nice) imperfect leader and make the best of having him in that position? Corbyn's leadership should prompt opportunities to completely challenge and change the way we do politics: both reframing narratives about social and economic issues to re-engage working-class voters with the political system and help them understand policies that will actually benefit them, as well as reforming the manner in which political conversation is held in the public eye to make it kinder, less grounded in tribal rhetoric, appealing to reason and people's propensity for goodness rather than stimulating fear and division. We somehow find ourselves in a Britain in which people trust Eton-Oxbridge-educated professional defenders of the privileged elite telling them that what's best for them are policy sets that anyone with a scrap of economic literacy should be able to tell are thinly-disguised entrenchments of that very same elite privilege. Yet on that same austerity-swallowing Brexit-voting island, a gentle bearded man, who wears cardigans knitted by him mum to the House of Commons, who has spent his entire adult life campaigning for social justice, for the poor, against war and racism and discrimination of all kinds, is reviled as a national traitor because of the angle at which he bowed at a memorial.
Anyway. My own furiously bubbling intent to emigrate aside, this book is an excellent insight into the problems facing our contemporary democratic system and the Labour Party's place in it, putting Jeremy Corbyn into a context in which he is shown for what he is: an opportunity for real tangible change. Maybe he won't win a general election, maybe he will - but with the support of the Party and its members he is the perfect leader to reshape the way in which British politics occurs, and shift its parameters to the left. This is something definitely achievable, and of urgent importance in our political climate, where the gap between rich and poor continues to grow and far-right sentiments boil into personifications like Nigel Farage who have contributed to a normalisation of xenophobia. Richard Seymour writes well and clearly, and at no point slips into either the empty utopian vision-spouting nor the empty dystopian scaremongering that books on party politics often do. He maintains balance and objectivity, showing Corbyn as a genuine figure of possibility and hope.
[If you're interested in these problems but can't be arsed to read a whole book, check out this, this, and this Guardian opinion pieces, or even better this and this blog post from Another Angry Voice.]
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