How Corbynism (Catastrophically) Bungled the Most Crucial Election in a Lifetime

How radical chic took over from real-world politics, the adults were kicked out of the room, and the children burned down the house

di Umair Haque

It was a chilly autumn afternoon in London. In Islington, to be precise — the home of the later-to-be-much-hated metropolitan elites. I was at a cafe, waiting to reluctantly meet with a person connected to a person connected to the Corbyn campaign — which had just assumed power, to much applause, enthusiasm, and hope. Reluctantly — because I had a feeling…

“Well”, they asked me, hopefully, guardedly “What do you think? Of us? What should we do?”

“I think”, I said, trying to be gentle, “That you need to grow up a little. I think your contradictions will sink you.”

“What do you mean?” they asked, baffled, offended. They’d hoped for the unbridled, unquestioned enthusiasm they were getting elsewhere.
“Well”, I said, reluctantly, “Let’s think about it. You say you want to end austerity. But your focus is still…the deficit. You say you want to solve Britain’s real problems. But you’re for Brexit. You say that you want a fairer economy and that you want to alter the balance of power in society. But you don’t seem to have a way to redefine corporations and profit and GDP. I could go on. Here’s my point.

I’m sorry to say it. But. I think all your poorly thought out contradictions will result in a muddle, a mess, that you will sink in. But maybe we can try to resolve all that.”

Reader, perhaps you can guess the response. A deafening silence, followed by a polite thank you, as chilly as that autumn afternoon. It was at that precise moment I had the sinking feeling — perhaps the grim knowledge — that the Corbyn campaign was going to lose. And the next few years confirmed my worst fears, over and over again.

Every political campaign can be divided into three elements. The man or woman, the message, and the movement. Corbynism catastrophically bungled each of these three elements. Where a broken society needed a politics of courageous and uncompromising reinvention and reimagination… Corbynism offered a brand of childish, immature student politics, a college leftism of infighting and purity-testing…that the average person rolled their eyes at — and walked away from, en masse, to devastating result.

Let me begin with the (complete lack whastoever of a) message. The Corbynist will read the sentence above and object: “But our manifesto was bold and uncompromising! You dummy!” It was, in ways. But it was too little, far too late. In the last month — the last month — of the election, Corbyn finally announced all his plans. It’s fair to say that they were thoughtful and brave. Nationalizing public goods, tamping down inequality, and so on. Well done.

The problem was that all that came after years — years — of no one knowing what Jeremy Corbyn stood for. No one. And that was because whenever it came time to pin down a position, Corbyn — or worse, his surrogates, and I’ll come to that — would retreat into vague idealism, theory, or just pure claptrap. College leftism and student politics. Remember those contradictions? They surfaced early on. Nobody had any idea what Corbynism stood for, because Corbynism itself had no idea what it stood for —except a weird clique of fringe radicals playing at high-school popularity contests with each other — until it was far, far too late.

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