One year on: Corbyn set to win Labour Leadership contest again
- By Heiko Khoo
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E-mail China.org.cn, September 16, 2016
A year ago, on September 12, 2015, the British Labour Party elected Jeremy Corbyn as its leader with a landslide majority – nearly 60 percent – against three other candidates.
He is the most left-wing socialist to lead the party since its formation in 1900. However a majority of Labour MPs refused to accept his mandate, some actively seeking to sabotage his leadership from day one by trying to discredit him and pave the way for a new leadership contest.
After Britain voted to leave the European Union on June 24, a plot was hatched within the Parliamentary Labour Party to oust Corbyn – a coup backed by most of the party bureaucracy. When Corbyn refused to stand down, despite losing a no-confidence motion in which 172 Labour MPs called for his resignation, a new leadership election was called in which MP Owen Smith was selected as a leadership candidate.
Initially it appeared he was making some headway amongst party members. Media outlets continued to pour scorn on Corbyn's abilities and constantly repeated the mantra that radical socialist ideas cannot possibly win majority support in British society today.
Their argument is that, although there is a constituency of support for socialist ideas, they don't appeal to middle-of-the-road "ordinary" voters. Corbyn's supporters, however, argue that the huge rise in party membership to well over 500, 000 will provide the foot soldiers needed to win over the sceptics.
Corbyn commands enthusiastic support amongst the party masses. They blame the Parliamentary Labour Party for sabotaging his leadership at every step. In fact, the new contest has been a godsend to Corbyn. And the mood has dramatically changed inside the Labour Party compared to a year ago.
Consequently the challenger has had to cast himself as being just as radical as Corbyn, claiming he can challenge the Conservative party more effectively in Parliament because of unique leadership skills that Corbyn apparently, lacks. After all, both candidates are advocating a fundamental rebalancing of economic and political power back towards the working class and poor.
Labour Party grandees argue the very purpose of the Labour Party is to gain a Parliamentary majority, rather than to establish socialism. And the socialism that they envisage is always circumscribed by limitations imposed by the Parliamentary system. Indeed, this is almost certainly why the Labour Party has never come near to establishing a socialist society despite long periods in government.
The nearest Britain came to socialism was under the first majority Labour government in 1945. It carried through a series of radical reforms including the nationalization of important industries, transportation and energy, and they introduced a cradle-to-grave health and welfare system.
However, the sectors nationalized after 1945 were molded to serve the needs of capitalism. That particular Labour government did not fundamentally challenge the power of big private enterprises. And much of the land continued to belong to a tiny minority with close ties to old, aristocratic families.
From the 1970s onwards, in Britain and Western Europe the political consensus accepted widespread welfare rights, health care provision, pensions, education etc. only for this to come under sustained attack amid economic decline. At the macro level, the root cause of sluggish investment has been a fall in the long-term rate of profit.
In order to establish the foundations for an enduring period of economic expansion, private enterprises, and their ideological representatives coalesced around the idea of attacking the organized labor movement and thereby weakening the bargaining power of the workers.
This neoliberal ideology was popularized by the former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and former American President Ronald Reagan in the late 1980s. They sought to fundamentally shift the balance of power back in favor of the owners of capital.
Privatization and cuts in welfare were designed to undermine unions, weaken their bargaining power, and transfer socially-owned resources into private hands. It was argued that the more money the capitalists possess, the more they would invest and this would eventually "trickle down to those below in a sort of capitalist utopia.
Since 2008 the global economic crisis has undermined the material underpinning of this neoliberal ideology. Now after many years the balance of forces is shifting back to the left.
Despite desperate attempts by the Labour Party right and their allies inside the mass media – particularly the BBC – Jeremy Corbyn appears to have an unassailable lead among those eligible to vote in the leadership election.
With a Corbyn victory pretty much inevitable, a mass movement mobilized to fundamentally transform the Labour Party at the grassroots level is now required. This means that some Labour MPs who constantly sabotage the policies supported by the majority of party members will face re-selection by their local constituency parties.
Owen Smith advocates a £200 billion investment program and Corbyn one costing £500 billion. Such huge stimulus packages would be comparable to those undertaken by China after 2008. The main difficulty will lie in structuring investment policies in ways that improve the productivity of labor and enhance knowledge and output of society.
The Labour Party needs to develop concrete perspectives and plans for the realization of radical policies to transform society.
So far, Corbyn and his socialist supporters have been hindered in their bid to reshape the political agenda. Now that his enemies have shown their hand. They will be resoundingly defeated, clearing the way for a transformation of the Labour Party and society as a whole.
Heiko Khoo is a columnist with China.org.cn. For more information please visit:
http://www.china.org.cn/opinion/heikokhoo.htm
Opinion article reflected the views of their authors, not necessarily those of China.org.cn.
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