Corbynmania and why Labour must learn lessons from the Tories

I’ve never seen a more unlikely Messiah, political or otherwise. Jeremy Corbyn MP, apparent front runner for the Labour leadership, is from Socialist central casting. Serial party rebel, beard (and very possibly sandals too), MP for the People’s Republic of Islington, beloved of the unions, apologist for Hamas and IRA terrorists, and, to cap it all, a man who looks back at the 1970s with misty-eyed reverence. As the cliché goes: “You couldn’t make it up.”

No wonder the bulk of the Labour Party is in meltdown. Ed Miliband’s soft left political agenda was given the spanish archer [el bow] by voters in May, yet a Corbyn ascendency will jerk Her Majesty’s Opposition even further left, possibly tipping them into electoral oblivion.

Of course, Mr Corbyn’s rise from 100-1 outsider to favourite is a dream story for journalists, during what is usually a fallow period for political news. Acres of newsprint have been given over to ‘why oh why’ analysis by pundits and journalists of Mr Corbyn’s appeal.

Mr Corbyn’s fans are activists who drink from the silver cup of pure leftist politics: activists who hand out copies of Socialist Worker in market town squares, who turn up to protest in Whitehall against ‘austerity,’ the young, the union officials, the professional agitators, who move smoothly from CND to animal rights and back again. These noisy types see in Mr Corbyn a champion for their myriad causes, but there aren’t that many of them, certainly not enough to vote in a socialist Government.

Nevertheless, activists are powerful forces within party structures, especially as mass membership of political parties is history. Prior to the May election, less than 1% of the electorate said they were members of the three main parties. 149,000 were signed up Tories, the Labour Party could call on 190,000 supporters and the Liberal Democrats 44,000.

With declining membership, activists (and activists are generally more strident in their political views) become disproportionately more powerful. That may explain why Labour constituency associations are backing Mr Corbyn, and why a goodly number of new Labour MPs are firmly on the Labour left.  Activists who hold the pen on selection committees make sure their representatives in the Commons share the same outlook.

The Tories suffered a similar problem in the 1990s, after Dame Angela Rumbold became deputy chairman of the Party with responsibility for candidate selection. Encouraged by the Bruges Group and other hardliners, Dame Angela presided over a Thatcherite, Eurosceptic takeover of the candidates list. Pro-Europeans found themselves personae non grata. Local selection committees fell into line, and with each new intake, the Parliamentary Party lurched to the right.

As the Party turned right, Tony Blair seized his chance to capture the centre ground. It took another 18 years before the Tories won an outright majority, and even now, Mr Cameron has to tread carefully for fear of offending his largely Eurosceptic backbenchers. Within the party there remains a hard core of Thatcherites who dislike the PM and his brand of paternalistic centrism with a passion.

There are clear and obvious lessons for Labour. Some on the left are urging Labour to purge the “virus” of Blairism, notwithstanding the self-evident truth that Tony Blair was Labour’s most successful Prime Minister. Maybe the left are more concerned with socialist purity than they are with the grubby compromises of government?

That same charge was levelled at the hard right in the Conservative Party during the long years the Tories sat opposite Mr Blair.

After Labour’s defeat in May, there are of course, fundamental philosophical questions that the Party must ask itself and answer. Most pertinently, how does a Party of the left function effectively in an economy where there is little spare cash, and the electorate don’t trust the State to spend what money there is wisely? 

It took 18 years for the Conservatives to learn what it takes to win elections again. If Labour, under the leadership of Mr Corbyn, goes down a similar path, they won’t be back in Government until 2033.