Can the UK Labour Party's cult of Corbyn last?

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On the first night of Britain’s Labour Party conference, 63-year-old Mary Griffiths, a nurse of 40 years, found herself in tears.

“I went back to the room I’m staying in and I just sobbed. I absolutely sobbed, for an hour.”

That day, Jeremy Corbyn’s supporters had crushed an attempt to debate Brexit at the party’s annual gathering in Brighton on the same day as hundreds took to the streets urging Labour to back staying in the common market.

Griffiths, like many other Labour members, is heartbroken at the EU referendum result and bitterly angry that Labour and Corbyn did not do enough and are still not doing enough to stop Brexit.

The previous night, Rachel Godfrey-Wood, who runs the grassroots pro-Corbyn group Momentum, had emailed members to say they should vote housing, social care, the National Health Service and rail up for discussion, but not Brexit. The 800 Momentum delegates, voting as instructed, swamped 360 moderates, 100 non-aligned and 300 union numbers, and the party was denied a chance to vote on the shape of its future Brexit policy. Corbyn rebels were quick to register their disgust.

At this conference in Brighton, Brexit became a proxy for a broader fight that was clearly evident in the party. On this occasion, centrists conceded defeat, but they vowed a fightback against the jubilant socialists and their addictive chanting of “Oh, Jeremy Corbyn” every time their leader appeared.

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“We’ve lost, we’ve got to be honest about that, there’s no point trying to deny the elephant in the room,” said Ayesha Haxariza, an adviser to the former Blair government who regularly receives threats of deselection from Corbyn supporters who don’t realise she is not an MP.

The centrists are tapping into the broad swathes of the membership who, like Griffiths, describe themselves as “passionate Remainers”.

“I feel Jeremy has never really ever been committed to the EU. I am a passionate Remainer and I feel he was ambivalent about it,” she said.

Jonathan Isaby runs the Leave website BrexitCentral. He said Corbyn’s Eurosceptic views, rooted in his socialism, are well known.

“Jeremy Corbyn’s publicly stated support for Remain was at best lukewarm, with a number of passionate Labour Remainers taking the view that their leader and his aides were actively obstructing their efforts,” he said.

“Mr Corbyn has a track record of hostility to the EU going back decades and as a politician whose views have otherwise remained consistent throughout his career, it was no surprise that when it came to the ‘Stronger In’ campaign, his heart was not in it.”

But that’s not the message party member Karma McKeefery heard. She joined Labour in 2015 and speaks of Corbyn rapturously.

“I voted Remain because Jeremy Corbyn voted Remain,” she said as she departed Brighton for Lancashire on Tuesday.

Karma McKeefery and Sue Brennan from Lancashire say Jeremy Corbyn is the leader they've been waiting for.

Karma McKeefery (left) and Sue Brennan from Lancashire say Jeremy Corbyn is restoring the party’s socialist agenda. Photo: Latika Bourke

“Jeremy Corbyn’s the sort of politician that I’ve been waiting for all my life,” she said, singling out his “honesty” and straight-talking.

Richard Angell runs the Blairite internal pressure group Progress and says Momentum used their first year in charge at conference to deliberately exploit the “naivete” of the party’s newer members to “save Jeremy Corbyn’s Brexiteer blushes” by stamping out a debate on Brexit.

“It is such a pity Momentum’s leadership used the biggest issue facing the country as a factional plaything. It does not bode well.”

Angell decries a “stitch and fix”, the kind of which Alistair Campbell noted his former boss Tony Blair would have been proud. But Carol Billinghurst, who joined when Corbyn first stood to be the leader, says it’s actually democracy at work.

“The opposite is a problem really, there are people who are in a minority who wield quite a lot of power.”

Carol Billinghurst from Bristol joined the Labour party and Momentum to support Jeremy Corbyn's leadership.

Carol Billinghurst from Bristol joined the Labour Party and Momentum to support Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership. Photo: Latika Bourke

“It should be a democratic party and if most of the people who joined do like Jeremy and his policies, then that’s the way the party will head,” she said.

Under Corbyn, Labour membership has swelled to nearly 600,000, and regular conference-goers reported the biggest crowds in years. Lines to enter the venue stretched for blocks and people were turned away from numerous fringe events which were packed out up to half an hour before they started.

Labour party members queuing to hear Jeremy Corbyn's speech.

Labour Party members queuing to hear Jeremy Corbyn’s speech. Photo: Latika Bourke

There is no doubt the frontman has a lot to do with it.

Merchandise at the conference was about one man only: from “Oh, Jeremy Corbyn” scarves, Corbyn pins, singlet tops and T-shirts and “For the Many” posters to cloth tote bags with Corbyn posing like a film star, the stalls suggested the Labour Party had started and ended with one man who is still only an opposition leader.

Jeremy Corbyn posters for sale at the annual Labour party conference in Brighton.

Jeremy Corbyn posters for sale at the annual Labour Party conference in Brighton. Photo: Latika Bourke

Mary Griffiths said the cult mentality stops her from criticising Corbyn openly amongst fellow Labour members.

“When I sat for the first day in the conference and people were singing “Oh, Jeremy Corbyn”, I turned to people around me, other members, and I said, ‘Oh my gosh, people are celebrating this man and the situation we are in when he had that opportunity [but the Tories are still in power pushing through Brexit]’ and they just looked at me as if I was coming from another planet.”

“We should remind everyone that they’re coming to the Labour Party conference, not the Momentum conference,” Labour MP John Mann told a Labour First fringe event. “It’s great that we’ve got so many new members but those new members must remember there was a Labour Party before 2015.”

One Last Heave?

Theresa May remains in Downing Street, but at 2017 conference Corbyn’s supporters declared he was the real winner.

“Let me say this to those merchants of doom, the whingers and the whiners who say ‘we should have done better, we didn’t win’, I say we did win,” said Len McCluskey, the leader of the Unite union.

“We aimed so low we are jubilant to lose,” countered Jess Phillips, an MP from the West Midlands and outspoken Corbyn critic.

“Let me give you a reality check,” Scottish Parliament MP Jackie Baillie told a Progress rally. “We came third, behind the SNP and behind the Tories and if we let the jubilation of doing better than expected, and lets face it expectations were low, if we let that cloud our judgement we lose sight of the fundamental lessons we need to learn.”

The victory McCluskey speaks of though is the battle within the party, which Corbyn believes has translated into mainstream politics.

'Oh Jeremy Corbyn' scarf on sale at the 2017 Labour party conference in Brighton.

An ‘Oh Jeremy Corbyn’ scarf on sale at the 2017 Labour Party conference in Brighton. Photo: Latika Bourke

But Chris Leslie, an MP from Nottingham, worries the party leadership will think more of the same will do the trick in five years’ time.

“Let’s just have one more heave, go back in 2022 with exactly the same things we’re in, that should be sufficient – it isn’t sufficient.”

And Welsh MP Wayne David said the leadership should not mistake anti-Tory sentiment for widespread Corbynism.

“I had a lot of my constituents saying, ‘Well, we’re not really that enamoured with Jeremy … but we’re going to vote Labour despite Jeremy’,” he said.

The doubts are shared by those much closer to Corbyn’s ideology. Compass, an anti-Blair left-wing pressure group said the conditions that combined to create Corbyn’s shock-result are unlikely to be repeated. And it warns Labour could become the party of “cosmopolitan cities” at the expense of its working-class base.

“Three-quarters of the seats that we have to win at the next election are towns, where we found it harder to win,” noted Yvette Cooper, who before the election was firming as the likely successor to Corbyn.

Labour party supporters with Jeremy Corbyn merchandise.

Labour Party supporters with Jeremy Corbyn merchandise. Photo: Latika Bourke

The hung parliament result conceals the daunting 64 seats Labour needs to win to secure a majority in the next election, scheduled for 2022.

Wes Streeting says Momentum has a choice: to work with the entire party to make it electable, or continue its hostile takeover with threats to deselect moderate MPs.

“They can either be the positive force of the party that can mobilise members … or they can become and remain a factional vehicle that’s more focused on revolutionary socialism, deselecting MPs and changing the rule books to rig the system,” he said.

In this multi-sided debate, though, no faction appears in the mood to offer a genuine truce.

Luke Akehurst from Labour First, a pre-Blair right-wing organisation, says the veteran MP John Spellar is working on a plan take back the party.

“He has been foreseeing that these kind of problems would happen for a long time and urging us to get our ducks in a row,” he said.

“People don’t think there’s a plan. There is a plan, John’s got it and he doesn’t stick it up all over Facebook so you’re not going to hear about it, he’s just working on it.”

Phil Green, a 65-year-old lifelong member but first-time conference-goer, is also sceptical of Corbynism.

“The atmosphere is elevated and positive,” he says. “But no one can tell what will happen next.”

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Article source: http://watoday.com.au/afl/afl-news/richmond-tigers-have-proven-the-doubters-wrong-with-2017-grand-final-win-20170930-gyry45.html

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