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Verso Reports
Corbyn and the Future of Labour: A Verso Report
The leadership election is coming to an end, with an expected victory for Jeremy Corbyn. He is given the mandate (again) to demand support from the Westminster rump that still resists his authority.
But even with this support, the future is no walk in the park. Since the attempt to force Corbyn to resign, followed by the extended contest, the polls have shown the electorate to be unenthusiastic about the Labour Party’s internal struggles. Widespread media coverage continues to drive home the message that the party will be unelectable in 2020 under Corbyn, when the next General Election seems most likely to occur. The collapse of the party in Scotland and the threat of future boundary changes make the prospects for success seem particularly dim. What is the Labour Party to do in order to present a credible alternative? There are no simple answers.
Corbyn and the Future of Labour looks back on an extraordinary year – in which the Labour Party and its membership changed almost beyond recognition – and offers a variety of prescriptions for what needs to be done. Already we have seen that the party is willing to move away from the centre ground for the first time in twenty years and beginning to offer an authentic alternative to the neoliberal doctrine of austerity. Perhaps the only thing the writers collected together here might agree on is that the road ahead is going to be hard.
Including contributions from Tariq Ali, Joanna Biggs, Rachel Shabi, George Monbiot, Jamie Stern-Weiner, Richard Seymour, Hilary Wainwright, Jeremy Gilbert, Alex Williams, Ellie Mae O'Hagan, Michael Rosen, Aaron Bastani, Lindsey German.
But even with this support, the future is no walk in the park. Since the attempt to force Corbyn to resign, followed by the extended contest, the polls have shown the electorate to be unenthusiastic about the Labour Party’s internal struggles. Widespread media coverage continues to drive home the message that the party will be unelectable in 2020 under Corbyn, when the next General Election seems most likely to occur. The collapse of the party in Scotland and the threat of future boundary changes make the prospects for success seem particularly dim. What is the Labour Party to do in order to present a credible alternative? There are no simple answers.
Corbyn and the Future of Labour looks back on an extraordinary year – in which the Labour Party and its membership changed almost beyond recognition – and offers a variety of prescriptions for what needs to be done. Already we have seen that the party is willing to move away from the centre ground for the first time in twenty years and beginning to offer an authentic alternative to the neoliberal doctrine of austerity. Perhaps the only thing the writers collected together here might agree on is that the road ahead is going to be hard.
Including contributions from Tariq Ali, Joanna Biggs, Rachel Shabi, George Monbiot, Jamie Stern-Weiner, Richard Seymour, Hilary Wainwright, Jeremy Gilbert, Alex Williams, Ellie Mae O'Hagan, Michael Rosen, Aaron Bastani, Lindsey German.
- GenresPoliticsNonfictionEssays
112 pages, ebook
First published September 1, 2016
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99 people want to read
About the author
Tariq Ali
137 books804 followersTariq Ali (Punjabi, Urdu: طارق علی) is a British-Pakistani historian, novelist, filmmaker, political campaigner, and commentator. He is a member of the editorial committee of the New Left Review and Sin Permiso, and regularly contributes to The Guardian, CounterPunch, and the London Review of Books.
He is the author of several books, including Can Pakistan Survive? The Death of a State (1991) , Pirates Of The Caribbean: Axis Of Hope (2006), Conversations with Edward Said (2005), Bush in Babylon (2003), and Clash of Fundamentalisms: Crusades, Jihads and Modernity (2002), A Banker for All Seasons (2007) and the recently published The Duel (2008).
He is the author of several books, including Can Pakistan Survive? The Death of a State (1991) , Pirates Of The Caribbean: Axis Of Hope (2006), Conversations with Edward Said (2005), Bush in Babylon (2003), and Clash of Fundamentalisms: Crusades, Jihads and Modernity (2002), A Banker for All Seasons (2007) and the recently published The Duel (2008).
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
October 11, 2016
An important collection of essays on the leadership struggle in the Labour Party over the last couple of years, written by people from left Social democrats to pro- and anti- EU campaigners to that old warhorse of the Ernest Mandel school, Tariq Ali.
I would like to draw particular attention among my fellow New Democrats to essay number 8, by Jeremy Gilbert, "The Question of Leadership".
"The reason the two sides of this argument find it so hared to talk to each other, or even understand each other's logics, is that what is at stake here really is two quite different conceptions of politics; this implies, among other things, two quite different conceptions of what leadership is and what leaders are for. One perspective basically thinks that politics is about selling your party to consumers; the other thinks that it's mainly about building up a coalition of social groups with common interests."
Politics as marketing, versus politics as movement-building. This is what the difference is between a Tom Mulcair and a Tommy Douglas.
"The great weakness of this model of politics is that it simply cannot explain how social change happens. It insists that politics as it has been done since the 1980s is the only way it could ever be done." I could go on but I don't want to quote too heavily from it; go, get a copy, read it, and ponder what sort of leadership we need in the NDP ... not just who for Leader, but what sort of direction we need to go.
I would like to draw particular attention among my fellow New Democrats to essay number 8, by Jeremy Gilbert, "The Question of Leadership".
"The reason the two sides of this argument find it so hared to talk to each other, or even understand each other's logics, is that what is at stake here really is two quite different conceptions of politics; this implies, among other things, two quite different conceptions of what leadership is and what leaders are for. One perspective basically thinks that politics is about selling your party to consumers; the other thinks that it's mainly about building up a coalition of social groups with common interests."
Politics as marketing, versus politics as movement-building. This is what the difference is between a Tom Mulcair and a Tommy Douglas.
"The great weakness of this model of politics is that it simply cannot explain how social change happens. It insists that politics as it has been done since the 1980s is the only way it could ever be done." I could go on but I don't want to quote too heavily from it; go, get a copy, read it, and ponder what sort of leadership we need in the NDP ... not just who for Leader, but what sort of direction we need to go.
September 30, 2018
curate's egg compilation from tedious irrelevant political hacks desperately seeking to jump on the Corbyn bandwagon spouting the same rubbish for the past forty years, German, to some insightful advice from younger figures taking in a sad denial of anti-Semitism and thinking the unfathomable by Hilary Wainwright,
If Corbyn can avoid the misguided nostalgia and jargon substituting for thought of the old and adapt the call fore asking effective strategic questions and avoiding the sycophancy of populism, then he really will make a Gramsci-like shift. Crowds singing oh Jeremey Corbyn and ducking hard thinking replicates the intellectual disinterest that dimmed earlier contenders will simply help one of the worst Governments of modern Britain to cling to power, We will see if the advice to think more, encourage dissent and promote democracy really is followed?
If Corbyn can avoid the misguided nostalgia and jargon substituting for thought of the old and adapt the call fore asking effective strategic questions and avoiding the sycophancy of populism, then he really will make a Gramsci-like shift. Crowds singing oh Jeremey Corbyn and ducking hard thinking replicates the intellectual disinterest that dimmed earlier contenders will simply help one of the worst Governments of modern Britain to cling to power, We will see if the advice to think more, encourage dissent and promote democracy really is followed?
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews