Electable Corbyn

I could not help getting cross when New Labour voices, and not least Blair himself, fed media the argument that under Corbyn Labour would be unelectable.  This was a post I made on a debate forum: 

"Getting lectures from New Labour voices about electability is just hilarious. Labour has seen its most powerful base - the Scottish electorate - collapse and they lost out there to a nationalist party promoting nuclear disarmament, positive egagement with Europe and a raft of socialist policies. They are about as defunct in Scottish politics as the Tories and that is pretty defunct - a dead parrot of a party. The Blairite Progress Group, funded among others by Lord Sainsbury who withdrew his significant funding from the Labour Party when Milliband defeated his brother for the privilige of being a chocolate teapot, gave us Liz Kendall as the candidate they thought would sweep the board and they assured us they had a real understanding of the electorate. Well, she trailed in as the joke candidate with 4.5% of the vote in the first round and that says all we want to hear about electability from that shower of closet Tories. 

Corbyn has been quietly winning his seat in Parliament in every election from 1983. He was a reluctant candidate, bowing to requests for a Left candidate, and he did not in any way manufacture his message to win votes. Quite the contrary. He strolled around the country saying what he has said for decades and nothing more - and people started to flock to his meetings, starting with about 350 people in Birkenhead (already more than the other candidates could attract!) and culminating in thousands queuing around the block, climbing to see him through the windows of packed halls. By the end he had more volunteers working (unpaid) to support his campaign than Liz Kendall had votes! If the volunteers in the phone banks and on the streets had failed to attract a single extra vote, they still had enough votes among the volunteers to defeat the Blairite champion. But of course, they found over a quarter of a million voters and blasted his nonentity rivals into well earned insignificance. 

In 2015, with Labour in a mess and failing to communicate with the electorate, they still drew over 30% of the vote nationally and some 9.3 million votes to the Tories' 11.3 million. That is the baseline to work from. Corbyn has nearly five years in which to achieve two things: establish the credibility of his policies and demonstrate (by effective opposition from a principled platform for a change) the sheer evil of what the Tories are doing to this country. He is not a negative campaigner and I predict he will allow the Tories to show themselves up for what they are, without restraint from the coalition partners of the last parliament, and he will instead continue to demonstrate that there is in fact an alternative to austerity, racism and fear and it is a sight more attractive. 

After 30 years we have our Labour Party back. The Left is back in the game."