Not Buying It by Charlotte A. Henry

Author:Charlotte A. Henry [Henry, Charlotte]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Unbound
Published: 2019-05-20T16:00:00+00:00

Who benefits?

As well as the collapse in trust of key political and civic institutions, the scandals outlined in the previous chapter have contributed to a near-total mistrust in the people running those institutions, both specific individuals and the type that have traditionally held those roles in general.

These individuals are increasingly seen as distant, elitist and self-serving. This may be true of some, and all institutions need fresh blood and new ideas in order to move forward, but this view rather unfairly tars everyone in public life with the same brush.

Worst of all, instead of trying to fix this problem and regain the public’s trust, some in politics have actually embraced this rejection. Instead of striving to improve our politics, some politicians are cynically exploiting the public frustration to further their careers and to push their normally rather extreme worldviews.

As well as Corbyn, the UK also has the likes of Boris Johnson, Nigel Farage and Jacob Rees-Mogg. At first, these individuals may all seem quite different – certainly the political worldview of the latter three shares little with Corbyn’s. What they do share is that they are all very much part of ‘the establishment’ but have succeeded in playing on the perception that they are genuine and authentic. This is even true when their apparent authenticity leads them to be little more than bigoted, offensive, incompetent or all of the above. They have played the outsider to capitalise on public anger and resentment and gained profile and power.

I consider Jeremy Corbyn the ultimate response to the New Labour era of Blair, Brown, Mandelson et al. His rise to the leadership was born of a desire to find the antithesis of those leaders. Amongst other things, New Labour were blamed for the disastrous war in Iraq and, at least in part, the 2008 financial crisis. Corbyn had been a vocal critic of that war specifically and a consistent rebel against the New Labour government more broadly. (Ed Miliband tried to pitch himself as a break from that past too, but ultimately he was dismissed as a close associate of Brown and as lacking the ideological purity Corbyn would later show.)

When, in 2015, Corbyn threw his name into the race for the Labour leadership, he had no belief he could actually win the contest against the likes of former home secretary Yvette Cooper or former health secretary Andy Burnham. Many speculated he did not even really want to. Still, this was no Macron-style outsider coming to shake up the political establishment – Corbyn had been an MP in the Palace of Westminster for thirty years. It was simply his ‘turn’ to be the far-left outrider, as allies Diane Abbott and John McDonnell had been in previous contests.

Initially, Corbyn struggled to even get enough nominations to be on the ballot. When he eventually did, he managed to sweep to victory thanks in no small part to a highly energetic grassroots campaign that overpowered the scrutiny his previous policy positions came under. It was a

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