The Corbyn enigma

[audioplayer src=”http://rss.acast.com/viewfrom22/jeremycorbynsbritain/media.mp3″ title=”Dan Hodges, James Forsyth and Ellie Mae O’Hagan discuss the impact of a Corbyn victory” startat=40]

Listen

[/audioplayer]Just because something is absurd doesn’t mean it can’t happen. This is the lesson of Jeremy Corbyn’s seemingly inevitable victory in the Labour leadership contest. At first, the prospect of Corbyn leading Her Majesty’s Loyal Opposition was seen to be so ridiculous that bookmakers put the chances of it at 200 to 1. Labour MPs were prepared to nominate him to broaden the ‘debate’. Now, almost everyone in the Labour party thinks we are days away from Corbyn’s coronation, and some bookies are already paying out. Even Tony Blair has accepted that Corbyn will triumph.

The temptation now is to declare that a Corbyn leadership can’t possibly last. The talk among senior Labour figures is not about his reign but his downfall; each has their own theory as to how and when he will be deposed. Surely, they say, the laws of political gravity would pull him back down so normality could be resumed. This view is dangerously naive. The forces propelling Corbyn to the top of the Labour party are very real, and will change British politics in profound ways — whether he wins or not.

The Corbyn delusion is driven by a few grains of truth. There are, as his supporters claim, voters to the left of Labour who might well be won over by a more left-wing leadership. There is also some public support for some of the policies of the old left — re-nationalisation of the railways, for instance, or whacking the rich. But the overall Corbyn effect would be disastrous for Labour. He is Michael Foot without the anti-fascist record.

Labour lost the last election because the voters didn’t trust the party with their money and the nation’s finances.