David Patrikarakos David Patrikarakos

There’s one major lesson Labour should learn from Syriza’s anniversary

If a week is a long time in politics what’s a year? A century? A millennium? An Ice Age? If you’re Greek it can sometimes feel like all three. One year ago today, on 26 January 2015, Greece’s Syriza party formed the most left-wing government in the country’s history having (ludicrously) promised the Greek people to take on the European establishment and rid them of the austerity measures that had blighted their lives for close to a decade.

If hubris and bombast characterised Syriza’s election campaign, then naivety and disaster characterised its first months in office. The new Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras had given the job of re-negotiating with Greece’s numerous European creditors to his charismatic but abrasive finance minister, Yannis Varoufakis. Varoufakis, an undoubtedly brilliant academic who specialises in Game Theory, seemed to believe that the relationship between Greece and the EU was just one big game of chicken. One only had to hold one’s nerve and all would be well.

Alas, things don’t work like that in politics – at least not when dealing with ossified EU institutions. The sole achievement of Varoufakis’ early attempts at negotiation was to alienate almost everyone on the other side. German finance minister Wolfgang Schäuble reportedly took a particular loathing to him.

Nonetheless, Varoufakis continued to play chicken, and Greece continued to lose. Throughout early to mid 2015 Greece faced repeated demands to implement harsh fiscal measures in order to receive various tranches of bailout funding. Without the money it faced default, and with it the possibility of Grexit. Each time there was drama. Each time it was a struggle. And each time Greece only just about survived.

Things eventually got too much for Tsipras and in late June, seemingly out of nowhere, and to the rage of Greece’s creditors, he called a referendum.

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