'I want to speak to everyone in Britain," Jeremy Corbyn insisted in his first speech as leader to the British Labour Party conference in Brighton on Tuesday. But he then delivered a speech that was notably short of any wooing of the proverbial man on the Clapham omnibus. As BBC Newsnight's reporters repeatedly asked "where was the appeal to those who voted Tory in May", to the people Labour must win back to the fold. Clutching at straws, all they could point to in the long list of broad Corbyn commitments was one to addressing the welfare entitlements of the self-employed. Worthy, but thin gruel.
Although leaders’ speeches have to straddle often contradictory appeals to two or more audiences, the wider electorate with their primary purpose of giving encouragement to party activists, Corbyn’s was inevitably going to be more victory rally – his huge mandate mentioned seven times – than election husting. For one thing party policy is in flux, with MPs openly pulling in different directions from the leader on Trident, austerity, welfare, war in Syria, quantitative easing . . .
Corbyn has yet to show how to reconcile his wishes to allow MPs and shadow cabinet freedom to express their own views and for greater party democracy with a need for the party to present united, coherent policy positions. Even an exasperated Chuka Umunna, former shadow business secretary and no Corbyn ally, warned that “It is not sustainable for us to have a free vote on everything”. If a whip is imposed by the leader, Umunna is one of those likely to have to be brought into line, uncomfortable as that may be.
Corbyn, as his speech made clear, has not abandoned or substantially diluted his left-wing agenda, but that difficult challenge of uniting the parliamentary party behind it, or of defining the leader’s policy prerogatives, are battles for another day. As is the detailed fleshing out of policy positions necessary for any election campaign. “Leadership is about listening,” he argued. “Then the party will decide.” His time will be limited.
Where Corbyn’s speech did the business, however, was in both form as much as content representing his messages about doing politics differently, about authenticity, and ideas over spin. Without the usual razzamatazz, drumrolls and fanfares, Corbyn ’s amiable, conversational style of speaking, albeit somewhat rambling, and his unconfrontational language – he is championing the politics of “kindness” – will help undermine the media’s campaign of demonisation.
His unelectability is not, as commentators almost to a man continue to insist, a given – these are different times. Politics across the world, in different manifestations, are being shaken up successfully by candidates who are confronting the idea of the immutability of the status quo. “You don’t have to take what you are given,” Corbyn told the party to rapturous applause.