The 2015 election of Jeremy Corbyn as leader of the British Labour Party was, for many of us, a moment of hope in an otherwise bleak UK political landscape. A lifelong democratic socialist and thorn in the side of Tory and New Labour leaders, Corbyn was never meant to lead the party he had devoted his life to. But in that wonderful way that politics often surprises even the most seasoned of observers, the improbable happened. After almost 40 years on the margins of the party, the Labour left was back in charge, almost.
Owen Jones is a commentator, activist and Labour Party member. He was a former staffer for veteran Labour left-winger and Corbyn’s shadow chancellor John McDonnell from 2005 to 2008. This Land: The Story of a Movement is Jones’ open and bravely honest account of the rise and fall of the Corbyn project. It is written as a personal reflection from an active, if at times reluctant, supporter of Corbyn the man.
From the outset, This Land is pitched as a story of failure. The purpose of telling this story, according to its author, is not to apportion blame but to learn from mistakes made to better prepare for the future.
In contrast to the standard narratives that have dominated Corbyn’s fall from grace – Corbyn as an aberration who was unsuited to leadership; Corbyn as victim of a Tory/New Labour media conspiracy – Jones offers a more balanced picture.
Corbynism
For Jones, Corbyn, and more importantly Corbynism, was a response to a specific political moment. He provided a political voice and pole of attraction for the growing number of people – especially the young – disillusioned with mainstream politics.
In the fractured era of rising inequality, Brexit and politics as celebrity, Corbyn was a conviction politician talking about the need to radically redistribute wealth and power. In response to the message of this almost anti-politician, the Labour Party saw an incredible revival in membership, political activism and general-election support.
Jones writes: “That strength also proved a weakness: Corbynism itself was an unstable coalition of older political activists and younger supporters radicalised by student, anti-austerity, climate and tax justice movements – movements much more resistant to hierarchy and discipline.”
The book is divided into two sections: Rise and Fall, in which Jones recounts his ringside view of the internal and external factors that brought Corbyn from party leadership and his historic 2017 general-election win, to an eventual crash on the hard rocks of Brexit, the anti-Semitism scandal and dysfunction within the party.
Jones writes with enthusiasm and pace. There is plenty of political and personal gossip alongside the political analysis and personal reflection. This is not a exercise in self-justification or I-told-you-so journalism. Rather, he takes us through each episode in this five-year political rollercoaster.
Anti-Semitism
Two of the most revealing chapters, if only to those on the outside of the party, deal with the response of the Blairite Labour Party machine to Corbyn’s leadership and the party’s handling of the anti-Semitism controversy.
Labour has always been a fractious coalition of left, liberal and centre-right interests. But the level of vitriol revealed from within the party apparatus and sections of the parliamentary party to Corbyn’s leadership is remarkable. There is no doubt that the actions of these sections played a key role in undermining Labour’s electoral prospects in 2017 and, more importantly, 2019.
Jones’ account of the anti-Semitism controversy is convincing, so much so that he has been criticised by some on the Labour left. Anti-Semitic prejudice is a real phenomenon, according to the author, which the Labour Party has failed to deal with.
He lays a portion of the blame for this on Corbyn’s poor response. But he also makes clear that an equal, if not greater, responsibility fell on the internal party organisation, which was still controlled by the Blairites. Not only did they fail to address the issue fully but they sought to turn it to their political advantage as part of a campaign to undermine Corbyn.
Ultimately, however, the failure of the Corbyn project was a failure to find a coherent response to Brexit. A divided leadership, parliamentary party, membership and electorate made navigating the perils of leaving the European Union virtually impossible. Corbyn’s own indecisiveness and lack of engagement with the politics of Brexit made the situation insurmountable.
Brexit
In explaining the 2019 general election defeat, Jones identifies a number of factors. First is Brexit and the inability of the left to understand the way in which the “culture war” poisons the political environment.
The longer-term impact of deindustrialisation and Labour’s loss of working-class support in the north and midlands during the era of New Labour new-liberalism is also noted.
A hostile media and a disorganised Corbyn management, communication and strategy regime also get significant mention. To his credit, Jones spends some time analysing these in-house failures of Corbyn’s leadership.
His conclusion is unsurprising. While Corbyn failed to become prime minister, he succeeded in reintroducing the basic tenets of social democracy into the heart of the Labour Party project. Tax justice, decent work, universal public services and opposition to imperial wars are no longer marginal issues. Whether the current Labour leader, Keir Starmer, builds on Corbyn’s progressive legacy or retreats into the failures of the New Labour era is an open question.
For those who see Corbyn’s five years as leader as the first chapter in a progressive revival for British Labour, Owen Jones’ This Land provides much food for thought.
Eoin Ó Broin is a Sinn Féin TD for Dublin Mid-West
