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With Bold 'For the Many' Platform, Corbyn Rides Sanders-Like Wave in UK

#1

With Bold 'For the Many' Platform, Corbyn Rides Sanders-Like Wave in UK

Jake Johnson, staff writer

Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn's prospects are rising ahead of upcoming elections in the United Kingdom, as his insurgent campaign rides a wave of progressive populism similar to the one created by Senator Bernie Sanders in the United States last year.

With the British election just a week away, the BBC on Wednesday hosted a debate featuring several party leaders, including Corbyn, who has in recent days surged rapidly in public opinion polls.

#2

Is it wise to get our hopes up? A UK Labour win would be the greatest upset-victory for all right-thinking people in the history of parliamentary politics. The UK has always sets the trend for the rest of the capitalist states. This could be the beginning of the end of 40 years of neoliberal capitalist backlash worldwide.

#3

How many times have we seen the possibility of someone who will be on the side of the people be shut out one way or the other. Sanders was a possible winner and look what happened. CĂĄrdenas, anyone? And if they should win, the outcome for ordinary people is even worse: Tsipras, remember him?
But I still do hope, every time. South America managed, for who knows how long, to break the chains. Chavez is gone but Maduro is hanging on. Corea is gone but Moreno is there and so is Morales.

Go for it Jeremy. We, the people deserve a win.

#4

While the need for a left-ward swing is not any where near as desperate in the UK as here, it would be a welcome shot in front of the bow of American style hyper-capitalism.
Don’t get me wrong. The world needs a moderate form of capitalism to function, but it has to be constrained by society as a whole.
So far no country or society has ever been able to function without some form of capitalism.

#5

I’m sending smoke, praying, hoping, for the UK voters. May they do the right thing for themselves and immigrants, and refugees
Or will this be like the recent special elections in US where the democrats are soooo close (but no banana).

#6

Don’t underestimate how far Mrs Mary was taking the Tory party. And how far further it will be dragged Post-Brexit when a May/Trump special relationship is formed to attempt to pump up the floundering British economy, whatever the cost. We face disaster - only as positive a swing as possible to the left can save us. Not to the Blarite centre, but the real left, as represented, strongly and stably, wisely and humanely, by Mr Corbyn throughout his political career.

#7

Is labor now considered to be further left than the lib-dems?

#8

The far right is strong in the UK, but nowhere near as much in control as here.
Corbyn started out with a deficit of 24 points on April 18. Now he is at minus 3 points with a full week yet to go. While at the beginning of the campaign a Corbyn win had low credibility, it is now a real possibility and that confidence builder alone might be enough to lift him across the threshold.
Tsipras was an unrealistic dreamer, who promised more than he could possibly hope to deliver

#9

I have a lot of hope, but I also read about how François Mitterrand was elected as the leader of the Socialist Party in France in the early 80’s on a pretty radical program, when the rest of the West was moving in that neoliberal direction, and the financial markets attacked him and exacerbated any mistakes that he made. For a good background on this, read “States and the Reemergence of Global Finance” by Eric Helleiner. Highly pertinent. He could have radicalized his policies further, especially in regards to financial capital, but for complex reasons he didn’t. Any rate, I think that it is entirely possible to implement a radical program now, especially given that the neoliberal economic model has been in place for decades, unlike at the time of Mitterrand when it was in its ascendency, and it has clearly failed. So, if the powerful and big capitalists completely undermine popular programs now when they are already largely hated and those programs are clearly popular, it will further radicalize people and they may call for even more radical measures in response. In that regard, we’re more in the realm of the 1930’s, when capitalists allowed for a host of policies that they otherwise wouldn’t have because the alternative was even more radical. However, Corbyn has to be up front about the path they are going to undertake and needs to be honest about the challenges they will encounter if he is elected. That way, when those challenges arrive, the people know why, know who they should focus their energies on confronting, and understand why the difficulties are happening. If they don’t, the right wing will, as usual, lie and manipulate people.

What I do know is that the WTO and these trade agreements are structured in a way that makes an equitable economic system impossible and they undermine our ability to effectively deal with the environmental crisis and they undermine our democracy. I have long thought that they were not socially or politically feasible in the long-term, and it’s increasingly clear that they are not capable of dealing with the environmental crisis. We need radically different ideas and institutions. The dominant ones have failed and are a relic of the past.

#10

With only a week to go any “May/Trump special relationship” has no time to develop and ferment, so it will have no impact at on next weeks election.
At the contrary any endorsement by Trump before then would only hurt May.

Blair was the “poodle”, following Cheney’s commands, not a representative of the British people. He had no business leading the Labour Party.

#11

Yes, Blair is a populist only in a Clinton or Obama kind of way…sometimes socially progressive, but never slowing down wealth transfer from the 99% to the 1%.

#12

From YouTube:

#13

Just after Corbyn was elected head of the Labour Party, the headlines were all about the crazy, left wing, socialist nut who will push the party to nonexistence. Now it’s about his populist, social agenda and how people are starting to respond. Unlike the USA, where you either win or lose an election, how well you do actually matters in the UK even if you don’t win. The better you do, the more seats in Parliment you get, the stronger your opposition. Corbyn’s ideas probably represents a bigger danger to neoliberal Merkel and Macron than anything the Tangerine Turd might do. Corbyn’s ideas spreading to Spain, Italy and Greece would challenge the austerity policies of the EU.

#14

The Lib-Dems are liberals in the classic sense (“libertarian” in the US sense) and so I think Labour has always been well to the left of them aside from Blairite wing.

#15

I remember the war criminal Henry Kissinger, the Tangerine Turds good buddy and oval office stalwart, having the socialist Salvadore Allende executed for his anti-imperialism. He was elected despite interference from the USA in the election. Thanks to the CIA, Chieans suffered under the military rule of Pinochet for a decade beginning with the execution or disappearance of thousands of Allende supporters.

#16

Even if Jeremy Corbyn doesn’t end up as prime minister, it looks increasingly likely that Teresa May will lose enough seats to put the tories out of business. It will then be an ideal opportunity for the progressives to change the voting system to one of proportional representation. Ideally this would be on the principle of the single transferrable vote. It would have the effect of keeping the tories out of power FOR EVER, which is no more than they deserve after thatcher and the rest of them (including their placeman Blair) wrecked the country with their right wing extremist policies.

#17

Also remember that Ronnie Reagan supported the mujahadeen in Afghanistan after the Afghan government asked for help from the Soviet Union to stop them. Had Reagan not given this help to a bunch of right wing extremist islamofascists, the world would be a much safer place today. The biggest lie was that the Soviet Union ‘invaded’ Afghanistan - they didn’t, they were asked to help by the Afghan government who were struggling to supress the rebels who wanted to take the country back to the 14th century. Reagan’s hatred of socialism was greater than his hatred of islamofascism and we are still suffering from the effects of his paranoia to this day. Now we has TRUMP, who is at least as bad as Reagan and probably even worse.

#18

“A moderate form of capitalism to function?”

There is no such thing. As long as the rich control their corporations, they will keep pushing for more wealth & power, just like they always have.

We need a workers’ co-operative democracy, based on worker and community co-ops. Until we win that, we will always be subject to the greed, & viciousness of capitalist madmen (and a few women).

#19

We are witnessing very sad times when populist loud mouth maximalists are being cheered and have real possibilities of a win. Corbyn is not an exception but a prime example of it. One just has to google Corbyn controversies to realize how destructive he is. His naive position on no nukes is dead on arrival and just laughable, but contribution to Brexit is very real and seems to be irreversible. God save the world from all these populist movements!

#20

Thank you. I never realized that.