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An epochal election: welcome to the era of platform politics

In an era characterised by reversibility, platform capitalism is producing newly discernible forms of aggregation and dispersal. Some things are certain: we need a socialism of the twenty-first century, and meaningful cultures of debate.

By Jeremy Gilbert
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Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn arrives at an event on the Promenade in Colwyn Bay, Wales, while on the General Election campaign trail. Peter Byrne/PA Images. All rights reserved.For Robin Murray.

Did nobody see it coming?

Labour now has an asset which it has not enjoyed for generations: a mass membership, newly enthused by a radical change of direction for the party.

During the June 2017 General Election campaign, I was asked by many people – including several journalists – if I thought that Labour had a chance of winning. My answer was always the same. Statistically, it seemed almost impossible; but there were also good reasons to expect that Labour might do better than in 2015, and there was a plausible scenario in which the result for Labour would be far better than anybody was expecting.

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Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0