UK Labour is not traditionally a populist party. The dominance of its parliamentary wing, wedded as it is to the pageantry and protocols of Westminster, militates against the construction of the sharp political divide that populism demands – and particularly the anti-systemic stance required by left populism. While the campaigns that achieved the largest increases in Labour’s vote share – 1945, 1997 and 2017 – all involved forms of populism, these are exceptions rather than the rule.
Labour politicians are usually most comfortable speaking in terms of the “national interest” and then arguing that Labour, rather than the Conservative Party, is best placed to realise it. This approach structures Labour’s political narrative: its parliamentary team is made up of good managers with good values whereas the Tories are bad managers with bad values. The object of the Party’s traditional critique is not the capitalist system as a whole, nor even its more visible beneficiaries. Instead, the Party seeks to undermine the public’s trust in the Conservatives’ ability to manage the system effectively, while simultaneously building trust in Labour’s ability to do the same.
One way to take stock of the Corbyn project, and to discover possible paths forward for the social forces that comprised it, is to chart its continuities and discontinuities with this traditional, non-populist Labourism. The best place to start is with the area to which theorists of left populism have given most attention: political discourse and communications strategy.
