Corbyn speaks to the crowd at a rally. Photo: Rick Findler / PA Wire/Press Association Images. All rights reserved.There are two narratives about the current turmoil surrounding the Labour Party leadership. While it would be beyond naïve to rule out the possibility that there is some intentional misrepresentation going on, it is nonetheless important to recognise that some actors at least are genuinely at cross purposes in how they understand the terrain. This matters because this debate touches upon underlying questions about democracy, sovereignty and citizenship, which we ignore at our peril.
The first narrative is that Corbyn is at war with the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP). It goes like this: Corbyn has lost the faith of 172 out of 230 sitting Labour MPs, who represent a much wider constituency of Labour supporters and voters than just Labour members. For them, it is clear that Corbyn cannot lead the PLP, and the party needs a leader who can. They believe a core problem is that Corbyn’s support within the party is shored up by the entryist hard left (organised through Momentum) who employ bullying and intimidating tactics to shout down any opposition. In this account, there is a disturbing cult of personality around Corbyn, whose supporters will not admit to any faults in their leader, and who would rather see the Labour Party fail than be led by anyone else. Their goal is seen to be control of the Labour Party, not electoral success. The PLP believes that Corbyn only speaks to activists and hardline party members, while they want to win the support of ‘ordinary people’ who need a Labour government to win at the next election, whenever it comes.
The second narrative goes like this. The Parliamentary Labour Party is at war with the members, who support Corbyn because he is a different kind of politician: principled, honest and decent, and he stands for genuinely left-wing progressive politics, something which has not been on offer in a very long time. In this account, the PLP never wanted Corbyn to succeed, and did everything they could to stop him winning in the first place. They are understood to represent the political establishment, careerist politicians who cannot tolerate a challenge to the cosy Westminster set-up which guarantees them a ‘job for life’, and who want to protect the political status quo. This is a narrative in which the PLP ‘rebels’ would rather see the Labour Party lose the next election than win under Corbyn. Seen from this perspective, the PLP care much more about subduing the left within the party than party democracy. They have done everything possible to shut Corbyn out of the leadership contest, because they know they can’t win against him in a straight race. Corbyn’s supporters believe they are more in touch with ‘ordinary people’ than the PLP are: they understand why people feel that politicians are ‘all the same’ and they want the Labour Party to offer a real political alternative, to be the voice of the people once more.
