Corbyns platform was a return to the Labour ideals of the 1970s and 80s. The BBC has an excellent rundown of his policy proposals, which included, among other things, renationalizing Britain's railroads, abolishing tuition for British universities, and imposing rent controls to deal with Britain's affordable housing problem. He's even suggested reopening the coal mines that used to be a big part of Britain's economy.
The reason we are losing ground to the right today is because the message of what socialism is and what it can achieve in peoples daily lives has been steadily diluted, Corbyn said in a March 2016 speech. Unless progressive parties and movements break with that failed economic and political establishment it is the siren voices of the populist far-right that will fill the gap.
Corbyns year-plus of Labour leadership has been something of a test case for this theory. So far, it has failed utterly.
When Corbyn took control of Labour leadership last September, UKIP Britains far-right, anti-EU party had been in decline, netting around 10 percent in the Britain Elects poll aggregator. By the June 2016 Brexit vote over whether to leave the EU, UKIPs numbers had risen to a little over 15 percent.
Corbyn and Labour publicly supported staying in the EU, but didnt campaign for it particularly hard. It may not have mattered: Eric Kaufmann, a professor at the University of London who studies populism, looked at what Brexit voters said were the most important issues facing the UK. More than 40 percent said immigration; a scant 5 percent said poverty and inequality.
According to Kaufmann, this reflects an uncomfortable truth: The kind of voter whos attracted to the far right just doesnt care a whole lot about inequality and redistribution, Corbyns signature issues. Tacking left to win them over, as Corbyn has, is a bad idea, he told me in a phone conversation.
Tacking left has definitely been bad for Labour, which has stunningly low levels of public support. Only 24 percent of Britons approve of Corbyns performance, according to the pollster Ipsos MORI, while 62 percent disapprove. This leaves him with net approval rating of -38, the worst any UK opposition leader from any party has recorded at this point in their tenure in the past 35 years of Ipsos polling. Another poll, from YouGov, found that 24 percent of Britons backed Labour its lowest numbers in YouGov polling since the party was in government in 2009.
Let that sink in for a second. Corbyns Labour Party is polling as badly today as it was when it was in power during a global economic meltdown. It is polling substantially worse than it was in 2005, when British troops were dying in Iraq as part of a war known to be waged on false pretenses. In fact, Labour won a parliamentary election held that year.
Britain Elects projections say that if an election had been held in early March, the Conservatives would have won by a whopping 13.9 percent. That would be a 4.6-point improvement on their already-large 2015 victory, while Labour would fall from an already weak position by 2.2 percentage points.
I think it is a serious possibility that Labour has come to the end of its existence, Matt Williams, a scholar of British politics at Oxford University, says. Socialism, of some variety, is either not considered viable or is deeply unpopular, and in some cases is both.
One can dispute Williamss judgment here, but several facts are undeniable. During Corbyns leadership, the far right has gained influence on UK politics, not lost it. Corbyns policy platform hasnt stemmed the spread of anti-immigrant populism, and the Tories have made restricting immigration a central part of their agenda. Corbyn himself is now pandering to the right wing; he ordered Labour MPs to vote to begin the Brexit process in Parliament. And his numbers keep falling and falling.
Left-wing politicians and writers insist that populist policies would win back disenchanted voters. In Britain, the exact opposite has happened.
