I was at the heart of Corbynism. Here’s why we lost
JVL Introduction
Andrew Fisher was the Labour party’s executive director of policy from 2016 to 2019
In this new analysis in openDemocracy he suggests ways we should think about Corbyn’s period as leader, and the strengths and weaknesses of the left, then and now. In particular he tries to identify the structural problems the left project faced.
“There is no gain from mourning what could have been, and a lot to lose by being subsumed in a vortex of personal recrimination. Not only does such negativity and division delight the Right, it misdiagnoses the issue and actively prevents learning by expending our energy on peripheral trivia.”
The left, Fisher believes, while no longer in control is certainly in a better position than it was in 2015. We mustn’t, he argues “construct a binary of ‘Corbynism’ and ‘not Corbynism’ – that locks us into an oppositionalist stance and in doing so places us into a sealed tomb of our own making”.
Easier said than done, with a leadership that seems to be hell-bent on excluding the left that so energised the movement of recent years…
This article was originally published by openDemocracy on Thu 10 Sep 2020. Read the original here.
I was at the heart of Corbynism. Here's why we lost
Structural factors, not individual failings, defeated us
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How can a satisfactory analysis totally ignore the Antisemitism accusations which Andrew Fisher does, because this issue is still being used by the Right in the party to crush Left activists. More needs to be said!
I’m sorry…”when the individuals concerned are no longer influential in either the leadership of the party or in running Labour HQ.” Are you kidding?
This analysis completely leaves out the intentional hyping up of the anti-Semitism smears by the right in order to undermine Jeremy Corbyn. Caroline Flint and Owen Jones were on News Night tonight regurgitating those anti Corbyn tactics.
The intentions of the right were clear: wound Corbyn in the eyes of the public by piling on the anti-Semitism nonsense so that anything he says on Brexit or anything else, is then viewed with distrust.
I bailed out when after Fisher rightly pointed out Corbyn won in all sectors of the Labour movement bar the PLP and senior party management,and then proceeded to argue as though that were no longer the case.
Interesting to discover that I was wrong and that there was no attempt by Zionist MPs and their colleagues and enablers at the Israel Embassy to undermine Corbyn. And us.
It was just a bad dream.
There is a lot in this worth considering – but not to mention the antisemitism knife used to stab Corbyn is a major ommission. It suggests the author is deliberately avoiding it so as not to antagonise the pro-Israel lobby. This is a key mistake. We have to tackle the pro-Israel political lobby. It is well organised and financed, supported by right wing Tories and Labour members. It has to be exposed and rooted out.
I fear – and believe – that Starmer will move Labour incrementally back to a New Labour position. This is where the great majority of Labour MPs want to be (and, of course, where the gravy train stops to pick them up at the end of their parliamentary careers). Labour will lose the next election, as it did the last one: the Conservatives will always be able to outdo Labour in being ‘tough’ on the economy, immigration, benefits, etc. The Labour right will then scratch their heads and wonder why the party lost, again.
There are only two hopes: 1. Labour members see through Starmer and Starmerism, and are able to organise a successful challenge to his leadership; 2. Labour so declines that it proves possible to launch a successful new social democratic/socialist party to challenge it: pretty tough under Britain’s electoral system – but who knows if (when?) Scotland becomes independent.
The Forde Inquiry will not be allowed to get to a honest verdict on this because they dont want to.
Si, exactly. Well said!
Interesting, but there’s little to suggest that Starmer’s ten pledges were anything more than a ruse to get elected.
It is quite clear to me that the anti-semitism and anti-Corbyn slurs and the utter and despicable disloyalty of the Party bureaucracy were responsible for Labour’s defeat in 2019. It is also clear that a new party is required, because there comes a time when reform is impossible.
However, that being said, it is also clear that pervading the minds of most people in politics, left and right, is the concept of market fundamentalism (neoliberalism). Despite the Covid-19 crisis, which has been seriously aggravated in Britain by the starving of public funds for the National Health Service, there seems to be hardly any realisation that a new basis for life, economics, politics has to be established. “There is no alternative” is yesterday’s theme.
What was missing from Corbyn’s Labour was a solid back-up from professionals about the changes needed in the law for democratising ownership structures. John McDonnell with his seminars and back-up from leading economists made a gallant attempt to bridge the gap, but the PLP was not proactive, as it should have been, despite the fact that there might have been a lot of technical expertise available amongst its members, because it was protecting vested interests and had been widely influenced by the Israel lobby.
To give a concrete example of the lack of imagination as to how to build a better world, I have in front of me an enclosure with my latest statement from Thames Water. This tells me that 28p of every £1 of my bill goes to “the future…..to improve our network…” I state, once more, here and now, my demand that I want shares in Thames Water to the value of that 28p, because it is not the customers job to “improve the network”, but the shareholders’ job. In April 2013, Compass published an article by me on the same topic relating to the then situation for British Gas. At that time, at political meetings, I circulated amongst some quite high and mighty people in public life and they all seemed astonished by the idea and nobody disapproved it. But there was no way New Labour would even consider the matter.
Wider ownership, people’s capitalism, co-operatives and so on needs careful management, because of human weakness and the tendency for people to help themselves to what should be in the public domain. Co-op Bank had a problem with its Chairman’s activities, Volkswagen had a problem with union representatives on the Supervisory Board being seduced by excess “entertainment” provided for them, there are plenty of examples of corrupt practice and the stultifying effect of monopolies. However, if you believe in democracy, the job is never done. If you believe people matter, all of them, as individuals, you need constant vigilance to protect them (and now, of course, to save the world from destruction by climate change).
As a footnote, I invite readers to see by Facebook album (public), “My Claim to Fame”, for a few more ideas. Corbyn’s arrival as leader of the Party was so welcome as an antidote to the 40 years of neoliberalism Britain has suffered from. Unfortunately, I have no hope that the Party’s economic policies will now actually include the Corbyn ideas and the Party’s membership is likely to shrink substantially.
The prospect of Far Right, populist government in the UK is real . New Labour played a huge part in moving our country rightwards. By not regulating the banks properly they were responsible for the 2008 crisis which ushered in the most right wing government since the Chamberlain administration in the 1930s. There is perfect storm brewing . Our democracy is weaker than at any time since universal suffrage was implemented . People have lost faith in democracy, not just here but all over the world. They are looking for a “strong man” to rule. In Eastern Europe there are already several states with right wing, populist governments. Some in the Tory party admire those governments. . There are senior Tories who are associated with Turning Point who have put forward the proposition that HItler would have been acceptable if he had confined himself to his home country. British democaracy ha sbeen bought ,lock ,stock and barrel by billionaires who have no time or democracy. They have ploughed huge amounts of money into think tanks. Those institutions have access to influential people who can ensure their insidious propaganda is aired in our broadcast media. I listen to Radio 4 daily. It is astonishing how many commentators from small circulation right wing publications are invited on to Radio 4 programmes: the Spectator,Tax Payers Alliance etc. I have no need to mention the hard right press they have been at it for ever. The Brexit project was not at the beginning a conspiracy but it was soon hijacked by the Far Right . Individual like Dominic Cummings dreamed of a Far Left revolution in their previous incarnation in the RCP. There never has been a threat to our country from the Far Left. The comrades at some point realised they could grasp power by using the machinery of the Right. In Boris Johnson they have a perfect vehicle to make their dreams come true. A borderline sociopath with no moral compass who is willing to do anything to become PM. The so-called leader of the free world is patently a demagogue who has no time for democracy. He is a grave danger to democracies all over the world. In order to dilute our democracy the Right had neutralize the only institution who could stop them; the Labour Party They spectacularly achieved that aim with a lot of help from MPs, officials and members of our own Party. The accusations of anti antisemitism against Corbyn were unbelievably ridiculous. Jeremy is the last person in the UK to be racist in any way. but the plot worked thanks to a disgraceful character accusation which even Right Wing journalists have condemned. The Party is up against it in a way never before experienced. Finally, my colleagues who voted Leave may have brought about the destruction of democracy in the UK as we have known it. The dream of taking back control may turn into a nightmare
Andrew Fisher has learnt nothing and continues to keep his eyes firmly closed. Not only did the purge of leftwing activists using false accusations of antisemitism never stop during Corbyn’s leadership, but it actually accelerated after Corbyn capitulated in accepting the nonsensical IHRA definition, and Jenny Formby’s appointees took control of the infamous disciplinary process.
There is nothing in Fisher’s account to suggested that he was in any way opposed to this inquisition, or even that he was smart enough to understand what was happening. Under Starmer’s new regime the maniacal inquisitors have continued their work with renewed enthusiasm. Starmer openly declares himself a supporter of Zionism “without qualification”, and there is absolutely nothing to indicate that he has any intention of ceasing to hound the left using a tried and tested method of defamation. Indeed he proudly boasts that this is what distinguishes him from Corbyn. Yet Fisher is telling us that we need to make an alliance with him, at the same time as campaigning for more party democracy, a democracy to which Starmer is quite obviously opposed. Every action which Starmer has taken since Corbyn resigned indicates that he subscribes to the cynical doctrine of Richard Crossman, cited by Fisher, that the Labour Party needs militants, but only as footsoldiers who must be kept firmly under control. Indeed Starmer appears to have decided that it is probably safer if the activists are not the “politically conscious socialists” of Crossman’s formulation.
With advisers like Andrew Fisher, it is hardly surprising that the Corbyn project failed.
I’m not surprised at the critical nature of the comments.
I can understand where Andrew Fisher is coming from in trying to generate some optimism, but I do agree that in key aspects it verges on the delusional in mis-perceiving the degree of lasting damage done by ‘new’ Labour that runs as a thread through the history he narrates.
I was prepared to suspend my profound scepticism over Starmer, but have seen nothing to redress the concessions made to the (essentially far right) Israel Lobby. Quite the reverse – and this is a critical litmus test.
Fisher seems quite oblivious of the nature of the ‘antisemitism’ trope – as others have pointed out. This is a major lacuna, since we saw in it the bared teeth of the establishment and its media sinking into Labour flesh as soon as real reform was raise as a possibility.
Starmer shows no signs of a desire or ability to take on this impulse – rather to accommodate to it by being ‘safe’. The extension of the same techniques of propaganda being used in the Covid panic narrative, with the consequent unprecedented seizure of civil rights has similarly evoked no opposition from Starmer. Again – the propagandised narrative wins.
An analysis that omits these two issues, and that reviews Brexit in a rather simplistic light is not a penetrating one.
[Thsi long comment has been edited… JVL web]
Andrew Fisher’s analysis is yet another example of a decidedly unsatisfactory analyses to come out of the wreckage of Labour’s General Election defeat in December 2019.
As has already been said it fundamentally underestimates the full extent of organised sabotage and the massive damage inflicted on the Labour leadership and The Labour party by both the majority of the centrist neo liberal PLP and significant sections of the Labour party bureaucracy.
It completely fails to address the unrelenting, well organised. well coordinated and wholly effective campaign of undermining and destabilisation of The Corbyn leadership with the ‘smear’ of ‘anti -Semitism’, enthusiastically and ably backed up by the likes of the Israeli Embassy, the BBC, Channel 4 News, The Guardian and all of the right wing press and media.…
To what extent Starmer will keep to his 10 pledges is highly questionable given his present strategy shadowing the Tories and for the most part giving them an easy ride over coronavirus so far.
Given his strenuous efforts to present himself as a respectable guarantor of the ailing and crumbling collapsing capitalist system.…
Given his efforts to continue The Purge of the Left from the party.
Given his wholly offensive and dismissive comments over The Black Lives Matter Movement (while taking the knee)…
Given his commitment to defending the racist apartheid state of Israel and dismissal of The Palestinian People and the issue of Palestine.
Given his dismissive comments over Extinction Rebellion and his lack of comment over The on-going catastrophic Climate Emergency caused by capitalism.
Given his dismissive and ignorant comments about Asylum seekers and Refugees.
However, as the total scale of tory coronavirus chaos, corruption and economic mismanagement and meltdown comes into full view, it does now present the Labour party, The Labour and Trade union leadership, The Labour and Trade union movement and The Left with a huge and unprecedented opportunity to reap massive political benefit and advantage from The Tories’ monumental failure, wholesale incompetence, criminal negligence and neglect !…
Let us seize the time and the moment !
The Crossland quotation in interesting but then there is no analysis or proposal about how this fundamental contradiction is to be changed?