Robert Reich: "You might call Corbyn the Bernie Sanders of British politics."

[TubbersUK]

13. It's a remarkable turn of events for the Labour Party and British politics -

a hard left candidate returned as Labour leader by a landslide - never thought I'd see the day. I'd sensed growing disgust with the Blairite/third way careerists but even so I'm surprised by the scale of this.

I'm not sure about electability - I normally tend to the Tribune (soft) rather than Campaign Group (hard) left and have a few issues with some of Corbyns more out there foreign policy positions.

Having said that, as a moderate left Labour activist, I sweated for years to return a Labour Government only to see Blair and his cronies use their time in office to brazenly bolster big business, wealth and privilege at the expense of ordinary people and then dishonestly foist the Iraq war on us - the underlying trend to the economic right in British politics continued with barely a hiccup under Tony and his cohort. For many in the Labour movement it felt just as much like the political wilderness as being out of office does.

This being the case, maybe there's nothing to lose by getting behind Corbyn rather than another Third Way type. Hopefully his emphasis on economic and social justice will, if nothing else, shift the political debate/topography.

The fact that he's been returned with a landslide and there's been an influx of new members/affiliates to the Party looking to get behind Corbyn suggests a generalised impatience with the growing wealth gap, erosion of employment standards etc. In which case, if he makes a reasonable fist of leadership, maybe the electability issue isn't as significant as some pundits seem to think.

It's going to be interesting.