I was asked by a friend this morning whether I would be willing to serve under a Corbyn administration. I immediately responded, “Yes”. Then came the pregnant pause.
I was taken aback: why was I even asked this question? At least that bit was quickly cleared up, divided as the Americans and Brits are by a common language: Although on long-term leave from my main career post, I am still an “official of the European Parliament”. “Official” here in the US means “senior member of the administration”. You know, like Kerry, Biden, etc. So, no, I am not a senior minister in the European government – and this explains my friend’s idea that I might go back and continue to serve in another capacity – so thank you for thinking of me that way.
My (US) friend was visibly taken aback: for her, any sort of socialist was akin to the devil incarnate…but a “left wing” one just doesn’t compute. Major cognitive dissonance looking at this friendly middle-aged guy she’s known for some time.
Jeremy Corbyn, leader of the UK Labour Party (Photo: Garry Knight, Flickr)
So, back to Corbyn – and let’s get the melodrama out of the way: he won by a landslide; there are many egos in tatters with tantrums under way or to follow; many – including myself – feel that we belong once again to the party we love; others that we’ve turned the clock back… I’m not going to rehash the arguments.
Yesterday, I was on a call with fellow alumni of the Aspen Institute and we talked a little about a post that was shared with the group and which, for me, sums up a core conundrum for the ‘soft left’ and the whole ‘New Labour’ project in particular: is it OK to uphold (or at best, pretend and ignore) the current very unequal societies in which we live, just as long as our hearts are pure and that we “give back” to the community and the people or – as Anand Giridharadas argued – should we push for a society where we take less away in the first place?
I have felt uncomfortable – ever since the first Blair schmoozes with Rupert Murdoch – that the Labour Party has been far too accommodating to the super-rich. To shift the debate, as Corbyn has done successfully, and argue that this very privileged minority really has to learn to stop taking so much out of society (tax avoidance and evasion, shell and offshore companies – you know the score) and not continually bleat about how much they really, really give back (often in tax-deductible charitable contributions. Pause here: when it’s ‘tax-deductible, it means you are giving to your favourite pet project and taking it out of the public purse. Remember that). I earn well, and would consider myself comfortably off; I pay all the taxes I should and only make tax-deductible contributions to public education institutions. And yet I could come up with a dozen wheezes to cheat the public purse and pocket more. So why don’t I? In a word: Values.
Amidst all the turmoil in the Labour leadership election, I noticed how attuned I have been to the role of “core values”. I was a Labour Party member since 1976 but grew more disenchanted and distant in the last decade during the years of Tony Blair’s leadership and what followed. The party has seemed to be in crisis – not least following the electoral drubbing they faced last May and which seemed to have caught them unawares. In the leadership election (itself precipitated by the resignation of Ed Miliband as Labour leader in the first salvo of shots fired after the general election. Pause again: what does this say about leadership when you throw in the towel at the first major setback?).
An “old guard left-winger” outsider Jeremy Corbyn, stood in stark contrast to the other three leadership contenders, all very solidly “New Labour” mould figures. Back in the early 80s when I worked closely with and for the party, I had – and still have – fundamental differences with Jeremy on major issues of policy (mainly in international affairs) and considered him untrustworthy and unpredictable. During the last months however, I noticed how much one single question kept coming to mind in evaluating the four candidates: “What are their core values?”. Which begs other questions: “what do they actually believe in?”; “what makes them tick?”; “how will they respond to an unknown situation?”; “what will they throw out under pressure or when forced to compromise?”.
I was surprised, despite my initial hostility to him, to realise that he appeared to me as the only candidate who seemed to have a coherent set of values – even if I didn’t share some of them – and whose every pronouncement on issues of policy, who to work with, etc. seem firmly grounded in those values. I am left with no such impression of the other three: I really don’t know what any of them believe in. To hear their reactions today, I still don’t (except a regret to be beyond the grasp of the reign of power). To paraphrase Oscar Wilde, they “know the price of everything but the value of nothing”. In the end I am left feeling more comfortable with a candidate whose values I do not necessarily share but who seems more firmly grounded in them than any of the others. And that is why I was involved in politics: values not policies.
The challenge that Corbyn now faces is, having in some ways won a “war of position”, capturing the hearts and minds of many, can he now win the necessary “war of manoeuvre” (come on, you know your political theory, right? No? Here’s a primer) Will he command the authority to win over the apparatus of the party and, if elected to office, be able to take firm control of the levers of political power?
That last point is still problematic, particularly in the mindset of an “old-leftie” like Jeremy: and that is to recognize that the “levers of power” sometimes aren’t connected to anything anymore. The nation state, as a construct of the early 19th century, remains a popular instrument for the 19th and 20th century left. But the Left has often been blind-sided by the fact that the power of the European nation state has been steadily bleeding away: not just to international finance capital (and on which, I have no disagreement with Jeremy); sideways to civil society; downwards to local and regional government; but also upwards to international and, increasingly, European institutions (and generally a force for good). On this last point, Jeremy has been less convincing and he has been part of a leftwing tradition in British politics that has been, to put it bluntly, “little Englander” in its outlook and hostility particularly towards the EU.
If these issues are addressed honestly and Jeremy steps away from the shouty oppositionalists (and he has certainly carried himself with great dignity in the last months) and instead embraces the style of politics he has been espousing – with an open, collective leadership – while displaying a firm commitment to his core values then, yes, I would happily serve.
Brown in the USA 