A new, old politics

THE moment, when it came, was electric. Rumours had already flashed through the crowds in Hyde Park, where Britain’s left was gathering for a pro-refugee rally. Some claimed he had taken some two-thirds of the vote. The result almost corroborated the whisper: Jeremy Corbyn, the hard-left politician whose three-decade career as MP for Islington North he had spent on the fringes of British politics, had obtained fully 59% of first-preference votes in Labour’s leadership election. Britain now has the most uncompromising opposition leader in living memory.

In retrospect, the reasons for his election were clear enough. Under Gordon Brown and Ed Miliband, Labour had ditched the centrist legacy of its three-time election winner, Tony Blair, but offered little to take its place. During the leadership campaign Mr Corbyn had filled that vacuum by presenting his party (as well as prospective members and affiliated supporters) with a simple and certain vision: a firm rejection of the policies that had propelled Labour to power under its most successful leader. Instead his campaign, predicated on the views of a noisy minority, offered a pure socialism uncomplicated by the realities of Britain in 2015. It was a vision that will yet describe the terms of the new Labour leader’s downfall.