Their politics are similar, as is their vintage, but a couple of months back, Bernie Sanders was running Hillary Clinton close for the Democratic Party nomination in the USA, while in Britain the besieged Jeremy Corbyn momentarily looked as though he might bow down before the formidable forces arranged against him.
Today Sanders – although he would have been better placed to beat Donald Trump than Hillary Clinton – has temporarily ceased his extraordinary insurgency, and fallen in behind the Democratic Party nominee.
Corbyn, on the other hand, looks set to win a bitter and drawn-out leadership competition within his own party – possibly with an increased majority.
Voting has closed. Thanks to all who took part. It has been a good debate. Our job now is to unite as a party & hold the Tories to account pic.twitter.com/X2SpjNNXMo
— Jeremy Corbyn MP (@jeremycorbyn) September 21, 2016
Should Corbyn be announced the winner of Labour’s leadership contest at the weekend, it will amount to an even bigger upset than his first victory a year ago.
Not only will it confound the expectations and collective wisdom of the mainstream UK political media, it will have been in defiance of virtually all of the British political establishment of Right, centre and the supposed Left.
It will also mark the most decisive move of any traditionally social democratic party in Europe and the English-speaking world away from the neo-liberal consensus that has gripped the media and body politic since the election of Reagan and Thatcher, to the Left.
Here the Sanders and Corbyn insurgencies meet once again – because although Sanders may have lost to Clinton, his grassroots movement lives on. It has re-energised the Democratic Party and spawned a whole new cadre of candidates who are moving into front-line positions – a left wing antidote to the Tea Party, if you like.
One thing I am proud of is that there's a lot more support for the concept of democratic socialism today than there was before the campaign.
— Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) September 20, 2016
In the Labour Party, new ‘one member one vote’ rules brought in by Ed Miliband to further dilute the influence of the trade unions didn’t unleash armies of young proto-Blairites, it opened the door to huge numbers of young idealistic supporters and refusenik refugees from Tony Blair’s command and control New Labour era of permanent war.
Because Corbyn doesn’t play the media’s game, it ignores one of his central attractions. In America the media made the same mistake over Bernie Sanders. Both have ‘authenticity’, and when they say something it is obviously apparent to anyone listening that they mean what they say.
I have shared platforms with both Corbyn and Sanders over the years, and while Sanders is in some ways a more attractive figure politically to me, I voted for Jeremy Corbyn because a year ago he represented a complete break with the New Labour era and I have voted for him again because that still pertains. In common with many others who may not completely share his agenda, I was incandescent with the abysmal, scorched earth antics of many in the Parliamentary Labour Party.
Corbyn’s regular revolts against the Labour whip in the past were driven by principle, not personal malice.
Voting has closed. Thanks to all who took part. It has been a good debate. Our job now is to unite as a party & hold the Tories to account pic.twitter.com/X2SpjNNXMo
— Jeremy Corbyn MP (@jeremycorbyn) September 21, 2016
The Jeremy Corbyn I remember is one of those political figures who automatically understood what solidarity was supposed to mean. He is the living antithesis to the career politician that the public has come to detest. He is probably the Labour MP who Tony Blair really hated the most – which is frankly one of the greatest recommendations going for him.
Years ago, I remember him cycling up from his north London allotment to his then in-laws in Buckinghamshire, whom I knew, for lunch. Warm, humorous, slightly unworldly and owing more to Wesley than Marx, the Jeremy Corbyn of that time cuts much the same figure today.
It is highly doubtful that the mainstream media will acknowledge the extraordinary democratic revolution that has shaken a political party that recently almost died in Scotland and was on life-support in much of the rest of the country.
Hollowed out, rendered almost brain dead by the corporate mantras of Tony Blair and his ‘blue sky thinking’, the Labour Party would have split years ago had there been proportional representation.
Today it is the only mass-membership party in Britain.
The political and media establishment will continue to say that it can never win an election. The pollsters will continue to get most things unutterably wrong. But there is one thing of which we can be sure – no one really knows what the future will bring and it is pointless predicting with any certainty what may happen.
Who predicted that David Cameron would be gone? Who knew for sure that Britain would vote for Brexit? And who could have guessed that in September 2016 Jeremy Corbyn would be the last one left standing?
Will Labour split now? It seems doubtful, although some of the MPs who have made themselves the most personally offensive may push off – or be pushed out. Few tears will be shed for them.
Boundary re-organisations will enable new blood to infuse the body politic. Wouldn’t that be an improvement on all of Tony Blair’s rigged selections, the pre-pared parachutes for favoured sons and daughters, and everything else that so corrupted the New Labour era?
Mark Seddon was the editor of Tribune and is an ex-member of Labour’s NEC
