POLITICS
An optimist because of will
almost certainly turn against principles of free movement to win back Brexit-voting areas of northern England. He has, however, made a series of blunders — primarily taking the form of a destructive radio silence — which has rendered him ineffectual in advancing the aims of the Party. As I write, he is on the campaign trail, engaging properly for the first time with the whole public. Some kind of defeat seems inevitable. After that, the future is uncertain. Internally, Keir Starmer seems to be the most popular option for a replacement. But even with a different leader, the Labour Party would struggle to answer the questions asked of it. With a population which seems to be marching steadily to the Right, and the impossible situation in which Brexit has put the party, as well as the country, Theresa May’s stranglehold on power seems set to tighten. Of course, the party with the most to answer for is the Conservatives (such that criticism of Labour seems almost redundant). As long as they are able to get away with vague tautologies (“Brexit means Brexit”) and vacuous slogans (“strong and stable leadership”), things are unlikely to change. The movement that propelled Corbyn into power is split and confused. There are elements of old and new. I am sure that the ‘old guard’, brought into prominence by Momentum, is to blame for most of the inadequacies of the Leader of the Opposition — the standoffish relationship with the media, the accusations of anti-Semitism and the refusal to perform the role expected of a politician. Perhaps most concerning is the anti-theoretical trend of this movement. Its actions are always justified by some vague sense of having occupied the moral high ground, rather than actually making and selling the arguments that only the Left can. On the other hand, the young people attracted by a Labour Party that promises a better future and an end to tuition fees are hugely promising. The extent to which Corbyn can mobilise young people to vote will dramatically affect Labour’s performance in the election. Marx had the power of hope — hope enough to realise that the systems in which we live are neither natural nor perpetual. The body of thought that followed him, however, became less and less hopeful, trying to explain why capitalism had not yet destroyed itself. Each Marxist wrote in response to their own time, with the false horizons and unexpected troughs blighting and blinkering their work. They seemed unable to wake up from the nightmare of history. The difference is that Marx promised the inevitable possibility — if not the inevitability itself — of change for the better. With Gramsci, from behind his prison bars in 1929, we may find ourselves pessimists because of the intellect — but we must remain optimists because of the will.
Writing just as Mrs May called her snap election, Ben Tudor (Year 12) considers the role of a left- wing Labour party at this point in history T rump. Let that sink in. We seem to have arrived at a place where nobody ever wanted to be. Two rapid and interlinked political events: 52%, 46%. Doubtless, these were important moments in our history — but they weren’t really radical in nature. In each case, a cohort of the historically over-represented simply determined that they were becoming under-represented. Looked at thus, with a little more sang-froid, things seem a little less unhinged; as Trump and Brexit sink in, we do not succumb fully to the vertigo. Some perspective is important. The ‘alt-right’ certainly isn’t the Machiavellian army of fascists it would like to be: the movement is primarily just a product of white, middle-class failure, looking for something to blame — for its existence as much as its problems. In this sense, the new populism is no deviation from the dynamics of our social order, but the natural and inevitable consequence of late capitalism. More perspective? The President of the United States — his tweets, his tan, his coiffure, his verbal manure — is genuinely, undeniably, harrowingly funny. So, too, is Jacob Rees-Mogg, the Hon. Member for the Nineteenth Century. Even Mr. Farage, with his pints and his polemics, is a little bit funny. We can laugh, too, and we should. As long as we do not only laugh. Laughing, alone, is not enough. We have an obligation to act in this farce: not, as the press might want you to believe, to preserve the halcyon days of a world we are losing — but to radically change it for the better. How’s that working out? What are we doing? The Labour Party — undeniably a force for good throughout the course of British political history — has clearly failed. Like many others, I was hopeful that Jeremy Corbyn could help change things. Perhaps he has, to some extent. After all, a Blairite Labour leader would hardly help to win back the necessary seats in Scotland and would Brexit — the portmanteau of the century so far. You best let that sink in, too.
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