Jeremy Corbyn

Michael Chessum met Martin Thomas from Solidarity on 15 October to talk about his new book on Corbynism, This Is Only The Beginning . Near the end of the book (p.210) it says: “Socialist was the movement’s prevailing adjective, but its immediate policy programme was… social democracy, and there was little or no collective discussion inside Corbynism about what a truly socialist or anti-capitalist programme might look like in the future”. Wasn’t that fundamental? And wasn’t the same lack also true of the “movements” of 2010-15 which the book describes as feeding into Corbynism? Corbynism was an...

There always was an element within the Corbyn movement that was an apolitical fan club. They had little record of left-wing activity beyond personal adulation of Jeremy, and focused on a determination to downplay evidence of antisemitism and, very often, support for Brexit. Now they threaten to tear up their membership cards and relish electoral defeats for Labour. They are well represented on websites like Skwawkbox and The Canary and on both the features pages and letters page of the Morning Star . One of the most outspoken of these people is Chelley Ryan, a blogger and tweeter who has...

Over the last few months we’ve carried reviews , critical to one degree or another, of my booklet Corbynism: What Went Wrong? , and a response by me to some of the reviews. Unrepresented so far are the criticisms voiced by Michael Chessum in two debates with me on the booklet, at our Ideas for Freedom weekend event in July 2021 and at the Sun and Socialism event in August 2021. Michael’s views will be published in his own book on Corbynism, This Is Only The Beginning , but are not available in writing yet. Here, from the in-person debates, I offer a first sketch of his criticisms (as I...

Martin Thomas is to be thanked for his useful and objective account ( Corbynism: What Went Wrong? ) of the years 2015-2019 when Jeremy Corbyn was the leader of the Labour Party. The lack of equivalent critical analysis by other socialists of this recent period is in itself evidence of the problem of Corbynism. The Corbyn times have been idealised by many on the left, and its strategic mistakes and inadequate class politics remain hidden behind a betrayal narrative. During the Corbyn leadership his alleged exceptionalism as the only incorruptible politician, indeed as a saintly man, encouraged...

According to the Telegraph and the Daily Mail , Jeremy Corbyn’s inner circle is thinking of quitting the Labour Party and standing Corbyn as an independent in Islington North in the general election likely in 2023 or 2024. It looks like malicious “stirring “by those papers. The Corbynista blog Skwawkbox claims Labour right-wingers have been feeding those Tory papers. Though Skwawkbox is unreliable, that is plausible. An exit would be a foolish move by Corbyn. His feeble “Peace and Justice Project“ does not provide the groundwork for a new party. Corbyn might gain local support (he has a good...

Urte March, in their review of Corbynism: What Went Wrong? in Solidarity 614 cites their own comrade Tim Nailsea’s review of the Communist Party’s re-issued Britain’s Road to Socialism. This is to hammer their argument that Martin Thomas is wrong to blame Stalinism for many of Corbynism’s weak points when the finger should be pointed at the reformist character of the Labour party itself. But, as Nailsea says in their review: “ Britain’s Road to Socialism is, in fact, probably one of the clearest blueprints for reformist socialism one might find on the British left”. Since its publication in...

Mike Davis reviews Corbynism: what went wrong? This is a thoughtful if polemical book charting the rise and fall of the Corbyn project. The essence of the analysis is that Corbynism ran aground on two political issues: antisemitism and Brexit. The remedy for which could have been debate and education. Additionally only a meagre culture of political discussion was developed. Membership mushroomed with Corbyn’s election in 2015. However, the older rejoiners were already "formed" and youth were not drawn into regular activity and education—youth and student activity declined, while the right...

The Alliance for Workers' Liberty has issued Corbynism: What Went Wrong? , a 60-page assessment of the collapse of the Corbyn project. At the outset, the pamphlet correctly identifies the ‘real lost promise’ of Corbynism. Rather than building an independent socialist movement in workplaces and communities which could have ousted the right in the Parliamentary Labour Party and in local government, propelled Labour to power and held the leadership to account on its promises, Corbyn kept the membership as an auxiliary social movement only to be mobilised at times of leadership or parliamentary...

Martin Thomas, author of Corbynism: What Went Wrong? , responds to the reviews of the booklet by Mike Davis and Urte March in this issue of Solidarity and earlier ones by Richard Price and Andrew Coates online . Solidarity and Workers’ Liberty work to transform the existing labour movement, not to create “our own” labour movement alongside it. We do our work by organising and educating for the battles of today, which, as yet, perforce, are “reform” struggles. That far we agree with Mike Davis — that nine-tenths of the work for the socialist revolution is “in the womb of the existing society”...

The booklet Corbynism, What Went Wrong? by Martin Thomas is written from the point of view of the Alliance for Workers’ Liberty (AWL), a Trotskyist political organisation which was mostly frozen out of the Corbynista and Momentum movement. The booklet recounts the history of the Corbyn phenomenon from the 2015 beginning until the 2019 end. It regrets the lost opportunity of those years to build a mass movement, particularly of not bringing in even more young people, and at the same time illustrates the mistakes it feels were made. And – equally tellingly – lists its differences with “the...