How Corbyn revitalized the British left
He tapped popular anger and took advantage of new electoral rules to win Labour’s leadership
Jeremy Corbyn aims to transform the world of British politics — an agenda the Labour leader has had since he was first elected to Parliament in 1983 alongside fellow reformer Tony Blair. But whereas Blair was part of the vanguard that initiated centrist “New Labour,” Corbyn has remained a steadfast relic of the pre-1980s hard, socialist Left. Now, a decade after Blair departed the party leadership, Corbyn owns it; and he plans to use that position to facilitate a complete makeover of British politics, starting with Labour’s annual conference this September, where he’s set to introduce new reforms, unopposed.
Corbyn’s rise to prominence from the obscure political fringes has baffled many in Britain and abroad. After all, the platform he’s espoused for more than 30 years was once called “the longest suicide note in history,” making his resurgent career seem near-miraculous. Some hindsight, however, suggests that the Corbyn phenomenon may be less surprising than it seems. When Labour changed its selection system for party leader, it accelerated the long-fomenting eclipse of the center-left by an even more left-wing alternative. Britain, it turns out, has been going through its own version of “Pasokification” (so called after Pasok, the Greek social-democratic party whose fortunes have recently declined).
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