tag:theconversation.com,2011:/africa/topics/labour-party-conference-2017-43754/articlesLabour Party Conference 2017 – The Conversation2017-09-27T15:47:44Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/848002017-09-27T15:47:44Z2017-09-27T15:47:44ZCorbyn in Brighton: this is a seismic shift in two ways<p>Let’s be under no illusion about the significance of what we have just seen: a Labour Party leader calling, at the party’s annual conference, for the nationalisation of public utilities – not to cries of derision or the dropping of jaws, but to a standing ovation inside the hall and positive responses beyond. </p>
<p>This, one of many radical departures from political and economic orthodoxy in Jeremy Corbyn’s speech, wouldn’t have played well just a year ago. And ten years ago it was simply unimaginable as an idea.</p>
<p>But this was not just one proposal: it was part of a much wider narrative, set in train by the Labour manifesto in June and cemented by Corbyn at conference. It is the narrative of social democracy, of economic demand management, of public spending and public goods, of nationalised projects in the name of the society at large, of education from cradle to grave. </p>
<p>It’s a narrative that challenges the <em>leitmotif</em> of the past 40 years: the narrative of TINA – there is no alternative. That’s no alternative to the neoliberal approach to a small state and a free market.</p>
<p>Of course, for now, it remains exactly that: just a narrative. That is, we are still far away from any of these positions becoming government policy. But we should not underestimate the significance of its emergence over the past couple of years. It represents a seismic shift akin to those that have shaped British politics at key moments over the past 100 years.</p>
<p>The moves in the first half of the 20th century across the West toward large social spending, encapsulated in early welfare states of Europe and in the New Deal in the US, did not spring from nowhere. They came from the spread of ideas by trade unions and labour movements and thinkers over many years. These eventually led to a groundswell of demand to do things differently.</p>
<p>Likewise, the move throughout the 1970s towards Thatcherism and Reaganism did not spring from two elections at the end of the decade. They came from a long germination of ideas that ran counter to the previous social democratic consensus. </p>
<p>In both cases, politicians emerged to represent the emergence of these new ideas and lead the charge to implement them as policy. But without the narrative in the first place, there is no charge to lead, and thus no sweeping change.</p>
<p>So it is with Corbyn’s Labour party in 2017. They have seized the moment, identified the failed years of austerity and recognised the disaffection people feel with politics when there is little difference between the parties that represent us. It has offered a vision of society that feels – and is – very different to the dominant visions of recent decades. It’s the product of Corbyn’s lifelong commitment to the vision he outlines, for sure, but also a skillful bit of manoeuvring. He has identified social trends and corralled them.</p>
<h2>The other social narrative</h2>
<p>Of course, hovering above this new social narrative is another narrative, one unlike anything experienced in Britain for decades: the narrative of Brexit. And if we know one thing about Brexit, it is that it is as difficult as it is transformative.</p>
<p>However, it could just be that Corbyn has steered an equally skillful path through the quagmire. He has rightly claimed, implicitly, that the difficult narrative of Brexit is not, yet, the Labour Party’s narrative. </p>
<p>It is the Tories who created that narrative and led the country to the referendum. It is the Conservative Party which, for now at least, is negotiating Brexit. Therefore the approach seems to be to let them own it – let them show themselves to be woefully unprepared and riven with division. Why get in the way?</p>
<p>Further, Corbyn identified the Tory approach to Brexit as bungled and ideologically driven, risking economic stability in the name of ideological position. But perhaps most skillfully of all, without committing to a full Leave or Remain position, Corbyn staked the Labour position out as distinctly different: Labour would enter the negotiations with the national interest front and centre, over any ideological commitments.</p>
<p>Very clever indeed. It leaves everything on the table – including a vote on the final deal and even no Brexit at all – without committing Labour to anything right now. Moreover, it feels very close to checkmate in Brexit chess: should the Tories make a terrible mess of the negotiations, the government would likely fail and the “adults in the room” would step in. Should the Tories compromise and pursue the softest, most compromised Brexit, the internal divisions of the party would likely bring them down too.</p>
<p>In years to come, this could well be viewed as an incredibly adroit creation – and managing – of two transformative social narratives by Corbyn and his team. Indeed, in time, his handling of all of this could be seen to be one of the more skillful examples of political leadership we have ever seen in British politics. </p>
<p>In the meantime, whatever the legacy, one thing we know for sure: there are two clear, competing visions now for both Brexit and social policy more widely at the centre of British politics.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/84800/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Andy Price does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>An alternative vision for British society and a smart move on Brexit made this leader’s speech one for the history books.Andy Price, Head of Politics, Sheffield Hallam UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/848022017-09-27T14:26:08Z2017-09-27T14:26:08ZLabour in Brighton: it’s not a cult, it’s too big for that now<p>If you’ve ever been to a party conference – maybe any conference actually – you’ll have experienced that disconcerting feeling you get when you walk out of the building it’s being held in and re-enter the real world.</p>
<p>Sometimes the contrast can be alarmingly stark: I particularly recall the discombobulation I felt as I emerged blinking from wherever it was that the last Conservative Party conference was staged in Blackpool to streets that could easily have served as the backdrop for a supposedly gritty drama about “left-behind Britain”. Who knows, maybe that’s why the Tories don’t go there any more?</p>
<p>But Brighton and the new model Labour party: that’s a different story. As long as you avoid the buses, betting shops and arcades of West Street, you can slip out of the Brighton Centre, or any of the various venues in which events are being held, and find yourself in the Laines, where you quickly discover that, in this city, there’s not really that big a difference between the delegates and the denizens.</p>
<p>That’s not just because the Laines are chock-full of folk who’ve decided to eschew the main hall and the official fringe for the delights of Momentum’s <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/sep/25/people-are-using-the-word-socialism-momentum-activists-hail-a-world-transformed">World Transformed</a> events, which really are, it should be said, every bit as packed and as popular as the organisation (many of whose key people are Sussex University graduates, incidentally) claims.</p>
<p>It’s also because so many of those who’ve chosen to attend #Lab17 – a lot of them for the first time – look and sound like the kind of people who anybody familiar with the studenty/boho bits of Brighton (as opposed to, say, the city’s Whitehawk estate) will have seen in their coffee bars and retro shops. They’re caring; they’re concerned; they’re outraged; they believe another world is possible – and many of them are already living in it.</p>
<p>Little wonder, perhaps, that a grumpy Blairite friend of mine who’s been coming to conference for decades tells me he hardly recognises it (or indeed anyone) anymore – apart, that is, from a handful of hard-left activists he thought he’d seen off in the 1980s.</p>
<p>Speaking as someone who’s been to a few Green Party conferences, he’s stretching it when he says this is like one of them. Contrary to what you might read in the right-wing tabloids, there are a fair few quote-unquote “normal” folk around. And there are still a few young thrusters roaming around in suits, even if most of them are lobbyists and journos – oh, and trade unionists, who are still very much a moving presence here.</p>
<p>But that Blairite friend is right when he says – as columnists including Owen Jones (<a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/sep/26/media-brexit-labour-party-activists">very much up for it</a>) and Marie Le Conte (<a href="https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/politics/purgatory-at-the-hilton-whats-happened-to-the-mood-at-party-conference">not quite so sure</a>) have noted – that, even if he still belongs to the party, the party no longer belongs to him.</p>
<p>It’s going to stay like that for a while. The left currently controls many of the big unions. Moreover, unlike the early eighties, they can boast about a general election result which convinces many in the party that Labour can win it next time round.</p>
<p>And after this conference, the Corbynistas have control of the leadership, the rulebook, the machine and the membership. Yes, the leadership has fudged Brexit – but its followers, who are overwhelmingly Remainers and want to stay in the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/jul/17/most-labour-members-want-uk-to-remain-in-single-market">single market and the customs union</a>, don’t seem, to me anyway, to be prepared to make that much of a fuss about it. Cognitive dissonance? Not so much.</p>
<p>“Is it a cult?”, some ask – especially if they were sitting in the hall as the party leader approached the platform for his closing speech. That’s when adoring delegates, fresh from clapping along to an LGBT choir’s acapella version of “Something Inside So Strong”, stamped their feet as they belted out the now obligatory “Oh, Jeremy Corbyn”. Ironically, perhaps, we’ve not seen the like of it since Margaret Thatcher (the mention of whose name by Corbyn was, naturally, booed and hissed like a panto villain’s) took the Tory conferences of the mid-1980s by storm.</p>
<p>But I’d say no, not a cult. It’s now too big for that. The main hall in Brighton resembled nothing so much as an American mega-church with a congregation of wildly enthusiastic true believers. Whether some of the more agnostic folk going about their daily business outside it – or the voters in constituencies that look nothing like this city and never will do – can be made to share that enthusiasm remains, of course, to be seen.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/84802/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Tim Bale receives funding from the ESRC for a study of UK party members in the 21st Century. </span></em></p>Tim Bale reports from the seafront in Brighton, where Labour is holding its annual conference.Tim Bale, Professor of Politics, Queen Mary University of LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/847912017-09-27T14:04:15Z2017-09-27T14:04:15ZLessons from history for Jeremy Corbyn’s ‘government in waiting’<p>History, as Henry Ford once claimed, is bunk: and that is what many Jeremy Corbyn supporters now believe. Prior to the 2017 election, Corbynites were told by supposed experts like myself that, <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-30640264">as Tony Blair had it</a>, when a traditional left-wing party competes with a traditional right-wing party the traditional result will follow: defeat for the left.</p>
<p>Labour didn’t win the election. But it performed much better than anybody supposed. And, in accounting for this, Corbyn’s platform and persona are widely seen as having been vital. It was, many believe, Jeremy that (nearly) won it. Certainly Labour’s conference confirms the impression that the leadership thinks all the party needs is one more big dose of Corbynism and power will drop into its hands.</p>
<p>But while some in the party think Britons are now living, as Momentum has it, in a <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/sep/25/people-are-using-the-word-socialism-momentum-activists-hail-a-world-transformed">World Transformed</a>, we should not yet dispense with using the past as a guide to the future, if only because there is a compelling pattern to Labour’s previous breakthroughs of 1945, 1964 and 1997.</p>
<p>First, all three victories were preceded by a prolonged period of Conservative or Conservative-led governments, of respectively 14, 13 and 18 years. These regimes were each, by their end, generally perceived to have failed.</p>
<p>In 1945 the Conservatives’ inadequate preparations for war with Hitler led many to reject their free-market policies. In 1964 Britain was widely seen as falling behind other more dynamic nations. This was seen as being due to the Tories’ amateurish approach to economic management. In 1997 John Major’s party’s reputation for competence never recovered from its disastrous devaluation of sterling just after being reelected in 1992.</p>
<p>In each case Conservative fortunes went into free-fall due to the impact of sudden and dramatic events which gave shape to gathering but hitherto formless doubts. Without the catalytic effects of <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/dunkirk-17364">Dunkirk</a>, the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2013/may/07/1963-sex-profumo-christine-keeler">Profumo affair</a> and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/business/2012/sep/13/black-wednesday-20-years-pound-erm">Black Wednesday</a>, Labour’s prospects would have been much dimmer.</p>
<p>But a prolonged Conservative period in office, the smell of failure and a series of dramatic events do not necessarily guarantee Labour office. Neil Kinnock lost the 1992 election despite the Tories having been in power for 13 years. During that time the government was responsible for staggering interest rates that threatened many peoples’ homes. Yet Labour’s programme and its leader were not attractive enough to allow it to take advantage. Despite the old maxim that oppositions don’t win elections governments lose them, an opposition party – and certainly Labour – cannot afford to simply wait for office to fall into its lap.</p>
<h2>Offering something different</h2>
<p>Certainly in 1945, 1964 and 1997 Labour offered a compelling solution to Britain’s economic problems – ones the Conservatives were seen as either causing or being unable to address. If this involved bringing the state back in – in 1945 dramatically so, in 1997 on a more restricted scale – Labour always presented its programme in a non-ideological way, as a practical means of taking the country forward.</p>
<p>The nationalisations that underpinned Labour’s 1945 programme are now seen as radical but at the time, after the experience of World War II, taking failing private industries into government hands was seen as a fairly pragmatic economic policy. Similarly Wilson’s indicative planning and Blair’s pledge to improve public services were generally seen as vital to promoting economic efficiency.</p>
<p>As a result, at these moments, Labour could successfully depict the Conservatives as being the ideological party, representing only the privileged elite. Meanwhile, it could cast itself as the head of a national crusade that included but transcended working-class and trade union interests. Across these three elections, the party had message designed to appeal to those beyond the party.</p>
<p>If Labour had an approach that resonated with the public, it also usually had leaders who evoked a popular response. The exception was in 1945. While many Labour members now look on Clement Attlee as a secular saint, had it been a presidential contest Winston Churchill would have walked it. Attlee would show his mettle as prime minister but if they sought Labour policies, many voters in 1945 wanted Churchill to remain in Downing Street.</p>
<p>The importance of leadership has subsequently increased and in 1964 and 1997 Wilson and Blair played critical roles in embodying Labour’s message. Wilson the grammar school boy and Blair the lawyer evoked a classless modernity that cut across their party’s traditional cloth-cap image so as to win over wobbly Conservative voters.</p>
<h2>Taking on Theresa May</h2>
<p>Where does Corbyn’s Labour stand in relation to the party’s previous breakthrough moments? The Conservatives have only been in office for seven years, but Theresa May’s appalling performance in the 2017 campaign was an unexpected event that brought to the fore many people’s doubts about the effectiveness and desirability of unending austerity. That said, there is little sense that the Conservatives are generally seen as failing.</p>
<p>Indeed, <a href="https://d25d2506sfb94s.cloudfront.net/cumulus_uploads/document/v5ccf9nuck/YG%2520Trackers%2520-%2520Best%2520Party%2520On%2520Issues_W.pdf">according to YouGov</a> voters regard them as preferable to Labour for managing the economy, the Brexit process, immigration, tax, law and order and defence. It is even level with Labour on unemployment.</p>
<p>It’s true that parts of Labour’s 2017 manifesto were very popular – notably the promise to abolish university tuition fees and the pledge to renationalise a number of key industries. Corbyn’s rhetoric that Labour represented the many, not the few, evoked a positive response. But there remains a significant gap between what the party offers and what the public wants.</p>
<p>Even now, Corbyn continues to trail May as the person regarded as the <a href="https://yougov.co.uk/news/2017/09/27/voting-intention-conservatives-39-labour-43-22-24-/">best prime minister</a>. Perhaps even more worrying for Labour, nearly one-third of 2017 Labour voters are not sure Corbyn would make the <a href="https://twitter.com/JoeTwyman/status/912233278333181952">best prime minister</a>.</p>
<p>The party, if anything, is heading in a direction that could further weaken its potential as a party of government. Labour’s conference has seen Corbyn’s position further entrenched thanks to the impression he stands on the verge of power. On the basis of this analysis, the party might want to reconsider matters.</p>
<p>Historical comparisons can be useful: they help identify persistent patterns. They can also be dangerous, for the present is never exactly like the past.</p>
<p>Certainly I believed the 2017 campaign would end in a drubbing for Labour just as it had in 1983. History is there to be changed – it’s not always a prison. We aren’t necessarily locked into the same behaviour. But if he is to become prime minister any time soon Jeremy Corbyn will be a truly unique Labour figure, in more ways than most, for he is currently waging a war not only on the Tories, but on history.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/84791/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Steven Fielding is a member of the Labour Party.</span></em></p>The Conservatives are in disarray, but they seem to be clinging on regardless. The question is how to unseat them next time.Steven Fielding, Professor of Political History, University of NottinghamLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/845492017-09-26T11:19:15Z2017-09-26T11:19:15ZWhy Labour’s future depends on cities<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/187439/original/file-20170925-21172-ee245d.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Best foot forward.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Shutterstock </span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Jeremy Corbyn’s remarkable successes in June’s election are widely credited to the popularity of his leftist policies with <a href="https://www.versobooks.com/blogs/3269-richard-seymour-where-next-for-corbyn-and-labour">younger voters</a>. Yet this reasoning obscures something potentially far more transformative about Labour’s campaign.</p>
<p>From Corbyn’s photo-ops with grime stars to the organisational strength of Momentum in towns and cities, Labour’s leftism was not just aimed at the “youth”. It was a distinctly “urban” campaign.</p>
<p>Having endured a long period on the margins, both Corbyn’s Labour and the radical left generally would be wise to hone this focus on cities, where progressive politics <a href="http://www.redpepper.org.uk/fearless-cities-the-new-urban-movements/">flourishes</a>. It will need to foster new forms of political organisation more attuned to the <a href="http://www.unesco.org/education/tlsf/mods/theme_c/popups/mod13t01s009.html">urban and global times</a> in which we now live. </p>
<p>More than 30 years of neoliberal globalisation has been transforming societies. But in recent years, the sense that neoliberalism is a part of economic and political crises <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/jun/07/austerity-britain-labour-neoliberalism-reagan-thatcher">has grown</a>. We’ve seen the return of both left and right wing politics around the world, with traditional ideas of political loyalty and participation diminished. Working-class allegiances to parties of the left can no longer be guaranteed. The left needs to adapt to a political landscape in flux, re-imagine itself and rebuild support to respond to the growing strength of a right which is doing exactly the same. </p>
<p>This is a huge challenge – one that will be won and lost in cities and towns. The urban uprisings around the world over the past decade were varied but they underscored how important cities and particular urban spaces are to <a href="http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1068/a44301">leftist politics</a>. So the left must appeal to and embolden different forms of urban political activism such as the Occupy movements.</p>
<p>It is in urban areas that economic production and profit accumulation collide with <a href="http://www.cornellpress.cornell.edu/book/?GCOI=80140100001820">resistance and protest</a>. Cities have replaced the factory as the locus of political struggle in capitalist societies.</p>
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<span class="caption">Stormzy and Jeremy Corbyn at the 2017 GQ Man of the Year awards.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://www.paimages.co.uk/search-results/fluid/?q=corbyn%20stormzy&category=A,S,E&fields_0=all&fields_1=all&imagesonly=1&orientation=both&text=corbyn%20stormzy&words_0=all&words_1=all">https://www.paimages.co.uk</a></span>
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<p>But the left must also engage with the flipside too – such as the kind of social unrest seen in the UK riots of 2011. In these cases, grievances and anger are not articulated in terms of traditional demands but erupt into violence and disorder. They are nonetheless <a href="https://blog.oup.com/2015/03/social-forces-london-riots/">political</a> in their roots and impacts. The left has to find a way to connect to and empower the marginalised. It needs to translate anger into collective action to achieve political change. There are no easy solutions here, but emphasising and expanding the collective and democratic practices seemingly necessitated by the <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2015/apr/16/how-cities-vote-britain-left-leaning-cities-decide-election">urban way of life</a> must be a starting point for new political narratives and ideas. </p>
<h2>What’s the offer?</h2>
<p>Policies directed to the less well-off matter of course (as Labour’s <a href="http://www.labour.org.uk/page/-/Images/manifesto-2017/Labour%20Manifesto%202017.pdf">2017 election manifesto</a> showed). But thinking must be more fundamental. Parties must reach out to diverse and often ignored urban groups with an offer that stands out from the rigmarole of formal party politics. <a href="http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2014/06/rage-against-machine-rise-anti-politics-across-europe">Anti-political times</a> demand it.</p>
<p>In a number of ways, Corbyn is already on the right track. He was mocked by some for re-imagining the Labour party as part of a leftist social movement but the presence of Momentum members campaigning on British streets was vital to his success. The media continues to look for controversy in relation to Momentum and, in doing so, it overlooks its popularity. The fact is, the group’s organisational capacities are crucial to reaching into (especially English and Welsh) communities and organising from the grassroots up. </p>
<p>However, Corbyn must go further. Practical steps include decentralising the archaic British state to create a political system more reflective of, and responsive to, largely urban settlements. This kind of system is found in most liberal democracies.</p>
<p>It might be accompanied by experiments with popular direct democracy as found in Barcelona, Naples and other <a href="http://fearlesscities.com/about-fearless-cities/%5D">“fearless cities”</a>, where urban activists and politicians work together to make their municipalities more democratic. </p>
<p>Finally, Corbyn needs to re-engage working-class voters who deserted Labour under <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/profile/jamesmorris">Tony Blair and Gordon Brown</a>, while maintaining his strength in diverse and youthful <a href="https://medium.com/@psurridge/britains-divide-diversity-key-to-turnout-rises-a51626d5c969">urban places</a>. That means doing more than supporting asylum while helping fudge the party’s Brexit policy. Labour and other left parties have to make sense of and, where necessary, separate dynamics that have become too easily conflated by the right and centre of politics in recent years. This includes increasing ethnic and social diversity, de-industrialisation, declining wages, soaring rents and property prices and staggering inequalities.</p>
<p>Results in the past election underscored that a leftist Labour has little chance in rural areas. It should seek to make up the difference with bold appeals to an urban precariat enduring the everyday insecurities created by neoliberal globalisation. Ultimately, Corbyn needs to offer a convincing vision of how Labour will shift the balance of power from global economic interests to cities and their communities.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/84549/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ross Beveridge does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Winning over urban areas is the surest route to success for Jeremy Corbyn.Ross Beveridge, Senior Research Fellow in Urban Studies, University of GlasgowLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/846242017-09-25T13:35:12Z2017-09-25T13:35:12ZJeremy Corbyn’s route to Number 10: a few hurdles that need clearing<p>Jeremy Corbyn entered the 2016 Labour party conference freshly re-elected as leader. The jubilant support for him at the leadership election was met in equal share with bemusement in other quarters, however. Opposition parties are supposed to win seats in local elections through anti-government protest votes, but Labour had lost seats in the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/election/2016/councils">local elections</a>. Labour was flagging in the opinion polls and criticism from parliamentary dissenters was rife. “In 34 years of watching Westminster, I have never seen a party so riven,” wrote <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/jeremy-corbyn-wins-labour-leadership-election-disaster-party-riven-a7327406.html">one commentator</a>. Corbyn’s impassioned call <a href="https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/staggers/2016/09/jeremy-corbyns-full-speech-2016-labour-party-conference">in his 2016 conference speech</a> was to “accept the decision of the members, end the trench warfare and work together”. For many, it felt like an attempt to paper over the cracks.</p>
<p>Now, a year later, Labour leads in the opinion polls. Let’s say that again. It leads. The party’s much anticipated demolition at the general election in June never happened. Theresa May lost her parliamentary majority and continues to struggle to keep her party in line. The person dismissed as <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/labour/11800233/Labour-leadership-Mainstream-candidates-should-unite-behind-single-figure-live.html">“unelectable”</a> and <a href="http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/809499/jeremy-corbyn-charles-clarke-general-election-labour-trident-nuclear-theresa-may">“not prime ministerial material”</a> somehow finds himself in charge of the party out in front, according to YouGov polling.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/187365/original/file-20170925-17397-1x1oos6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/187365/original/file-20170925-17397-1x1oos6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/187365/original/file-20170925-17397-1x1oos6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=383&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/187365/original/file-20170925-17397-1x1oos6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=383&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/187365/original/file-20170925-17397-1x1oos6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=383&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/187365/original/file-20170925-17397-1x1oos6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=481&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/187365/original/file-20170925-17397-1x1oos6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=481&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/187365/original/file-20170925-17397-1x1oos6.png?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=481&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Corbyn’s climb.</span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="https://ukpollingreport.co.uk/voting-intention-2">Based on data from UK Polling Report.</a>, <span class="license">Author provided</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>So is Corbyn now a prime minister in waiting? Not quite. Or at least, not quite yet.</p>
<p>A general election is not on the immediate horizon, for a start. Labour may have repeatedly called on the government to go to the polls, but a governing party is not going to rush another snap election in the current situation.</p>
<p>The situation is very unstable, however. May never did face an open leadership challenge over the summer but hawks within her party might just be <a href="https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/may-plotters-to-pounce-in-october-vpgl5v36p">looking for an opportunity to mount a bid</a>. If successful, then a new leader would surely want to use a honeymoon period to snatch an outright majority in a snap general election. Corbyn’s chance would then present itself.</p>
<p>But even then, more people need to be won over. If we have learnt one thing from British politics recently, it’s that what people say in an opinion poll is not necessarily what they say at the ballot box. The polls therefore can’t be relied on and the fact remains that Labour didn’t win over enough people in June to win the election.</p>
<p>Corbyn still needs to broaden the appeal of himself and the party. In the 1990s, Labour did that by moving to the centre ground. But we should be clear that the “centre ground” in British Politics is no longer the Mondeo Man – a hypothetical person standing in a moderate position between working class and middle class. British politics is now divided along <a href="https://theconversation.com/britains-new-political-tribes-need-something-different-from-their-parties-84001">different cleavages</a>: between old and young, liberal Europeanist and conservative anti-Europeanists. Broadening an appeal across this gap is ever more difficult when attitudes are hardening.</p>
<p>This is an even greater challenge for Labour because it still has a Brexit problem. During the election campaign, the party benefited from the accidental ambiguity over its position on Europe. It publicly supported Brexit but manoeuvred to also criticise the government on its approach. But now comes a tactical problem. Labour’s core base is younger voters, but they are also the most anti-Brexit. The older voters they may need to chase are the most pro-Brexit. Where to go?</p>
<p>And, of course, there is still a party management problem. Corbyn may be riding high in the polls, but opinion polls always have short-term shifts. There remains much disagreement about Brexit, as an <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/sep/23/labour-should-commit-to-staying-in-the-single-market-and-customs-union">open letter from over 30 MPs illustrates</a>. As Corbyn’s fortunes in the polls ebb and flow, don’t expect parliamentary critics to stay quiet. </p>
<h2>Shifting waters</h2>
<p>Despite these challenges, politics is on the move. The Brexit negotiation soap opera will have many more twists and turns. There will be many more unexpected winners and losers among the parliamentary elites as a result. This will profoundly affect Corbyn and Labour’s fortunes.</p>
<p>Economic conditions for many UK citizens also remains fragile. <a href="https://www.ons.gov.uk/employmentandlabourmarket/peopleinwork/earningsandworkinghours/articles/supplementaryanalysisofaverageweeklyearnings/latest">Real wages</a> have seen no growth for decade. <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2017/07/31/growing-risk-uk-household-debts-warns-moodys-amid-lending-boom/">Household debt</a> is rising. Unemployment might be declining, but many jobs are insecure, short-term and low paid.</p>
<p>These are part of profounder challenges facing many of the older advanced economies. In these new times, old assumptions about politics don’t hold and new types of leaders have emerged. So as the parliamentary establishment obsesses about Brexit, shifts in public opinion may still follow making British politics an unknown quantity. In these choppy waters, it is not clear what will happen. But they don’t tend to help incumbents.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/84624/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Toby S. James has previously received funding from the ESRC, AHRC, British Academy, Leverhulme Trust, Electoral Commission, International IDEA and the Nuffield Foundation. This article does not reflect the views of the research councils.</span></em></p>The Labour leader has hit his stride during 2017, but Brexit remains a strategic challenge.Toby James, Senior Lecturer in British & Comparative Politics, University of East AngliaLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.