Grassroots movements and electoral wins across Europe testify to the vitality of the left. But until it works out how to exercise power in the interests of its supporters and challenge global capital, any gains will be shortlived The least interesting thing about Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership of the Labour party is Corbyn himself. Not because he is a dull person. But because, as the candidate who stood to make a point and only made the ballot because his opponents thought he had no chance, he is clearly the accidental lead character in a drama he never seriously auditioned for and nobody ever thought would be produced. That drama is global and still unfolding. Over the last few years, with varying degrees of success in a handful of places, the left has cohered into the kind of electoral coalitions that can actually command pluralities if not majorities. This is evident in Greece with Syriza, with less ideological clarity in Scotland with the Scottish National Party, and has most recently taken root in Portugal where a social democratic leads a government, comprising communists, both reconstructed and unreconstructed, and greens. This weekend in Spain Podemos is expected to perform respectably for a party that is not yet two years old. While Corbyn’s emphatic victory was within the Labour movement rather than the country at large, it would be perverse to understand it outside this context. So when commentators dwell on his personal and strategic frailties and flaws, they affect a worldliness while betraying a deeply parochial sensibility. Continue reading...
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