November 27, 2015

#BattleFest2015: The Corbyn Effect - are the old parties dead?

1 hour 8 minutes

When Jeremy Corbyn went from being the token

lefty candidate for Labour leader to the favourite to lead the party

this summer, it became clear that the old assumptions no longer apply.

But while the ‘Corbyn Wave’ appeared to be something new, there was an

unmistakable paradox in the fact that the man of the moment had been

hiding in plain sight at Westminster since 1983. So is he a blast from

the past or a harbinger of things to come? Some suggest his rise

represents a momentous shift to the left. With its new £3 registered

supporter option, Labour’s ‘membership’ swell to 610,753, with many of

the new influx aged under 30. This seemed to echo the rise of the SNP in

Scotland as another example of the left-wing populism flaring up across

Europe in the wake of SYRIZA in Greece and Podemos in Spain. At the

same time, though, more long-established outsider parties like Britain’s

UKIP and France’s Front National have enjoyed considerable electoral

success, topping the European Parliament polls. With the unlikely

emergence of Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders as plausible US

presidential candidate, ‘politics as we know it’ seems to be over, but

it does not seem to be as simple as a move to the left.

The dramatic ascent of the Sweden Democrats, a party that describes

itself as socially conservative with a nationalist foundation, means

that when its leader Jimmie Åkesson predicts that his party will one day

be strong enough to run the country, serious commentators acknowledge

this is possible. It is as yet unclear whether these new political

parties command a stable support for specific policies. There seems a

more unstable ebb and flow of new parties in the spotlight and showing

disenchantment with mainstream politics by voting for the outsider can

appear more the sign of anti-politics rather than newly radicalised

times. Is it Corbyn’s old-fashioned state socialism programme attracting

solid support, or is his appeal that he is Not Blair Or The Other Three

candidates? And while UKIP gained four million votes in the general

election, their much vaunted rise is now side-lined as yesterday’s flash

in the pan story, with UKIP voters being amongst those enthusiastically

supporting Corbyn.

Why have populist parties become so popular? Does this mark the

beginning of the end for many established parties, or is it merely a

period of change, more about volatile protest votes than a new historic

era? Should we really take seriously some of these movements when they

may disappear as quickly as they emerged? If the Corbyn Effect is part

of this wider trend, will it last or will it crumble like Clegg-mania

amid broken promises and unrealistic ideas? Or are we in fact watching

the emergence of exciting new political movements, a reason to be

hopeful?

Speakers

David Aaronovitch

columnist, The Times; author, Voodoo Histories; chair, Index on Censorship

Alex Deane

managing director, strategic communications, FTI Consulting; Sky News regular; BBC Dateline London panellist

Andrew Gimson

author and political journalist; contributing editor, ConservativeHome

Miranda Green

journalist; founding editor, The Day; regular contributor to BBC political shows; former Lib Dem spin doctor

Chair

Bruno Waterfield

Brussels correspondent, The Times; co-author, No Means No

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By academyofideas

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