Thoughts on Jeremy Corbyn being elected UK Labour Leader?

[gobears10]

251k... fucking hell. I knew it would be a landslide but fucking hell...Far-left candidate Jeremy Corbyn was just elected to be Labour Party leader in a landslide. He's now the leader of one of Britain's top two major parties, and will now be the official leader of the opposition.

To those who don't know who he is, Jeremy Corbyn is a real, hardcore, far-left socialist who is a fan of Venezuela's Hugo Chavez. Corbyn supports unreconstructed socialism in which the government owns and operates various sectors of the economy, and wants to renationalize Britain's railroad system and energy companies.

In comparison, Bernie Sanders' agenda is VERY mild, and while he's perceived to be quite leftist in America, he would honestly be a run-of-the-mill social democrat in Western Europe and Canada, fitting comfortably in Canada's NDP, the French Socialist Party, the German Social Democratic Party, and other mainstream center-left parties. Basically, Bernie Sanders is right where French President Francois Hollande is on the political spectrum, with Sanders wanting to regulate the market capitalist economy better while strengthening safety nets. Jeremy Corbyn is much, much further to the left, and has radical leftist economic views similar to Greece's Syriza. In the UK, Bernie Sanders would be considered to be quite moderate, perhaps a member of the Liberal Democrats, or a more moderate Labour Party member. Corbyn makes Sanders look like a centrist.

This is how radically left Jeremy Corbyn is. He wants to withdraw the UK from NATO, abolish the UK's nuclear arsenal, and suggested trying Tony Blair for war crimes over Iraq. He is for giving Northern Ireland to Ireland and the abolition of the British monarchy. Corbyn called the death of Osama Bin Laden by U.S. forces a "tragedy," and said that Bin Laden should have been put on trial instead of being killed (I disagree, I think Bin Laden's death was 100% justified). To be fair, Corbyn also said that the WTC attack on 9/11 was a tragedy. Corbyn also compared the actions of ISIS to what the U.S. military did in Iraq (a moronic and grossly exaggerated comparison in my opinion, no way is America's military similar to ISIS). Corbyn also called Hamas and Hezbollah "friends," inviting Hamas representatives to the UK Parliament. Later, Corbyn said he doesn't at all approve of what Hamas and Hezbollah do, and he was using "friends" in a diplomatic way, feeling that all parties to a conflict should be invited and involved in peace negotiations.

Bernie Sanders' foreign policy is much more moderate. Definitely to the left of Hillary Clinton's, but more right-wing than Corbyn's. Sanders supports limited drone strikes, and is willing to put war on the table as a last resort, but will only use if it diplomatic means are exhausted (Bernie voted against both Iraq Wars, but supported Kosovo intervention and the War in Afghanistan). Also while Bernie's no Israel lapdog like Hillary Clinton, and opposes Netanyahu, Bernie's pretty pro-Israel overall, and is very anti-Hamas.

Anyway, this is quite interesting. In the UK, this is a huge middle finger to Tony Blair's "New Labour," and to the neoliberal, pro-business turn Labour took since the 1990s. Corbyn is way, way, way too far left for me overall. I approve of his anti-austerity policies and "people's quantitative easing" agenda, but I think some of his foreign policy is ridiculous. He's a man of conviction for sure. But I don't know if he's made the Labour Party completely unelectable, and handed the 2020 elections completely to the Tories. At least now no one can say that Labour is "Tory-lite," and Prime Minister's Questions will be entertaining as fuck to watch.

[djean111]

1. I believe his message is resonating and there is a faint ray of light against the corporations and

banks. Bodes well.

[T_i_B]

2. Thing is...

...as much as I do have serious gripes with much of his platform, Corbyn was the only one offering anything positive. The only one who seemed to have grasped what's just happened in Scotland and the only one thinking about things beyond grabbing power at any cost.

The main argument against Corbyn is that he's unelectable. Trouble is, Andy Burnham, Yvette Cooper & Liz Kendall didn't look electable either.

[MisterP]

4. how do you guess this'll hit the SNP? they won mostly because they provided an economicaly-focused

alternative to three parties of varying types of yuppie; but it still has "Scottishness," transfer payments, and "representing Scotland at Westminster"

more importantly, would we have gotten a Corbyn if Scotland had voted "yes" last year?

[muriel_volestrangler]

3. But he's not going to push several of those policies

Corbyn's first task, as his acceptance speech underlined, will be to try and bridge the divide. He will need to deliver on his promise to assemble a broad-based shadow cabinet, rather than one solely comprised of the hard left. A large number of senior frontbenchers, including Yvette Cooper, Chris Leslie, Tristram Hunt, Liz Kendall, Michael Dugher, Mary Creagh and Emma Reynolds, will not serve under Corbyn. But others such as Owen Smith, Angela Eagle and Hilary Benn, from the soft left of the party, are prepared to join his team. By far the most important appointment Corbyn will make is that of shadow chancellor. John McDonnell, his greatest parliamentary ally and campaign manager, has long been the favourite for the post. But Corbyn has been warned by MPs that such a factional appointment would undermine his standing. Eagle and Smith are commonly cited as alternative candidates. But Corbyn may feel compelled to choose McDonnell out of personal loyalty.

He is likely, however, to moderate some of his policy stances in order to persuade MPs to serve. He has already signalled that he will not advocate positions such as Nato withdrawal, anti-monarchism and opposition to EU membership as leader. Corbyn is likely to sideline the divisive issue of nuclear disarmament by holding a strategic defence review and may later offer a free vote on Trident renewal. Having rebelled against the whip 534 times since 1997, some colleagues believe that he will only loosely enforce discipline.

http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/uk/2015/09/epic-challenges-facing-jeremy-corbyn-labour-leader

And I don't think "compared the actions of ISIS to what the U.S. military did in Iraq" is fair; what he did, when commenting in June 2014 on ISIS taking Mosul, was say that what the Americans did in Fallujah and other places is appalling, and that explains why Sunni Iraqis didn't automatically reject ISIS - because they had awful things done to them by Maliki's allies too:

"The long term stability of the country is now in doubt, because you have two broadly religious sectarian forces fighting each other. That was never the narrative in Iraq before the United States and Britain and others invaded. It was then a relatively secular country in the sense that the constitution was relatively secular, and there wasn't this huge religious division between Sunni and Shia which of course is being exacerbated. One has to look at the role of Saudi Arabia in promoting Sunni forces around the region, a particular form of Islam, and at the same time at the role played by the Maliki government, and I think the outlook is very, very grim indeed, and this is a consequence of western meddling.

"Jeremy, what could shift the balance of forces here? What would it take for the Iraqi troops to regain control?"

"Well, I think it requires a sense of unity amongst people in Iraq that would want to remain part of Iraq, and also an acceptance and understanding of why so many people in some of the cities in the north have apparently been prepared to accept the ISIS forces. Yes they are brutal, yes some of what they have done is quite appalling. Likewise, what the Americans did in Fallujah and other places is appalling, but there has to be seen to be an acceptance of a much wider view of the world than is apparent at the present time by the Malaki government.

Whilst the US has not yet sent in large numbers of troops, the danger is that in this sort of perilous civil war that's going on, Western forces will once again be dragged in, and the war will just go on for a long time, with awful consequences for the people of Iraq. I think there has to be a political solution. All wars have to end in some kind of political compromise - why not start with a political compromise now, rather than fuelling the war by putting more weapons, more arms and more money into the conflict."