2019 UK General Election
The UK Labour Party’s 2019 General Election defeat was a major blow for the global democratic socialist movement, but the British elite and the enormous capital they wielded led to Jeremy Corbyn’s electoral loss. Canadian Dimension takes stock of the factors that led to the defeat, the lessons learned, and what’s next for the UK’s socialist movement.
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Why Labour lost in Britain
Corbyn had the best policies of anyone in my lifetime who was leader of major western country party. There is no evidence that Corbyn’s policies were unpopular, they poll fine, the issue is that the election wasn’t fought on his policies, it was fought on Brexit and whether or not a man who spent his entire life fighting racism was a racist.
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Big Capital will use every tool at its disposal to crush socialists like Corbyn
The Labour Party’s election failure in the UK proves that, for the progressive left to succeed, it will have to become considerably more revolutionary. The ‘softly, softly’ approach isn’t working. Since, in some sense, the election was about Brexit, the first thing that strikes the eye is the asymmetry in the position of the two big parties.
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UK election: Media elitism and its threat to progressive change
The people who stand to gain the most from leaders like Corbyn and Sanders are being fed increasingly ruthless lies about these candidates by the elites who fear their progressive policies. The extent to which the democratic process is being hijacked by these monopoly interests in deeply troubling and should be a focal point of public debate.
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Someone interfered in the UK election, and it wasn’t Russia
I am not claiming here that the billions of dollars’ worth of free mass media reporting that was devoted to smearing Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour Party had a greater effect on the election results than Brexit and other strategic stumbles in the party. I’m just saying that it definitely had a much greater effect than the few thousand dollars Russian nationals spent on social media memes.
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UK Labour Party’s leadership race a test of strength for grassroots democratic socialism
In a field of relatively underwhelming candidates, the best possible outcome appears to be a Long-Bailey victory. Though far from ideal, Long-Bailey is at least the best chance the left has of keeping anti-austerity and a radical green industrial strategy in mainstream conversation, and holding the line against those who would use the U.K. election results to silence grassroots democratic socialist movements everywhere.
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The vilification of Jeremy Corbyn
The vilification of the leader of the UK Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn, as an antisemite has intensified in the run up to the December 12 election in Britain. What makes this especially troubling, not to say bizarre, is that since he first became a member of parliament in 1983 Corbyn has been the most consistent campaigner against all forms of racism.
