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Corbyn

Page 32

by Richard Seymour


  46Sean O’Callaghan, ‘Jeremy Corbyn might not have planted a bomb but he made it easier for those who did, says former IRA man’, Sun, 22 May 2017; Tom Newton Dunn, ‘Jeremy Corbyn boosted morale of IRA killers with his support and prolonged the violence leading to more deaths, IRA killer reveals’, Sun, 22 May 2017; Sean O’Callaghan, ‘Finucane should not have been killed – but he was in the IRA’, Telegraph, 18 April 2013; Cory Collusion Inquiry Report: Patrick Finucane, House of Commons, April 2004.

  47David Trayner, ‘Claims Jeremy Corbyn funded “IRA bomber” turn out to be 30 years old – and inaccurate’, Independent, 20 September 2015.

  48‘Jeremy Corbyn quizzed over IRA comments’, ITV News, 21 May 2017; Jessica Elgot, ‘Johnson accuses Corbyn of siding with UK’s enemies in fight on terror’, Guardian, 6 June 2017; Robert Booth, Martin Belam, and Maeve McClenaghan, ‘Tory attack ad misrepresents Corbyn views on IRA, says Labour’, Guardian, 2 June 2017.

  49Kate Devlin, ‘Labour MPs urge Smith to attack Corbyn over IRA’, Evening Times, 18 August 2016; Kate McCann, ‘Labour’s Stoke candidate branded Jeremy Corbyn “IRA supporting friend of Hamas” and criticised Brexit’, Telegraph, 27 January 2017.

  50James Forsythe, ‘Jeremy Corbyn always blames Britain first’, Spectator, 28 May 2017; Simon Heffer, ‘Jeremy Corbyn has long hated Britain’, Telegraph, 28 May 2017; editorial, ‘Jeremy Corbyn’s intervention on terror is tasteless and wrong’, Telegraph, 26 May 2017; Steve Hawkes, ‘RED FLAG: outrage as it’s revealed Jeremy Corbyn will claim Britain’s war on terror is to blame for Manchester terror attack’, Sun, 25 May 2017; editorial, ‘An important speech from Jeremy Corbyn – but made at the wrong time’, Independent, 26 May 2017; Matthew Smith, ‘Jeremy Corbyn is on the right side of public opinion on foreign policy: except for the Falklands’, YouGov, 30 May 2017.

  51Tom Batchelor, ‘British voters overwhelmingly back Labour’s manifesto policies, poll finds’, Independent, 11 May 2017.

  52Will Dahlgren, ‘Voters choose greater equality over greater wealth’, YouGov, 30 April 2014; Will Dahlgren, ‘Nationalise energy and rail companies, say public’, YouGov, 4 November 2013; Patrick Butler, ‘UK survey finds huge support for ending austerity’, Guardian, 28 June 2017.

  53Editorial, ‘The Guardian view on the Labour election manifesto: widening the bounds of the thinkable’, Guardian, 16 May 2017; editorial, ‘The Observer’s view on the Labour manifesto’, Observer, 14 May 2017; Andrew Grice, ‘Labour’s manifesto will be popular, but this election is about trust, not policies’, Independent, 16 May 2017; Nick Robinson, ‘No one should be surprised …’, Twitter.com, 20 May 2017; Jeremy Culley, ‘REVEALED: Labour plans to “TREBLE Council Tax plunging people into negative equity”’, Daily Star, 30 May 2017; Gordon Rayner, ‘Tax on homes “to treble under Labour plans for Land Value Tax”’, Telegraph, 29 May 2017; Jon Stone, ‘Labour looks to replace Council Tax with a Land Value Tax’, Independent, 16 May 2017.

  54Macer Hall, ‘May’s plan for a Fairer Britain’, Daily Express, 18 May 2017; editorial, ‘DAILY MAIL COMMENT: as Mrs May unveils her manifesto, at last, we have a PM who is not afraid to be honest’, Daily Mail, 19 May 2017; editorial, ‘THE SUN SAYS: never in our history has a UK election thrown up such a clear-cut and obvious choice for Sun readers’, Sun, 19 May 2017; editorial, ‘The Guardian view on Theresa May’s manifesto: a new Toryism’, Guardian, 18 May 2017.

  55Dawn Foster, ‘Theresa May’s manifesto shows that she is more right wing than Cameron ever dared to be’, Independent, 18 May 2017.

  56Robert Booth, ‘Conservatives launch online offensive against Corbyn’, Guardian, 15 May 2017.

  57Nicholas Cecil, ‘How Jeremy Corbyn beat Theresa May in the social media election war’, Evening Standard, 14 June 2017.

  58Jim Waterson and Tom Phillips, ‘People on Facebook only want to share pro-Corbyn, anti-Tory news stories’, Buzzfeed, 7 May 2017; Ben Kentish, ‘Tories “spent more than £1m” on negative Facebook adverts attacking Jeremy Corbyn’, Independent, 11 June 2017; Giles Turner and Jeremy Kahn, ‘U.K. Labour’s savvy use of social media helped win young voters’, Bloomberg, 11 June 2017; Richard Fletcher, ‘Labour’s social media campaign: more posts, more video, and more interaction’, Election Analysis, 2017, electionanalysis.uk; Robert Booth and Alex Hern, ‘Labour won social media election, digital strategists say’, Guardian, 9 June 2017.

  59Paul Hilder, ‘How people power can beat the big donors – from crowd-funding to tactical voting’, Left Foot Forward, 6 June 2017.

  60Dan Hodges, ‘This isn’t a vote, it’s a game of Russian roulette’, Daily Mail, 4 June 2017; Nick Cohen, ‘Don’t tell me you weren’t warned about Corbyn’, Observer, 19 March 2017; ‘Final reckoning: May on track for sweeping win’, Independent, 8 June 2017; John Rentoul, ‘Why I don’t believe the YouGov model predicting a hung parliament’, Independent, 31 May 2017; Sam Coates and Frances Elliott, ‘Tory lead grows in election’s final poll’, The Times, 8 June 2017; editorial, ‘THE SUN SAYS: don’t chuck Britain in the Cor-bin – vote Tory unless you want a friend of terrorists who’s ready to open our borders and hike up taxes as your next PM’, Sun, 7 June 2017.

  61Oscar Rickett, ‘Weighing Up Theresa May’s Leadership Prospects’, Vice, 14 June 2017; ‘Conservatives’ Evans: we’ve shot ourselves in the head’, BBC News, 9 June 2017; George Parker, ‘Conservatives fear descent into chaotic leadership battle’, Financial Times, 15 July 2017.

  62Georgina Lee, ‘Here are 10 Tory U-turns since the election was called’, Channel 4 News, 26 July 2017; Anushka Asthana, ‘Here are 10 Tory U-turns since the election was called’, Guardian, 21 July 2017.

  6. Prospects: Can Corbyn Win?

  1Charles Eliot Norton, ‘The advantages of defeat’, The Atlantic, September 1861, available at atlantic.com.

  2Liz Davies, Through the Looking Glass: A Dissenter Inside New Labour, Verso: London, 2001, p. 174

  3William Green, ‘Ronnie Campbell calls for honesty over public sector job cuts’, The Journal, 15 April 2010.

  4Leo Panitch points out that I got this argument from him. For insightful commentary, see Leo Panitch, Working Class Politics in Crisis: Essays on Labour and the State, London and New York: Verso, 1986.

  5Sam Coates, ‘Corbyn still first choice for Labour grass roots’, The Times, 24 November 2015.

  6Serina Sandhu, ‘Tony Blair: I’m the face on the placard, I’m that bastard’, iNews, 26 September 2016.

  7Perry Anderson, ‘Origins of the present crisis’, English Questions, London and New York: Verso, 1992, p. 42.

  8This notwithstanding the extraordinary class-based invective of some on the party’s right, like John Mann MP: ‘In the Dog and Duck, they could understand his words. Nationalise the railways. Alf and Bert could agree with that – sounds reasonable enough. Stop austerity. Samantha and Craig can smell a pay rise for themselves here.’ John Mann, ‘More positions than the Kama Sutra – and not up to the job’, Daily Mail, 13 September 2015.

  9Although, as is always the case, it depends on how you ask the polling question. See Patrick Worrall, ‘FactCheck: does Britain want to scrap Trident?’, Channel 4 News Factcheck blog, 4 November 2015; Will Dahlgreen, ‘Nationalise energy and rail companies, say public’, YouGov, 4 November 2013; Tom Clark, ‘Energy giants more disliked than banks, poll finds’, Guardian, 25 January 2015; Will Dahlgreen, ‘Voters choose greater equality over greater wealth’, YouGov, 30 April 2014; ‘Corbyn still first choice for Labour grass roots’, Office for National Statistics, 22 January 2015, at ons.gov.uk.

  10Jeremy Corbyn, ‘Building a social movement’, in Tom Unterrainer, ed., Corbyn’s Campaign, Nottingham: Spokesman Books, 2016, p. 10.

  11George Eaton, ‘How John McDonnell is trying to reframe the economic debate’, New Statesman, 20 November 2015.

  12Chris Giles, ‘Team McDonnell: meet Labour’s seven economic advisers’, Financial Times, 28 September 2015.

  13Gavin Stamp, ‘What we learnt about Labour’s economic policy from McDonnell
’s speech’, BBC News, 28 September 2015; Mariana Mazzucato, The Entrepreneurial State: Debunking Public vs. Private Myths in Risk and Innovation, New York: Anthem Press, 2013.

  14See Tony Wood, ‘Good riddance to New Labour’, New Left Review 62, March–April 2010.

  15Andrew Grice, ‘It’s time that we valued people over profits, poll results show’, Independent, 24 December 2011.

  16The British Social Attitudes Survey of 2009 found this shift across the board: ‘The public now appear less supportive of “big government” than at any time since the late 1970s.’ ‘British Social Attitudes 27th Report’, NatCen, December 2010, at natcen.ac.uk.

  17James Schneider, ‘Jeremy Corbyn can lead the Labour Party back to power’, Prospect, 12 February 2016.

  18Ipsos Mori, ‘Generations’, at ipsos-mori-generations.com; Andrew Grice, ‘Voters “brainwashed by Tory welfare myths”, shows new poll’, Independent, 4 January 2013; Will Dahlgreen and Will Jordan, ‘Osborne’s first all-Tory Budget: initial scorecard’, YouGov, 9 July 2015.

  19Raymond Williams, ‘Culture is ordinary’, in Williams, Resources of Hope: Culture, Democracy, Socialism, London and New York: Verso, 1989.

  20Freddie Sayers, ‘Bernie Sanders, Jeremy Corbyn and their new coalitions on the left’, Guardian, 15 February 2016.

  21Monica Poletti, Tim Bale, and Paul Webb, ‘Explaining the pro-Corbyn surge in Labour’s membership’, LSE blog, 16 November 2016; Anushka Asthana, ‘Big majority of Labour members “want UK to stay in single market”’, Guardian, 17 July 2017.

  22Tim Bale, Monica Poletti, and Paul Webb, ‘Speed data: who are Labour’s members?’, Prospect, 19 January 2017.

  23Hilary Wainwright, quoted in Tom Gann, ‘A Million Member Party, Concluding Thoughts: Democratisation, Delivering Consequences, Disalienation’, New Socialist, 24 July 2017

  24Nicholas Watt, ‘Labour split exposed as Tom Watson describes Momentum as a “rabble”’, Guardian, 4 December 2015; Heather Stewart, ‘Tom Watson sends Corbyn “proof of Trotskyist Labour infiltration”’, Guardian, 10 August 2016; Adam Bienkov, ‘Owen Smith: Momentum members could be banned by Labour party’, Politics.co.uk, 16 September 2016.

  25Tom Peck, ‘Trotskyists are trying to take over Momentum, says senior member’, Independent, 6 December 2016.

  26Paul Waugh, ‘Momentum activists take control of local Labour parties ahead of Brighton conference’, Huffington Post, 20 June 2017; Emma Rees, ‘Grassroots create momentum to vote Jeremy Corbyn into office’, Financial Times, 22 July 2017; Emma Bean, ‘Corbynista slate pulls ahead in battle for key conference committees’, LabourList, 18 July 2017; Ashley Cowburn, ‘Momentum: what happens to the Jeremy Corbyn-backing organisation after the general election?’, Independent, 7 June 2017.

  27Luke Akehurst, ‘Competing visions’, Progress, 11 February 2017.

  28Andrew Gilligan, ‘Revealed: the radical hard-left Momentum activists mounting a ruthless purge of Labour’, Telegraph, 13 February 2016; Rachel Shabi, ‘Opening Labour’, Jacobin, 16 July 2017.

  29Glen O’Hara, ‘How is Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour faring in elections so far?’, New Statesman, 4 January 2016.

  30Hardeep Matharu, ‘Britain could be more left-wing than people assume, study finds’, Independent, 15 January 2016; Jon Stone, ‘Labour seen as “indistinguishable from the Tories” to Scottish voters, leaked internal report warns’, Independent, 25 January 2016.

  31Ian Johnston, ‘Labour was not too left wing for voters at last election, review concludes’, Independent, 15 January 2016.

  32‘Labour opinion poll ratings “worst since World War II”’, Herald, 19 January 2016.

  33Glen O’Hara, ‘How is Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour faring in elections so far?’, New Statesman, 4 January 2016.

  34Leon Watson, Helena Horton, and David Millward, ‘Crawling back to Corbyn: the Labour rebels eating their words after benefiting from Jeremy Corbyn’s popularity’, Telegraph, 10 June 2017; Laura Hughes, ‘Yvette Cooper would “consider” serving in Jeremy Corbyn’s shadow cabinet’, Telegraph, 10 June 2017.

  35Tony Blair, ‘Brexit and the centre’, Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, 15 July 2017.

  36Michael Savage, ‘Tom Watson: “If we can reassure our traditional voters, we’ll be unbeatable” ’, Guardian, 2 July 2017.

  37Phil Wilson MP, ‘Labour’s purpose’, Fabian Society, 4 July 2017.

  38Rajeev Syal, ‘Senior Labour figures clash over concerns of working-class voters’, Guardian, 4 July 2017.

  39Ashish Ghadiali, ‘“The Labour Party is its members” – Chris Williamson MP interview’, Red Pepper, 13 July 2017.

  40On the City and Brexit, see the new afterword to Tony Norfield, The City: London and the Global Power of Finance, London and New York: Verso, 2017; Carl Emmerson, Paul Johnson, Ian Mitchell, and David Phillips, ‘Brexit and the UK’s Public Finances’, Institute for Fiscal Studies, IFS Report 116, May 2016.

  41Owen Smith, BBC Question Time, 9 February 2017; Kiran Stacey, ‘India dents UK trade hopes with lapsed deal’, Financial Times, 5 April 2017; on the framework of likely deals, Jon Henley and Dan Roberts, ‘Reality check: will it take 10 years to do a UK–EU trade deal post Brexit?’, Guardian, 15 December 2016; and Jonty Bloom, ‘Reality check: can there be a quick UK–USA trade deal?’, BBC News, 16 January 2017.

  42Martin Sandbu, ‘Free lunch: sheep in wolf’s clothing’, Financial Times, 27 September 2016.

  43‘A national investment bank for Britain: putting dynamism into our industrial strategy’, report to the shadow chancellor of the exchequer and shadow secretary for business, energy and industrial strategy on implementation, Labour 2016, at labour.org.uk; John Marlow, ‘National investment banks: a radical proposal?’, Open Democracy, 6 September 2016.

 

 

 


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