[Mr. Corbyn did lose the election. But he won more than anyone else. He deprived the prime minister who had treated him with such dismissiveness of both her Parliamentary majority and her authority. Far from obliterating Labour, he re-energized it, shifting its politics far to the left.]
By Katrin Bennhold and Stephen
Castle
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Jeremy Corbyn arriving at
the Labour Party headquarters in central London on
Friday. His unorthodox path fits
a broader pattern of outsiders shaking up
political centers in the West. Credit Daniel
Leal-Olivas/Agence
France-Presse — Getty Images
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LONDON
— It was a scathing
put-down. “He can lead a protest, I’m leading the country,” Prime Minister
Theresa May of Britain said about the leader of the opposition Labour Party,
Jeremy Corbyn.
Over the past seven weeks, Mr. Corbyn led the
protest of his life. As Mrs. May faltered, stumbling her way toward an election
she herself had called, the veteran left winger and serial campaigner turned
his party into a movement.
Even in his own party, many derided Mr.
Corbyn as a hopeless and hapless leader, an unreformed Marxist who would sink
the Labour Party into oblivion, and wanted him to lose the election — badly.
Mr. Corbyn did lose the election. But he won
more than anyone else. He deprived the prime minister who had treated him with
such dismissiveness of both her Parliamentary majority and her authority. Far
from obliterating Labour, he re-energized it, shifting its politics far to the
left.
By Friday afternoon, some of his critics were
eating their words.
“He’s had a brilliant campaign,” said Chuka
Umunna, a senior member of the Labour Party who was among those openly
disgruntled with Mr. Corbyn’s leadership last year. “Jeremy has fought this
campaign with enthusiasm, energy, verve, has clearly loved being surrounded in
the mix with people. That’s what politics is all about.”
And a striking contrast to Mrs. May, who was
roundly criticized as wooden, robotic and manifestly uncomfortable when meeting
voters.
When the election campaign started last
month, few took the 68-year-old Mr. Corbyn seriously. But his unorthodox path
fits a broader pattern of outsiders and, some would say, populists who are
shaking up the political center in Western countries from left and right.
A five-time winner of the parliamentary beard
of the year, Mr. Corbyn is Britain’s Bernie Sanders, another grizzled firebrand
who inspired a generation of young voters to become politicized and, at least
this week, turn out to vote. Mr. Corbyn’s fans call themselves Corbynistas.
Some already say that with his rejection of
free-market economics and his quiet but more compromising approach to Britain’s
exit from the European Union, he might not just change the Labour Party but
also shift British politics more broadly.
“This was about millions inspired by a
radical manifesto that promised to transform Britain, to attack injustices and
challenge the vested interests holding the country back,” wrote Owen Jones, a
columnist for The Guardian. “So, yes — to quote a much-ridiculed Jeremy Corbyn
tweet: the real fight starts now.”
Mr. Corbyn is a different type of politician,
one happier on the campaign trail speaking to fellow activists through a
megaphone than debating in the neo-Gothic splendor of the British Parliament
with its arcane rules and obscure traditions.
In 2015, after more than three decades as a
lawmaker, he had to be persuaded to stand for the party leadership, agreeing
only reluctantly and in order to enable the left to present a candidate. No
one, not even Mr. Corbyn himself, expected him to win. If ever there were an
accidental leader, he is it.
During his 34 years in Parliament, Mr. Corbyn
has essentially been in permanent opposition, not just to Mrs. May’s
Conservative Party but also to his own Labour Party. He voted against the Iraq
invasion, has opposed successive attempts to roll back civil liberties in the
fight against terrorism and has long argued against deregulation and
free-market reforms.
The biggest problem, he has said, is that
since Margaret Thatcher established neoliberalism as the dominant economic
consensus in Britain in the 1980s, Labour allowed the Conservatives to set the
agenda on the economy and never offered an alternative narrative.
Mr. Corbyn offered that alternative: Under
the banner of “For the Many Not the Few,” he vowed to nationalize the
railroads, make universities free again and inject billions into the National
Health Service by raising taxes on companies and the top 5 percent of income
earners.
Yet how he might turn what he called a “good,
losing campaign” into a winning strategy remains unclear, said Steven Fielding,
a professor of political history at the University of Nottingham.
Labour “bet the farm” on increasing the
turnout among young voters by promising to abolish student tuition, at a cost
of 11 billion pounds, Mr. Fielding said. “It gave a very tangible retail offer
to young voters — the first time young voters have been given this.”
Mrs. May could not compete. When asked to
reveal the naughtiest thing she had done as a child, she mentioned annoying a
local farmer by running through a field of wheat. Predictably, Twitter users
responded with humor and scorn. (On Snapchat, one filter included an image of
Mr. Corbyn and the message “Labour Today.”)
Even Mr. Corbyn’s political enemies concede
that his politics are principled, with one Conservative lawmaker saying that
the Labour leader at least practiced what he preached.
When dozens of lawmakers had to resign over
rigging their expense accounts in 2009 and journalists scrutinized the finances
of members of Parliament, Mr. Corbyn apparently had the lowest claim of all his
colleagues: £8.95 for a printer cartridge. He makes his own jam and rides a
bike.
Mr. Corbyn grew up in a political household
(his parents met during the Spanish Civil War) and was himself galvanized into
activism by the Vietnam War and environmental issues, particularly his
opposition to nuclear power — and Britain’s nuclear deterrent policy.
The causes that he has been passionate about
are many, including the rights of Palestinians and South Africa’s
anti-apartheid struggle. But he has also come under fire for showing sympathy
over the years to the Irish Republican Army and Hamas, the militant group
ruling Gaza that is dedicated to eradicating Israel.
He and his inner circle have been accused of
anti-Semitism for their strong criticism of Israel; of a latent
anti-Americanism; of wanting to do away with Britain’s nuclear deterrent
policy; and of being lukewarm toward NATO — accusations that he denies.
All of that faded into the background on
Friday.
Yet while Mr. Corbyn is flying high, he still
has not made the case that he can — and, perhaps more important, should — lead
the nation.
Mr. Corbyn, said Mr. Fielding, “has rewritten
the rules, but he hasn’t won.” The question, he added, was “how viable is a
Corbyn approach to winning power, rather than doing well in defeat?”
With his core vote for now still far to the
left of Middle England, Mr. Corbyn seems unlikely ever to run Britain. But that
may not trouble a man who, almost uniquely among prominent politicians, shows
few signs of wanting power, at least in any personal sense.
Asked in a hostile television interview
earlier this year whether he truly wanted to be prime minister rather than a
“serial protester, objector,” Mr. Corbyn studiously avoided the obvious
affirmative reply.
“I want to be in government so that we can
conquer the housing crisis in Britain,” he said. “I want to be in government so
that people get a real chance in life.”