Meet the “British Bernie Sanders”: Now this is how you push back against the right

[Live and Learn]

Meet the “British Bernie Sanders”: Now this is how you push back against the right
New UK Labour leader outlines strong leftist platform in first US TV interview, criticizing war, xenophobia, & more

Jeremy Corbyn has made history, taking British politics by storm — but the U.S. media has largely ignored him.

Corbyn, 66, was elected leader of the U.K.’s Labour Party in September in a historic landslide, earning 60 percent of the vote — over 40 percent more than the runner-up. He won with a larger percentage than any other Labour leader in history.

While the far right is on the rise throughout Europe, Corbyn has helped revive the left. The longtime British parliamentarian’s robust leftist policies and firm opposition to the ever right-leaning status quo have led some to characterize him as the “British Bernie Sanders” — or, rather, to dub Sanders the “American Jeremy Corbyn.” Given the more progressive political climate in Europe, however, Corbyn is even further to the left of Sanders in many ways.

In the 1990s, the Labour Party, mirroring the Democratic Party under Bill Clinton, took a turn to the right, adopting neoliberal economic policies not unlike those pursued by Thatcher or Reagan. Just as Sanders, a self-identified democratic socialist, has in the past year reinvigorated the U.S. left, Corbyn, also a self-identified democratic socialist, has injected a shot of adrenaline into the moribund Labour Party.

http://www.salon.com/2015/12/10/meet_the_british_bernie_sanders_now_this_is_how_you_push_back_against_the_right/

[brooklynite]

1. ...by losing?

Last edited Fri Dec 11, 2015, 08:49 AM - Edit history (1)

Corbyn just got humiliated when he was forced to allow an open vote in Parliament on bombing ISIS, after half his shadow cabinet threatened to bolt.

[Betty Karlson]

2. By engaging voters who would ordinarily

not show up at the polls.

[Ironing Man]

3. ...

and losing more who had previously voted Labour.

Corbyn has turned the Labour party from a rather boring political party that occasionally wins election (3 in a row the last time it was selected to run the country..), into a very exciting protest group that never wins elections.

in the 7 months since Labour lost a General election, a full one-third of the people who voted for it said they would not vote for it again. this is an interesting definition of electoral success.

those interested in politics might wonder whether gaining supporters who don't end up voting on election day really makes up for losing supporters who do...

[Betty Karlson]

4. The aggregate average of polls in the UK disagrees with your bold assertions:

http://www.electoralcalculus.co.uk

[CJCRANE]

5. Labour just won a local election...

Don't believe everything you read in the MSM.

[brooklynite]

7. ...that they'd one before.

Show me where they'll take a seat from the Conservatives, or even LDP.

[CJCRANE]

6. His shadow cabinet are centrist stooges

who are out of touch with their base, and increasingly their electorate.

[cosmicone]

8. He lost miserably and

pulled out defeat from the jaws of victory.