Corbynism and Blue Labour: post-liberalism and national populism in the British Labour Party

Abstract

Responding to recent debates, this article challenges the presentation of Corbynism and Blue Labour as competing philosophical tendencies in the contemporary British Labour Party. It does so with reference to their shared mobilisation around post-liberal and national-populist notions of the relationship between nations, states, society, citizens and the outside world, and critiques of capitalism and liberal democracy that they hold in common. Uncovering a largely subterranean 'critical Marxist' counterpoint that seeks to 'hold the centre' rather than rhetorically or theoretically endorse its destabilisation, the article outlines the other paths available from within the intellectual traditions of the Labour Party and wider left, concluding that there is a real philosophical alternative to both Corbynism and Blue Labour.

Too left-wing or not populist enough? Using Laclau and Mouffe to rethink Corbynism and future left strategy in the UK

“…It was widely commented that the Corbynist movement devoted much energy to changing dominant views within the PLP (Kelly, 2015;Diamond, 2016, 22;Watts and Bale, 2019) yet scholars are divided as to whether this was at the cost of addressing the electorate more widely, and whether it mistakenly equated Corbynism with the Party more than the 'people' (Atkins and Turnbull, 2016;Maiguashca and Dean, 2019b, 154;Bennister, et al, 2017, 14) thereby failing to accurately recognise the constituent unit of democracy. Some claim that Corbyn did try, although ultimately failed, to appeal significantly to 'the British people' (Bolton and Pitts, 2020) yet others disagree (Maiguashca and Dean 2019b, 154) and suggest that wider appeal to alliances beyond the party faithful was always in short supply (Gilbert, 2017). Hence, despite initial success, it would seem that despite the broader democratic policies put forward and the work of Momentum outside the party (Martell, 2018) the attempt to revolutionise the Labour Party, based on a misguided assumption that parties are the key constituency of democracy, ultimately came at the expense of seeking to build a populist movement that could win an election.…”

“…These concerns were intensified by the clash between Corbyn's supporters and the PLP. Although this was defended as a valiant attempt to democratise a party, using 'left populist' strategies to return it to its grassroots and free it from the grip of the establishment (Martell, 2018;Airas, 2018;Massey, 2015;Byrne, 2019) it was interpreted by critics as an undemocratic threat to our representative system seeking to build a shallow populist movement through appeal to conspiracy theories (Baggini, 2016;Bolton and Pitts, 2020); or.…”