The new left, Jeremy Corbyn and the war of position: a new coherence or further fragmentation?

ABSTRACT

This article assesses the emergence of the new groups, organizations and protests that have emerged since the financial crisis and asks whether we can understand these as a fresh development where diverse movements fashioned through different ideological departure points have moved towards a form of convergence in which a wider hegemonic project can be fashioned, or whether in fact such proclamations are effectively another form of ‘wishing thinking’ in terms of left-wing renewal is concerned. In line with recently argued work, it suggests that for the left to look to overcome the ideological obstacles that plagued its twentieth century development, it needs to provide a wide/open set of principles that look to contest dominant norms of the neoliberal order that exist at the many levels of civil society. In this way a ‘war of position’ (to borrow from Gramsci) needs to be forged that looks to avoid charges of ‘elitism’ and ‘fragmentation’ that had seen the left to fail as a coherent alternative since the cold war. Whilst the new left has forged forms of contestation at the civil level (for example Occupy and the ESF) and more recently at the Political level (with Sanders, Corbyn and Syriza/Podermos), it has yet to form a consistent and coherent war of position to neoliberal capitalism.

KEYWORDS:

• Neoliberalism
• Gramsci
• Labour Party
• Jeremy Corbyn
• hegemony

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Notes

1. Both Stuart Hall and Martin Jacques who originally called for such a reoriented hegemonic challenge from the left were quick to condemn Blairism and New Labour (Jacques, 1998).

2. The combination of the European Commission, the European Monetary Union (EMU) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) that looked to manage the sovereign debt of its crisis hit members

3. Named after the veteran left-wing Tony Benn, a ‘Bennite’ refers to someone who believes in the democratic socialist values of the Labour Party and, de is traditionally committed to public ownership of the economy and the maintenance of a strong Trade Unionist presence within the Party

4. Fleet Street in London was the traditional headquarters of many of the large newspapers in Britain and as such the term ‘Fleet Street’ refers to all the major national printed daily newspapers.

5. Representatives at public sector Trade Unions such as UNITE and UNISON argued that a snowball effect towards mobilization seemed to exist which had not been there in the contemporary era. Regional Midlands-based Welfare Rights Officer and veteran activity Sam Boam argued that the surge towards the Labour Party was more to do with local mobilization within the public sector and local party membership than any backing of Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership, which remained uneven.

6. The only period where the main Conservative-backed Newspapers were less favourable to the Conservatives was indeed at the time of the release of the Manifestos. For reference, the Labour Party 1983 Manifesto was a radical left-wing composition, heavily influenced by Tony Benn, which looked to provide a game changing left-wing response to both Thatcherism and the Keynesian post-war consensus.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Owen Worth

Owen Worth is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Politics and Public Administration at the University of Limerick. His research focuses on the nature of power, class and in particular the role of hegemony in Global Political Economy and in Global Political Society. He is the author of Hegemony, International Political Economy and Post-Communist Russia (Ashgate, 2005), Resistance in the Age of Austerity: Nationalism, the Failure of the Left and the Return of God (Zed Books, 2013) and Rethinking Hegemony (Palgrave, 2015). He has also published work in a number of journals across the spectrum of Global Politics and has co-edited a number of other books. He also currently chairs the editorial board (Managing Editor) for the journal Capital and Class.