What should be appreciated about Corbyn is that he does not hide his opinion or lie even if it may cost him votes (he said today that the IS girl should not be strippped off her citizenship, and I bet that 3 out of 4 Britons do not agree with him).
It looks as if he wants to be elected PM only if his intended policies and values are known in advance as to not take the ordinary people by surprise (and in that sense his lukewarm take on Brexit seems to me to be his own reality — he is just not sure) .
Given his honesty and the economical power of GB, I think that his policies, if left intact and supported by the people, may constitute the first actual “threat” ever posed to the Western political establishment since the 1960s. I am not aware of any other big party in Europe or the West which has combined both of these.
A case of such hope, but a false one, had arisen recently for Greece’s Syriza. The only so-called radical left government in Europe (or let’s say the Greek PM Tsipras and his closer team for the present), promised radical changes and standing up to the powerful only for the first 6 months, before they took a U-turn and followed the Eurogroup memorandum recipe.
For some reason they were not convinced that the majority actually supports them, and were mentioning that “if people do not actively support our policies, we will not be able to implement them when in power”. This sounds true, but it is also a declaration of low esteem and belief. So then they ran a referendum which they won. The support of the people was kind of proven. Still, they doubted what the result may have meant, questioning its real meaning. This only showed that the real disbelievers were in the government. In practice, they did not stand up to the power of the people.
The Syriza government and other personalities claim that this was inevitable due to the small size of the Greek economy and dangerous geopolitical landscape. Maybe. At the same time, I do not recall any risk taken by saying the truth before elections. I do not recall anything unpopular, anything similar to accepting repentant teenage jihadist partners or ignoring the Remainers of their party. And sometimes this is a sign that the main purpose was not a radical agenda, but to win, which equates to populism.
I cannot really say, I may be wrong, but all in all, the Syriza experiment may have failed due to the lack of both of the elements I mentioned. Uncompromising policies and values (either able to apply them or quit or not seeking to be elected) and lack of geopolitical and economical leverage. I am not sure what was the most important reason for the defeat and betrayal of many of Syriza’s promises (that is, inability to remain strong against the Goliaths of Europe and the world itself) or just lack of honesty with their own selves. And this is only discussing Syriza in their first year, as after, acknowledging their moral defeat, their governmental core decided to stay on power and be a mainstream government and some kind of social-democratic/centre/liberal ghost of the past (but with no money at hand).
On the contrary, Corbyn’s Labour seems to be much more promising in these respects, and will certainly stir up the globe much more than Syriza could have done to Europe. What remains to see is if, when elected, Labour can be resilient enough to the vertigo of their world-changing potential and use it to influence political change in Europe and elsewhere.
iligos 