The Corbyn Phenomenon

This post looks at reasons for why Jeremy Corbyn is the favourite to become leader of the Labour Party.


History

The Labour party has a group for some of its left wing MPs called the Socialist Campaign Group. In recent leadership elections, a member of this group has put themselves forwards as the left wing candidate for leader. In 2007 John McDonnell tried to run against Gordon Brown, but did not receive the required number of nominations to force an election. In 2010 Diane Abbott entered the contest, and in 2015 Jeremy Corbyn is running. In all three cases, the candidate has struggled to achieve the required number of nominations to get on the ballot. Abbott and Corbyn were both nominated by MPs who later stated that they would not vote for them for leader, but wanted them on the ballot in order to broaden the debate.

The 2010 leadership contest is remembered for the contest between the Miliband brothers, with little contest from the left of the party. But, this is because Labour's old electoral system gave MPs a third of the vote. This meant that unless a candidate had 75% of the vote share in the member and affiliated member categories, MPs would be able to prevent them from becoming leader. In 2010, Diane Abbott came 3rd in 1st preference votes, but was kicked out in the 1st round because she received  little support from MPs.

Labour's 2010 leadership election first preferences without the votes of MPs. 






So, Jeremy Corbyn is not starting from nowhere. Even in 2010 his side of the party was able to get to 3rd place on 1st preferences, despite the structure of the leadership election making victory almost impossible. The reforms to the electoral system mean that victory for the left in the party is now possible. Once on the ballot, MPs have no further power to control the contest. This is what has led to the current situation, where Jeremy Corbyn may win the leadership despite having little support from his fellow MPs.


Recent Events

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The IFS graph shows the distributional effect of the 2015 budget. It is clearly regressive. The government's policy has helped Corbyn's anti-austerity argument by linking austerity and regressive policy together.

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A second, very important factor behind Corbyn's rise in support was the Labour party's official abstention on the Conservative party's welfare bill. A large proportion of savings for the government are going to come from welfare. The SNP and Green party opposed the bill and used it as an opportunity to attack the Labour party from the left. Jeremy Corbyn was the only leadership candidate to oppose the bill. This turned Corbyn into the outsider candidate at a time when popular distrust of politicians is high. Repeated warnings by past Labour establishment figures like Blair and Brown to not vote for Corbyn have been ineffective partially because of Corbyn's outsider status. The lack of trust in Blair, Brown and other New Labour figures have also made it very difficult to make a line of attack on Corbyn work.


Membership

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There is some concern by Jeremy Corbyn supporters that the Labour party is trying to remove some of his supporters before the election, and some in the Labour party fear they are being infiltrated. However, this data suggests that the gap between old and new members' support for Jeremy Corbyn isn't particularly large. The new membership is more left wing than the old membership, judged by their support for Corbyn, but the gap is only 11% compared to members joining after Ed Miliband became leader. Corbyn's high level of support among members suggests that his support is not just coming from new members and £3 supporters, but that there have been many members within the Labour party who have wanted someone like Jeremy Corbyn to be their leader for some time.