British politics is being shaken up by the shock rise of veteran socialist Jeremy Corbyn to take the lead in the British Labour Party leadership contest, running on a platform against austerity and for pro-people measures such as renationalising privatised industries.
The ballot for Labour leader closes in September. The leader is elected by party members and by a new category called Labour “supporters”, which anyone can become by paying the three pounds online.
Tens of thousands of people, inspired by Corbyn's anti-austerity stance, have paid the £3 to be a supporter, enabling them to vote for a candidate who actually represents their interests and views.
Several trade unions have officially backed Corbyn, including the two largest in Britain, Unite and public sector union Unison. Corbyn is also backed by the Communication Workers and TSSA, the white-collar rail union.
His success is sending waves of panic through the British political establishment. Sections of the Labour right are already openly talking about a coup to depose Corbyn should he win.
The 66-year-old Corbyn is a veteran left-wing activist with a long record of support workers' and democratic rights. He is a long-time supporter of Irish liberation, an opponent of imperialist wars and a supporter of Palestine and Venezuela. His consistent anti-war stance helps explain why the UK Stop the War Coalition has endorsed Corbyn's campaign.
Video: Jeremy Corbyn MP Speaks at Tolpuddle Festival 2015. Haydn Wheeler.
A hollowed-out Labour Party may prove unwilling to tolerate a figure like Corbyn, who will attract full hostility from political, economic and media elites. But the movement to get him elected as leader is clearly giving voice to deep-seated anger at the pro-rich policies of both Britain's major parties – and a desire for Labour to provide an alternative from the ruling Conservative Party.
Below, Left Unity, a new left group founded in 2013 on the basis of Labour's failure to pose an alternative to the Conservatives, offers its support to the Corbyn campaign. It is reprinted from Left Unity's website.
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The movement in support of Jeremy Corbyn for Labour leader has set politics alight – and got the media in a panic.
Corbyn’s candidacy is demonstrating the mass support that exists in society for the policies he stands for, and Left Unity has also supported since its foundation: an end to austerity and war, a different society based on peace and equality.
This unexpected movement is an expression of the same sentiment that is seeing a new left rise across Europe – with the difference in expression perhaps down to Britain’s archaic electoral system.
Left Unity wishes the campaign all the best. This is an opportunity for the Labour Party to become the party it was founded to be, defending and extending its great achievements of the welfare state – the party that millions want.
Unfortunately the Labour right are already planning a coup if Jeremy Corbyn wins. As part of their plot to unseat him, Labour MPs are winding up the right wing press by saying that the “hard left” is “infiltrating” the Labour Party.
But it is Labour that decided to allow anyone to sign up as a supporter for £3 and get a vote. Left Unity does not encourage its members to sign up. Nevertheless we ask: in a week where the vast majority of Labour MPs abstained on the brutal cuts in the welfare bill, who are the real infiltrators?
Is it the people who are signing up to vote in the hope of turning Labour back to its roots? Or is it the MPs who, when they are asked whether the poor should be made to pay, failed to vote against it?