The Corbyn Factor

I'm currently on a tour around various countries in Europe. My first stop was England. My visit to England reconfirmed what I had witnessed on my last several tours of England. That is, there is in England a deep concern over the rise of the right in Europe and America, and a deep concern over how the ever-unfolding Brexit process is going to play out. These are things you'll hear about in the international press a lot.

What you'll hear a lot less about is what's going on with the left in England and in many other countries in Europe. Maybe fear-mongering about the rise of fascism sells more online advertising, or maybe there are other agendas at work here. But what we are witnessing is those people who are fed up with free trade deals and imperial foreign policies associated with the EU and NATO are voting for parties that are often described as “skeptical” of these troubled institutions. And those “skeptical” parties are on both the right and the left. In places like Denmark we are seeing the dramatic growth of both the furthest-left party in parliament, Enhedslisten, as well as the furthest-right party, the Dansk Folk Party.

But nowhere is the rise of the left more dramatic than in England, though you'd be forgiven for not having heard the news. Although the leadership of the Labour Party has long been morally bankrupt for several long decades of neoliberalism, austerity and attempted empire-building, changes in election rules were made in 2014 that resulted in something few had predicted – the direct election by the suddenly swelling ranks of Labour Party members of the most leftwing Labour Party leader the country had ever known.

Although Corbyn's campaign has taken a lot of inspiration from methods employed by the presidential efforts led by Senator Bernie Sanders in the US, Corbyn is historically far to the left of Sanders – a consistent, principled anti-imperialist, very unlike Sanders checkered record of supporting “Democratic” wars while opposing Republican ones.

I never imagined I'd see the day where most of the people I know in England, whether they consider themselves to be socialists, social democrats, communists or anarchists – most of the people I know fall into one of these categories – they have joined the Labour Party and many of them are actively campaigning for Corbyn and the Corbyn wing of the party, which is in a long battle to wrest control of their party from the Blairites which still dominate the parliament.

Whether Jeremy Corbyn is the next prime minister or not, despite the attacks from the Tories, the Blairites, the rabid, frothing-at-the-mouth domestic BBC so-called journalists and all of his many other detractors, there is a guarded hope for the future in England among the ever-growing ranks of the Labour Party, which is now by membership the single biggest party in Europe.

I Agree With Jeremy

If you travel around Europe today you'll find societies stratified
You'll find an ever-widening political divide
You'll find a growing left, and a right that's growing faster
Convincing people they're the ones to avert the next disaster
You can see the dark clouds growing, taking over every space
Except, oddly enough, in a little place
Called England, where a growing chorus screes

I agree with Jeremy 

There are many who may wonder, how did this transpire
As the country's jumping from the pan into the fire
In the land of Brexit, changes going on
Labour Party leaders decide for direct election
Of the party leader, though the next thing that we knew
The most leftwing Labour leader was elected when it was through
Then millions were shouting all over the country 

I agree with Jeremy 

The BBC ignored him or they treated him like a clown
Transnational corporations said this man will bring us down
The Blairites in the Party stabbed him in the back
And then they did it again, but after each attack
He held steady at the helm, at the job for which he was picked
Despite all the accusations that he's an anti-Zionist peacenik
Who wants to change the country, and says the country
I agree with Jeremy 

Most members of the parliament wish he'd go away
But as their elected leader he's set to stay
And when he supports a candidate they usually tend to win
Which makes the Blairites fume, while the rest of us just grin
Between the BBC, the Tories and all the corporate Mps
The tabloid press, the IMF and all the landed gentry
They're pulling out the stops to stop the ascendancy
Of I agree with Jeremy 

The case before the nation is the one that we all face
What direction now goes this human race
Do we give up on the missiles and tax the rich a lot
Or give up on society and just embrace the rot
Among us who would tell us it's the foreigners to blame
Not the Blairite, Tory billionaires and their rigged neoliberal game
Each day the numbers grow, as each day new people see
That they agree with Jeremy

I agree with Jeremy