Making radical sound normal
ANALYSIS
IT’S quite a claim to have shouldered the weight of the world and moved the centre of gravity to the left. The last deity to try it was Atlas.
This is what Jeremy Corbyn, the written off, resurgent demigod of a transformed Labour reckons to have done.
The left is now firmly in control and venerates the sainted veteran leader with choruses of “Oh, Jeremy Corbyn”.
Now he wants to do it to the country. “We are now the political mainstream,” said Corbyn.
Corbyn is not just ready to rule, he is ready for revolution. He thinks the country is too.
It was heady stuff, on social justice, cancelling PFIs, renationalising utilities, making the economy serve local communities not international financiers.
From John McDonnell, the prescription sounds threatening. Corbyn’s gift, having caught a wave of revulsion against globalisation, is to make revolution reasonable.
Haven’t we already had a run on the pound, with sterling losing 15 per cent as a result of Brexit?
Isn’t it mad that the Tories wreck Britain with austerity while, as Corbyn said, giving the magic money tree a shake to find £1billon for the DUP to keep Theresa May in power?
He did not promise to put the political universe back on its axis, but to upend it.
The certainty of victory created a gravitydefying atmosphere at Labour’s conference and means delegates leave Brighton on a high.
Here are Labour, 600,000 members strong, the biggest political party in western Europe.
Corbyn has harnessed the anger of Britain’s left.
Will that cultish selfbelief now infect the rest of the country? In the rapids of Brexit Britain, it is impossible to tell.