Corbyn tickets in demand
Two of four planned appearances have already sold out as left-winger gets set for his anti-austerity tour
PUBLIC demand for Jeremy Corbyn’s Scottish rallies this week has been “huge”, a senior campaign source has revealed, with two of the four events already sold out.
Such was the interest in the left-winger’s appearance in Glasgow on Friday night that his campaign team had to hire a larger venue, switching from Oran Mor to the Old Fruitmarket, which has a capacity of more than 1500.
An appearance on Friday lunchtime at Edinburgh International Conference Centre, which has a capacity of around 1200, has also sold out. On Thursday, Mr Corbyn will hold similar events in Aberdeen and Dundee.
“Demand has been huge,” declared the source, “bigger than anticipated. It’s been brilliant really.” She said there was widespread interest, with capacity crowds of 1500 in Liverpool, 2000 in Leeds and 1000 in Cardiff.
The source added that in Scotland people would see Mr Corbyn as the “real anti-austerity deal”.
After a poll placed the Islington North MP on 53 per cent, doubling his lead over rival Andy Burnham to 32 points in just one week, bookies placed Mr Corbyn as the “red hot” odds-on favourite to win the contest on September 12.
But while “Corbynmania” storms on, the candidate urged supporters to be “a bit cautious” about his chances of victory.
“There is still time for people to register to join the party or register as supporters, no ballot papers have been sent out and we won’t know the result until next month. So let’s be a bit cautious,” he said.
Given the contest is being run using a single transferable vote system, it is widely thought the leftwinger’s only chance of winning is if he can cross the line in the first round because he is not likely to pick up many second choice votes from supporters of either Mr Burnham, Yvette Cooper or Liz Kendall.
Alastair Campbell, Tony Blair’s former spin doctor, has urged Labour supporters to sign up to vote for “anyone but Corbyn” to help the party “stop itself driving over a cliff”.
Lord Soley, a former chairman of the Parliamentary Labour Party, compared the prospect of a victory for Mr Corbyn to Iain Duncan Smith’s disastrous leadership of the Conservatives.
But the left-winger said the contest had been “very democratic” and told his detractors if party members chose a leader others did not like, then “they have to accept there’s a democratic process”.
Mr Corbyn said he wanted a “set of aims and values for the party”, that “was prepared for public ownership or public administration of key industries” such as Royal Mail and the railways but denied this was an attempt to reinstate Clause IV of the party’s constitution.
“It is not going to be the same wording ... the old Clause IV, that was written in 1918; we need something that reflects modern society,” he explained.
The London MP also revealed plans to create a Ministry of Labour if he won, making clear he
D‘ emand has been huge, bigger than anticipated. It’s been brilliant really
would also repeal the Tories’ “anti-trade union” laws.
More than 1000 people trying to participate in the leadership election have been blocked, exposed as supporters of rival parties.
The contest has been hit by claims of attempted “entryism” by hard-left groups, SNP supporters and Tories. Veteran Labour MP Barry Sheerman called for the contest to be halted for an investigation into the “malign” motives of some of those signing up to vote.
But the party has insisted it has robust procedures in place to identify any infiltrators.
People have until noon tomorrow to apply to take part as a member or supporter, with the first ballot papers going out on Friday.
Figures show Labour’s membership is 282,000; an increase of more than 80,000 since the General Election. Also eligible to vote are 70,000 registered supporters, who have paid £3 to participate, as well as 92,000 affiliated supporters from trade unions and other groups with links to Labour.
THE received wisdom among the Westminster pundits is still that Jeremy Corbyn surely cannot win the Labour leadership, that the membership and “registered supporters” will come to their senses, that infiltrators will be rooted out, and that summer’s “Corbynmania” will prove a passing madness, a fever that will break once the ballot papers are sent out.
The trouble is that there is no sign whatsoever of this happening. In the latest YouGov poll his nearest challenger, Andy Burnham, has slipped five points, Yvette Cooper is down two and Liz Kendall has dropped a further three into single figures. The frontrunner and strong bookmakers’ favourite has an outright winning majority of 53 per cent over the others. What second-round ballot? At this rate there will be no need for one.
Even in anticipated triumph, Mr Corbyn comes across as modest, finding the public mood and the packed meetings “a bit embarrassing” and saying: “Let’s be a bit cautious.” It is a measure of the man.
Regardless of the individual’s take on his unashamedly Old Labour views, it is hard not to recognise in him someone who is not manufactured for the modern political age. It might be suspected that, in the face of the unbridled hostility of a largely Conservative press and with a Blairite rump stabbing him in the back, he will never lead Labour to a general election victory.
That appears to be the only justification for an “anyone but Corbyn approach” advocated by former Tony Blair spin doctor Alastair Campbell, but none of the other three has earned the right to break clear as that candidate, so seemingly uninspiring have their campaigns been. Whether there is a full-on Middle England appetite for antiausterity policies, re-nationalising the railways or scrapping Trident is in doubt but this approach has appealed to the surging Labour membership and to those who have paid their £3 as registered supporters eligible to vote.
Now, in an exercise dubbed “Operation Icepick” (in a nod to the assassination of Leon Trotsky) some 1,200 of these members or supporters have been blocked from the process, including 214 Greens, 37 from the Trade Union and Socialist Coalition, 13 mischief-making Tories, seven from Ukip and one from the BNP.
The point is that the party has added more than 80,000 members to the 200,000 it had at the time of the election defeat, plus 70,000 of these new registered supporters and some 92,000 affiliated through trade unions and other groups.
Mr Corbyn is simply playing by the party rules as he finds them. If he wins it will be a democratic victory. The advocacy of Old Labour policies and opponents crying “entryism” have a whiff of the 1980s about them but it would be wrong to see it that way.
This phenomenon is rooted not in Liverpool in 1985 but in Newcastle and the failure of Northern Rock in 2007 which started the UK’s banking crisis.
It was received wisdom after Yes lost the referendum that the SNP would turn in on itself and go into a period of introspection and decline.
Instead, membership boomed, it was Nicola Sturgeon attending packed-out rallies and her party that won a landslide at the General Election arguing against austerity and demanding the scrapping of Trident.
Confident predictions about how our politics will unfold in the months ahead should be taken with a pinch of salt.