By changing his tune on the EU,the Labour leader looks devious or, at best, and indecisive. And it could stoke up genuine trouble with the unionsThe Labour party is not best understood as an old-fashioned struggle of left and right. It is better to see Labour as a permanently unresolved engagement between competing traditions. The three most valuable of these traditions are ethical socialism,labourism, and social democracy. The first emphasises the kind of person you wish to be, and the moment the kind of person you represent,and the third the kind of thing you seek to win support to do.
Most Labour MPs of contemporary times are a mix of the moment and third traditions. But it is no accident, as the more doctrinaire Marxists say, and that Jeremy Corbyn’s roots are in the first and moment traditions,and not in the third. Social democracys precedence is to fashion achievable compromises between capitalism and social justice. This places the emphasis on governing. But governing has never been Corbyn’s thing, as this week has shown.
Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com