A New York Times photo caption says Labour’s Jeremy Corbyn “is popular with left-wing party members but has alienated many others.” (photo: Dan Kitwood/Getty Images)
Much of the power of the New York Times derives from its ability to declare what the serious center is and who is relegated to the dismissible margins. You can see that power being exercised in a recent Times report (9/4/16) on British politics by Steven Erlanger.
The story focused on Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn—or “its left-wing leader, Jeremy Corbyn,” in the Times’ formulation. The point of the piece is to blame Corbyn for the fact that “the Labour Party is in shambles: Its leader and its members of Parliament are in a virtual civil war, and it is deeply unpopular with the broader electorate.”
Labour’s unpopularity is easy to exaggerate; its projected national share of the vote in the last local elections, held in May 2016, was 31 percent, a percentage point ahead of the Conservatives; this is considered unpromising, as opposition parties that are soon to become governing parties generally do better than that, but it’s an improvement over May 2015 (four months before Corbyn assumed leadership), when Labour trailed by 6 percentage points.
Corbyn’s responsibility for Labour’s woes, however, is taken for granted by the Times—because he’s just too far left:
Mr. Corbyn, a man of the hard left who also wants to renationalize the utilities and make Britain non-nuclear, is deeply skeptical of the United States and considers NATO an outdated, aggressive alliance…. First elected to Parliament in 1983, Mr. Corbyn had always been on Labour’s fringe. He supported Hugo Chávez, the leftist Venezuelan strongman; has pushed hard for more spending for the poor; and has been a persistent critic of Israel and supporter of Palestinian statehood.
The thing is, some of these “hard left” positions are widely popular in the United Kingdom. A 2013 YouGov poll (11/4/13), for example, found 68 percent of UK voters in favor of nationalizing energy companies, and 66 percent supporting railroad nationalization. When recognition of Palestinian statehood was considered by the UN in 2011, a BBC poll (9/19/11) found 53 percent of Britons in favor, only 26 percent opposed.
As for pushing for more spending on the poor, given a choice between “Labour should offer more for people in poverty” and “Labour should offer more for people on middle incomes” in a poll sponsored by the Trades Union Congress (5/20/15), 44 percent of UK citizens picked the former, vs. 29 percent choosing the latter.
The British public is more mixed on the UK’s nuclear force, with 51 percent expressing support for the nation’s submarine warheads in an ORB poll and 49 percent advocating scrapping them (Independent, 1/24/16). I couldn’t find any polling on how the British public felt about Corbyn’s attitude toward Hugo Chávez, perhaps because no one thought that this issue was a particularly vital one for the UK electorate.
It’s probably true that Corbyn is more skeptical of the United States and NATO than the average Brit. But it’s hard not to get the impression that certain positions are identified by Erlanger as problematic not because they’re unpopular with Corbyn’s constituents—but because they’re unpopular with the New York Times.
Jim Naureckas is the editor of FAIR.org. You can follow him on Twitter at @JNaureckas.
You can send a message to the New York Times at letters@nytimes.com (Twitter:@NYTimes). Please remember that respectful communication is the most effective.
I wonder what NYT’s view of Corbyn would be if continued to criticize Israel and support Palestinian statehood but adopted a neo-liberal stance on all of remainder.
You left out the NYT headline (and email teaser):
“Labour Party Is Poised to Back Jeremy Corbyn Again, Even if Britain Isn’t
“The party is expected to re-elect Mr. Corbyn this month …”
So the unrelenting anti-Corbyn campaign by The Guardian (and the more conservative media, of course), now joined by the NYT, has failed. So there’s something to celebrate.
BTW, the ‘rebel’ opponent put up by the Blairite wing, Owen Smith, is reportedly a former lobbyist for big pharma. Little more needs to be said, IMO.
NYT.
you know squat about social-ism and little less about democracy and even less about the UK.
MONEY TALKS but only on its own interest it taxes integrity to speak for the people.
Not something your political system is particularly blessed with so understand why you struggle with it.
Corbyn is a man of the people, not of the establishment. Powerful, Greedy vested interests realise he may give them a problem.That is why ‘It’ is out to get him, seemingly at all costs! He has served in his courageous role for 30 years. He has the courage and honesty of his convictions to vote against a government policy which he considers problematic for the UK and it’s electorate. He has resiliently stood his ground on over 500 occasions. Qualities any leader would be proud of. He is against the US military industrial complex which is making a political mess of the world and societies as a whole. He has a more spiritual outlook than any politician you can name today. He is imbued with common sense and a common touch which the media are doing their very best to try to destroy. The once venerable BBC has disgraced itself in the eyes of many of the public with their PREJUDICED coverage of Jeremy Corbyn. The Labour Party Executive have shown a corrupt attitude in denying over 200,000 new Labour members their right to join in the leadership election. Anyone with the smallest amount of grey matter between their ears should be asking…..WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON?
The view of Corbyn as ‘far-left’ is a mistaken one. If anything he is centre left. His place on the political spectrum is pretty much the same as Harold Wilson’s – the Labour Prime Minister from 1964-1970 and 1974-1976.