Corbynism has turned Labour into a party of hipster twits

The Corbyn-backing website Novara Media today tweeted out some quotes from an article written for a blog titled Salvage (with the g in the shape of hammer and sickle – really edgy and cool eh?) giving advice on campaigning to Labour activists.

Here is the quotation that has aroused the most criticism along the lines of – this is obviously how you lose an election.

“There is a residual working class culture and sensibility. You can be blunt and straightforward and honest with people, and if you refuse to give up until they slam the door in your face, you can make an impact. The older women start calling you “duck”.

Use swear words. Talk about class politics. Talk about the Tories not as your opponents, but as your enemies. Because they are, and everyone f***ing knows it. Boris Johnson is a blathering moron who couldn’t give a shit about how you live, or how you die.

You can see people’s faces change. They are shocked that someone is speaking to them like this on the doorstep. They agree. They reassure me that there is a solid majority in this country for a decent and humane and caring society, even if you have to dig a little to get there.

We all hate the Lib Dems.”

But if you read the whole blog, what I found most interesting about it was the completely tone-deaf take on class. The piece is billed as a constituency profile of Ashfield, a Labour seat and a top Tory marginal, where Labour MP Gloria de Piero has stood down and Labour looks vulnerable. However, the writer appears to have spent next to no time there.

Here’s his precis: “Sutton-in-Ashfield is an ex-mining town. There used to be a large brewery. It’s now the constituency with the highest support for No Deal anywhere in the UK. Everyone has a dog. A lot of people are quite old.”

Everyone has a dog? Unlike in prosperous Surrey. Famously dog-free.

The author, Duncan Thomas, works at the New Economics Foundation, a think tank closely associated with John McDonnell’s economic thinking. He also studied Middle East politics at SOAS in London between 2012 and 2014. That is an almost faultless Corbynista CV.

On Twitter, Thomas defended himself from critics who said that to describe working class people as “blunt” and “straightforward” is patronising: “I was canvassing in a former mining Labour heartland. Class politics means something here. I will not apologise for doing everything I can to win someone, or for speaking the language of class struggle.”

Yes, indeed. “A lot of people are quite old”. Of course. A far cry from the slogan “workers of the world unite!”

Why does the Thomas blog post matter? It is rather revealing of the long-term viability of the Corbyn project. Corbynism has its heartlands, the inner city areas of England’s northern towns and cities, and London (although not its suburban areas). It does well at speaking for the aspirations of the urban poor, but it has no hold over the white working class.

Labour too has had its Celtic elements stripped away – in Scotland because of the SNP’s welfarism plus national project pitch. In Wales, Labour has been leaking seats to the Tories for some time. Brexit has accelerated that trend.

Labour, even more so than the Tories, who at least have managed to rebuild the Unionist vote north of the border, are the party of England and not much of England at that.