Corbyn needs a compelling vision for the radical debate to go mainstream

That Jeremy Corbyn is still leader of Britain’s Labour Party shouldn’t be a surprise. He’s won eight general elections as an MP, rebelled more than any other Labour member in the House of Commons and never faced deselection. In all that time he never made any secret of his views on the so-called “Troubles” in Northern Ireland, the “war on terror” or the situation in occupied Palestine, and yet these were the issues about which the tabloid press criticised him the most in his first weeks as leader of the opposition.

Over the past three decades in public life, Corbyn has met with whomever he wanted, be they controversial Palestinian figures or members of the Irish Republican Army, and he has done so always in public and often in parliament. He expressed his regret that Osama Bin Laden was killed and not brought to account in criminal proceedings, while taking part in a television programme; his views were not shared in secretive emails exchanged late at night. When he marched against the Iraq war, he did so with a million people alongside him in central London. Corbyn’s views on national security matters have never been a secret.

Now that the tabloids have exhausted their ammunition on the initial issues, he’s still standing because, well, there was never much to hide in any case. People understand that he is a man of peace, someone who wants to talk before he wants to shoot. Ordinary Britons understand that Corbyn has come into contact with some violent people in his struggle for a more peaceful world. The same people also look at David Cameron’s enthusiastic support for the reactionaries governing Saudi Arabia, and raise their collective eyebrows.

Having weathered all of the above, Corbyn has some breathing space. The public debate has moved onto safer ground: Google not paying any tax, doctors going on strike, and the collapse of the steel industry. Even the economy, upon which the Tories won the 2015 election, is looking unsteady. All of these are like manna from heaven for socialist political strategists, and Corbyn is duly looking surer on his feet. His personal ratings might still be pretty dreadful, but the party is steady in the polls. He’s also getting the hang of Prime Ministers questions in the Commons chamber, although he still has a habit of stumbling and stammering. New Labour loyalists, the discredited faction which strongly opposes him, have always been a far smaller contingent than they are made out to be, and his Shadow Cabinet reshuffle appears to have shut them up for now. Most importantly, thousands of new members are still joining the party every month. Corbyn’s advisers used to talk about him surviving until the local elections in May; now it looks like they could be set for the long haul.

So what is he to do with all of this breathing space? In short, he needs to prepare for the next onslaught. It’s coming. The Tories have numerous options, and anything with a national security theme should put Corbyn back on the defensive. Home Secretary Theresa May’s counter-extremism bill – which will criminalise “non-violent extremism” — is an option. A few weeks ago that was being gently trailed in the right-wing media, with murmurs about banning the niqab, but the strong public reaction against Donald Trump has made Conservative planners a bit more cautious. May also has her “snoopers’ charter” but nobody really understands how internet surveillance works, or is particularly interested, so that probably won’t fly. Whether to renew Britain’s nuclear deterrent – the Trident weapons system — is a debate that is clearly hurting Corbyn from within. Yet having relied on his support on the latest Syria debate, the fact that Crispin Blunt MP, a former army officer and head of the influential Foreign Affairs Select Committee, is anti-Trident, may complicate a full-blooded Tory attack on this front. Blunt isn’t the only Tory MP quietly cautious about renewing the expensive nuclear weapons system.

That leaves matters overseas to consider, particularly in the Middle East; this is where Corbyn is at his weakest. It is, indeed, where any anti-war politicians are at their weakest; when there’s a war on. Corbyn knows that he’s against bombs and boots on the ground, and the public is very aware of this too, it’s just that they don’t know what he would do instead. The people want principles, they want a vision, and they want a way to get there. The Tories have done this – they announced early on in their term two new principles for foreign policy. The first, very admirably, was reducing violence against women. The second, less admirable and completely contradictory, was explicitly prioritising British trade over human rights.

What is Corbyn’s grand vision? Will he follow Sweden, and have a feminist foreign policy? What about a focus on protecting refugees? What about the Netherlands model, which is a world specialists in hunting down war criminals? Or do we want to just follow the tired example of France, or the United States, and just keep shooting people until they like us more?

I don’t think Corbyn will ever win a General Election as Labour leader; I’m not even sure that I would want him to get into Number 10. However, he is part of a process, a process by which politics moves from being about overtly “political” matters, to the kind of politics that is about matters of principle; that process is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to propose and develop radical ideas, not just in the Morning Star, but also in the pages of mainstream national newspapers. If Corbyn can paint a compelling and more importantly cohesive vision, of exactly what he wants Britain to do in the Middle East, for example, he could spark a national debate. There was talk during the last Syria debate about Britain becoming the world’s first “humanitarian superpower”. That’s a powerful idea; it’s a shame that we haven’t heard anything about it since.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.