Blog 20.17 #18: Why I'll NEVER Vote for Corbyn (but I will)

Clickbait title, obvs.  I love Jezza.  But I now feel like we need to make the debate about the many, the ‘us’, not just for this Election but the future of a supportive society.

If you checked out my other Blog, you’ll know I have a shaky history with the Labour Party.

But I’m still buzzing from Thursday night.

If you caught me sometime in the last week, on a gloomy day I’d had said even if May increases her majority by a tiny amount, she’s lost.  Because she called this whole faff to prove she was right, and anything but a landslide looks like failure.  On a gloomier day, I’d have said we’re looking at a Tory Landslide.

At the start of the campaigning I said I wasn’t going to put a Vote Labour sign in the window (only anti-Tory sentiments).  On Friday, I joined the Labour Party, one of 150,000 bringing the number up to 800,000, the biggest political membership in Europe.

Highlights from this election have been an emotional rollercoaster.  Corbyn’s speech in York in May was inspiring, a roaring and fiery man far from the wet lettuce the media portrayed him as.  We grabbed the cut-out Dalek that lives in our house (left by housemates long gone), slapped a printed-off image of May’s face upon its head and presented #DalekMay to the world.  Dozens of people stopped to get photos with her.

Next stop was Halifax, a town on the knife-edge of Tory/Labour marginals.  Outside the launch of the Manifesto we, and a plucky small band of protestors, chanted alongside Dalek May.  If anything, just to irritate them inside.  Against the gigantic brickwork of a converted old mill building, we seemed very small at this stage in the campaign trial.  David and Goliath-eque some might say.  That could bode well.

We tracked the Real May to York University, and in the drizzling rain, with a tune 2^nd in the pop charts being our soundtrack, we popped away whilst inside May refused to debate, and white men refused to not kill millions.

But, for all, this, hopes felt low.  Even as we sat down to watch the results slide onto infographics on the BBC, we worried even the stronghold of York Central could go Blue.

As it stands, it was a cracking night.  Backed by booze, good jokes, good friends and result-after-result where Labour grabbed Tory seats and baddies like Rudd seated over 300 seats.  It felt, for the first time since those early demos against fees in 2010, like I was part of something.  It felt like finally winning, something the left hasn’t had for a long, long time.

But this:  This was the highlight.  I love my friends:

So I joined Labour the next day, because I want to keep that momentum.  But also because I watched an excellent video from Akala, but disagreed with a few points.  Akala said he wasn’t voting for the Labour Party, he was voting for Corbyn.  He wasn’t alone, but Corbyn has always placed faith in the Party, not the personalities.  He wants to create a movement, not a cult of personality.  I’ve met really committed activists, trade unionists and agitators these last few weeks canvassing, the real heart of the party. 

The Blairities might still be around, eating their humble pies, but that’s why I’ve joined to pressure them to keep the socialist ideals in the manifesto, and keep them in line.  And finally, Akala said he didn’t even know the name of the person standing in his constituency, but Rachael Maskell in York Central has been tirelessly fighting for the NHS and refugee rights.  More women and disabled people people from ethnic minority groups have become MPs than ever before.  Even a MP of Palestinian decent was elected (admittedly for the Liberal Democrats).

If Anarchism has taught me anything, it’s to kill your idols, or at the last not put them on pedestals.  I love Jezza, but he’s far from perfect.  He’s also not young, and although we have plenty more years out of him yet, we need to look at the Party being a social movement dictated by the working class, by women, by minorities for the benefit of all society.  So I’m joined to shift away from the central aspect of Jezza and onto the Party as an 800,000-strong group with 40% of the country voting for it.

But I’ll still sing VOTE FOR JEREMY CORBYN to the tune of Seven Nation Army.  Obvs.