Jeremy Corbyn. UK Labour Party Leader
Ten Policies. Is democracy coming to Britain?
Party politics has long since failed democracy with the hair-splitting differences of the three main political parties in Britain.
Authentic political action has taken place for decades outside the narrow world of the Houses of Parliament. Campaign organisations, unions, non-violent demonstrations, protests, boycotts and petitions form the groundwork to challenge the widespread political, corporate and media control over our daily lives.
We have had to rely upon a handful of thoughtful politicians, questioning journalists, deep analysis in books and essays from social/political critics, insightful academics and various groups working diligently for peace, justice and environmental sustainability.
The mainstream political parties have collectively let down people, animals and the environment and failed in their responsibilities for present and future generations. Greedy bankers, pervasive moral and financial corruption within major corporations and the ruling classes has largely determined domestic policy. The same privileged elite has supported waging war on Arab nations with the support of millions who rely upon a jaundiced media, with rare exceptions, in newspapers and television for information.
A Whiff of Democracy comes to Britain
For the first time in decades, the whiff of democracy lingers in the air in Britain with the election of Jeremy Corbyn, the new leader of the Labour Party, which serves as the primary opposition to the present Conservative government.
Previous Labour governments sold its soul for power. Former Prime minister, Tony Blair, founder of so-called New Labour, snuggled up in bed with former President George Bush to wage war on one Arab nation after another. His successor, George Brown, showed a lack of creative vision and continued with much the same policies as his predecessor.
Corbyn, the new leader of the Labour Party (elected September 12, 2015) expresses a radically different voice. He and his supporters have the potential to shake British politics out of the slumber of the long sleep in Britain owing to the weight of inertia, disillusionment and cynicism of millions of citizens.
Here is a list of 10 priorities that Jeremy Corbyn has advocated through more than three decades as an MP. He voted in Parliament more than 500 times against his own party when the party supported war or cuts for poor families to pay the debts incurred through political and corporate mismanagement.
Out of nowhere, some 60% of Labour Party members voted him on September 12 as their party leader with around 160,000 people joining the party to support his election. People have to sit up and take notice with the emergence of a leader with a vision and with such a massive mandate to lead.
TEN KEY POLICIES OF JEREMY CORBYN
- Jeremy Corbyn opposes the renewal of Britain’s Trident nuclear system. The BBC anticipates that the renewal would cost around £100 billion. He campaigns worldwide for complete scrapping of all weapons of mass destruction.
- A critic of NATO, he opposed the war on Iraq and other Arab nations He opposes air strikes on Syria and ISIS as it will only generate further slaughter and extremism. The media reports that Corbyn will apologise to Iraq for the war that the USA, UK and NATO launched with all the subsequent consequences, past and present.
- Corbyn sees the way forward to resolve international conflict through round table meetings to thrash out differences, ending of the arms trade, dialogues, diplomacy and skilful foreign aid. He advocates meeting with violent organisations rather than drone attacks and assassinations. Sections of Israeli media have condemned him for such meetings with their political enemies.
- He opposes £12 billion in benefit cuts to the poor, the homeless, the refugees and others already struggling to make end meet.
- He opposes the huge selling off of public stakes in major banks after pubic money was used to bail out the banks. He does not want to hand back financial power to the city of London and the corporate world.
- He advocates control over the high rates landlords demand from their tenants. He said this will contribute to the bringing down of the housing benefit bill running into £billions of taxpayers. He advocates the setting up of rent levels to make rented property affordable.
- He promote a higher living wage to increase the current minimum hourly wage rate set at £6.50 per hour. It is worthwhile noting here that a return train ticket from Totnes to London for the three hour journey costs £90 for anyone between 16 and 6o years. That’s around 12 hours work on minimum wage for the return train journey.
- He opposes privatisation of state owned assets. He wishes to take British Railways out of corporate hands and bring back the railways into public ownership. The government would not renew the franchise of our corporate owned railways so the government would not have to pay compensation.
- He would scrap tuition fees for students at a cost of around £10 billion and make available free university education.
- He would reintroduce the 50% tax rate to those who are paid £150,000 per year or more (roughly the top 1% of earners). He said he would consider making a higher tax rate to raise more money for those who are socially deprived.
Like him or not, Jeremy Corbyn represents a progressive, democratic and cooperative voice with a vision that he has sustained throughout his entire political life. He never sold his soul to secure popularity, extra votes, nor launched into personal attacks on other politicians whether of the opposition or the numerous light blue conservatives within his own party.
It is important to take note that only 24% of those eligible to vote in the UK backed the Conservatives. Only 37% of those who actually voted put a tick alongside a candidate for the Conservative party. The government has no real mandate to govern.
Jeremy Corbyn’s views have found a sympathetic voice among large sections of voters, who share his concerns about the wealth gap between rich and poor, the greatest gap since the late 19th century.
There is widespread concern on the morality and the cost of nuclear-weapons, as well as foreign intervention through bombing and ground wars.
People also support his determination to exercise rent control, renationalisation of the railways, holding large corporations accountable for their tax avoidance and promotion of public debate within the Labour Party and outside it on matters of national interest.
Massive saving on nuclear weapons, armaments as well as taxation of corporations and a shift to an economy that serves all the people forms a basis of the agenda to pay for public services to support working and non-working people of all ages. Rather than the economic austerity of slashing state funding to pay government debts, the new leader advocates creative use of taxation for the economy along with prudent application of financial resources.
Modestly dressed, mostly tieless, bearded, wearing cheap suits and travelling mostly economy class on trains, Corbyn arouses curiosity. One respected newspaper political columnist, Michael White of The Guardian, wrote in his column today (September 27, 2015): “Most leaders feel the strain. Leader Corbyn exudes a Zen-like inner calm.”
He seems far removed from the bear-pit of aggressive attitudes in the shrunken world of Westminster politics. Those who fiercely oppose his vision of society acknowledge his quiet spoken manner, his civil attitude towards his opponents and his capacity to listen and respond to a diversity of views and opinions. He refuses to engage in personal attacks on others, and keeps strictly to differences in policies and vision.
Women and Men who are Members of his Shadow Cabinet
Immediately after his election, Corbyn elected his shadow cabinet of 25 members of Parliament, made up of 13 women and 12 men. He demonstrated his determination for gender equality in political life.
He recognises the depth of widespread mental health problems throughout the country, along with work and family stress and high levels of anxiety in society, so he appointed a Minister for Mental Health, Liverpool MP, Luciana Berger.
In February, 2015, Corbyn said in a public speech:
“All of us can go through depression; all of us can go through those experiences. Every single one of us in this Chamber knows people who have gone through it, and has visited people who have been in institutions and have fully recovered and gone back to work and continued their normal life,” he said.
“I dream of the day when this country becomes as accepting of these problems as some Scandinavian countries are, where one Prime Minister was given six months off in order to recover from depression, rather than being hounded out of office as would have happened on so many other occasions.”
His shadow cabinet also includes Kerry McCarthy, an MP, who is in charge of farming and agriculture policy. Jeremy Corbyn has been a vegetarian for the past 50 years while Kerry McCarthy is a vegan. He is sending out signals of a new direction in British politics to address the welfare and health of all members of society. There is the potential for diet to enter into political discourse with the co-operation of our farmers alongside development of compassion for farm animals.
Jeremy Corbyn appointed John McDonnell, 64, a close political ally as his Chancellor of the Exchequer (Finance Minister) and regarded here as the most important position after the Prime Minister.
In 2003, I met with McDonnell in one of the committee rooms in the Houses of Parliament on a few occasions. I wrote then a detailed proposal for a Minister for Peace to be established in the British government that would offer alternatives to war, and the cost in human and financial terms. The Blair government ignored the proposal. I am currently reworking it in order to resubmit it to Corbyn and McDonnell.
I found McDonnell a very thoughtful and compassionate person. Yes, he has made – like the rest of us – errors of judgement in the past but has apologised publicly. He is a quietly spoken, a caring politician and very likeable. His constituents appreciate him greatly for his endless campaigns to stop the third runway at Heathrow Airport, London. His constituency runs right beside the airport.
I am also working on a proposal for the Minister for the Future. The Minister for the Future would highlight the relationship to every major government policy to the future, near and decades ahead. Policy would outline support for humans, animals and the environment, as well as address climate change, protection of resources and development of a sustainable lifestyle.
The Buddha frequently pointed out the significance of mindfulness of action and the consequences of action.
I should add that I have been a paid up member of the Green Party since 1979 in the early years of its development and stood twice in my Totnes constituency for the Party in 1986 and 1992. The Green Party has 40 years of addressing personal, social and global issues in a comprehensive way. In my view, the Green Party is further ahead in its thinking, analysis and vision. The new shadow Labour cabinet would benefit from examining carefully the vision of the Green Party to support its own policies.
I will put on my blog in the weeks ahead my proposal for the Minister for Peace and Minister for the Future.
How long will Corbyn last as Labour Party leader?
The British public know that Jeremy Corbyn has remained consistent with his principles. Corbyn has attracted the interests of the young, reignited the disillusioned on the left while the poor, the neglected and the refugees look to him and his policies so they can live decent lives rather than as outcasts. He sees the vote, non-violent direct action and the unions as the primary means for political and social change. It is time for all of use to start to exercise again our democratic rights.
There is a potential for the development of a real social movement towards peace, justice and equality. We may be able to free ourselves from the sense of powerlessness in our relationship to political life. We are sick of wars, corporate greed, exploitation of workers and wholesale desecration of our vulnerable Earth. There is an appalling sense of a spiritual vacuum in political life.
We do not know how long Jeremy Corbyn will last as leader of the Labour Party. He has to be mindful that he does not start on the road to compromise to the degree that he dissolves his vision for underlying change to the current direction of politics at home and abroad.
There are powerful voices and institutions who are already plotting his downfall. One daily newspaper here condemned Corbyn as a “terrorist-loving leftie.” The Establishment is working hard to demonise him, as well as those light blue conservatives in the Labour Party, who have identified themselves with the discredited Tony Blair regime.
We have a window of opportunity for a real political/social/spiritual movement. It may not last.
May all beings live with emotional/spiritual and mental health
May all beings explore peace and social justice
May all beings wake up to reality