The Sad Truth: Jeremy Corbyn Will Lead Labour to Defeat

I hate agreeing with Tony Blair. Luckily, one has avoided this conclusion for the majority of the last decade. The centrist politician is generally speaking, an idiot, a hypocrite and unsuited to his positions in both Prime Ministerial and beyond the House roles. However, I find myself nodding in regretful agreement with the views of not just Tony Blair, but Alistair Campbell as well. Electing Jeremy Corbyn would be a car crash for the fortunes of the Labour Party.

It is with sorrow that these words are uttered, but the fact is this: the United Kingdom is far too old and Conservative to an elect a man to Number Ten who wants to reintroduce Clause Four. Clause Four, to any of you who are unaware of this formerly key tenet of Labour Party, policy essentially asserts that workers should benefit from common ownership. In short, nationalisation.

To the younger generation, nationalisation doesn’t hark back to the eighties misery of the Foot and Benn leadership that took the sheen off Clement Attlee’s mass nationalisation of major industry on the island. But to the majority of British people, particularly those over sixty-five – it most certainly does. This country remembers the “longest suicide note in history” and the miserable 209 seats that Labour achieved in the subsequent 1983 General Election. Of course, this would have mattered less in a potential general election but for one key, and depressing truth: young people do not mobilise their vote.

The population of Britain, as morose as this sounds, is an ageing, increasingly Conservative population. Indeed, there is statistical evidence to suggest that the accruing of wealth that comes with life tends to turn an individual more Conservative with age. In addition to this, those that are sixty-five – whose demographic is over fifteen percent of the populous, standing at sixteen per cent in the 2011 census – almost always mobilise their vote. Meanwhile, the youth vote (18-24 year olds), according to the British Election Study, has been steadily lessening their grip of the ballot box. Voting numbers have been less than every other age group in every election since the 1970s.

Unless the left-leaning youth, whose minds have not been tainted with the failings of Labour in the 1980s, were to suddenly register for the next election, that voting bloc would be unable to counteract the Conservative powerhouse that is the “Over 65” demographic. This is, of course, not taking into account Conservative young voters. Nor does it account for the possibility that Corbyn is in fact less popular with young voters than is reported in the nation’s media. Not that it would matter even if that were the case, because a voting bloc only has impact if it uses its voice.

In addition to this, one would even contend that Labour’s own voters are happy with the party being more centrist than left wing. In electing Neil Kinnock, Margaret Beckett, Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and Ed Miliband to the position of party leader, they’ve allowed the party to be dragged further and further to the centre. Many of Labour’s supporters are uncomfortable with the idea of a hard left Labour party. Even if we look at the rest of this year’s leadership candidates, we see that the unremarkable centre-left policies are far more prevalent than Corbyn’s radical, historically whip-defying values.

Even if not presented with Corbyn on election day in 2019 or 2020, the undecided electorate will, most likely, settle with the apparent lesser of two evils, as was the case with Ed Miliband against David Cameron. But with Corbyn as party leader, especially against a prospective fan-favourite politician like Boris Johnson, the electorate, driven by the pensioner voting bloc will not take a chance on nationalisation and the hard left again.

People might disagree, but this is the sad truth: in spite a very loud minority, the majority of people are happy with privatised industries as long as utility prices are bearable. The middle class don’t mind austerity, as long as it doesn’t hit their ability to buy artisan kitchen products. Rugged individualism triumphs over a happier working class. It would take a massive shift in public consciousness to see support for nationalisation and hard left policies on a widespread scale enough to win an election. Other unlikely eventualities are the mobilisation of a vote that’s been on the slide since the 1970s, as well as a reclamation of Scotland from the SNP that is not going to happen.

I like Jeremy Corbyn. He has morals and seems incredibly genuine and steadfast in his beliefs, and that’s an admirable set of characteristics. I wish more politicians were like him, erudite and yet straightforward and honest. But the majority of Britain is scared of change. And as it ages and grows more Conservative, the distressing fact is, when facing a choice between a bold, new Left leaning country and more of the same, especially with Prince Boris at the helm, there’ll be no contest.