{"id":77016,"date":"2022-10-05T03:00:19","date_gmt":"2022-10-05T07:00:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/?p=77016"},"modified":"2022-10-04T18:35:01","modified_gmt":"2022-10-04T22:35:01","slug":"the-centre-ground-on-domestic-policy-and-public-services-is-corbynism-with-a-union-flag-on-it-and-the-word-british","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quotulatiousness.ca\/blog\/2022\/10\/05\/the-centre-ground-on-domestic-policy-and-public-services-is-corbynism-with-a-union-flag-on-it-and-the-word-british\/","title":{"rendered":"“The centre ground on domestic policy and public services is Corbynism with a union flag on it and the word ‘British'”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ed West<\/a> on the decidedly conservative cast of many British voters’ core beliefs:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>

Jeremy Corbyn, then-Leader of the Labour Party speaking at a Rally in Hayfield, Peak District, UK on 25th July 2018 in support of Ruth George MP.
Photo by Sophie Brown via Wikimedia Commons.<\/p><\/div>\n

It wasn’t until I was a fairly grown up that I learned just how conservative many Labour voters were. My parents’ Labour-supporting friends had mostly belonged to what Ken Livingstone called \u2018the party of the metropolitan pervert’, London types who worked in creative industries or the public sector and held ultra-liberal views (at least for the 90s). But out there in the real world there were all these Labour supporters who were even more Right-wing than my dad, whether on crime, immigration, Europe, sexual relations or pretty much any social issue. They just wanted, in Blackadder’s words, a few less fat bastards eating all the pie.<\/p>\n

That is pretty much where the public are now. As Aaron Bastani put it<\/a>: “The centre ground on domestic policy and public services is Corbynism with a union flag on it and the word ‘British'”.<\/p>\n

Although Jeremy Corbyn lost decisively in 2019, many have forgotten the political lesson of the Corbyn era \u2014 that it wasn’t his economic policies that put people off, but his lack of patriotism. He came from that long line of Quaker-Unitarian radicals who have always been seen as too sympathetic to Britain’s enemies, whether it was Robespierre, Napoleon, the USSR, Irish republicans or Islamic radicals.<\/p>\n

Corbynomics is certainly more popular than what the current Tory Party is offering, especially that served up in the recent mini-budget, after which it could be said that things are developing not necessarily to the Government’s advantage. <\/p>\n

I don’t have strong opinions on the aborted 45% tax cut; it didn’t seem very wise, or fair, but I’m not sure how drastic it was; Robert Colvile in The Sunday Times<\/em> suggests that the proposal was not as bold as people make out<\/a>. Yet it seems to be hugely unpopular, except with the Institute for Economic Affairs<\/a>. <\/p>\n

But I’m not convinced that makes it bad.<\/p>\n

The IEA’s Kristian Niemietz has repeatedly pointed out that free-market economics is generally quite unpopular, and during the depths of the Brexit dispute he wrote a piece opposing what he called “Bregalitarianism”<\/a>:<\/p>\n