Corbyn must accept some blame for rising British nationalism

As Labour heartlands fall to a Tory Party whose campaign amounted to little more than the continuous repetition of the phrase “Get Brexit Done”, it is an unavoidable fact that the debate over how and whether to leave the European Union has been central to Labour’s defeat.

But if Brexit was on the ballot paper, so too were the deeper divisions that Brexit has come to signify. The pros and cons of the EU as an institution are, in themselves, fairly dry and technical, and open to differing viewpoints. But from the outset of the referendum campaign in 2016, the question was framed as something much more emotive. It became a vote on the national identity of the United Kingdom – which we soon came to learn really meant the national identity of England.

Faultlines which had been emerging for years in a country struggling to define itself in the modern world were thrown into sharp relief by the posing of a binary question which the Leave campaign chose to centre around one explosive issue – immigration. And while our new Prime Minister Boris Johnson, resoundingly elected with a majority of 78, didn’t care much whether we left the EU or not (he drafted a column both for and against it for The Telegraph before deciding which side to land on), he was more than happy to throw his support behind a campaign of xenophobia.

Time and again, the Leave campaign used language and imagery that put the focus on keeping migrants out and “taking back control” of Britain’s borders. One example was the “Breaking Point” poster, which showed Nigel Farage standing in front of an image of refugees queuing at the border of Slovenia. Never mind EU migrants, the campaign made clear that its goal was to ensure that Britain never had to take in another person from outside its borders again.

This message of exclusion did not end with the referendum result. 2016 heralded in an open season on migrants which has brought about a rise in racist and Islamophobic hate crime – and Boris Johnson has been a key instigator in this disturbing picture.

During the General Election campaign, Prime Minister Boris Johnson lamented that EU citizens had been “able to treat the UK basically as though it’s part of their own country”. Last year, he described Muslim women wearing burqas as looking like “bank robbers” and “letter boxes”. And in 2016, criticising US president Barack Obama, he referred to “the part-Kenyan president’s ancestral dislike of the British empire”.

After nine years of increasingly hostile immigration policy under the Tories, perhaps summed up best by Theresa May’s infamous “Go Home” vans, one might have hoped that things couldn’t get worse. But if this week’s election result proves anything, it’s that things can always get worse.

Considering that very little scrutiny has been given to the Tories’ broader policy agenda, the unanswered questions of what a Boris Johnson government might have in store over the next five years is truly chilling. And yet, there is little to be gained from shock and despair in the absence of serious reflection over how we got to this point.

Like the US and many other parts of Europe, England is caught in the grip of a narrow, racist, nationalist ideology which blames those with the least power for the actions of those with the most. And while it might seem like this has happened suddenly, this is the culmination of the twinned crises of democracy and capitalism which political scientists have been warning about for decades.

People have become righteously angry with a political and economic system which drives inequality and benefits “the few”, to borrow a slogan, while right-wing voices have taken advantage of this by claiming to represent meaningful change for “ordinary people” (note: only white people can be ordinary).

Some have been surprised by the way in which traditional working class Labour voters have been willing to vote Conservative, in some cases for the first time in their lives, purely to make sure Brexit gets “done”. Others have claimed this was an inevitability which proves Labour should have jumped feet-first into a pro-Brexit stance to hold on to those votes. I would argue neither assessment offers a genuine understanding of the problem, and they certainly don’t pave the way for a positive solution.

It is undeniable that Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party stepped into a void on the left that many of his predecessors had shirked in favour of the centre. Corbyn provided an alternative vision for the economic and social future of the United Kingdom which has been sorely lacking for far too long.

Corbyn led the Labour party as its traditional support collapsed

However, by dancing around the topic of Brexit as though this would allow him to win votes from “both sides”, Corbyn failed to address some of the most urgent issues facing the UK and the rest of the world. Not because the UK ending its membership of the EU is going to lead to the crumbling of civilisation, but because at the heart of this constitutional debate is an ideological question which Corbyn appeared reluctant to answer.

WHILE Corbyn has been willing to tackle the injustices which have driven political alienation over decades, he seemed far less comfortable with challenging some of the xenophobic myths which have been perpetuated by the right-wing press and politicians.

In particular, Corbyn was unable to clearly and consistently send the message that class solidarity must include migrants and that migrants are not a threat to workers’ rights.

While Labour members voted for freedom of movement as party policy, a decision was made by the leadership not to put this in its manifesto. Corbyn explained this by saying that “not every dot and comma from conference” would be included. Given the prominence of the question of freedom of movement in our national debate at the moment, it seems slightly disingenuous and more than a little insulting to the millions of EU migrants living in the UK to suggest that its exclusion was equivalent to a matter of syntax.

This approach of skirting around the immigration question reflects a failure to properly understand the situation we are facing. Offering “real change” is an important part of the picture but if you can’t or won’t directly address and offer an alternative to the racist ideology underpinning the right’s success, the prospect of real and positive change will remain out of reach. Because not only does that leave those ideas to fester and grow in communities where minorities are increasingly living in fear, it also allows the right to continue to reap the benefits at the ballot box.

We should be under no illusions that these problems do not exist in Scotland, because they do. But, while much of Scotland’s frustration with “the system” has been channelled into support for Scottish independence, the SNP and the Scottish Government have been resolute in ensuring their message has been pro-immigration and inclusive. Should it, then, be a surprise that Scotland voted by 62% to remain in the EU?

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These are the realities that the Brexit-supporting left refuse to confront when they argue that Labour’s biggest mistake was that it didn’t adopt a hardline pro-Brexit stance. Labour’s mistake was that it thought this was an issue it could afford to be vague on. Whether that was because they truly didn’t recognise the cultural battleground on which they were standing, or because they simply wanted to hedge their bets on it, this has proven to be a disastrous equivocation— for more than just the Labour Party.