Read more: Jeremy Corbyn can lead the Labour party back to power
After a decade of enormous cultural, social and political change, the US Democratic Party approached the end of the 1960s riven by personal and political animosities. Up until that point, as the US political analyst William Schneider has said: “They were the nation’s majority. They set the agenda.” Then came the infamous 1968 Chicago convention, where the party tore itself apart over the Vietnam war. On one side stood the older, more traditional Democratic Party establishment, on the other the younger anti-war protestors.
Convulsed with internecine strife, the party plunged into a political abyss. In the process it ushered Richard Nixon into office in 1969, only regained the presidency for a single term in the next 24 years following the unprecedented Watergate scandal, and remained electorally uncompetitive as Ronald Reagan established a new consensus in American politics. During this period, the Democrats' growing distance from much of its traditional base of support—particularly blue-collar voters in the south—changed from a schism to a full-blown separation.
Following Nixon’s narrow victory, the defeated Democrats drew “the wrong lesson,” in the words of political strategist Ted Van Dyk. Van Dyk wrote that the party’s internal reforms “focused on giving young, socially liberal voters greater voice and representation in the party. But they did not do anything to bring middle-American Democrats back home. Those voters would abandon the Democratic Party even more strongly in 1972… and eventually would come to be known as the Reagan Democrats after they cast their lot in huge numbers for the GOP in 1980.”
Almost half a century later, the Democrats' fate should act as a warning to the British Labour Party. The parallels between each party are startling. In February 2003, marches took place across the world against the proposed invasion of Iraq. In London, where the march attracted anything up to 2m participants, the principal organiser was the Stop the War Coalition, a group formed after 9/11 and chaired in the UK until recently by Jeremy Corbyn, now leader of the Labour Party.
The Stop the War Coalition, which is anti-western and anti-interventionist, reflects many of the cultural strands on the left of the Democratic Party in 1968. But instead of the ongoing Vietnam War, it is the legacy of the Iraq War, combined with a new form of entryism, that has cleaved the Labour Party in two since the election of Jeremy Corbyn as leader in 2015.
The polls for the new Labour leader make for disturbing reading. President of the YouGov polling organisation Peter Kellner (who writes on these pages) recently explained that Jeremy Corbyn “is the first new opposition leader to have a negative initial rating… no new opposition leader whose initial rating was less than plus 20 has ever become Prime Minister.” Instead of the honeymoon period usually enjoyed by new leaders, Corbyn has ratings more commonly associated with an embittered divorce.
Even less optimistically, Glen O’Hara, a professor at Oxford Brookes University, wrote recently that the polls represent “deep, deep red warning signs of potentially resounding defeats to come.” O’Hara’s prognosis is bleak: “Everything we know—every last scrap of data—says that the Labour Party as we have known it is in very profound trouble indeed.”
The Labour Party is in thrall to an insurgent group politicised by the Iraq War, which views the party it controls as its enemy even though those responsible for the war are no longer in power. Driven by a misplaced guilt over Empire and the legacy of Iraq, the insurgents are fixated on foreign policy in a way that is wholly alien to the majority of Labour voters—and to those whose support Labour needs if it is to ever win again.
At a time when a left-wing party should be determining what it means to redistribute wealth, power and opportunity in a globalised, 21st-century economy, along with continuing to fight Beveridge’s five giant evils, Labour is found wanting. Casual observers can be forgiven for assuming that the party's controlling insurgents have no interest in such issues, preferring instead to obsess about Trident, the Falkland Islands, armed police and more.
The collapse of the Democrats only began in 1968. With the Vietnam War continuing, the 1972 presidential election deepened the crisis facing the Democrats. But, as Schneider explains, “The liberals got their revenge. They seized control of the party and nominated anti-war candidate George McGovern.” The lessons from history are obvious, and must be heeded. It’s too late for Labour to avoid the mistakes the Democrats made in 1968; it's not too late to avoid the mistakes of 1972.
Now read: Jeremy Corbyn, the politician who never grew up
After a decade of enormous cultural, social and political change, the US Democratic Party approached the end of the 1960s riven by personal and political animosities. Up until that point, as the US political analyst William Schneider has said: “They were the nation’s majority. They set the agenda.” Then came the infamous 1968 Chicago convention, where the party tore itself apart over the Vietnam war. On one side stood the older, more traditional Democratic Party establishment, on the other the younger anti-war protestors.
Convulsed with internecine strife, the party plunged into a political abyss. In the process it ushered Richard Nixon into office in 1969, only regained the presidency for a single term in the next 24 years following the unprecedented Watergate scandal, and remained electorally uncompetitive as Ronald Reagan established a new consensus in American politics. During this period, the Democrats' growing distance from much of its traditional base of support—particularly blue-collar voters in the south—changed from a schism to a full-blown separation.
Following Nixon’s narrow victory, the defeated Democrats drew “the wrong lesson,” in the words of political strategist Ted Van Dyk. Van Dyk wrote that the party’s internal reforms “focused on giving young, socially liberal voters greater voice and representation in the party. But they did not do anything to bring middle-American Democrats back home. Those voters would abandon the Democratic Party even more strongly in 1972… and eventually would come to be known as the Reagan Democrats after they cast their lot in huge numbers for the GOP in 1980.”
Almost half a century later, the Democrats' fate should act as a warning to the British Labour Party. The parallels between each party are startling. In February 2003, marches took place across the world against the proposed invasion of Iraq. In London, where the march attracted anything up to 2m participants, the principal organiser was the Stop the War Coalition, a group formed after 9/11 and chaired in the UK until recently by Jeremy Corbyn, now leader of the Labour Party.
The Stop the War Coalition, which is anti-western and anti-interventionist, reflects many of the cultural strands on the left of the Democratic Party in 1968. But instead of the ongoing Vietnam War, it is the legacy of the Iraq War, combined with a new form of entryism, that has cleaved the Labour Party in two since the election of Jeremy Corbyn as leader in 2015.
The polls for the new Labour leader make for disturbing reading. President of the YouGov polling organisation Peter Kellner (who writes on these pages) recently explained that Jeremy Corbyn “is the first new opposition leader to have a negative initial rating… no new opposition leader whose initial rating was less than plus 20 has ever become Prime Minister.” Instead of the honeymoon period usually enjoyed by new leaders, Corbyn has ratings more commonly associated with an embittered divorce.
Even less optimistically, Glen O’Hara, a professor at Oxford Brookes University, wrote recently that the polls represent “deep, deep red warning signs of potentially resounding defeats to come.” O’Hara’s prognosis is bleak: “Everything we know—every last scrap of data—says that the Labour Party as we have known it is in very profound trouble indeed.”
The Labour Party is in thrall to an insurgent group politicised by the Iraq War, which views the party it controls as its enemy even though those responsible for the war are no longer in power. Driven by a misplaced guilt over Empire and the legacy of Iraq, the insurgents are fixated on foreign policy in a way that is wholly alien to the majority of Labour voters—and to those whose support Labour needs if it is to ever win again.
At a time when a left-wing party should be determining what it means to redistribute wealth, power and opportunity in a globalised, 21st-century economy, along with continuing to fight Beveridge’s five giant evils, Labour is found wanting. Casual observers can be forgiven for assuming that the party's controlling insurgents have no interest in such issues, preferring instead to obsess about Trident, the Falkland Islands, armed police and more.
The collapse of the Democrats only began in 1968. With the Vietnam War continuing, the 1972 presidential election deepened the crisis facing the Democrats. But, as Schneider explains, “The liberals got their revenge. They seized control of the party and nominated anti-war candidate George McGovern.” The lessons from history are obvious, and must be heeded. It’s too late for Labour to avoid the mistakes the Democrats made in 1968; it's not too late to avoid the mistakes of 1972.
Now read: Jeremy Corbyn, the politician who never grew up
