Jayne Dowle: Trump and Brexit should be wake-up call for Corbyn

This state of affairs has opened up a chasm, which in turn leaves a vacuum. In America, the gaping hole has been filled by the bluster and bunkum of a billionaire businessman who, until now, has never held political office in his life. In Britain, it has given us the Brexit vote. In both countries, the people have well and truly spoken.

The challenge now is for our politicians to listen very carefully to what they are saying. This applies across the spectrum, of course, but it is especially vital for those who align themselves with the Labour Party.

The overwhelming support offered to Trump by a demographic shorthanded as “white working class” propelled him to the White House. The traditional heartlands of the Democrat vote, the former industrial belts, turned their
faces away from Hillary Clinton’s metropolitan lustre and looked
instead at the rusting steelworks and derelict coal mines which had once employed them.

They could find no succour in her rhetoric. And crucially, they had found none in eight years of promises offered by her fellow Democrat, the outgoing President Obama. The Democrats will take years to recover from the shock.

In our own country, we must not fall into the same trap. This is not the time to meet extremism with extremism. We are already seeing the dangers of this. The election of ultra-left winger Jeremy Corbyn as Labour Party leader has fissured his party.

In a General Election, this has the potential to open up cracks in what is euphemistically still called the “Labour heartlands” that will drag us all into the mire. That many of these heartlands happen to be our region makes it doubly important for us in the North to not allow ourselves to sleep-walk into a political nightmare.

I can see from my own circle of friends and acquaintances that Trump’s highly-individual stance is having a strange way of uniting reactionary right and anti-establishment left.

However, Jeremy Corbyn has been strangely quiet on the phenomenon. I hope this is because he is taking the time to give it some serious thought. I hope too that he has the ability to see the biggest picture, rather than personal political gain.

I don’t especially want to live in a country where the only alternative to a Conservative government is his nationalised, anti-capitalist version of the future. I know I am not alone in this. Most pertinently, if he was to take a gamble on widespread support for his policies at a General Election, I fear that the whole thing would blow up in his face.

In the name of democracy, I don’t want to see scores of able, hard-working and dedicated Labour MPs sacrificed on the altar of his ambition. You think I am exaggerating? People are angry. If they feel that they are not being represented by those who are there to represent them, they won’t care what collateral damage they cause.

Just look at America. Again. And see the stricken faces of the Democrats unseated from both a Senate and a House of Representatives which have turned Republican. Look too at the faces of aghast traditional Republicans who have seen their party taken over by Trump.

Is that really want we want here? An early General Election may yet be called over the legitimacy of the Brexit decision. Labour does not have much time to marshal itself. Those in charge of party strategy must really drill down into the issues which concern the demographic broadly comparable to the rump of Trump’s support; immigration, the NHS, social care, benefits, job security, education and the biggest challenge, the redefinition of pride.

The great irony for the Left in Britain is that Mr Corbyn, MP for Islington North, cannot help but represent the metropolitan political elite. He can tour the country holding all the rallies he likes, but if he wants to truly represent the people, he must begin to understand what it is like to live in a community that feels cut off and adrift from the world. He has the remit to lead. What he must do now is just that. And as Trump could tell him, effective leaders listen to those whom they aspire to lead.

He might not be a “champagne socialist” of the Tony Blair era, but he has not seen his town centre decimated because people simply have no money to shop. He has not had to queue at a food bank, or stood in line at a job centre where every scant vacancy on offer pays just about the minimum wage.

He has not seen his children’s education suffer because the schools they attend cannot attract enough decent teachers. He has not worked in a steelworks, or a coal mine. However, it is about time he really listened to those who have.