Corbyn

Jeremy Corbyn was elected leader of the Labour Party on Saturday (12 September 2015) with an overwhelming majority. The way the system works is that the members and supporters cast votes in the alternative vote (AV) system. This means you select your favourite and put a ‘1’ next to their name and your second favourite has a ‘2’ and so on until all the candidates have a number. The winner of the leadership election has to have more than 50% of the vote. The person with the least amount of votes goes out in the first round and their results are redistributed if there is no clear winner. This continues until someone has more than 50% of the vote. Corbyn sealed his win on the first round. This is almost unprecedented.

His first act was to join a rally in support of refugees. One of the next public appearances didn’t go down as well. He attended the Battle of Britain celebrations and caused the internet to go a little mad when he refused to sing the national anthem. To anyone who doesn’t know (not sure who that would be) the national anthem of Great Britain is ‘God Save The Queen’. There are two problems with this anthem as I see it…one, what if you don’t believe in God and two, what if you don’t believe in the Queen? I am an atheist and a republican so I would also choose not to sing this anthem. Corbyn is a staunch republican himself and so did not sing. People have criticised him for this and there have been promises that he will sing it in future. Why should he have to though? The way I see it, Corbyn is totally capable of serving the country as a leader without having to serve a monarchy. It is the majority of people in this country that he is working to help, not one over privileged family. As long as he serves the country’s needs I am for him all the way.

Something that has been praised is his attempts to change Prime Minister’s Question Time (PMQs). Again, to anyone not in the know, this is something that is held over lunch time in Parliament (Westminster) where the Prime Minister (currently David Cameron of the Conservatives) has to answer any questions aimed at him by the opposition (currently Labour). The leader of the opposition gets to ask six questions to start and then other members of Parliament (from all the parties) can ask questions. In a first and change of the system, Corbyn asked members of the public to submit questions, via his website, for him to ask on their behalf. Over 40,000 questions were submitted and Corbyn asked six of them today (16/09/2015) and gave the names of those who had submitted the questions. This feels like a more democratic system and people will feel like their voices are being heard. This also engages more people in the political process and that can only be a good thing. I don’t know if this will be a one off or if this will be a regular thing, but it is a great way to start a leadership and really got people talking. Social media has been lit up with the anticipation. People who would not normally watch PMQs have been genuinely excited to see what would happen and how this system would work. That can also only be a good thing.

The right-wing press can’t seem to cope with Corbyn. The Sun can’t work out if it is trashing him for going to the Queen for money or if it is trashing him for not singing the anthem. The whole lot are jumping on him and following the Tory scaremongering that the Labour Party are a threat to economic and national security (Corbyn is anti-austerity and anti-weapons e.g. Trident). The whole lot appear to be like scared little children. The only worrying thing is how many people read these papers and will believe the scare tactics.

Whatever the case, more people than before are talking about politics and engaging in a positive way and that can only be a good thing. Will it last? Only time will tell.