• When people call Corbyn an extremist they aren't referring to his Brexit strategy but all the other policies. And there's some truth to it. Even pro Corbyn thinkers regularly talk about how Corbyn's programme would 'transform' Britain, and that he shouldn't be dragged back to the centre ground etc. You don't transform a country without a vision, and you don't have a vision without some degree of fanaticism.

    Linking policies to a transformative vision to fanaticism is also nonsensical. Some of the people who support Corbyn are certainly fanatics (as are some of the people who support Johnson or Farage). But trying to confuse this with the policies which one can be critical of doesn't compute.

  • Linking policies to a transformative vision to fanaticism is also nonsensical. Some of the people who support Corbyn are certainly fanatics (as are some of the people who support Johnson or Farage). But trying to confuse this with the policies which one can be critical of doesn't compute.

    I think the point I was trying to make - rather badly, I have to admit - is that you can't have it both ways.

    EITHER Corbyn is a moderate with moderate centre left policies which wouldn't be out of place anywhere else in Europe; in this analysis, any accusations of extremity are merely a smear to prevent a socialist government. I hear that quite a lot. You'll hear it in this thread.

    OR Corbyn is a transformative politician, with a radical, far reaching, once-in-a-lifetime agenda to change British society for good, which I've also been hearing a lot - and in which case I think you can probably call him an extremist, if only in the sense that it represents a break with the political traditions of the last 40 or so years.

    I'm not saying either is true. I'm just saying both can't be true at the same time.

  • I'm not saying either is true. I'm just saying both can't be true at the same time.

    I think Cozey is correct, and depending on perspective, both can be true.

    Britain, in most ways, is much more (neo-)Liberal than the rest of Europe. The changes which would bring it in line with the more progressive social democracies on the continent would be transformative for Britain but in many cases quite mundane elsewhere.

    On the other hand (or from another perspective), a lot of people who have a vested interest in the state maintaining its current course will see Corbyn as a radical, and from their position, this is probably subjectively true. But these people are a minority and shouldn't be allowed to dictate the narrative.

  • I think the point I was trying to make - rather badly, I have to admit - is that you can't have it both ways.

    The point was perfectly clear.

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