Corbyn voters: supporters or entryists?

ballot boxThe Labour MP Simon Danczuk has called on the Party to cancel the leadership elections , claiming ‘infiltration’ by those who were ‘not genuine party supporters’.

Apparently the Party has rejected 271 applications from people who in the May election were candidates for other parties, mainly the Green Party. Is the system so open to abuse by other parties that the election should be cancelled?

This determination to exclude potential infiltrators reminds me of an occasion about 30 years ago when I was a vicar. I made a couple of visits to a particular parishioner who was more attuned to Spiritualism than the Church of England. In fact she was one of the local mediums.

I can’t remember the reason for the visits but they cannot have been too confrontational, because the following Sunday she turned up in church for the service.

The churchwarden greeted her with the words: ‘What are you doing here? You don’t come here!

This, as you can probably guess, is not the kind of welcome recommended by the Church of England’s many committees on Church Growth and Evangelism.

The churchwarden knew who he was against. In the same way, it is easy to understand how professional politicians take for granted that they are against members of other parties, and act accordingly.

But this is one of the things that put people off politicians. Most people don’t want to be that tribalistic. They don’t want to demonise huge numbers of other people.

So it probably is for those 271 applications. At the time of the May election, over three quarters of Green Party members had joined within the last year. Some of these new members became candidates. I haven’t surveyed them myself, but it is not difficult to imagine what will have happened.

Why had they joined the Green Party? The most common reason was that it was the main anti-austerity party outside Scotland.

These people may or may not have previously supported, or been members of, the Liberal Democrats or Labour, but given the situation before May’s election the Greens will have seemed, to them, the most attractive party.

Then Corbyn looks like becoming the next Labour leader, and – oh! Transferring their support to Labour looks like a viable alternative.

Whether or not you agree with this change of allegiance – and I have no intention to copy it – it’s a perfectly rational thing to do. Many of those people will have good reason to judge it the most effective way to promote the policies they believe in, a bit like tactical voting.

Of course if Corbyn doesn’t get elected, their enthusiasm for the Labour Party will decline pretty rapidly. If they then re-join the Green Party, that will give people like Simon Danczuk the impression that they really were entryists.

But it may simply mean that they are more committed to left wing politics than to any particular party. If it does, good for them: they are showing greater political wisdom than a great many party loyalists.

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2 Responses to Corbyn voters: supporters or entryists?

  1. Steve says:

    Jonathan, about 30 years ago you were the Anglican chaplain at Sheffield University 😉

    • Jonathan Clatworthy says:

      Ha. You’ve caught me out. Shows I can’t count. We moved to Sheffield in 1985, so it must have been a year or two before then.
      On the other hand, thanks to your help in the early stages I can still use a computer.

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