The argument that we've been hearing for the past year since Jeremy Corbyn came onto the scene are along the lines of "elections are won on the centre ground" so "Jeremy Corbyn is unelectable" - but is that so? If elections are won on the centre ground, can anyone explain why the Lib Dems are yet to have won a single election? Or why Gordon Brown and Ed Miliband didn't manage to become Prime Minister? There are obviously other factors affecting election results, I'm not here to dispute that, but centrist politics are extremely damaging and a key component in creating political apathy and disillusionment.
When the two main parties are offering similar policies, we become shallow and fickle in choosing who we want to represent our country, we buy into the image, the appearance, the charisma of the candidate. This isn't true of all voters of course - for example, I can't imagine a scenario where I would vote Tory because it is my personal view that it is wrong to victimise poorer people, but we all have our priorities, maybe that's just crazy commie Bess speaking. It's the swing voters who can make or break the election result, and when it's hard to distinct between the two main parties because their policies are so similar, you're more likely to be captivated by the charisma. In addition, the apathetic belief that "all politicians are the same" is a direct result of centrism taking over in politics, why would you believe that politicians are offering you something new when realistically they're not because they share a lot of the same policies?
Centrism results in a cynical electorate because it is clear that the politicians are saying what they think the electorate wants to hear, they are making promises to the people but then when they get into power they try and pull away from centrist policies and implement the ones they genuinely believe in. Translation: they lie to get voted in and then don't come through on their promises, this results in people losing faith in politicians and becoming disillusioned. If you're disillusioned and apathetic, why would you vote? Why would you vote when "they're all the same"? This is why turnout is quite low, why would you vote when you feel like your vote doesn't matter? If the EU Referendum showed us anything, it's that we're in dire need of electoral reform - the turnout was about 20% higher than in the last General Election, people vote when they believe their vote matters and will make a difference.
In addition to this, the UK is essentially a two-party state. I'm not saying that's a good thing, but it's true, that's why parties like the Greens and UKIP only have one seat each whilst Labour and the Conservatives hold most of the others (unless you're in Scotland, in which case SNP are a pretty viable option). This means when we vote, you essentially have to make the choice between Labour and Tory. It is a lesser of two evils situation generally. My MP, for example, voted to introduce tuition fees and to bomb Syria just to give a couple of examples. I don't really feel adequately represented by him, but I would rather a Labour MP than a Tory MP which was why he got my vote. I would put money on the fact that most of the electorate vote in a similar way, my constituency represents that we don't support the Tories but it can't really be taken much further than that in this scenario. It it for this reason that the PLP are not truly representative of the electorate, 172 MPs in the PLP supported a vote of no confidence in Jeremy Corbyn and the New Labour sect of the party are using this as evidence that Corbyn has lost the support of the electorate. This is ignoring the fact that Corbyn was never insanely popular with the the PLP to begin with - he needed 35 nominations from the PLP to get onto the ballot paper for the leadership election and he only just got in with 36, but when you compare that to the actual leadership election where he won with nearly 60% which is a landslide, it's obvious that he's more popular with the electorate. For this reason, we cannot honestly state that the MPs are representative of the electorate and we cannot let this coup damage our support of Corbyn. Those who resigned are not worthy of the position they had, I mean every single one who resigned voted in support of or abstained from voting on the 2015 Welfare Bill which resulted in the poor and disabled paying for £12 billion more in cuts - are these the people who represent us?
The media and the right-wingers will have us believe that Corbyn is unelectable, but so many of us voted him in against all the odds, against all the Blairites and the Tories. We have to call into question why the media and the right-wingers are quite so opposed to Corbyn, the attack on him is very extreme in comparison to other party leaders. As Another Angry Voice pointed out, this is exactly the sort of response you would expect when a candidate is as anti-establishment as Corbyn is. I will continue to stick by Corbyn, and I hope you do so too. Do not succumb to the propaganda, remember we are the electorate and we have the power.
