Think of populism and you’ll likely think of the nasty rightwing nationalism of Marine Le Pen, Geert Wilders or Nigel Farage. But if Jeremy Corbyn is re-elected as Labour leader, it will be a mild-mannered socialist who will have led the most successful populist campaign in Britain in decades.

When will Labour’s tribal warfare come to an end? | Maya Goodfellow Read more

Populism is not defined by right and left, nor even by the virtue of its goals: think Syriza in Greece and Podemos in Spain. Populism is rather a way of doing politics that has three key features. First, it has a disdain for elites and experts of all kinds, especially political ones. Second, it supposes that the purpose of politics is simply to put into action the will of the people, who are seen as homogenous and united in their goals. Third, it proposes straightforward, simple solutions to what are in fact complex problems.

The campaign to re-elect Corbyn is populist to its core. It is based on the absoluteness of the “democratic mandate” given by Labour members and supporters, which renders null and void any dissent from Labour’s “elites” in Westminster or Brussels. It means that Corbyn does not even need the support of the MPs he is supposed to be leading in the House of Commons. To do anything other than “get behind the leader” is to thwart the will of Labour’s people. Corbyn warmly talks of “reaching out”, but those who take his hand must be willing to be led by it.

This is populism in its purest form, with the people as the final and best judges. Its simplistic purity obscures the complex messiness of real political problems, the greatest of which is that an effective opposition leader needs to command the support of the party in parliament. Corbyn’s supporters do not entertain the possibility that those who dedicate their lives to serving their party and the country might have good reason to believe their man is not up to the job. Rejection of Corbyn is taken as proof that they are traitors, to be replaced by people who will do what their electorate tells them without daring to question its judgment. The party members and supporters are always right, so any of its MPs who disagree must be wrong.

'Representative democracy balances giving the electorate a direct say and elected politicians the power to run things'

Like all populists, Corbyn’s supporters believe they are simply upholding pure democracy, based on one person, one vote. This way of understanding democracy reduces it to a simple matter of the people speaking and their leaders acting accordingly. This tears up a basic principle of democracy, that MPs are not delegates who follow instructions blindly, but autonomous representatives with the responsibility of making up their own minds.

Our tradition of representative democracy rests on a rejection of all three pillars of populism. It accepts that a well-run society needs specialists and full-time politicians whose judgments often carry more weight than those of voters who put them into power. It accepts that the “will of the people” is diverse and contradictory, and that the job of politics is to balance competing demands, not simply to obey them. It follows that there are few, if any, easy solutions and that anyone who promises them is a charlatan. Making the case for representative democracy therefore means telling the electorate it doesn’t always know best, a truism that populism has turned into an elitist heresy.

Not even the EU referendum was as populist as Corbyn’s new politics. Representative democracy balances giving the electorate a direct say and elected politicians the power to run things. It has always allowed for the possibility of major constitutional issues on which the electorate should be entirely sovereign. The leave campaign certainly capitalised on what is often termed “populist sentiment”, meaning disillusionment with elites. The nadir of this was Michael Gove’s comment that “people in this country have had enough of experts”. But we need to distinguish between the drivers of populism and populism itself. Some disdain for mainstream politics is justified, as is the demand for greater accountability from those who govern us. The task of democratic parties is to listen to these grievances and try to come up with credible solutions. The task of populism is to offer the pseudo-solution that if only politicians did exactly what the people demanded, all would be well.

Corbynite populism is destroying the Labour party by pitting the membership against the PLP and making effective opposition, let alone government, impossible. This is no way to defeat Corbyn’s “five ills” – inequality, neglect, prejudice, insecurity and discrimination.

That Labour could be transformed from a democratic movement into a populist one is deeply troubling. If Corbyn wins, previous populist successes would pale in comparison. Ukip’s rise was bad enough, but it was clearly a populist insurgency against the mainstream. Corbyn’s re-election would mean populism had conquered one of the bastions of British representative democracy.