In a system rigged to protect the rich, how did a “socialist” candidate get nominated to the top of Labour party? And how can he stay in charge of the Labour party, when most of his MPs have been against him from the start? Why did Labour end up with an anti-cuts candidate years and years after the anti-cuts movement peaked (around 2011), and not before?

The answer is simple – there is conflict at the top of the Labour Party, and Jeremy Corbyn is the revenge of a group who are losing their grip on power.

The leaders of the main trade unions and the TUC have, for a long time, been a kind of “labour aristocracy”. In theory they are supposed to represent the members who pay their six-figure salaries, but in practice they’ve acted against us many many times in the past. In 1926 they ended the general strike for fear of loosing control [1]. In 1929 they refused to give support to arrested Indian trade unionists, because that would have undermined the Labour government they were supporting [2]. In the 1940’s after the war, they supported the Labour government’s freeze on wages [3]. The same happened again in 1975 when they supported Labour’s pay freeze [4]. They stayed in the Labour party (with honorable exceptions, like the FBU) despite New Labour’s constant privatising and cutting – and despite New Labour’s point-blank refusal to get rid of Thatcher’s repressive anti-union laws. In more recent times I’ve heard plenty of accounts from the rank-and-file of bureaucrats in the unions undermining their disputes. It’s clear that the bureaucrats in the big unions are not socialist.

One of the reasons they act like this, is that in the old days these bureaucrats got influence over the labour party in return for their cooperation. Through the “block vote” union leaders were able to cast votes in party conferences and leadership elections on behalf of millions of members. This all began to change over 20 years ago, with their influence gradually broken down, until in 2015 Ed Milliband removed the last bit of official influence they had over leadership elections – from now on all leadership elections would be “one member, one vote”, and unions would not even be able to distribute the ballot papers to their own members. Conservative onlookers expected this would shift the party further to the right.

The problem was that there’s only so far you can push people before they react. Combined with a dwindling and aging membership the union leaders felt like they were loosing their power. They had to prove they were a necessary moderating force on rank and file workers – and give a taste of what might happen without them. So in an unexpected move, during the 2015 Labour leadership election, the leaders who had previously seemed conservative came out for Jeremy Corbyn. This was a key influence over the vote. Instead of being the voice of a cynical “realism”, they encouraged people to vote for the candidate with the most socialist policies. Free from that restraining force, the left-wing of Labour were able to recruit 1000s of new people to join the party, and along with the “affiliate” voters following their union’s recommendations, Corbyn won an overwhelming majority.

I think this was THE key factor in Corbyn taking charge of the leadership of the Labour party – not a spontaneous grassroots shift to the Left, or a reaction to the cuts. If it was part of a grassroots movement, we would expect much more action from members – especially those in the spin-off “Momentum” group. Instead, we’ve seen Momentum get less and less independent, and doing relatively little outside of canvassing for their leader. If it were a grassroots reaction to austerity we’d also expect the majority of new members to be people worst affected by austerity. Instead, they are disproportionately middle class, and university graduates. The average age of Labour membership is 51 – so it’s not been taken over by hoards of dispossessed young people either [5] [6]. It’s also clear that union executives have a lot of influence on how people vote for the Labour leadership. At the time of the first Corbyn vote the guardian reported that the biggest unions were recruiting upwards of 1000 members a day for the party, and showed evidence that the executive’s recommendations had a strong influence on voting in the past. [7]

There are other factors that have helped his success. For example, opposing austerity on paper has stolen the thunder of the SNP in Scotland, allowing him to gain support there (and disillusionment with the SNP is probably a factor too). Those he stood against seemed bland and all the same, with little to set them apart from the Tories. The rich want all politicians to *act* the same but they must never, ever *look* the same – and they were facing a growing crisis of faith in politicians. But even though these other factors had an influence, that doesn’t change that the support of union executives was important, possibly the most important.

So if this theory is right, what does it mean? First, rather than a sign of a growing anti-cuts movement, Corbyn’s leadership is the result of conflict at the top of British society – the Labour aristocracy desperately trying to cling to their old role. It’s not a new social force but a result of outside circumstances that aren’t likely to happen again. So we should be careful drawing lessons from it. Second it means his leadership is not as stable as it looks. Sure, he will get votes from his members. But if he was in power, what would they do to protect him? The union leaders promoting him in the first place are not radicals and won’t want him to go too far. Once they’ve made their point and convinced the ruling classes that they’re needed, they will either abandon their support or try to pressure Jeremy Corbyn into taking more “moderate” policies. They’ve already done this with nuclear weapons, and they would have gone further after the election, if the Tories hadn’t failed so badly that Corbyn managed to gain seats.

This leads to point 3, the important one! The most important way to support Corbyn’s policies isn’t to vote or join the Labour party, because without a grassroots movement from outside parliament it will be impossible for him to fullfill all his promises. Instead of joining the party we should be joining unions, organising protests and action, fighting the cuts. Unless we can force the rich to accept his policies ourselves, there’s no point in voting or canvasing for him at all – it just won’t happen.