The “Brexit” referendum in June 2016, when voters in the United Kingdom chose to depart the European Union in a campaign shot through with anti-immigrant fervor, was seen by many as the first hint for many that Donald Trump could win in the United States. In Europe and here, right-wing nationalism was on the rise, riding a wave of xenophobia in the years since the 2008 financial collapse. Meanwhile, liberal and social-democratic parties were splintering apart, with forgotten leftists like Bernie Sanders and the Labour Party’s Jeremy Corbyn surging unexpectedly to the center of the debate as Millennials rebelled against the liberal establishment. The far right was rising, on both sides of the Atlantic, and the left was a mess.

One year later, the U.K. may be poised to send a very different political shockwave across the Atlantic in Thursday’s parliamentary election. On the back of an unapologetically leftist election manifesto, Corbyn’s Labour Party has made a historically unprecedented surge in the polls, closing to within a few points of Prime Minister Theresa May’s Tories, after trailing just weeks ago by as many as 20. Even a close outcome would be a Trump-sized upset, and demonstrate just how dramatically the politics of both left and right have shifted in Europe and the U.S. since Brexit—and since November 8.

Last week, left-wing British journalist and activist Paul Mason, formerly of the BBC and Channel 4, spoke by Skype with New Republic contributor Sarah Jaffe from Wales, where Labour is surging. Mason, who left broadcast journalism last year to engage more directly with politics, is now a Guardian columnist and Labour activist who’s a key Corbyn ally. The author of several books tracing the aftermath of the 2008 financial collapse (Meltdown: The End of the Age of Greed), the uprisings of 2010 and 2011 (Why It’s Kicking Off Everywhere) and the future of our economic system (Postcapitalism), Mason talked to Jaffe about the reasons for Corbyn’s unlikely surge—and why the year of Brexit and Trump have turned unexpectedly into the year of Corbyn and Resistance.

I just read a story that featured a Conservative Party source saying, “We fully expect to fall behind Labour in a poll in the coming days.” [Since this interview was conducted, at least one unweighted poll indeed shows that.] That clearly wasn’t what they were expecting when they called this election after Brexit.



No, clearly not. For eight or nine months, Labour had been doing really badly in the polls, around 25-26 percent, while the Conservatives were hitting close to high 40s. This is because when Brexit happened, you had this huge split within the progressive half of UK society. Some people feel very existentially challenged by Brexit, and were really critical of Labour for saying, “We have to accept the result.” Lots of liberal white-collar workers, lots of globally-minded people, lots of young people were feeling quite sore with Labour for accepting the result of the referendum. This emboldened the Conservatives to call an election. The split in the progressive camp looked unhealable.