“The left” and “pro-business” aren’t phrases that should go together. But “the left” is almost never used in the way people mean it. Like, if you asked someone to explain to you left-wing politics, the answer you’d get probably wouldn’t resemble those parties and persons that are commonly referred to as left-wing. Because “the left” is one of those terms, so common in mainstream politics and the media, that bear the burden of (at least) two meanings. Which actually amounts to no meaning at all.

Take Jeremy Corbyn. While it’s a truism that the Labour party are not, nor perhaps ever have been, left-wing, Corbyn is consistently made out to be a communist, a Maoist, a radical etc.; and not only by the “right-wing” press in their efforts to turn public opinion against him. Those who believe Corbyn to be flying the flag for socialism should remember whose interests he would have to pander to if he ever got elected.

The Guardian is similarly considered to belong to “the left”. This is perhaps only because they occasionally report on social issues in less abstract terms than the rest of the mainstream press, and because they appear to be paying attention to those people who are usually represented only as statistics. Well, The Guardian is becoming more of a lifestyle magazine than a serious newspaper. Somewhere to purchase cultural currency, a place where the middle-class can remind themselves that they care about other people. Like Corbyn and “the left”, The Guardian is also routinely misunderstood.

In fact, The Guardian recently reported that Corbyn has changed his stance on “Brexit”. Apparently, Corbyn now does not want to remain in a single market with the European Union, but only to maintain a “close relationship” with it. He does, however, wish to remain in a customs union. In this scenario, Britain would presumably benefit from the trade we currently have with EU countries, while being free to pursue trade elsewhere, most likely with the U.S. and China.

The Financial Times praised Corbyn’s new stance. That should ring alarm bells. If big business is happy, chances of improving social equality are slim. The FT‘s praise was echoed by The Guardian. According to their editorial, Corbyn’s new policy for leaving the EU makes Labour ‘a party of sensible thought’, showing where the paper’s interests really lie. Less regulation and “freer” trade are in this case an assault on social equality and therefore in direct opposition to socialist principles, to “the left”. But I suppose that all depends on which “left” you are referring to.