Jeremy Corbyn’s rise to the leadership of the British Labour Party was a very unlikely victory. Corbyn, a London-based MP, has led a lonely life for decades on the fringes of the party, vilified for his stubborn insistence on socialist principle and militant anti-militarism. He has voted against party policy an astounding 533 times since 1997.
Yet Corbyn surprisingly won the support (almost 60 per cent in total) of the Labour Party faithful while drawing in tens of thousands of new members, all sick of futile compromise and a party that had lost its way. Corbyn’s policies include a strong stand against austerity and taking privatized public services such as railways back under public control. He has also called for a broadening of democratic institutions and is reaching out to social movements beyond the Labour Party.
