Labour can win. But first it must explain what Corbynism means | Jeremy Gilbert

The claim that Tony Blair discouraged Labour members in Jeremy Corbyn’s constituency from trying to deselect their MP is made for a reason. Blairites in parliament are fearful that new rules may make them more accountable to local members. The implication is that Corbyn should follow Blair’s example, in his warm embrace of internal party pluralism and his suppression of local deselection efforts.

But in reality such a characterisation of Blair is utterly disingenuous: he was obsessed with central control of policy, messaging and candidate selection. He would have known that any deselection campaign in Islington North would have failed, precisely because it was one of the few local parties that the Labour high command had never been able to discipline. Corbyn always had the enthusiastic backing of his local party members; in contrast, today’s Blairite MPs resist any idea of local accountability, because they know that they don’t.

Still, this episode raises important questions. If Corbyn’s Labour party is to be an entirely different animal to Blair’s, exactly what kind of beast is it to be? What kind of democracy will it promote? New Labour wanted a party, and a country, run like a slick corporation. What kind of party or country do Corbyn and his supporters want? In brief: what is Corbynism?

This term sometimes refers to the movement that emerged in 2015 to support Corbyn’s leadership of the party. It could also refer to the content of Labour’s political programme, as expressed in the election manifesto. Calling for renationalisation of the railways, massive investment in public services and the institution of a “national education service”, it apparently promises a restoration of the great postwar social democratic project interrupted by Margaret Thatcher in 1979.

But on closer examination, the movement and the programme contain two quite different sets of ideas about what progressive politics should look like. The movement is a true grassroots mobilisation, enabling hundreds of thousands of Labour members to campaign in their communities on issues that matter deeply to them. On the other hand, it can be seen as a top-down project placing loyalty to a single individual at its centre, with almost no real debate on policy or strategy.

The manifesto, as inspiring and welcome as it was, was also disappointing in some ways. Many Corbyn supporters were thrilled when Labour published its discussion document on “alternative models of ownership”. This paper expressed the essence of what a 21st-century socialism could look like. It proposed not nationalisation and economic centralisation, but an economy based on workers’ co-operatives and decentralised decision-making, on the reduction of workloads and the redistribution of leisure time. Sadly, there was very little of this in the manifesto.

The dream of finding democratic, decentralised alternatives to either state control or corporate capitalism has been a part of the Labour movement’s traditions since the 19th century. It was a crucial element of the radical left politics of the 70s and early 80s, manifest in projects such as Ken Livingstone’s leadership of the Greater London Council. But over the past few decades, these ideas have been championed more often by the Green party, Plaid Cymru or even radical sections of the Liberal Democrats than by anyone in Labour. One constant advocate of these ideas has been Compass, which has been arguing for democratisation of public services for many years. One reason that Compass has been committed to the idea of a progressive alliance is that it has often seemed easier to find allies who supported its democratic agenda in other parties than inside Labour.

The early rhetoric of New Labour claimed to be promoting decentralisation of public services. But it quickly became clear that this was largely a cover for imposing a neoliberal agenda: instead of democracy in public services, we got competition and individual “choice”. It’s therefore unsurprising if support for a decentralising agenda is now weak among older Corbyn supporters, who mostly seem happy enough to back a programme that could have been dreamed up in the 1940s.

At the same time, other strands of the party that have until recently been hostile to Corbyn have had to be appeased. The old Labour right – led today by Tom Watson and the more conservative union leaders – never really bought into Blair’s full embrace of neoliberalism and globalisation. But neither did they ever have any interest in radical democracy. They have always been dead set against moves to make Labour itself a more democratic organisation, giving ordinary members a greater say over policy or over the selection of parliamentary candidates.

So until now it has been easier to unite Labour around a centralising, top-down political programme than to propose a more controversial vision of democratic socialism for the 21st century. In this sense the manifesto was a brilliant compromise. It also had the virtue of proposing a programme which was clear and easy to explain on the doorstep.

But Labour must be wary of the “back to the 70s” narrative that would try to paint our current policy programme as simply regressive: a reversal of Thatcherism rather than a bold new vision. During the election campaign, Theresa May gave the impression of wanting to drag Britain back to the 1950s. This was a huge turn-off to affluent voters in the south, as well as to the young everywhere, which is partly why so many voted Labour. If Labour wants to retain voters’ enthusiasm once the Tories replace her, it has to look like it belongs to the 21st century.

For an example of an issue that could be treated differently by these different political approaches, consider this week’s controversy over how much the BBC pays its stars. New Labour’s embrace of corporate market principles led directly to a situation where such celebrities are paid the (astronomical) market rate for their services. Right now, Labour proposes to use central government to regulate this situation, introducing rules which would force public sector organisations to reduce the pay differentials between their lowest and highest paid employees to something like pre-Thatcher levels.

This would be better than nothing – but is it really the best we can do in 2017? Since the 1970s, radicals have dreamed of democratising the BBC, giving citizens a far more direct say in its policies and administration. Today it would be easy to use online platforms to facilitate some direct user participation in BBC decision-making. This is surely the kind of thing that a Corbynism fit for the 21st century should be proposing.

For now, two versions of Corbynism coexist relatively happily. For some, it is a decentralised political movement that would like to build a more democratic and cooperative economy. For others, it is a top-down project focused entirely on maintaining Corbyn’s leadership, which is largely proposing a return to the statist social democracy of the postwar era. These two versions of Corbynism can coexist while they share so many enemies. But sooner or later this tension may have to be resolved.