In an interview with Buzzfeed Jeremy Corbyn has exclusively revealed that he will not stand down as party leader should his party lose the general election on June 8th. ‘I was elected leader of this party and I’ll stay leader of this party’ he told Buzzfeed’s Jim Waterson, who joined him on the campaign trail in Leamington Spa. No matter what the outcome of the election, Corbyn told Buzzfeed that he will be ‘carrying on’.
There is no hard and fast rule that party leaders stand down if they fail to win, however, there’s a generally accepted convention that you’ve got to go if you lose. So, is this announcement reminiscent of that scene in the Wolf of Wall Street which has spawned a thousand memes? The one in which Jordan Belfort is due to resign in order to protect the future of his company, Stratton Oakmont, but comes out fighting and says, triumphantly, ‘I’m not f**king leaving’? Or, is it a storm in a teacup?
This isn’t the first time a party leader has said that they will keep calm and carry on if they are defeated in the polls. In 2010, Gordon Brown told the BBC’s Woman’s Hour that he would ‘keep going’ as Labour leader even if he lost the general election. He subsequently stood down when the 2010 election failed to return a majority for any one party and was succeeded by Ed Miliband. When it came to Miliband’s turn to face the music of defeat, he too stood down, despite reportedly having told friends and family that he could ‘do a Kinnock’ and continue as leader in spite of failing to win over voters.
So, will Corbyn stay or will he go? It depends on what sort of result Labour get on June 8th and whether people are prepared to continue to support him afterwards. Meanwhile, speculation abounds as to who would challenge him in a leadership contest. Yvette Cooper is a favourite, as is Keir Starmer.
Beyond Corbyn’s tenure as Labour leader, another conversation is being had in the wake of Emmanuel Macron’s victory to become the next President of France after he left the Socialist Party and started his own, centrist En Marche! just a little over a year ago which he describes as ‘neither left nor right’.
Speaking on BBC Newsnight last night, Labour’s Chuka Ummuna said that Macron ‘tapped into something’ in France and provided an alternative to traditional French politics which, in a similar way to our own, is ‘very adversarial, very tribal, very “yah boo sucks”.’ And, Umunna added, ‘I think that switches a lot of people off and what Emmanuel Macron has done is say “I haven’t got any time for all this nonsense where we just oppose each other for the sake of opposing each other…what do we need to do to get things done?” and there’s something incredibly appealing about that.’
Writing in the Independent today, Umunna said that the Left could learn from Macron and called for ‘a positive, modern political movement, focussed on real solutions to the problems facing working people in our country’ which refuses to ‘pander to nativists and nationalists’ as the ‘best way to get rid of this incompetent Tory Government.’
It would be difficult to ‘do a Macron’ here because the French system means people vote directly for a presidential candidate. On this side of the channel, a Prime Minister is elected based on which party wins the majority of votes overall. That said, perhaps the Left in Britain will look somewhat different after this election?
Like this? You might also be interested in:
Bursting The Bubble: How Much Do The Women Of Shipley Care That Philip Davies Is Their MP?
7 Things You Need To Know About The French Presidential Election
Follow Vicky on Twitter @Victoria_Spratt
This article originally appeared on The Debrief.