What Theresa May could learn from Jeremy Corbyn

Jeremy Corbyn has shown a political leader can be abused and written off by powerful colleagues and commentators, and against all the odds, survive and prosper. It’s not inconceivable that Theresa May could do the same.

May and Corbyn have some similarities. Neither is young, nor in it for the money. They are believed to be principled and both have a reputation for honesty, which in neither case is entirely deserved. They are fiercely ambitious and play a very long game. In the EU referendum campaign both claimed to be remainers, but irritated colleagues by their lack of enthusiasm. Both are pragmatists attempting to bring ideological change to their party, Corbyn as a marxist and May as a one nation Christian conservative. Both accept a regulatory role for the state, though of course to differing degrees. As a consequence, they are loathed by economic liberals, whether Blairite or Cameroon.

In the early period of her leadership May was up, while Corbyn was down. Now the positions are reversed, May should explore whether any of the tactics that helped Corbyn resist his opponents, could assist her. Firstly, Corbyn nurtured his base amongst ordinary members of the Labour Party and the trade unions, helped by Ed Miliband’s decision to offer reduced-fee associate party membership. Next, he and his supporters developed Momentum as a semi- independent campaigning body. It became a vehicle for left wing ideas and organisation that crucially could not be controlled by the New Labour machine. Above all, Corbyn focussed on youth, who became his core constituency for both selections and elections. He recognised he could harness the idealism, disaffection and anger of middle class youth, burdened with student debt, unable to find graduate level jobs, exploited by private landlords and with little early prospect of owning their own home.

Corbyn nurtured them, flattered them, offered them hope and entertainment at his rallies. These were not the male Oxbridge graduates who had dominated Blair’s and Cameron’s administrations, but students from less prestigious universities. Corbyn gave time to people who had previously been ignored, those on low income or with mental health problems and, crucially, young women. Up against a female Prime Minister, Corbyn made sure that in almost every photo-shot he was surrounded by women. Unlike Theresa May, he had no real track record of fighting for women’s rights and many of the organisations he supported were mired in misogyny. Nonetheless, he managed to position himself as a genuine representative of women. In his own way, Corbyn is as accomplished an actor as Tony Blair and can play a crowd. Theresa May is not and cannot.

Things have changed so much since the election that it is worth reminding ourselves how the public viewed her before. When Theresa May first became leader, her lack of acting ability seemed an advantage, differentiating her from her predecessors. Serious and resolute, her greatest strength appeared to be her authenticity and lack of arrogance. With her accession to power, there was a widespread hope that the worst excesses of a Cameron/Osborne era had ended. Though shy and awkward, May seemed kinder and trustworthy, more concerned with social justice and respectful of public services. People admired her old fashioned self-control, church going and happy marriage and sympathised when childlessness exposed her to intrusive comment. Women liked her because she seemed, if not ‘one of them’, then someone to whom they could relate. Those with reduced salaries, caring responsibilities and poor pensions rooted for her, cheering her short-lived triumph over George Osborne, the archetypal privileged male politician. People trusted her.

However, by the end of the election campaign May’s advantage had been squandered. Prior to the campaign, it was known she had reinstated cabinet government and assembled a strong cabinet team. Therefore, it was peculiarly shocking when the campaign focussed on May alone, presenting her as isolated and arrogantly presidential, not a team player. Up against an increasingly avuncular male opponent, she rarely appeared with male colleagues and so appeared to have lost their support. She seemed ill at ease with the constant repetition of the words “my” and “me” in her speeches and their occasionally aggressive and even macho content. I don’t know whether it was Lynton Crosby who advised Theresa May, vicar’s daughter, to say that she had had “the balls” to call an election, but it did her no favours, appearing vulgar, strident and false. By the time the manifesto was published, trust had already been undermined. The proposals on pensions and social care delivered the coup de grace. As she came under attack,especially on social media, there was no grass roots organisation ready to defend her.

At the start of her premiership Theresa May had seemed a friend to ordinary people, but by polling day appeared remote and arrogant and all too willing to attack them, threatening loss of benefits, pension cuts and the extension of the so-called ‘dementia tax’ to those receiving care in their own homes.This allowed an opportunistic Corbyn to attack May and position himself as the pensioners’ champion. Corbyn has no significant history of campaigning for frail older people. However, he knew enough about about the young to realise that Theresa May could not curry favour with them by attacking their grandparents.

Most of the people worst affected by the Conservative proposals would have been women, some living alone having previously cared for their late husbands, and others middle-aged daughters undertaking unpaid elder care while forced to work part-time. These were women who had already borne the brunt of Labour and Tory austerity cuts, many required to work longer than they had expected for pensions much smaller than the average man’s, often undertaking caring duties. Many relied on a modest inheritance to plan for their own old age. While Corbyn nurtured and offered sweeteners to his youth constituency, Theresa May threatened hers.

Corbyn has many flaws, not least that he is often irritatingly self-righteous. He encourages the adulation of the powerless, but can become arrogant or peevish when challenged. Theresa May will never be able to work a crowd like him. She does not need to emote in public or play to the gallery. However, she must be herself and demonstrate once again that she can and will learn from ordinary people. To survive longer-term she could emulate Corbyn by doing three things: build her base amongst party members and supporters; encourage the development of an independent broad-based One Nation movement to campaign and develop ideas; and focus on the needs of a core constituency, in the first instance women and the elderly, to build support for her ideas.

Most commentators expect May not to last. However, it would almost certainly not be in women’s interests for her to go. Despite her manifesto attack on older women’s pensions and property, the UK has never had a leader more interested in women’s rights – and given the effects of austerity and the rise of islamism, these rights are currently under particular threat. It is significant that the 2017 manifesto, for the first time, gave real prominence to domestic violence as a serious political issue. Crucially, it also acknowledged that islamism poses a particular threat to women rights, a fact acknowledged in private by many people, but comprehensively ignored by most politicians and political commentators. Corbyn will certainly not address this issue, because for his strand of left-wing politics, even an unfounded suspicion of racism or islamophobia will always trump actual abuse of, or discrimination against, women.

Ironically, Theresa May may be better placed than her Tory colleagues, or any future Corbyn-led Labour government, to sort out the mess that is health and social care. She now has a powerful reason to do so. However, to succeed she would have to listen – not just to policy advisers and owners of care homes and private health care schemes – but, above all, to ordinary people, especially carers and those who have grappled with dementia and chronic illness.

Theresa May approved a manifesto that terrified the old, the sick and their carers. She now owes it to the public to find a solution where so many others have failed. It could be her means of political redemption – and perhaps her most important legacy.