With the likes of Stormzy, a British grime MC with a 731,000-strong following on Twitter, publicly backing the veteran MP and leader of the Labour Party, independent clothes retailers running out of t-shirts with Corbyn’s name on, and the biggest hit of Glastonbury Festival being the chanting of his name, it is easy to see why some call his leadership a cult. What is much harder is to understand the reasoning why the tag is coming with such derision.
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Critics insinuate Corbyn leads through a Cult of Personality, yet over the past two years and as recent as the past two months the same voices were heard decrying him for not being “a leader.” In fact, whilst campaigning for the recent General Election, Jeremy Paxman a well-regarded long-serving English broadcast journalist, repeatedly pushed Corbyn on how his party’s manifesto didn’t reflect all of their leader’s views. His response succinctly described exactly what he wasn’t: “I’m not a dictator who writes things to tell people what to do.” Hardly a Cult of Personality, is it?
Instead, Corbyn leads through consensus. “[Our manifesto] is a product of a process in our party. That’s why I was elected (twice): to give a voice to our members and those affiliated to our party.” It is this approach that explains how, after 32 years as a Member of Parliament and two as party leader, Corbyn outperformed the right-wing’s expectations in this month’s election.
John McDonnell, Labour’s Shadow Chancellor and former Chair of the Socialist Campaign Group, described Corbyn’s success as a “mass mobilization,” of people of “all ages,” and those who may not have “engaged with politics before.” Corbyn’s reference to “those affiliated to our party,” pays thanks to the likes of Momentum, a grassroots movement of over 23,000 members and 150 groups that developed out of his election as Labour leader in 2015.
A movement founded by people and inspired by Jeremy Corbyn, rather than one founded by him, is symbolic of his appeal, and the examples are numerous. In an unprecedented way for modern politics in Britain, Corbyn has transcended politics and has become a brand – and, again, not of his own doing. In the same grassroots-led way his nomination to become Labour leader in 2015 started with a group of women he had never met lodging a petition on Twitter, individuals have made and sold t-shirts depicting the MP, emblazoned with his name, and carrying his words. These independent retailers are repeatedly selling out of their stock, with many on show over the weekend at the Glastonbury Festival.
These movements, those marketing strategies, and that branding of Corbyn were wholly separate occurrences from the man and his party. It has irritated Conservative voters and riled his detractors that people are singing his name to the tune of a football song. It started on the 20th of May at a football stadium when he addressed the crowd and it hasn’t stopped since: from clubs to University summer balls, protests in the capital, to music festivals across the country - Corbyn is sung about like a footballer.
Some say it is weird and it is in isolation, but add in the context and it stops being weird. Yes, it is a first, but it is as a result of his sheer popularity with the masses that he is responsible for engaging with politics. It would be weird if it was orchestrated or staged, but it isn’t. Corbyn doesn’t meet the requirements to have his leadership derided as a Cult of Personality.
There is, however, a clear history of derogatorily referring to revolutionary movements as cults, especially those founded on socialist principles. Irrelevant of an individual’s religious beliefs, Jesus of Nazareth’s following was described as a cult for supporting a man who advocated for better care for the poor and outcast and fought against the imposed rule of The Roman Empire oppressors. As Hugo Chavez said at the 2005 World Social Forum when describing which leaders inspire him, “Jesus [is] one of the greatest revolutionaries, anti-imperialist fighters in the history of the world.”
Juan Domingo Peron - who later transcended the left-wing right-wing homogeneity of politics to inspire movements on both sides, rewriting politics in Argentina - began his political career on socialist policies, such as: creating labor unions and renationalising public services and the central bank. Along with Peron, there has been Chavez, Jesus, Fidel Castro and now Jeremy Corbyn – and of course there are many others – vilified in a war of words with attempts to belittle their revolutionary movements as simply cults.
With Jeremy Corbyn, there is not even the argument of ignorance as an attempted justification of the put-downs he and his supporters face. He has been a Member of Parliament since 1983 and in that time he has earned his reputation as an “honest, decent, principled person,” as John McDonnell described him.
In that time Corbyn has: campaigned against apartheid and for the release of Nelson Mandela; voted against the invasion of Afghanistan, the War in Iraq, and the 2011 bombing of Libya; campaigned for the rights of the Palestine people; opposed Pinochet and lobbied for his eventual arrest; and has time and time again voted in favour of nationalisation and funding of public services and against the privatisation of healthcare and social housing. Corbyn’s following is the result of being on the right side of history repeatedly and the mass mobilization of a large segment of society fed up with the cannibalistic effects of capitalism and austerity.
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The notion that Jeremy Corbyn is leading by a Cult of Personality or that his supporters form a cult is more reflective of how his detractors view socialism than it is of Corbyn himself. In this instance, the use of the word is demeaning, dismissive and displays a lack of understanding of his appeal and politics. “A lot of these ideas that have been spoken about, maybe sometimes seem like they were niche ideas,” Kevin EG Perry of NME said, “the very idea of socialism has seemed niche." Now, though, 13 million people have voted for socialist policies and they are entering the mainstream.
A graduate in Social Policy from The London School of Economics stated that, “for many in the disproportionately right-wing British print media, dismissing the movement behind Corbyn as a cult has perhaps been a way of avoiding the hard questions about how such a previously marginalised figure has risen to prominence, and why so many young people felt mainstream politics had not been representing them.”
With the vilification unlikely to stop, maybe it is time for the Corbynistas to reappropriate those words used to disparage and defame them. Socialism was niche. Arise the Cult of the Corbynistas.