Jeremy Corbyn was underappreciated
Dear Editor,
Since becoming leader of the British Labour Party Jeremy Corbyn and his family have been subjected to the fiercest smear and propaganda campaign by the corporate press, and even by some in his own party, and after the election they have been piling on the criticisms by misinterpreting his loss.
Corbyn’s sin was that he planned to change the status quo by helping the poor.
No credit has been given to him for attracting record numbers of young voters to his party and, in the recent election, for getting the overwhelming support of people under 32. He lost the votes of the over 62’s and, although the Tories won 56 per cent of the seats, they only got 44 per cent of the votes compared to 47.6 per cent for the other three main parties. Interestingly, Corbyn got more votes than Tony Blair in his 2005 election victory.
These figures are an indictment of the first past the post system used in the UK, in which a party can get a 78-seat majority and be outvoted by the Opposition parties, including almost being wiped out in Scotland.
Jeremy Corbyn is a visionary who planned to invest in people in order to give them an opportunity to thrive. His foreign policy was to pursue an independent path, rather than just being an appendage to Washington. This was too much for the establishment to take. The prospects for the future point to more years of Tory rule under Boris Johnson, which will inflict grave damage on the country with a Corbyn-less Labour Party stuck somewhere in the ideological centre with only incremental changes to offer. You can’t get a peaceful revolution out of a counter-revolutionary party.
UK politics is stuck somewhere in the 20th century. The young people know this, have moved on from that, and already the street protests have started and is, no doubt, the reason why Scotland wants to jump ship.
Readers can take some time and look at this video which depicts protests by the youth on the day after the election — www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gqu26QA4bDk
Victor A Dixon
Boynton Beach, Florida
victoradixon@yahoo.com
