How an Accident Could Happen in Britain Jeremy Corbyn’s anti-Semitism and ’70s-style socialism mean he can’t be prime minister. Or can he? By Joseph C. Sternberg
https://www.wsj.com/articles/how-an-accident-could-happen-in-britain-1538088491
Jeremy Corbyn is manifestly unfit to be prime minister of the United Kingdom. He might get the job anyway. Ample recent electoral experience, including in Britain, teaches that accidents happen. Here’s how the Corbyn accident could, in three steps:
First, voters fall out of love with their political class.
Take as a given that a Corbyn government would be an accident. The leader of the opposition Labour Party has spent the summer deflecting allegations—though the word seems too speculative—that his clichéd lefty anti-Zionism has long since bled into a form of outright anti-Semitism. The economic program he unveiled at his party’s annual convention this week is a preposterous mix of discredited 1970s-chic socialism and amorphous leftish populism.
These flaws normally would disqualify Mr. Corbyn, who polls well below Conservative Prime Minister Theresa May when voters are asked who would make a better national leader. At the party level, Labour and the Tories are tied for support. Labour is considerably more popular than its leader.
Yet weak popular support for Mr. Corbyn is not pushing more voters toward the Conservatives. Instead British voters dislike and distrust all politicians. Labour and the Conservatives alike struggle to scratch 40% support, and “Don’t Know” is preferred as a prime minister over either major-party leader. This is happening not least because Britain’s impending departure from the European Union has induced a psychotic break within the fractious Conservatives. Today Mrs. May and colleagues are incapable of governing the party, let alone the country.
Second, Britain’s social and economic divides deepen.
Gross domestic product has grown at a healthy clip since the 2008 crisis, but that growth has not been distributed evenly. The rarefied finance and creative fields prosper, while a large portion of the industrial base continues to wither. Unemployment is historically low, yet wage growth has stagnated in inflation-adjusted terms over the past decade.
Wide regional divergences have opened up, too. London and southeast England account for around 40% of GDP, with London growing at about twice the national average rate from 2010-16. Almost everyone else has been left behind. CONTINUE AT SITE
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