An evening with the cult of Corbyn in Islington

Jeremy Corbyn has hosted over 70 rallies as part of his Labour leadership campaign. Yesterday evening, the bearded one returned to Islington to speak at a four hour fundraising event — the first in his local patch. I went along to find out more about the ‘movement’ that has sprung up around his candidacy. The event was held in the beautiful Union Chapel on Upper Street, a church that moonlights as a live music venue. Crowds lined the street to get in and the comrades took advantage of this to distribute propaganda — promoting the ‘Spartacist League’, a ‘Rage Against the Tories’ rally and Sadiq Khan’s mayoral campaign: https://twitter.com/SebastianEPayne/status/634785197108666368 The first ‘act’ was the Guardian columnist Owen Jones, speaking in his typically passionate manner about the beginnings of a national movement. He acknowledged his role as Corbyn’s main, often lone, cheerleader on Fleet Street and warned that if he wins, the ‘smears’ will be unrelenting. ‘This is the biggest against the odds political campaign in British history,’ he told the crowd. ‘The genie is out of the lamp and it isn’t going back in’. After Jones, singer songwriter Robb Johnson popped up to keep proceedings shuffling along with politically charged folk songs. His songs tore into Michael Gove, celebrated ‘Bob Crow was a union man’ and asked ‘make the rich pay, why not?’

“Who was that man? His name was Michael Gove” #corbynrally https://t.co/YoyQs5gibe — Sebastian Payne (@SebastianEPayne) August 22, 2015

The next act was Ian Salville, the so-called ‘socialist magician’. His act consisted of two main tricks/jokes, one about quantitative easing and money disappearing (it was not particularly amusing). The other was about press smears: he ripped up a copy of the Guardian and reassembled it to read ‘vote Corbyn’ — probably the high point of his set.

The socialist magician makes a funny about quantitative easing and the banking crisis #corbynrally https://t.co/BlimnPUZev— Sebastian Payne (@SebastianEPayne) August 22, 2015

After the interval, the socialist rock band Thee Faction took to the stage. They describe themselves as a ‘socialist R&B’ combo, with songs about ‘fighting Mrs Thatcher’, disliking Ukip and of course, hating the Tories. There was a lovely ditty entitled ‘Bastards’ on the latter point:

“Bastards” – you can guess who this is about #corbynrally pic.twitter.com/uAaY6UJ0Qy — Sebastian Payne (@SebastianEPayne) August 21, 2015

In between the musical acts, Corbyn supporters came on stage to fill the gaps. One supporter from the West Country gained laughs by telling the audience ‘in the south west, Tories are like rats. You’re never more than 10ft away from one’. The man of the moment finally appeared at 10pm. Having dashed to Islington after recording Any Questions, Corbyn appeared exhilarated — not least because £13,000 had been raised from the event. There was nothing new in his speech: we’ve finally got an opportunity to change things, we’ll apologise for the Iraq war, we’ll fight the anti-migrant rhetoric, we need to close the gap between the richest and the poorest. Naturally, the crowd lapped it all up. And to conclude, such an evening wouldn’t be complete without a rendition of The Red Flag.

The Red Flag #corbynrally https://t.co/WgVnSJFvTn— Sebastian Payne (@SebastianEPayne) August 22, 2015

So, what did I learn from an evening in Corbynworld? The man himself was an impressive speaker — passionate and articulate, yet understated and warm. As Alex wrote yesterday, what Corbyn says is incredibly easy to pull apart so I won’t go into that. But witnessing the energy and buzz around his campaign, I can understand why Labour members want something different — especially compared to the staid campaigns of Andy Burnham and Yvette Cooper. Owen Jones said there was a national movement building around Corbyn. There is definitely a movement, but if the attendees in Islington are anything to judge by it is not mainstream or national. The audience broadly fell into two categories: white and grey haired, or young and trendy. The people and performances suggest Corbyn’s campaign is an extension of the People’s Assembly and the perennial protesters who occasionally clog up central London. There were few people from ethnic minorities present, nor many young professionals — politicians’ favourites — ‘ordinary families’. Last night’s rally confirmed in my mind that the rise of Corbyn is nothing fresh. It is about a lot of people choosing hearts over their heads, going for easy anti-Tory rhetoric over difficult decisions about getting into power. The movement is kept afloat by exhumed ideas given a new airing under the notion that austerity has failed. As fun as it all seemed, Labour should not underestimate the serious danger it is facing. Ordinary voters don’t want to hear angry songs about ‘bastards’ and magic tricks about QE. Corbyn will need a serious step change if he is elected leader in order to pack out rallies with the swing voters he needs to take Labour back into government.