The 2016 Brexit vote has focused minds on the recalibration of our social politics, but the leftward economic shift of the Establishment, who are in some ways following the public, is less commented on. Indeed, while the Brexit vote explained the Conservatives’ rise in the Midlands and the North in the 2017 General Election, it was the popularity of Corbynomics which propelled Labour to near parity with the Conservatives two years ago – a spectre which haunts this election.

The figure of Corbyn obscures the fact that Labour’s economic statism and red-in-claw socialism is popular and has been for some time. A recent YouGov poll indicates that the unpopular Labour leader, with the worst opposition leader ratings of all time, has a manifesto whose contents, when polled, have majority support across the board.

Survey after survey, and vox pop and after vox pop indicates that the British public are tired of austerity, tired of a battered and shabby public realm and now fully support better funding for public services, and more investment — even if this means higher taxes. The 2019 party manifestos reflect this new normal, with the Tories committed only to modest spending and tax rises, with Labour committed to shifting the country’s economics to the far Left.

UnHerd has commissioned polling which indicates that only 30% of the public agree that “Tax rates for high earners should be minimised to keep the UK competitive”, with 42% actively disagreeing with this statement. In terms of electoral geography, FocalData has estimated that only 22 of Britain’s 632 parliamentary constituencies have more people than not committed to tax competitiveness. Indeed those high spending manifestos are a reflection of these sentiments.

Of the 22 seats that support minimising tax on high earners, 17 are in London – including, somewhat ironically, the constituencies of Jeremy Corbyn and Emily Thornberry; yet another issue on which the capital finds itself out of step with the rest of the country. In fact, it’s easy to assess how likely an area is to support minimising the tax burden on the richest simply looking at how high house prices and average wages are in a constituency.

Just as interesting, though, is people’s perception vs reality on where the tax burden in this country really lies. The Government’s own data suggests that the Top 1% pay a staggering 30% of all tax, while taking only 13% of income. Tax change after tax change has shrunk the tax base, and while the many may want the few to pay a bit more, what happens if the 1% decide, in a world of global capital and free movement, that they don’t fancy paying for 1/3 of all Britain’s public services. We may be about to find out…

Source: HMRC

Few, however, have taken Corbynism seriously as an intellectual movement. Fewer still have done so from a point of view that is, by temperament, broadly sympathetic. Yet this is what two young academics, Matt Bolton and Frederick Harry Pitts, have done in a new book which seeks to take “Corbynism seriously and critically as a semi-coherent set of ideas”. In Corbynism: A Critical Approach they have produced the most thorough and alarming overview of the Corbyn worldview to date.

In contrast to some of the headlines which usually accompany stories about a future Corbyn government, Bolton’s and Pitts’ first contention is that Corbynism is not as radical at it seems. Instead the Corbyn movement reflects “wider societal, ideological and political-economic shifts that bring it closely in-step with an increasingly ‘post-liberal’ political environment”, as the authors put it.

They demonstrate that Corbyn’s populist division of the world into oppositional ‘us’ and ‘them’ camps has more in common with the politics of Donald Trump and Viktor Orbán than it does with the traditions of democratic socialism.

Suggested reading

Peterson, Corbyn and the rise of the kidult

By Jenny McCartney

Borrowing heavily from the baleful and half-baked ideas of populist theorist Chantel Mouffe – as well as from the Nazi jurist Carl Schmitt – Corbynism’s division of the world into ‘friends’ and ‘enemies’ requires regular heresy hunts in order to sustain itself.

Moreover, capitalism itself is viewed not as a material system of production, but rather as an unfolding moral-religious story in which one side – the ‘99%’, the working class, the ‘oppressed’ – is regarded uncritically as innately ‘good’, while blame for society’s ills is placed squarely on the shoulders of ‘them’ – the bankers, the ‘1%’, and in the darker reaches of the Corbyn movement, a sinister cabal of wealthy Jews.

As we have discovered over the past three-and-a-half years, this deeply personalised interpretation of capitalism easily lends itself to conspiracy theories about the malevolence of particular groups and individuals. Once this group of permanent outsiders is required to define an ideology, the search for enemies continues without end. As populist governments around the world have demonstrated, the triumph over one adversary invariably necessitates the creation of another, as well as the never-ending expansion of categories such as ‘fascist’ to include anyone with whom the party or movement disagrees.

Perhaps the most interesting part of this fascinating book is contained in its erudite attack on Corbynomics. Corbynism as an intellectual movement is built on several key planks. As the authors note, it is first and foremost the reheated ‘socialism in one country’ that was a hallmark of Tony Benn’s Alternative Economic Strategy of 1975. It also rests on a personalised understanding of capitalism inspired by the late socialist theoretician Ralph Miliband.

Suggested reading

How Corbynomics is winning over Britain

By Matt Goodwin

In this reading of Labour Party history, the failure on the part of Labour politicians such as Harold Wilson, Jim Callaghan and Tony Blair to usher in socialism was seen by Miliband not as a result of the power of global capitalism, but as a consequence of (in Miliband’s words) the personal “failures, derelictions and betrayals” of these politicians. In addition, Corbynism is inspired by the ludicrously determinist post-capitalist fantasies around full automation promoted by a new generation of media-savvy pundits such as Aaron Bastani.

It is the first of these – the equation of economic nationalism with socialism – that is behind Corbyn’s apparent ambivalence towards a hard Brexit. Little attempt is made within the increasingly influential ‘Lexit’ movement to understand the global nature of capitalism. Instead, and in common with Blue Labour, delusions abound as to the power of a single nation state to hold-out against the immense power of global capital. Yet “capital,” as the authors put it, “will win out” – just as surely as night follows day.

Were a Corbyn government to come to power and implement its desired programme – which in practice would resemble the recent ‘Alternative Models of Ownership’ paper more than its watered-down 2017 manifesto – a “recklessly deluded” protectionist agenda could well result in a beggar-thy-neighbour, 1930s-style trade war should other countries choose to pursue a similarly nationalistic economic path.

Suggested reading

Corbyn is natural response to Blair's political and personal failings

By Douglas Murray

As for fantasies of workers’ control of industry favoured by more democratically-minded sections of the far-Left, under this contemporary incarnation of Bennism production would remain within constraints set by the state. As Bolton and Pitts put it: “If workers refuse to adhere to the ‘needs of the nation,’ the state must ensure that they do”.

The trade unions, vocally supportive of Corbyn in opposition, would potentially be neutered and reduced to mere arms of the state under a Corbyn-led government, just as they are in favoured Corbynista despotisms such as Cuba. In other words, workers would gain no more freedom than they currently possess under capitalism. And they are likely to suffer even greater privations if the raft of protectionist measures favoured by the Lexiteers around Corbyn are put into practice.

At a time when it has become fashionable in socialist and communist circles to portray liberalism as little more than the handmaiden of fascism, Bolton and Pitts’ book offers a refreshing defence of liberal democracy from the Left. Too short-sighted to recognise that socialism and social democracy are built on the freedoms set down by liberalism, and too mired in the logic of identity politics to articulate a vision in which what a person thinks and says is more important than the tribe they belong to, competing tendencies within the Labour Party “luxuriate in the flames licking at the sides of liberal society,” the authors write.

These competing tendencies – in particular Corbynism and Blue Labour – hope to ride the ascendant wave of anti-liberalism for electoral gain. In this they are unwittingly aiding and abetting the very nationalist forces that – in a familiar story – will turn their sights on the workers’ movement once the formal niceties and civility of liberal democracy have been dispensed with.

More from this author

Why liberal-Left paternalism led to Brexit

By James Bloodworth

There is something profoundly disturbing taking place in politics across the globe and Corbynism should, in my view, be seen as another morbid symptom of it rather than its putative solution. As orthodox religion fades away in the developed world, it has been replaced by a Manichean style of politics that retains the moral fervour of its progenitor, as well as its teleological faith in progress.

Heretics are regularly uncovered and cast out of what the academic David Hirsh has called the “community of the good”. Instead of fearing each new political crisis, competing sets of true believers try to outdo each other in cheering on our steady descent into the abyss – a process they believe will hasten our arrival at the promised land.

Corbynism: A Critical Approach, is the best book on the phenomenon of Corbynism by some distance because it slots the movement firmly within this camp of moralising and intolerant populism. In doing so it ought to free up space on the broader Left for a more critical approach to the Corbyn project, not least because it is written by two activists who have by their own admission long-yearned for “the Left to take the reins”.

This is probably something of a forlorn hope to be sure. Many prominent Left-wing journalists long-ago abandoned any pretence to truth-telling in their adherence to the Labour Party line. Nevertheless books like this are valuable because they will stand as exemplars of clear thinking and objectivity, long after the career-ideologues have been swept away and child-like adoration of ‘Jezza’ has subsided.

That is especially true today, after two moments have pushed Corbyn closer to Number 10 Downing Street. The first was in July 2018, when Prime Minister Theresa May unveiled her ‘Chequers Brexit’. In the days that followed, the Conservative Party’s share of the vote tumbled from the low 40s into the mid-30s as disillusioned Conservative Leavers, angry with a perceived betrayal on Brexit, decamped to Ukip which even in the absence of Nigel Farage saw its poll ratings double. This handed a Corbyn a healthy lead of 5 points, more than the margin of error and more than enough to take Number 10. In the 14 opinion polls that followed Chequers, the Tories led in just one.

The Conservatives subsequently recovered, but only as people’s summer holidays and general confusion over the direction of Brexit temporarily knocked the issue onto the back seat.

By the same author

Can social democracy survive?

By Matthew Goodwin

But then came the second moment, which is what we are living through now. Once again, after May set out the detail of her draft Brexit deal, Conservative voters were asked to focus on what was on offer. The result? Support for the Conservative Party dropped back into the mid-30s, Labour took the lead and support for Ukip bounced. Amid an incredibly polarised country and a tight race, the Conservative Party simply cannot afford a challenger on their Right-wing flank appealing to nearly one in 12 voters.

These moments reflect something deeper, that Theresa May’s Conservative electorate differs in important ways from that which followed David Cameron. It is more working-class, more pro-Brexit, more anti-immigration and contains fewer graduates. These voters are more purple than true blue, more instinctively socially conservative than socially liberal, and more supportive of economic interventionism than free-trade Thatcherism.

All this is a legacy of “Timothyism”; Theresa May’s former advisor Nick Timothy’s quest to win back Ukip voters while also regaining the trust of traditional Conservatives. The strategy, however, was only partly successful. Ukip was neutralised, but Prime Minister May was handed more fiercely pro-Brexit followers, voters who are used to abandoning the political mainstream to get what they want and who have thus left her with less room for manoeuvre.

All this bodes well for Corbyn. Even if the Conservatives manage to fend off a Ukip 2.0, they may yet find themselves confronted by a far more formidable opponent: apathy. With Leavers concluding that they have been betrayed by the Brexit deal and drifting into abstention, crunch marginal seats could easily fall into Labour hands.

By the same author

What the populists get right

By Matthew Goodwin

There are many Conservatives who still argue that this won’t happen; that the idea of Prime Minister Corbyn is for the birds, that those who voted for him in 2017 did so precisely because they didn’t think he would win, and that once voters get a proper look at the man they will pull back. But none of this is particularly convincing.

Certainly, Corbyn has weaknesses. He remains deeply divisive, both among his fellow Labour MPs and fellow citizens. Much of middle England, like the media, approach him with suspicion. When it comes to the triad of faith, family and flag, many are unsure of where his heart really lies. And this explains why his leadership ratings remain poor. Even today, amid the Brexit shambles, when voters are asked who they think would make the “best Prime Minister“, Corbyn finishes in a distant third, 14 points behind Prime Minister May and 16 points behind a mysterious figure called “Not Sure”. Corbyn has been at the forefront of our politics now for more than two years yet still only one in four back him for the top job.

Yet one key lesson to take from the Brexit and Trump revolts is that you do not need solid leadership ratings to affect radical change. An emotionally resonant message (Take Back Control… Make America Great Again… For the Many Not the Few) can be just as powerful as a charismatic leader.

We are also at a stage in British politics when Corbyn’s weaknesses are ‘priced in’; people have had him in their living rooms throughout an entire general election campaign and today Labour is still hovering around the 40% mark. Furthermore, work by the British Election Study shows that contrary to conventional wisdom it was precisely those people who expected Labour to win who were the most likely to vote Labour.

Suggested reading

Labour’s conspiracy of silence on immigration

By Paul Embery

But there are other, good reasons to argue why the fundamentals favour Corbyn. When you focus too much on the man you lose sight of his message. And it is the message, ‘Corbynomics’, which is cutting through. So to make sense of Corbyn’s appeal we need to step back to consider the wider landscape.

Most voters do not tune into the daily humdrum of politics, as underlined by the fact that until very recently nearly one in two Brits had never even heard of the customs union or if they had heard of it they openly said that they didn’t know anything about it. But while voters avoid the detail they do pick up on the general ‘noise’. And consider some of the noise in recent years; the Panama Papers; austerity and bankrupt councils; Carillion; obscene levels of pay for executives; the cost of rail tickets rising faster than wages; the rail timetable fiasco; the BHS pension fund scandal; widespread tax avoidance by Amazon, Google and Starbucks; rising inequality; and ex-politicians landing one lucrative job after another (witness Nick Clegg joining Facebook).

And on top of that big pile we can throw a divided Conservative Party, a divided Cabinet, the dismal handling of the Brexit negotiations and an incumbent Government that is saying almost nothing at all about domestic issues.

Suggested reading

Can Zuckerberg control his monster?

By Ian Birrell

Now, consider Corbynonomics. Labour will “stop the system being rigged”, “invest wealth to give everyone the best chance”, nationalise water companies, re-nationalise rail, regain control of energy networks, reverse the privatisation of Royal Mail, re-introduce a 50p rate of tax on those who earn above £123,000 per year, an income tax rate of 45p on £80,000 and above, increase corporation taxes, introduce an excessive pay levy, and reserve one third of places in company boardrooms for workers. All of this is couched in fervent opposition to austerity and that diffuse, yet potent, pledge to defend the many against the few.

Corbyn’s economic radicalism would already have appealed to large numbers of voters but today it is coinciding with a decisive shift in the wider climate of British politics. Support for raising taxes in order to spend more on public services has just hit a 15-year high. As the National Centre for Social Research points out, 60% of people want to increase taxes so as to spend more on health, education and social benefits, the highest since 2002. This is sharply up on the 49% in 2016, or the 31% when David Cameron came to power in 2010.

It is no surprise that most Labour voters want to see these increases. But what is striking is that so too do more than half of Conservative voters (53%). Thatcherites or passionate libertarians would do well to reflect on the fact that, today, fewer than one out of every 20 voters want taxes and spending to fall.

Suggested reading

Brexit voters weren't duped by propaganda

By Paul Embery

Ever since the vote for Brexit we have heard much about Eurosceptic Conservatives wanting to turn Britain into a low-tax, low-regulation ‘Singapore-on-Thames’. I do not see much support for this. On the contrary, I see voters who are fed up with austerity and lots of more blue-collar Conservative voters who are looking for the state to stand up and protect them, not roll back regulation and unleash the free market.

There is widespread sympathy for Corbyn’s claim that the current economic settlement (if not economic globalisation more generally) is not working, that government needs to do far more for the many and much less for the few. While Corbyn did not create this shift, he is the main beneficiary. In 2014, before Corbyn’s rise, YouGov asked voters to choose between prioritising increasing wealth even it meant that distribution was less equal or prioritising a more equal distribution even if this meant that wealth was lower. Nearly six in 10 backed a more equal distribution over wealth, while even Conservative voters were divided down the middle. We have spent a great deal of time since the 2016 referendum wondering whether voters opted to make themselves poorer while losing sight of the fact that many people would happily be less well-off if it meant that society overall was more equal.

Corbyn is also tapping into a wider mood when voicing criticism of unregulated global markets and unfettered economic globalisation. The Blairite narrative was that there is a bullet train called globalisation, which is flying at 600 kilometres per hour and is impossible to get off. But this was never particularly convincing, as we discovered at the 2016 referendum. Many voters are more than willing to try and get off, or at least grab the controls. And most of them are increasingly sceptical of the destination. For instance, the Eurobarometer survey tells us that whereas more than half of British voters think positively about globalisation, and see it as an opportunity for growth, more than half also see it as a “threat to employment and domestic companies”, and worry that it is fuelling social inequalities. They accept that it is necessary but they also worry intensely about how it is changing society and apparently for the worse.

Suggested reading

The economic rationalists don't get the immigration debate

By Ben Cobley

In fact, at least on the economy, most voters instinctively lean toward Corbynomics and away from the Conservatives. Last year, the Legatum Institute found that when you present voters with a range of paired statements they generally leaned toward a protectionist and anti-free market position; most support capping the pay of senior executives, think that profit should only be one consideration among many, that government needs to do more to regulate how businesses behave, that businesses and government need to work more closely together, that some businesses are making so much profit that it can no longer be justified, and that companies have a responsibility to put their workers on company boards.

Indeed, when you look at the numbers you soon realise why Corbyn’s pledge earlier this year to ensure that workers are given a voice in company boardrooms is a no-brainer. In some polls, this is endorsed by 54% of all voters, climbing to 70% of Labour voters and is also backed by a plurality of Conservatives (39% support, 34% oppose, the rest are undecided).

Corbyn can also spend the next few years kicking ball after ball into an open goal. One such issue is nationalisation. Between 53 and 65% of voters support the nationalisation or renationalisation of energy and water providers, rail networks and Royal Mail, although in some polls the figures are much higher. Labour voters are more supportive but Tories are usually not that far behind; one recent survey found that 53% of Tories want Royal Mail back in public hands, 43% want the same for rail and 42% for water, although others have found that more than one in two Tories back the renationalisation of rail.

Suggested reading

Why do the elites despise the 'aspidistra class'?

By Graeme Archer

When you see, as you do in the British Election Study, seven in 10 people saying “private companies running public services has gone too far or much too far” you begin to grasp the appeal of Corbynomics, even if Labour is evasive on how all of this will be paid for. And as we learned at the 2016 referendum, voters are perfectly willing to roll the dice for a new settlement even if the implications of their decision are never really set out.

When my middle-class friends in leafy Conservative commuter towns travel into London on packed, expensive and irregular trains and say “maybe Corbyn has a point” you know that his case for nationalisation is cutting through. The potency of nationalisation flows from the fact that it builds on people’s everyday life experiences. This opens the door to a much wider conversation about the economic settlement. If you agree with Corbyn that rail and water should be put back into public hands, then maybe you’ll stop and listen to what he has to say on corporate taxation or tax avoidance.

The problem for the Conservatives is that on many of these issues they appear to be saying nothing at all. This is why Corbyn’s strategists would do well to have their leader pictured each week amid crowds outside ticket-barriers in commuter towns and filmed talking to young families about their utility bills. It was 30-45 year olds not 18-24 year olds who swung hardest for Corbyn in 2017. These are who I call the “Things Can Only Get Better Generation”; raised under New Labour, used to investment in public services and instinctively socially liberal but also intensely worried about the cost of child care today and mum and dad’s social care costs tomorrow.

While the issue of Brexit remains all-consuming, and Conservative MPs are unlikely to pave the way for a fresh general election, look below the surface and you can see how the fundamentals in British politics are slowly shifting behind Corbyn and Labour. Most voters are not looking for a post-Brexit Singapore-on-Thames.

They are looking for action to rebalance an economic settlement, which they feel has been taking ordinary people for a ride. And they are clearly willing to roll the dice on an alternative settlement. Corbyn is tapping into this mood, even if the man himself remains unpopular. The question facing those who seek to stop him getting to Number 10 is how will they respond?

That is especially true today, after two moments have pushed Corbyn closer to Number 10 Downing Street. The first was in July 2018, when Prime Minister Theresa May unveiled her ‘Chequers Brexit’. In the days that followed, the Conservative Party’s share of the vote tumbled from the low 40s into the mid-30s as disillusioned Conservative Leavers, angry with a perceived betrayal on Brexit, decamped to Ukip which even in the absence of Nigel Farage saw its poll ratings double. This handed a Corbyn a healthy lead of 5 points, more than the margin of error and more than enough to take Number 10. In the 14 opinion polls that followed Chequers, the Tories led in just one.

The Conservatives subsequently recovered, but only as people’s summer holidays and general confusion over the direction of Brexit temporarily knocked the issue onto the back seat.

By the same author

Can social democracy survive?

By Matthew Goodwin

But then came the second moment, which is what we are living through now. Once again, after May set out the detail of her draft Brexit deal, Conservative voters were asked to focus on what was on offer. The result? Support for the Conservative Party dropped back into the mid-30s, Labour took the lead and support for Ukip bounced. Amid an incredibly polarised country and a tight race, the Conservative Party simply cannot afford a challenger on their Right-wing flank appealing to nearly one in 12 voters.

These moments reflect something deeper, that Theresa May’s Conservative electorate differs in important ways from that which followed David Cameron. It is more working-class, more pro-Brexit, more anti-immigration and contains fewer graduates. These voters are more purple than true blue, more instinctively socially conservative than socially liberal, and more supportive of economic interventionism than free-trade Thatcherism.

All this is a legacy of “Timothyism”; Theresa May’s former advisor Nick Timothy’s quest to win back Ukip voters while also regaining the trust of traditional Conservatives. The strategy, however, was only partly successful. Ukip was neutralised, but Prime Minister May was handed more fiercely pro-Brexit followers, voters who are used to abandoning the political mainstream to get what they want and who have thus left her with less room for manoeuvre.

All this bodes well for Corbyn. Even if the Conservatives manage to fend off a Ukip 2.0, they may yet find themselves confronted by a far more formidable opponent: apathy. With Leavers concluding that they have been betrayed by the Brexit deal and drifting into abstention, crunch marginal seats could easily fall into Labour hands.

By the same author

What the populists get right

By Matthew Goodwin

There are many Conservatives who still argue that this won’t happen; that the idea of Prime Minister Corbyn is for the birds, that those who voted for him in 2017 did so precisely because they didn’t think he would win, and that once voters get a proper look at the man they will pull back. But none of this is particularly convincing.

Certainly, Corbyn has weaknesses. He remains deeply divisive, both among his fellow Labour MPs and fellow citizens. Much of middle England, like the media, approach him with suspicion. When it comes to the triad of faith, family and flag, many are unsure of where his heart really lies. And this explains why his leadership ratings remain poor. Even today, amid the Brexit shambles, when voters are asked who they think would make the “best Prime Minister“, Corbyn finishes in a distant third, 14 points behind Prime Minister May and 16 points behind a mysterious figure called “Not Sure”. Corbyn has been at the forefront of our politics now for more than two years yet still only one in four back him for the top job.

Yet one key lesson to take from the Brexit and Trump revolts is that you do not need solid leadership ratings to affect radical change. An emotionally resonant message (Take Back Control… Make America Great Again… For the Many Not the Few) can be just as powerful as a charismatic leader.

We are also at a stage in British politics when Corbyn’s weaknesses are ‘priced in’; people have had him in their living rooms throughout an entire general election campaign and today Labour is still hovering around the 40% mark. Furthermore, work by the British Election Study shows that contrary to conventional wisdom it was precisely those people who expected Labour to win who were the most likely to vote Labour.

Suggested reading

Labour’s conspiracy of silence on immigration

By Paul Embery

But there are other, good reasons to argue why the fundamentals favour Corbyn. When you focus too much on the man you lose sight of his message. And it is the message, ‘Corbynomics’, which is cutting through. So to make sense of Corbyn’s appeal we need to step back to consider the wider landscape.

Most voters do not tune into the daily humdrum of politics, as underlined by the fact that until very recently nearly one in two Brits had never even heard of the customs union or if they had heard of it they openly said that they didn’t know anything about it. But while voters avoid the detail they do pick up on the general ‘noise’. And consider some of the noise in recent years; the Panama Papers; austerity and bankrupt councils; Carillion; obscene levels of pay for executives; the cost of rail tickets rising faster than wages; the rail timetable fiasco; the BHS pension fund scandal; widespread tax avoidance by Amazon, Google and Starbucks; rising inequality; and ex-politicians landing one lucrative job after another (witness Nick Clegg joining Facebook).

And on top of that big pile we can throw a divided Conservative Party, a divided Cabinet, the dismal handling of the Brexit negotiations and an incumbent Government that is saying almost nothing at all about domestic issues.

Suggested reading

Can Zuckerberg control his monster?

By Ian Birrell

Now, consider Corbynonomics. Labour will “stop the system being rigged”, “invest wealth to give everyone the best chance”, nationalise water companies, re-nationalise rail, regain control of energy networks, reverse the privatisation of Royal Mail, re-introduce a 50p rate of tax on those who earn above £123,000 per year, an income tax rate of 45p on £80,000 and above, increase corporation taxes, introduce an excessive pay levy, and reserve one third of places in company boardrooms for workers. All of this is couched in fervent opposition to austerity and that diffuse, yet potent, pledge to defend the many against the few.

Corbyn’s economic radicalism would already have appealed to large numbers of voters but today it is coinciding with a decisive shift in the wider climate of British politics. Support for raising taxes in order to spend more on public services has just hit a 15-year high. As the National Centre for Social Research points out, 60% of people want to increase taxes so as to spend more on health, education and social benefits, the highest since 2002. This is sharply up on the 49% in 2016, or the 31% when David Cameron came to power in 2010.

It is no surprise that most Labour voters want to see these increases. But what is striking is that so too do more than half of Conservative voters (53%). Thatcherites or passionate libertarians would do well to reflect on the fact that, today, fewer than one out of every 20 voters want taxes and spending to fall.

Suggested reading

Brexit voters weren't duped by propaganda

By Paul Embery

Ever since the vote for Brexit we have heard much about Eurosceptic Conservatives wanting to turn Britain into a low-tax, low-regulation ‘Singapore-on-Thames’. I do not see much support for this. On the contrary, I see voters who are fed up with austerity and lots of more blue-collar Conservative voters who are looking for the state to stand up and protect them, not roll back regulation and unleash the free market.

There is widespread sympathy for Corbyn’s claim that the current economic settlement (if not economic globalisation more generally) is not working, that government needs to do far more for the many and much less for the few. While Corbyn did not create this shift, he is the main beneficiary. In 2014, before Corbyn’s rise, YouGov asked voters to choose between prioritising increasing wealth even it meant that distribution was less equal or prioritising a more equal distribution even if this meant that wealth was lower. Nearly six in 10 backed a more equal distribution over wealth, while even Conservative voters were divided down the middle. We have spent a great deal of time since the 2016 referendum wondering whether voters opted to make themselves poorer while losing sight of the fact that many people would happily be less well-off if it meant that society overall was more equal.

Corbyn is also tapping into a wider mood when voicing criticism of unregulated global markets and unfettered economic globalisation. The Blairite narrative was that there is a bullet train called globalisation, which is flying at 600 kilometres per hour and is impossible to get off. But this was never particularly convincing, as we discovered at the 2016 referendum. Many voters are more than willing to try and get off, or at least grab the controls. And most of them are increasingly sceptical of the destination. For instance, the Eurobarometer survey tells us that whereas more than half of British voters think positively about globalisation, and see it as an opportunity for growth, more than half also see it as a “threat to employment and domestic companies”, and worry that it is fuelling social inequalities. They accept that it is necessary but they also worry intensely about how it is changing society and apparently for the worse.

Suggested reading

The economic rationalists don't get the immigration debate

By Ben Cobley

In fact, at least on the economy, most voters instinctively lean toward Corbynomics and away from the Conservatives. Last year, the Legatum Institute found that when you present voters with a range of paired statements they generally leaned toward a protectionist and anti-free market position; most support capping the pay of senior executives, think that profit should only be one consideration among many, that government needs to do more to regulate how businesses behave, that businesses and government need to work more closely together, that some businesses are making so much profit that it can no longer be justified, and that companies have a responsibility to put their workers on company boards.

Indeed, when you look at the numbers you soon realise why Corbyn’s pledge earlier this year to ensure that workers are given a voice in company boardrooms is a no-brainer. In some polls, this is endorsed by 54% of all voters, climbing to 70% of Labour voters and is also backed by a plurality of Conservatives (39% support, 34% oppose, the rest are undecided).

Corbyn can also spend the next few years kicking ball after ball into an open goal. One such issue is nationalisation. Between 53 and 65% of voters support the nationalisation or renationalisation of energy and water providers, rail networks and Royal Mail, although in some polls the figures are much higher. Labour voters are more supportive but Tories are usually not that far behind; one recent survey found that 53% of Tories want Royal Mail back in public hands, 43% want the same for rail and 42% for water, although others have found that more than one in two Tories back the renationalisation of rail.

Suggested reading

Why do the elites despise the 'aspidistra class'?

By Graeme Archer

When you see, as you do in the British Election Study, seven in 10 people saying “private companies running public services has gone too far or much too far” you begin to grasp the appeal of Corbynomics, even if Labour is evasive on how all of this will be paid for. And as we learned at the 2016 referendum, voters are perfectly willing to roll the dice for a new settlement even if the implications of their decision are never really set out.

When my middle-class friends in leafy Conservative commuter towns travel into London on packed, expensive and irregular trains and say “maybe Corbyn has a point” you know that his case for nationalisation is cutting through. The potency of nationalisation flows from the fact that it builds on people’s everyday life experiences. This opens the door to a much wider conversation about the economic settlement. If you agree with Corbyn that rail and water should be put back into public hands, then maybe you’ll stop and listen to what he has to say on corporate taxation or tax avoidance.

The problem for the Conservatives is that on many of these issues they appear to be saying nothing at all. This is why Corbyn’s strategists would do well to have their leader pictured each week amid crowds outside ticket-barriers in commuter towns and filmed talking to young families about their utility bills. It was 30-45 year olds not 18-24 year olds who swung hardest for Corbyn in 2017. These are who I call the “Things Can Only Get Better Generation”; raised under New Labour, used to investment in public services and instinctively socially liberal but also intensely worried about the cost of child care today and mum and dad’s social care costs tomorrow.

While the issue of Brexit remains all-consuming, and Conservative MPs are unlikely to pave the way for a fresh general election, look below the surface and you can see how the fundamentals in British politics are slowly shifting behind Corbyn and Labour. Most voters are not looking for a post-Brexit Singapore-on-Thames.

They are looking for action to rebalance an economic settlement, which they feel has been taking ordinary people for a ride. And they are clearly willing to roll the dice on an alternative settlement. Corbyn is tapping into this mood, even if the man himself remains unpopular. The question facing those who seek to stop him getting to Number 10 is how will they respond?