UK election: Explaining Jeremy Corbyn's shock performance for British Labour
ANALYSIS
By
Nick Rowley
Updated about an hour ago
PHOTO: Jeremy Corbyn's brand of leftist populism is seen as authentic. (AP: Yui Mok/PA)
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MAP: United KingdomThursday's British general election he is the one political figure who stands taller.
Jeremy Corbyn is the most unlikely of modern political leaders. His suits don't fit. He rides a bicycle. And in his spare time he enjoys growing vegetables in his North London allotment.
Since becoming an MP in 1983, he has gone from a young left wing firebrand railing against Margaret Thatcher, to an older man with a grey beard symbolising the "Old Left".
Not even his own Labour members of Parliament, the people who observe him on daily basis, like or trust him.
But in the aftermath of Thursday's British general election he is the one political figure who stands taller.
The Conservative Party, the Liberal Democrats and the Scottish National Party are all weakened. The Labour Party is stronger.
Mr Corbyn has taken the Labour proportion of the national vote to 40 per cent. That is higher than Tony Blair achieved in 2005.
Mr Corbyn's shock performance demonstrates his particular brand of leftist populism is seen as more authentic than the robotic sound bites ("strong and stable leadership"; "Brexit is Brexit") repeated by Theresa May.
He may not be slick, but people clearly see him as genuine.
How can this incongruous result be explained?
Media player: "Space" to play, "M" to mute, "left" and "right" to seek.
VIDEO: 'Go now' Jeremy Corbyn tells British PM May. (Photo: Reuters: Stefan Wermuth) (ABC News)
'The politics of the lectern'
Firstly, Ms May chose to run a Presidential campaign and justified the need for an election solely on her needing a mandate from the people.
She did this offering "strong and stable" leadership, yet the very act of going against her word not to call an election raised questions about her consistency.
People didn't really know her, yet they knew Mr Corbyn well enough (with all of his foibles). So, when the Conservatives focussed on attacking Mr Corbyn, they weren't telling the electorate anything it didn't already know.
Secondly, Mr Corbyn is more than a seasoned campaigner. His whole approach is one of the constant political campaign.
His is not the politics of trying to convince in private or build alliances amongst those less than convinced. His is the politics of the lectern, of the rally, speaking to his supporters about the matters he cares about most.
He doesn't need his lines written by campaign "gurus"; he's been delivering the same lines for the past 30 years.
Supporting the National Health Service; raising taxes on the rich; against the banks, or the media or whoever else he sees as the enemy of "the many": that ill-defined group of people that all populists claim to give voice to.
Corbyn's appeal to young people
And thirdly, he appears to have genuinely galvanised the young. For anyone under 40, the history of the failings of the post-war consensus before Thatcher mean nothing.
PHOTO: Jeremy Corbyn appears to have galvanised the young. (Reuters: Neil Hall)
The current privatised rail services seem bad, and no-one can remember what they were like when they were nationalised, so for many younger people, bringing them back into state ownership seems a fine idea.
Mr Corbyn's politics seems purposeful. Unlike Ms May, he seems genuinely comfortable in his own political skin.
Throughout the campaign he appears to have enjoyed himself, and in his apparently inoffensive, grandfatherly way, he has come across as more trustworthy.
The cabaret of British politics will continue for a good while yet.
Much as it is unclear who might be greeting Donald Trump in Downing Street later this year, it is certain who the leader of the British Labour will be.
An ascendant and emboldened Jeremy Corbyn.
Nick Rowley is a strategic policy consultant who worked as an advisor to Britain's former prime minister Tony Blair.
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