Corbyn! – Dan lewis (@Think_Become) nails it!

Jeremy Corbyn’s election as leader of the Labour Party has been described as “an earthquake”. But what does it mean for the CWU’s young members – if anything?

Bootle Financial Services branch youth officer and regular blogger Dan Lewis (@Think_Become) offers his view – very timely as Mr Corbyn will address the TUC Congress this afternoon!

Dan writes:

“So I closed the live stream, packed my bag and got in a taxi starting my journey to TUC Congress 2015 after celebrating the win of Mr Jeremy Corbyn MP being elected leader of The Labour Party.

The taxi driver commented on our high spirits thinking we were excited over Everton scoring against Chelsea, we laughed. I said “She’s a Red (Liverpool fan) and I’m a Hammer (West Ham), we’ve just been watching the Labour leadership result and the two candidates we were backing for deputy and leader won!”. The driver laughed and explained that he doesn’t do’ politics and they’re all the same’which as you probably think and have heard a million others say throughout this year. I assured the driver that the new leaders are so different to the other politicians. He went on to ask about what this Corbyn will do about refugees, so expecting there may be some hostility I gave him Corbyn’s view and how we should be treating these people to which he agreed. “And what about those ones from our country who are just sponging off benefits, because there’s more of them then there are refugees draining the benefits off soft jonny English” I laughed and explained, I think Jeremy is more concerned about the corporate beasts draining our economy by not paying tax and the amount of money being wasted on nuclear weapons that we don’t use while we have an NHS that has a budget gap as big as the amount we spend annually on weapons and wars for oil. The driver was happily impressed and said he believes us that this is not another well groomed Westminster elitist.

We arrived in the train station and I saw a green activist I’ve met at demonstrations before on his way to a demo and festival in Wigan, excited about the result he straight away said, “I think we’ve got the right guy in the Labour Party today!” to which I agreed and asked if he might consider joining the party. I couldn’t believe my ears when he said he’s actually thinking about it!

My phone didn’t stop flashing since the result was announced with people messaging about their happiness and how they want to campaign more and even join or re-join the party!

George Osborne believes he will be a threat to the safety of our country, Tony Blair says his supporters (251,417 in particular) need heart transplants, Jamie Reed MP believes Jeremy’s opposition to nuclear weapons is “poorly informed and fundamentally wrong” and so may more past and present politicians and political commentators have had so much to say against Corbyn’s campaign while we proved we weren’t going to pay attention.

What is this, a revolution? A movement? A rebellion? In my eyes, it’s the voice of the people saying, “we believe in this guy”.

Since I can remember in politics, politicians have all had a well-oiled, out-of-touch, douchebag look about them. There are some exceptions as I’ve mentioned before, but overall we haven’t had someone leading a party that really reflected the views of the people around us on the night bus travelling home. Then our boy Jez stepped up and ran for leader, while still catching the night bus and riding his bike through London, not just for photos to go in the papers but because thats how this guy gets about, like the rest of us. From the hood men riding to get to the chicken shop to the hipsters cruising to the fair trade, organic, vegetarian supermarket in Dalston, Jeremy doesn’t look silly on a bike like Boris, he doesn’t even roll deep with a crew of advisors in a limo behind him the guy is REAL!

I campaigned tirelessly in this year’s general election and supported Ed in a lot of what he did even though I didn’t agree with his comments and policy on immigration or drug laws and most of all the minimum wage, I remember saying to Douglas Alexander in a union meeting that I really don’t understand how the real party of working people believed £8 by 2020 would be enough, I suppose they got their eye wiped with Osborne’s budget on that one though. Even though I disagreed I fought for the best option we had in that election and I will always do my best to support the Labour movement but I can’t argue with people when they say they don’t see a massive difference in the candidates when we offer a manifesto that doesn’t actually give a real opposite to the tory’s plans. If the tories can mirror our policies and we’re still going to offer austerity 0.5′ as an opposition to their austerity 1.0′ then they have a point. I’ll debate and explain to the day’s end over how within the Labour movement we have an advantage of proper democracy and a strong influence through unions and other affiliated organisations to make a difference in party policies but now we have a real opposition. A real chance to campaign against this government, prove that trickle down economics don’t work and keep building on over 100 years of a party that really does stand for the working men and women of the United Kingdom.

We’ve just come out of a general election where people would rather not register to vote and just let it be, thats how disillusioned people were with politics. The Labour Party spent a lot of time talking about why they didn’t do well enough, what caused them to lose so many seats, but it felt like they just couldn’t understand that there wasn’t enough opposition in our policies or even how our representatives behave in Parliament. There are Labour MP’s who receive funding and gifts from the likes of Murdoch, Weapon Companies, Medical Companies and other individuals and groups who really have one interest, their profit and business. While this is happening Labour MP’s were scared to take money from unions, not actually wanting to talk about immigration because they weren’t sure what the party line was on it and could often not hold themselves well in interviews or on Question Time.

If you believe that we can do better in this nation, that our Government can turn to peace talks before military action, that we can support the poorest in our society, that we can keep building the best health service in the world, that we can operate the best railways in the world, that we can become the a nation that creates enough renewable energy that we start selling it to other countries then right now is your chance to get involved. Join the Labour Party, get in contact with your local party representatives and get active. If they aren’t already active in your community become a member of your constituency who is pushing for that activity to begin. If you really want an alternative to the tories that can win in 2020 then we need to be present on the high street, in community centres and in food banks. Labour doesn’t win with a few bill boards and good adverts, Labour wins because Labour people are active in their communities and making a real difference to the people around them.

At the same time, we need to support an open mind to policies, no personal attacks on politicians but on their policies and activities in Parliament. We need to be working on actively campaigning against the policies of this Tory led Government like the Trade Union Bill which will potentially bankrupt the Labour Party let alone squeeze the democratic rights of unions out of their hands. The Welfare Reform Bill will be coming back into Parliament soon and we need to make sure we don’t let what happened last time happen again.

Politics shouldn’t be left to the politicians because we live in the world where the decisions made have an impact.

In Jeremy, we have a leader that will put our ideas into policies and lead a party that goes in the direction of what the members want. For example, this week Jeremy is giving you the chance to ask Cameron a question in Prime Minister’s Questions.

Don’t believe we can’t succeed, they said we couldn’t create a political party in the 1800’s, they said Jeremy wouldn’t win the leadership, lets keep proving THEM wrong”