Jeremy Corbyn's rapid ascent to the leadership of the Labour Party,
driven by a groundswell of popular support particularly among the young,
was met at the time by a baffled media. Just where did Jeremy Corbyn
come from? In Searching for Socialism, Leo Panitch and Colin Leys argue
that it is only by understanding Corbyn's roots in the Bennite Labour
New Left's long struggle to transcend the limits of 'parliamentary
socialism' and democratise the party, as a precondition for
democratising the state, can you understand his surge to become leader
of the party. Closely analyzing the forces inside the party aligned
against Corbyn's leadership, Panitch and Leys explain what happened
between the validation of the Corbyn project in the 2017 election, while
advancing an ambitious programme of democratic socialist measures
unmatched anywhere since the 1970s, and the electoral defeat amidst the
Brexit conjuncture of 2019.
They argue that while this defeat
marked the farthest point to which the generation formed in the 1970s
was able to carry the Labour new left project, it seems unlikely that
the new generation of activists will quickly see any other way forward
than continuing the struggle inside the Labour Party, so as to
fundamentally change it. In the face of the contradictions being
generated by twenty-first-century capitalism, and the need for
discovering and developing new political forms adequate to addressing
them, this book is required reading for democratic socialists, not just
in Britain but everywhere.
Searching for Socialism : The Project of the Labour New Left from Benn to Corbyn - Leo Panitch & Colin Leys
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£14.99