Students have gifted Corbyn the Labour Leadership (by James Somper)

This article was originally published online by The Daily Telegraph on July 29th 2015 (http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/telegraph-student-writers/2015/07/29/students-have-gifted-corbyn-the-labour-leadership/)

 

With his ill-fitting beige shirt and matching jacket, Jeremy Corbyn could easily have been mistaken for a university lecturer when he took to the podium at the End Austerity Now rally in Parliament Square last month.

However, with the usual trenchant zeal that has made this political trooper such a maverick force in the race for the Labour leadership, he swiftly and ruthlessly set his axe to work on the government’s austerity programme.

Clearly at home among the arms of the student left, Corbyn received rapturous applause throughout his address, something that most of his colleagues in the building behind the stage would only find in the safe confines of a party conference.

Whether it be his advocacy for struggling union activists or armed revolutionaries, the Member of Parliament for Islington North has always positioned himself on the political periphery.

While his stance on issues such as Clause IV and nationalisation saw him ostracised among the echelons of New Labour, Corbyn’s dogmatic approach now sees him on the cusp of becoming leader of a party he has voted against nearly 500 times.

The target and effect of Corbyn’s message has been clear. A recent YouGov poll reported that Corbyn may well win the final round of the contest with 53% of the vote.

However, the notion that this success is solely attributable to support from far left groups and trade unions is a misnomer. One of his largest bases of support has derived from students, now able to vote for Corbyn under the new electoral participation rules introduced by Ed Miliband and Harriet Harman.

While the lack of participation of students and young people in British politics has been well documented, Corbyn’s campaign has become the welcome recipient of the deep rooted distrust and anger towards Westminster politics, by students now inflicted with debts potentially running beyond £50,000 by successive Labour, coalition and now Conservative governments.

Corbyn not only opposed the 1998 Teaching and Higher Education Act, which saw means tested tuition fees of up to £3,000 a year introduced, but also the 2010 heightening of tuition fees to £9,000 a year. Most recently, Corbyn has apologised to students for Labour's introduction of the fee system and declared George Osborne’s budget “brutal and anti-young”.

This vocalness on student related issues is a stark difference from the election manifestos of all three main parties this May, which were characterised by a focus on issues more salient to our mortgage-paying parents than those of a 2nd Year Undergraduate.

Even Ed Miliband, who pledged to reduce tuition fees from £9,000 to £6,000 a year, was still singing from the hymn sheet of austerity.

George Severs, President of the Royal Holloway Left Forum and a Labour Party member, suggested that Corbyn’s candidacy "has been helped greatly by students who were so grossly attacked by the economic policies of the previous government" and the political establishment as a whole.

The prospect of a Corbyn leadership has brought students who have been "disenfranchised by apathy and cynicism, into a political arena with the potential to effect real and meaningful change".

Whilst the majority of Conservatives are now watching the Labour leadership contest with gleeful relish, the student right has recognised the importance of Corbyn’s campaign.

Josh Boyle, campaigns officer at London University Conservatives, said: " [although] I think that Corbyn is a 70s throwback who'd be a disaster for the country as PM, I must admit he does seem to be popular.

"Talking to my friends in Labour, the Greens, and other parties, he does seem to be the one they're most excited about."

It is this popularity among a group previously sidelined that now sees this unassuming man from Chippenham as the favourite for the Labour leadership.

His politics may seem alien to the centre ground of our parent’s generation, but Jeremy Corbyn’s candidature will raise the prominence of issues salient to students on a national level.

In doing so, he may just reinvigorate the participation of young people in a political process that we feel so victimised by and alienated from. But first, let’s find him a shirt that fits.