The sight of Jeremy Corbyn singing “The Red Flag” on the September day he was elected Labour leader was bad news for anyone who hopes to see the party connecting with the masses any time soon. Having set himself apart with a song that has no connection to the wider population and, for many, links to the horrors of totalitarianism, he followed this up by not singing the national anthem at a Battle of Britain memorial service at St Paul’s Cathedral. The wider belief that Labour is in some way anti-British was reinforced. The irony is that most socialist policies are inherently patriotic, but there are ghosts in the Labour machine and they have been haunting the party for generations.
Corbyn is a decent man, part of a maverick English Labour tradition that includes Michael Foot, Tony Benn and perhaps Ed Miliband, but all four of them are metropolitan intellectuals who could never or never will understand why so many ordinary people are passionate about their country. Patriotism is a dirty word for those of an internationalist persuasion, which means they remain out of tune with much of the electorate. Like Nicola Sturgeon and Nigel Farage, Corbyn says most of what he believes, and this is an attractive quality. He will naturally draw people to him, but the wider electorate wants something more. Songs, gestures and symbols matter, and Labour’s iconography is all wrong.
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