This episode we’re talking about the 2017 British General Election, and the surprising performance of Jeremy Corbyn, and the British Labour Party. Our guest is Owen Worth, Senior Lecturer In International Relations at the University of Limerick, in Ireland. Owen specializes in the study of social movements, and has published a number of works on varieties of resistance to neoliberalism, from religious fundamentalism to more leftist expressions. On the day of the election, he had a piece published in the Irish Times, wherein he argued that Corbyn would likely do very well, as a result of the mobilization of large numbers of young “anti-establishment” voters in the UK.
In the interview, you’ll hear Owen refer to something called a War of position. This is a term drawn from the theories of Antonio Gramsci. In contrast with Gramsci’s notion of the “war of movement,” which refers more to the classic revolutionary strategy of trying to seize state power by direct assault, through armed insurrections, mass protest, strikes, and the like, the “war of position” is more about trying to catalyze new forms of social imagination, and encouraging new ideas to which we attach our consent. But what is the axis of those new ideas? In the following, you’ll hear Owen argue that the results of the election suggest British politics is in the process of being rearticulated around what might prove to be an unhealthy battleground, between young and old voters. We talk about the significance of the Corbyn result for Ireland, and the way his performance has been received by the Irish media.