Why are quite a few Labour supporters complaining about Corbyn?

With his plain and pious words about peace, equality, disarmament and solidarity, and his devout, priestly demeanour, it’s no wonder Labour leadership hopeful Jeremy Corbyn cuts something of a messianic figure. Whereas that buffoonish demagogue Russell Brand only looks like Jesus Christ, our evidently sincere JC does have more of the aura of an earthly saviour, a man many entrust to perform miracles. Yet, as experience tells us, devotional fervour can easily tip over into hysteria.

This week, Alastair Campbell said that the current eruption of ‘Corbynmania’ was akin to ‘what happened when Diana died’. Worse still, popular delirium can foster a herd mentality that leads to the persecution of dissenters and opponents. This is especially the case when a movement’s mentality is half-detached from reality. Protecting benefits, ending austerity, raising taxes on the wealthiest, abolishing university tuition fees, reopening coal mines: Corbynomics is basically the equivalent of saying ‘wouldn’t it be great if all this Monopoly money was free?’.

On Tuesday, Rachel Sylvester of The Time remarked on ‘the online Corbynite bullies who describe the supporters of other candidates as “fascists”’. This doesn’t surprise me. Twitter and the comments section of the Guardian confirm Sylvester’s observation. And as a Guardian profile of Corbyn noted this week: ‘Labour’s grief-fuelled madness [represents an] angry backlash at the party leadership for the mistakes of Blairism’; and Corbyn’s creed of Bennite socialism represents the ‘long overdue awakening by the true keepers of Labour’s soul’.

The Corbynite movement’s heady cocktail of mesmeric utopianism and intemperate self-righteousness against the evil, selfish Tories and impure Labour apostates is borne out of a sense of grievance. And no one does sanctimonious fury better than resentful, self-styled victims – of capitalism, globalisation, privatisation and David Cameron and his rich Etonian pals and chums in the City.

In this respect Corbyn (who by all accounts is a pleasant man) is a successor to that bellowing clown George Galloway – a man who neatly combines plenty of pleasing anti-military, pro-equality platitudes with obnoxious behaviour and dubious remarks about Israelis. The Corbynistas are comparable to the Socialist Workers’ Party or the Scottish National Party, organisations that tick all the nice, obligatory leftwing boxes, yet whose shouty hardcore are likewise renowned for their bullying and hooliganism.

This mindset also afflicts today’s pietistical, aggrieved feminists, who not only want to censor anything that might further belittle their poor old selves, but also who are especially antagonistic towards women who dissent from their belief in ‘everyday sexism’. And it’s no coincidence that the most hideously intolerant and violent of all these groupings, the Islamists, are also those who have nurtured the most monstrous sense of self-pity and injustice - against the West, women and those two successful states, the USA and Israel. They also possess the strongest beliefs and a sense of unshakeable righteousness. To paraphrase Yeats, the worst types are always full of passionate intensity. And the best lack all conviction. The paradoxical thing is that in politics, you barely ever get any of this belligerent carry-on from traditional conservatives, those supposed ogres who are meant to be horrid and uncaring. This is because traditional conservatives are pragmatists and empiricists who aren’t spurred on or shackled by ideology (as opposed to neocons, neoliberals and right-wing libertarians, who are ideologues). Conservatives don’t become enraged when people don’t adhere to their dogma or fit into their vision of the world - because they are free from dogma and ideology in the first place. Appreciating, too, that humans are flawed and that life can just be unfair sometimes, they are also not given to a sense of victimhood.

The more idealistic and the more conspicuously compassionate is a voter, the more unpleasant and intolerant he or she is likely to be. As Nietzsche – that arch-idealist – wrote in Thus Spoke Zarathustra (1883): ‘Alas, where in the world have there been greater follies than with the compassionate? And what in the world has caused more suffering than the follies of the compassionate?’ We should forever beware the believers and braggarts who loudly profess to care.

Interesting critique if anyone has the patience to read it.

Labour is a Socialist party, Corbyn is a Socialist, hence he would be your perfect leader.

He is left wing, majority(if not all) of Labour supporters have a left wing viewpoint, hence you can relate to him politically.

He represents every reason you vote for Labour- pro immigration, pro welfare, pro EU integration, pro nationalisation, anti-student fees, anti-Israel, pro borrowing, pro unions, pro increasing state payouts, anti-privatisation, pro increasing top rate of tax exponentially, anti-trident, heck he is even friends with the SNP in the political sense.

His economic and social outlook is what Labour voters strive for.

So Labour voters why are you complaining?

Interesting critique if anyone has the patience to read it.

Interesting critique if anyone has the patience to read it.

He represents every reason you vote for Labour- pro immigration, pro welfare, pro EU integration, pro nationalisation, anti-student fees, anti-Israel, pro borrowing, pro unions, pro increasing state payouts, anti-privatisation, pro increasing top rate of tax exponentially, anti-trident, heck he is even friends with the SNP in the political sense.

The bits in bold are the reason I don't like him, despite being Labour.

I find it hard to believe you to be a Labour supporter but find those policies dis-heartening, am I right in believing you associated with lib dems in the past? Also out of curiosity how do other labour supporters you know feel in regards to the Corbyn policies?

You must have me confused with someone else, not once have I associated with Lib Dems.

BiB, I see what you mean, I guess the best way to describe my politics would be "left wing but patriotic".

I see, I rarely meet people who are left wing but put the interests of Britain first.

Well, there's at least one 8)

Also I know a few labour members who support trident and are pro Israel - Britain got nukes under Attlee who also set up trident- he'd be rolling in his grave at the thought of Corbyn winning.