Richard Jobson
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Back to the past?
Labour’s return to opposition, 2010 to the present
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This chapter examines Labour’s return to opposition after the 2010 General Election. It argues that, within the party, the period since 2010 has witnessed a nostalgic resurgence. When compared to the New Labour era, elite discourses have become less hostile to nostalgia. To varying degrees, all of the candidates in the 2010 leadership contest articulated memories associated with the party’s nostalgia-identity. Under Ed Miliband’s leadership, intraparty groups and movements that exhibited a sentimental attachment to the past grew in strength. Following Labour’s 2015 election defeat, Jeremy Corbyn obtained and consolidated his status as party leader by making nostalgic appeals to the past that resonated with party members. Within Labour, Corbyn’s political opponents have largely been forced onto his nostalgic terrain. Therefore, this chapter concludes by suggesting that, far from representing a ‘new kind of politics’, Corbynism represents an acute political manifestation of Labour’s historically orientated identity.

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