A timely and provocative account of the fall of New Labour, the rise of Corbyn, and what it means for the left in Britain and the wider Western world. Since the financial crisis of 2008 the political left across the Western world has lurched from disaster to catastrophe and back again. Western politics, newly bisected by renewed forces of nationalism, appeared increasingly to be played out on the right side of the political spectrum alone.In Britain, the decline of the left seemed at its most chronic. A Conservative party resurgent, a far-left take over, an apparently fateful general election on the horizon, Brexit tearing its electoral coalition asunder. The party seemed to be withering around the two new axes of British politics introduced by two referenda: Scottish independence and Brexit. Labour seemed destined for long term irrelevance.And then it all changed. Far from being ground zero of the Leftist disease, at one fell stroke the general election of 2017 provided Labour with a tonic which heralded its unexpected and strange rebirth. Against all the odds, Jeremy Corbyn became the first Labour leader since Tony Blair in 1997 to gain the party seats. In what will surely become known as the heroic defeat of 2017, the party seemed to be the first in the Western world to turn the tide.In Left for Dead? political journalist Lewis Goodall traces the journey of the British and wider Western left from the twilight of the ‘Third Way' to the tumult of the financial crisis to Brexit and Trump and now, to Corbynism. Because one thing is for certain – while the left might not be dead, the traditional social democratic centre-left which we have known since the war is barely twitching in the road. But what has replaced it? Where has it come from? And what does it mean for the long-term future of Labour?
