The limits of national security and foreign policy orthodoxy:Labour’s challenge to UK policy under Jeremy Corbyn

In this article, we explore how orthodox approaches to national security and foreign policy are reproduced. We do so through examining the leadership of the UK’s Labour Party by Jeremy Corbyn, who advanced a policy platform that would have seen considerable change to the UK’s approach to security. These policies provoked considerable backlash and contestation, and it is this contestation we explore. To do so, we draw on original interviews with Jeremy Corbyn alongside others who had significant knowledge of Labour’s international policy between 2015 and 2019, together with documentary analysis of manifestos and speeches. We analyse this case using neo-Gramscian theory, which draws attention to the hegemonic and ‘common sense’ character of UK security orthodoxy, and foregrounds the material and ideational mechanics of consensus reproduction. In doing so, we contribute to scholarship on the role of political parties and ideologies in national security and foreign policy, nuancing existing debates through analysing processes of consensus reproduction. Analysing this moment of security policy contestation, the article thus sheds light on the dynamics at play when policy orthodoxies are challenged by unconventional policy positions, the disciplinary techniques and actors that sustain security orthodoxies, and the possibilities for change in that moment of transgression.v