Boris Johnson’s Tories won a landslide victory in December’s British parliamentary election. The Labour Party under the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn suffered a collapse in support, losing seats deep into the party’s northern English heartlands. This result has Labour looking for a new leader and roiling with acrimony as it enters the new year. Political commentators around the world are drawing their own conclusions, which vary wildly from optimistic to catastrophic, for parties of the centre-left.

International lessons from Corbyn’s loss should be taken with a grain of salt. The Brexit upheaval in Britain is historic, and Johnson’s relatively clear stance on the issue is an element of his electoral success which cannot be replicated elsewhere. However, Corbyn’s economic policies are emblematic of the intellectual vacuum enveloping the contemporary left. British Labour and its sister parties elsewhere lack a clear progressive agenda. Unable to articulate a compelling vision for the future of capitalist democracy, they are turning to the past.