That's a bit below the belt, for both of us I suspect.
Current Affairs The Labour Party
- Thread starter Number_25
- Start date
- Status
That's a bit below the belt, for both of us I suspect.
I can see the overall sentiment but I don't believe it's a very fair reflection. I think you are adjusting evidence to suit your position.
The Lib Dem vote collapsed at the 2015 election (and actually went up at the 2017 election). Yes the UKIP vote collapsed but I am unsure how this would be a massively beneficial thing for Labour? Prior to Corbyn's premiership nearly all of UKIP's votes went back to the Conservatives, he did remarkably well at the election often winning ex UKIP votes at a 1:1 ratio with the Conservatives (data around this is always very difficult to predict).
On the May point, nobody really said she was useless until after the campaign. I have written this down lots, that May will be used as a scapegoat. She will often be used as a scapegoat by the very same people who held her up as the new Margaret Thatcher who was not only going to crush Corbyn, but destroy the Labour Party forever and the European Union after that. I was always wary of those conclusions and stated they were hyperbole but I think the above position is an over simplification the other way.
Corbyn faced a Conservative Party is the ascendency. A Conservative Party that had been in government for 7 years and was growing in strength. He also had to contend with the nightmare scenario of the right wing vote of UKIP declining (which was always the terrifying moment for Labour when they saw apocalypse coming). There is also the fact that the disastrous position on Scottish Independence (albeit one shared by Corbyn) meant they lost Scotland and the centre left Liberal Democrat vote had already been squeezed to the point where little was left.
Within that context he performed nothing short of a minor miracle, to increase Labour's vote by the largest amount in any peacetime election. The vote % in England & Wales was only better in 1 vote in 50 years. It's a remarkable achievement. It can't be written off purely on the basis of Theresa May being useless.
I'm not sure from a Labour perspective you can look too much into the result. It is the single biggest event of his premiership. It's the biggest sample of people asked whether they support him. In truth nobody (Corbyn supporters or enemies alike) really look enough at that result. That's the reality. They all get far too bogged down in internal and abstract discussions about foreign policy (which can never be resolved) and don't focus enough on what could be achieved if they looked outwards to putting a populist manifesto forward to ordinary people.
This is Corbyn's great strength, his program and his ideas. He's a poor leader. He has a big membership behind him that's not used and he is very adept at campaigning. He has lots of good MP's who can manage the intricacies of Westminster much better than him and teams of MP's who can help coordinate the membership base (which they did in 2017). The real shame for Labour is that they seem incapable of generalising from this experience and finding an approach that can utilise this in periods outside of electioneering.
tsubaki
Player Valuation: £90m
You’d be a lot more correct to say “the majority of the Parliamentary party” there Bruce. He wouldn’t have won if his brand of socialism didn’t have such support among the membership (that’s the actual membership, not the £3 people), especially when compared with the Blairite tendency.
Labours problem is that the PLP is and has been for decades quite a way to the right than the membership is, and for the past decade it hasn’t been politically good enough to cover the gap. Until either the PLP accept the reality of that or they improve at politics then these rows will continue.
Can't wait to eradicate the likes of Luciana Berger, and Chuka Umunna from good Labour seats.
To be included on the ballot though, you are elected by MP's. The reality is Corbyn (or more particularly Corbyn's ideas) are very popular amongst ordinary members and voters. He is very unpopular with MP's. We can speculate to the reasons as to why this is, but that contradiction has always been in existence and is irrefutable.
If you want me honest assessment, I do not think Corbyn (and many of the people around him) have been intelligent enough to recognise this as a problem, never mind consider ways to help to overcome it. This does not automatically mean a process deselecting MP's (though that is at least one solution to the issue). There are a variety of ways it can be healed, though nobody has thought too.
Let's be frank though, take Chuka Umuna to the heartlands of Labour, and have him tell potential and current Labour voters that he wants a break from the "unrealistic promises" (so lower spending on depleted services such as schools, hospitals, universities etc) and that he left because Corbyn isn't doing enough to overturn the referendum result and he will be laughed out of town. It's why I can't imagine any of them having the integrity of putting their ideas to the test in a people's vote in their constituencies but will still ask for a 2nd vote on Brexit.
davek
Player Valuation: £150m
How is that relevant? Both of those men committed themselves to the LP and would never stand against it. Unlike 7 careereist beauts who are now picking up just on £80k p.a. under false pretences.
Chuka is from Streatham though, which is a south London suburb with a nice little jazz club. His borough (Lambeth) were the biggest remain majority in the country, so you could argue he speaks for them fairly well, in the same way that perhaps Sadiq Khan does. I doubt if you took him to many northern towns he'd get much traction either, but as London mayoral candidate he was popular enough to win.
So committed that they voted against the Labour government at nearly every opportunity?
Against the Iraq war, you mean?
I suspect when defying the whip 87 times in three years, that covered a slightly broader spectrum of issues. Voting against Maastricht for instance.
The reason Blair initially agitated for the inclusion (and was then supported by a Blairite in Harman and a centrist in Miliband) to allow members to join more easily was their view that ordinary people are more right wing than the Labour Party. This is the premise they have built their entire thinking on. They are unable to shift from it irrespective of the information given to them to the contrary. It's one thing to have a different opinion but it's quite another to refuse to adapt position in the case of new information being presented. This is my main contention with the Blairite section of the party (I am quite happy to forget the Iraq War).
What is intriguing with the votes is that the further away you are from the Labour party, and organised left structures, the more radical people were. So while a majority in all categories voted for Corbyn, the smallest majority was with the membership, then the trade union affiliates and finally the new sign ups.
The answer they have provided themselves is that there are hundreds of thousands of trotskyist entryists coming into the party and the solution is to prevent people joining. That's the hub of their analysis. Essentially close the door on democracy.
The conclusion that there are hundreds of thousands of communists in the UK willing to take over Labour is again incredible ignorant of the facts. If that were the case, surely they would just make their own party to smash the state (the explicit Marxian goal) rather than join one who's goals is to work within the state for a fairer distribution of wealth?
At it's core in all of this though is an intellectual dishonesty. Until they are able to start being honest with what they find they will not enjoy the influence they once had, and continue to be seen as a bit of an annoying, if irrelevant joke in working class communities. The majority of people who have joined post Corbyn wouldn't know how to spell Trotsky, never mind provide a critical analysis of his theory on combined and uneven development!
davek
Player Valuation: £150m
It's called debate and fighting your corner to win the argument - and it worked eventually.....something that was open to the 7 who left that party yesterday, if only they'd had the backbone to do it.So committed that they voted against the Labour government at nearly every opportunity?
The dishonesty of Umuna et al though is that his position on Brexit is the optimum way for Labour to win at the next election. That's simply not the case.
If he was honest, and say it's a disagreement of principle, and even if Labour lost seats as a result then it was a price worth paying that's a different thing. To suggest though, that Labour will gain more seats by arguing for a People's vote is dishonest.
Brilliant line.
I can't stand the bloke. He talks of treating ordinary people with respect, yet he was happy to suspend an entire CLP because a Jewish bloke put in a motion about de-selecting an MP who has later admitted was planning to leave and that they had become aware of. He also slandered the same working class city as a disgrace and insinuated they were racist (an easily brought out trope). This is a city that has had decades of Conservative attacks in the media against it and he has lined up with them, to attack a city that regularly returns Labour MP's in a greater proportion than any other.
He has also backed a woman who think's it's acceptable to refer to anyone who is not white as having a "funny tinge". A private school boy who called ordinary people "trash".
We could go on of course, but his approach is positively Orwellian in his double speak. When is he going to provide an apology to the people of Liverpool for the unfounded insults he used against it?
I can only talk for myself, but they won't getting any support from me going forward if they pull this coup off.
- Status