davek
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The clever party culls 21 MPs and has the ERG running government for it.
Current Affairs The Labour Party
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The clever party culls 21 MPs and has the ERG running government for it.
...i’m not for one minute saying the Conservatives are clever. To the contrary. Labour have an open goal but are being driven by a militant membership that have little appeal, except to themselves.
tsubaki
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Not really; that group had been agitating against Corbyn since before he became leader and although their CLPs lost patience with some of them (Shuker and Smith had votes of no confidence pass, Berger had two brought but they were both withdrawn) the fact that the central party had taken no moves against them or indeed anyone else shows the hollowness of this notion that Corbyn is imposing a Stalinist style of discipline on his party.
In fact the lack of such action, even in the face of allegations that border on the criminal (like those against Hopkins, Woodcock, O'Mara, Danczuk and (Ivan) Lewis), is one of the more valid criticisms of Corbyns time as leader - Labour has always let its MPs get away with almost anything (as the expenses scandal proved, and indeed the first time that the allegations against Hopkins were made the then chief whip did nothing) but as leader his first priority should have been to make sure that the system was fair to complainants and to the accused; the current situation where people are suspended and then either refuse to take part in the process or the process is stymied by factional interests within the investigation unit is unacceptable.
Billy Dean
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A lot on social media are making this point at the moment. Saying the Tories are making such a mess and all Labour care about are internal battles rather than working together to beat them etc etc. But the same goes for the Watson faction too, they've shown even less interest than the labour left in putting on a united front to oust the tories.
tsubaki
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They aren't, though. Labour has a large and committed membership that wants to see the party do well and to bring about some moderate change to the way society is run in order that it is either more fair or there is some return to the situation of the relatively recent past where people didn't get in debt to go to university, where they could get social housing of decent quality and where the gap between rich and poor was narrower and thrust into everyones face less.
The problem is that the side that lost in 2015 (and 2016, and 2017) has refused to accept that. Any movement worthy of any time at all would have at least looked at why it kept losing (internally and externally) refined and honed its arguments, organized and recruited and developed a programme that could be offered to people.
They have not done that, choosing instead to just continually attack their own party, often in ways that are astonishingly hypocritical (Watson and the referendum being one of the very worst examples of this), in the hope that by making the leader as toxic as they possibly can they will inevitably get back in power. Then they will probably show us all what a purge actually looks like, though of course then it won't be a purge, it will be a valiant struggle to rid their party of the Trots who infiltrated it.
Yep.
I know a sizeable number of longtime labour voters who have been driven away from the party in the past couple of years. Old and young, working and middle class.
abelard
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Watson is very deliberately trying to undermine the Party leader, and to drive a wedge between the members, and he has chosen the worst damaging time in order to achieve the maximum effect.
No political party anywhere would tolerate this for long, and Labour has already been very patient with him.
Of course there are many Labour MPs who do not like Corbyn.
But after winning two leadership contests with huge majorities, increasing Party membership by hundreds of thousands, and dramatically increasing Labour's vote share in 2017, most of these MPs recognise that whatever their personal feelings about him, he has earned the right to contest another election,
That's why nobody is talking about 'purging' Yvette Cooper, or Owen Smith, or Hillary Benn.
I realise these are volatile times, and many are attracted to simplistic narratives, but it is disappointing to see certain posters letting their emotions get the better of them, suspending their critical judgement, and falling prey to hyperbolic media clickbait.
No political party anywhere would tolerate this for long, and Labour has already been very patient with him.
Of course there are many Labour MPs who do not like Corbyn.
But after winning two leadership contests with huge majorities, increasing Party membership by hundreds of thousands, and dramatically increasing Labour's vote share in 2017, most of these MPs recognise that whatever their personal feelings about him, he has earned the right to contest another election,
That's why nobody is talking about 'purging' Yvette Cooper, or Owen Smith, or Hillary Benn.
I realise these are volatile times, and many are attracted to simplistic narratives, but it is disappointing to see certain posters letting their emotions get the better of them, suspending their critical judgement, and falling prey to hyperbolic media clickbait.
....but some on here refuse to believe they do anything wrong. Blair is criticised, but New Labour were clever enough to make the party electable. Sadly, I fear this Labour Party is broken.
Anecdotal evidence for sure, but i know a sizeable number of people (mainly younger generations) who’ve joined or began to vote for labour after previously being fairly apathetic about politics.
NilSatisOptimum
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But gained me and many others, youngish working, however, does not care about class, well as much as I judge someone by their colour.
tsubaki
Player Valuation: £90m
People should really look at what Blair actually did to "make the party electable" before praising it.
....all i’m saying is that they were strategically ‘clever’, especially given the Party had been in the wilderness. Winning an election is about attracting voters, not pandering to a few. I’m not suggesting this Labour Party needs to sell its soul and go hand-in-hand with Murdoch, but they need to get wise.
...true, Billy. When we most need a Labour Party they are fragmented and in a mess.
tsubaki
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The problem there is that "get wise" means go hand-in-hand with Murdoch.
Labour could come up with any leader or any policy, however popular, legitimate, effective or desperately needed and a big section of the Press would still be banging the "Marxists / a bit weird / not really British / they are a risk to your jobs and will ruin your kids" drum, as they have at every election where they weren't bought off for the past 90 years. Thinking that all they need to do is change the leader is to ignore the history of them attacking every leader like that.
tsubaki
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This is emphatically true, though the blame for why the party is fragmented should really be extended from the leader to the people who are actually doing the fragmenting.
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