Jagmeet Singh, NDP Leader

While I am pessimistic about Singh now, he was given a mandate that really completes with judgment in the next election. I don't think there is merit in trying to push him out after this short time.

The NDP should not continue as it is through the next eleciton. At the very least a taking stock conference to discuss with members what needs to happen now might be a better idea.

The NDP has to have a position on the key priorities Canada faces now and some of those have changed somewhat since the last leadership. A focus on the movement, party, platform and campaign strategy rather than the leadership might be very welcome. I think Singh should be clear what his plan is and be given an opportunity to implement it. At this moment, I am not clear that there is a plan.

I do not see a profile of a strong Quebec deputy leader. Why is that? Wasn't Caron to be in that role? Why do we not see this elevated? He is supposed to be leader in the House yet we never hear much in this capacity. Maybe Singh needs to share more of the stage with Caron.

progressive17 wrote:

Well, the NDP will always be the "conscience of parliament" even if they go to 10 seats. Every silver lining has a cloud.

Here's the thing:  people really, REALLY need to let go of the idea that the NDP can have a conscience, OR can contend for power, but can never contend for power AND have a conscience.

An NDP that checks its conscience at the door wouldn't be worth HAVING in power, because treating conscience as an inconvenience means standing for nothing, or for making devil's bargains that negate any possible small gains for good such a government quite produce.  If the NDP formed government in Ottawa pledged to keep Canadian troops fighting against the Arab/Muslim world wouldn't have the resources or the will to do anything significantly progressive or humane while in office.  It might do a few "photo ops" with the historically oppressed, but it wouldn't do anything to make life different for the better for them, or for the "ordinary people" some of us think can never find common ground with the historically oppressed or with the activists who make the cause of other people's liberation their own.

AN NDP that works on the assumption that contending for power means being just as cynical and dismissive towards the idea of conscience and towards people of conscience as the Liberals and Conservatives couldn't be worth HAVING in power.  Conscience is the ONLY reason for the NDP to exist.  Without that, it has no reason to even nominate candidates.

The NDP has to give up on this idea of exceptionalism when it comes to morality and conscience. All parties are in theory  level when it comes to this and at times they fail. One is not more responsible than the others.

The NDP might even want to speak openly about this -- if you think we are the ones you trust as conscience then why are you not electing us?

 

progressive17 wrote:

Conscience without consciousness is probably better than consciousness without conscience.

In that conscience is a product of consciousness, it would be difficult to have conscience without it.

Singh needs to go.

“We had a period of time where we had a leadership race and that takes away from your ability to have a clear leadership in directing the work, so we’ve had some difficulties and we’ve got some work to do.”

So is it a commonly noticed trend for parties in the aftermath of a leadership race to lose byelections?

Caissa wrote:

Singh's in denail.

 

Yeah, but I hope the party doesn't get screwed.

Let’s live in the real NDP world. No matter what the leader does or doesn’t do the Liberals combined with the CBC and the corporate media we’re going to try and crush him/her. The NDP has always had to fight elections with one arm tied behind its back so this is nothing new Singh is leader will be leader until at least after the next election so suck it up. There is growing disenchantment with Trudeau as well and my hunch is that he will lose the next election but I’m quite sure the Liberals won’t dump him before the next election either

From the link robbie_dee shared in post #716, I'd just like to share this (which goes along quite nicely with my last post):

Mr. Singh was elected to lead the party in the fall of last year, in part on his ability to raise funds for his leadership campaign. But it is not at all clear that the people who donated cash to help him become leader will continue to contribute to the NDP itself.

R.E.Wood wrote:

From the link robbie_dee shared in post #716, I'd just like to share this (which goes along quite nicely with my last post):

Mr. Singh was elected to lead the party in the fall of last year, in part on his ability to raise funds for his leadership campaign. But it is not at all clear that the people who donated cash to help him become leader will continue to contribute to the NDP itself.

Not a surprise.  These entryists joined just to elect him leader.  Now they want nothing to do with the party.

gadar wrote:

We all know Singh is not stepping down voluntarily. And it will wreck the party if he is forced out. Dont have a choice but to stand behind him and make the best of the situation. Go NDP Go Singh

Blind loyalty will do nothing as well.

The party needs a conversation with members about strategy and its position. Unfortunately, the party does not have a clue that this is essential or how to do it.

There needs to be a very public conversation here to engage people.

As well the party has to understand how to generate earned media as it cannot afford to buy its way into the competition. It has been much of a year since Singh became leader and nothing of value is being generated in this way. A series of directions conferences in specific areas both in the party and with respect to policy would be a start.

The NDP should generate a national conversation on trade and the economy.

Right now doing nothing is by far the weakest move.

The party needs to understand that business as usual means failure. The party cannot behave and compete by trying to be like the others. It has to light a fire or interest and activism.

I am not convinced any of those who entered the last leadership race had what was needed. You need someone like Megan Leslie, a person who understands that the NDP is not like the Liberals and Conservatives nationally -- in that role, you have to be an activist. Leslie is young enough to come after the probable wreckage of the next election.

Others include people like Elisapee Sheutiapik - who has been involved with the NDP or even soemone like Sally Armstrong.

Many here already know that I particularly like Pamela Palmater and Joanne Liu -- Not sure if either could be persuaded.

These are the types of activists that I think should be running the party. People who would engage Canadians rather than talk over them and about them.

 

Ken Burch wrote:

The other thing is, if Singh wants to avoid disaster, he has to get some actual POLICIES out there.  He has to give the party something tangible to offer voters.  There's only a short period of time now before the election, and it's nearly too late to actually start winning people over.

The man has charisma, but we now know charisma and empty declarations of "values" can't make any difference.

This SHOULD have been a winnable byelection.  At a bare minimum, the party should have been able to hold its 2015 vote together.  It's entirely on Singh that the result Monday night was a disaster and its entirely on him, if he does NOT go, to turn things around.

He needs to listen to Caron, he needs to listen to Ashton, he needs to listen to Angus, he needs to listen to the activists and the social movements, the people who know how to organize and build popular enthusiasm for change.

If what he is doing now isn't working yet, it's not GOING to work.  The choice is change, or collapse.

Correct.

I think he also has to bring other activist people into the party -- or at least to engage with them.

He is still on an extended publicity tour and that is not helpful.

josh wrote:

R.E.Wood wrote:

From the link robbie_dee shared in post #716, I'd just like to share this (which goes along quite nicely with my last post):

Mr. Singh was elected to lead the party in the fall of last year, in part on his ability to raise funds for his leadership campaign. But it is not at all clear that the people who donated cash to help him become leader will continue to contribute to the NDP itself.

Not a surprise.  These entryists joined just to elect him leader.  Now they want nothing to do with the party.

I think the party should change how it elects the leader. A few ridings should not be able to decide the whole election. Maybe the country should be divided provincially or into regions?

[quote=Ken Burch]

Conscience is the ONLY reason for the NDP to exist.  Without that, it has no reason to even nominate candidates.

[quote=NDPP]

"Remember the pretend socialist party of Canada that refuses to use the word socialist? NDP just voted down a resolution on Palestine. What an appalling, fetid disgrace."

https://twitter.com/AndrewMitrovica/status/964934753727037440

NorthReport wrote:

NDP in 2015 lost votes in Quebec because of the NDP's position on the niqab.

Why be surprised that the NDP is losing votes in Quebec due to the leader wearing a turban. 

So the NDP should bow to bigotry and get a leader without a turban?

gadar wrote:

So the NDP should bow to bigotry and get a leader without a turban?

It's not unreasonable, much less is it evidence of bigotry, for a socialist party to expect its leader not to detract unduly from the party's political message--that is to say, its relentless efforts to shift the terms of debate to substantive policy matters.  It's difficult enough for the NDP to penetrate the wall of hostility and mockery erected by the corporate media without sending out confusing signals of its own that leave the electorate wondering what we really represent.  Why would the party not be concerned about making its task considerably more difficult by electing a leader whose attire and grooming habits naturally raise questions in the minds of average citizens about the importance he attaches to orthodox religious beliefs?  None of which is to say that we ought not to elect a Sikh as national leader.  But there's much to be said for choosing a secular adherent.  Likewise when it comes to orthodox Jews and so on. 

If such a concern is always to be regarded as sheer bigotry, then I suppose we ought to accept with equanimity the election of a Hare Krishna or Whirling Dervish as our next federal leader. But would it be politically wise? 

Pondering wrote:

This is why it is a fallacy to think of Liberal voters + NDP voters as all "progressives" that the parties are splitting between them.

I don't think anyone thinks all Liberal voters are progressive.

According to Le Devoir, by way of Paul Wells, some NDP sources are talking about replacing Singh before the election.

https://www.ledevoir.com/politique/canada/530724/le-npd-entame-un-examen-de-conscience

josh wrote:

According to Le Devoir, by way of Paul Wells, some NDP sources are talking about replacing Singh before the election.

https://www.ledevoir.com/politique/canada/530724/le-npd-entame-un-examen-de-conscience

I'm not surprised there is grumbling. But replacing Singh with Angus for example, and Angus clearly would be the most likely alternative, will do nothing for the party's prospects in Quebec. Not to mention that there is formal no mechanism to remove Singh so the most likely way to get to the outcome the grumblers want is to keep taking potshots at him and hope he eventually decides he's had enough and resigns. That isn't exactly going to strengthen the party's position in the meantime.

Singh was my third choice but he was an acceptable choice.  Since then, my opinion of him has only improved.  At this point I am quite happy with him, and quite happy with what he's doing in the party.  I can't think of anyone else I'd rather have as leader right now, and I think any calls to not have him as leader are ridiculous.

I don't know anyone in the party under 40 who has a negative view of Singh.

Pondering wrote:

Ken Burch wrote:

   Where did you ever get the idea that it costs the NDP votes to offer policies?  

I never said that. The NDP must offer policies, during the election campaign, not now. If Singh puts his platform out now it will be destroyed by the time the election period begins. In 2019 the NDP has to appear fresh. It won't if Singh gives in to the haranguing. 

 

Ken Burch wrote:

   It's not possible go increase votes by doing what you seem to advocate and campaigning like it's impossible for the NDP to win the argument on the issues of the day.  It's not possible to be elected "by default". 

While the NDP in Ontario didn't win they gained a great deal this election by default. There was no years long built up. Horwath might have done better if she had not attacked Trudeau. There was something  else she did after that but I forget what it was. 

Trudeau did nothing for years, and won the election. He did that by having no policy to be attacked. All the attacks focused on his being shallow, lacking in experience and having no policy.  The "no policy" criticism died when he released his platform. 

The NDP is often too busy promoting what it wants rather than offering voters solutions to what they percieve as problems or dealing with objections. For example, one of my big problems with PR is the insistence on adding more MPs. We don't need more MPs. They are a waste of money. I want a system that really transfers power from parties to MPs. I want to elect the PM directly. I don't vote for a party.  I came around to supporting Dion's model which is on Fair Vote Canada but nobody liked it or wanted to discuss it. 

The elephant in the room is neoliberalism. People have broadly bought into neoliberal economic theory and the philosophies that support it. They don't even know what to demand beyond bandaids. They buy the argument that Transmountain is a longterm huge financial benefit if it is built, or that it will be economically disasterous if it isn't built. They have bought into the notion that we must be "business friendly" which means low taxes ignoring all the other reasons a business  chooses to local somewhere.  There are many other false notions people have about minimum income and pharmacare, green technology, etc.

What is needed more than anything is the spreading of economic facts that undermine the false narrative people have been sold. I think that is easier for activists to address than for politicians. Politicians are always suspect.

To get back to Singh, he is doing what Trudeau did not that Trudeau invented the approach. Staying out of the line of fire is a tried and true tactic for a new leader especially as a third party. He's traveling around. Doing the circuit. You may argue that a different tactic would be better but you cannot argue that this approach is wrong from the standpoint of maximizing votes. His Toute le Monde en Parle episode went well. The NDP didn't lose a seat. The Liberals had the seat not the NDP. 

Is it the standpoint now that only the leader matters? The leader is solely responsible for winning seats? If that is the case then the leader should dictate votes in the House. 

You have to offer policies...or at least strong ideas...to challenge neoliberalism.  Horwath made the massive gains she made largely because in the run-up to the campaign and during it, she offered policies and ideas.  In many respects, while Horwath wasn't able to lead her party to power, she won the argument and that will make a huge difference in years to come.  Thanks to that, at the next election, the ONDP, whoever leads it, can say "want something better?", whereas if they stuck to your say nothing strategy, all they could say was "Had enough?".  And that's a huge difference, because it isn't possible for the ONDP or any other left-of-centre party anywhere to win anymore by just saying "Stop THEM!".  Stopping THEM!-by which I mean the generic right-wing party of uglies everywhere, not Van Morrison's 1960sBelfast R&B band-without having something clearly different and better to offer than THEM!, simply doesn't work.  

How do you fight neoliberalism by doing what Justin did and, effectively, doing nothing?  
Also, the Liberals were almost always much more popular than the NDP DURING the years when Justin did nothing-largely because Mulcair did NOTHING outside of parliament, and largely because Mulcair made the party a place where not only activists but IDEAS and IDEALS were not welcome.  The only time Mulcair was ever effective, in party support terms, as a leader was when he fought C-51 with all the passion Tommy Douglas brought to his lonely opposition to the imposition of the War Measures Act in 1970.  Mulcair then pissed all the goodwill and enthusiasm away by talking about nothing but balanced budgets during the televised economics debate-knowing that only the wealthy and the right-wing obsessed about keeping the damn budget balanced, that nobody who'd even think of voting NDP would prioritize that-and then avoiding all future leaders debates.  Yes, the niqab thing did additional damage-though it's still weird that most of the people who swung away from the NDP in Quebec swung to the PLC, a party which had the EXACT SAME POSITION as the Liberals on that issue-but even before that, the party had plummeted from 34-35% and the lead to 26-27% and third place, and once they were back IN third place the only thing that could possibly happen was for the NDP vote to go all the way back down to the meaningless 19%-20% it used to get in the late Seventies and Eighties.

Yes, the NDP needs to challenge neoliberalism...but it can only challenge it by being able to tell the voters "not only is this wrong, but we've got these things we're going to do instead that will be better for you".  The NDP has great values and some sort of a better vision for society-there is no valid reason to fear the idea of trying to inspire voters with that vision, with appealing to the natural wish most people have for a clear improvement on the dreariness of the now.  Justin's charisma no longer really works, and Jagmeet's charisma has proved to be an illusion.  If Jagmeet doesn't go(and he would need to make that decision soon) he needs to change-he needs to make the leadership structure collegial, needs a strong Quebec face within the leadership, and finally needs to actually connect with the social movements and let go of the party's decades-long delusion that what those movements want is somehow at absolute odds with what "ordinary Canadians" want or need.  It doesn't have to be an end of social and economic injustice OR a better deal for "regular folks just trying to get on with their lives".  An end to social and economic injustice WOULD BE a better deal for regular folks just trying to get on with their lives.  And, contrary to your perception, most activists are THEMSELVES regular folks just trying to get on with their lives.  Activism usually derives from what people actually experiece in their lives, and activism isn't about asking for special favors for a few-it's almost always, in the end, about justice for all, because the freedom of the many is bound up in the liberation of all.

 

 

Singh says NDP won’t bail on Canada-Israel parliamentary group.

https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2018/06/20/jagmeet-singh-israel_a_23464097/

The NDP should only hope that it had a leader half as good as Corbyn.  While other socially democratic parties are getting wiped out throughout Europe, Corbyn has managed to keep his party running even with the Conservatives.

epaulo13 wrote:

..singh doesn't run the party no more than mulcair did. the problems that the ndp faces lies much deeper than the leader. people on this board having been talking about those problems for years with no resolution in sight.

..blaming the leader without dealing with those deeper issues is a dead end. not to mention that it provides the false notion that all you need is the "right leader". more was needed than just corbyn and as we see today corbyn is not enough. 

It's not JUST the leader.  There's an urgent need for the establishment of internal party democracy, and it is essential that the rank-and-file have control over what goes into the platform and the policy book.  Since 1961 as a certainty, and perhaps from the beginning(I don't know how policy decisions were made in the CCF era), the party has been run by a cynical, dismissive internal party bureaucracy whose guiding principle has always been that the rank-and-file are idiots who should never have any real say in what the party is about.  Since 1961, this approach has almost always kept the party in third place.  It did massive damage in the 1960s and 1970s, when the party refused to engage with the New Left, and has done more of the same in the post-WTO era, keeping the party at arms-length from the only people in left-of-centre politics with any new ideas and any real enthusiasm for working for change.    This notion that the NDP has to be kind of grumpily dismissive of idealism and transformative politics hasn't done the party any good-there simply is not any large group of people who WANT a break from the status quo, but sneer at most of the people working for such a break.  Why not just admit that activists are not the enemy, that open discussion is not the enemy, that passion and enthusiasm are not the enemies?

Fully agree with you about Corbyn-it IS a collaboration, and that's why Corbyn's enemies are so obsessed with driving Momentum, the incarnation of that collaboration, out of the party, by smearing it as antisemitic and conspiratorial and cultish when it is clearly neither of those things.