It is with those over 60 that Labour is suffering the most.
https://twitter.com/EuropeElects/status/853923247385128960
That can be tied, in large part, to Brexit. Which enjoyed it's greatest support among those in that age group. The Conservatives now offer a united, coherent, pro-Brexit policy. Hence the ridiculous margin. A new Labour leader would not make an perceivable difference with that group. Not as long as Labour remains divided over Brexit.
Yet more evidence for some of you to rationalize away:
http://www2.politicalbetting.com/index.php/archives/2017/04/17/another-d...
If Labour had the sort of leader you'd want it to have, it wouldn't disagree with the Tories on any major issue. That's what being a "Labour moderate" means...embracing the status quo.
Actually its the other way around. Now that the Tories have gone totally "hard Brexit", the opening for Labour would be to be the party that is totally pro-EU and to try to rally the 48% of voters who voted to Remain. Instead Corbyn is meekly following Theresa May into the xenophobic Brexit camp and refuses to stand up for remining in the EU - even though the vast majority of Labour voters voted to remain.
The only issue that really matters in Britain right now is what to do about Brexit and Labour under Corbyn has adopted the Conservative policy on that. Is it any wonder the Lib Dems are making a comeback.
If Corbyn had gotten off his ass and lifted a finger to campaign in favour of Britain staying in the EU - the referendum likely would have gone the other way and we wouldn't be in this conundrum
If Labour had the sort of leader you'd want it to have, it wouldn't disagree with the Tories on any major issue. That's what being a "Labour moderate" means...embracing the status quo.
Actually its the other way around. Now that the Tories have gone totally "hard Brexit", the opening for Labour would be to be the party that is totally pro-EU and to try to rally the 48% of voters who voted to Remain. Instead Corbyn is meekly following Theresa May into the xenophobic Brexit camp and refuses to stand up for remining in the EU - even though the vast majority of Labour voters voted to remain.
The only issue that really matters in Britain right now is what to do about Brexit and Labour under Corbyn has adopted the Conservative policy on that. Is it any wonder the Lib Dems are making a comeback.
If Corbyn had gotten off his ass and lifted a finger to campaign in favour of Britain staying in the EU - the referendum likely would have gone the other way and we wouldn't be in this conundrum
Easier said than done. About 1/3 of traditional Labour voters are pro-Brexit. If he, or any other leader, did that, he'd lose them for sure. Labour has a tradition of being anti-EU dating back to people like Castle, Benn and Shore. UKIP's rise was abetted by "New" Labour's EU romance.
And blaming Corbyn for Brexit is ridiculous. Labour voters in the north of England would have voted for it if he stood on his head and spit wooden pounds. They've seen the result of Thatcher, Blair and EU neo-liberalism.
I have to agree with Josh on this one. If Corbyn had campaigned hard against Brexit it would not have turned the tide.
It may well have had the opposite effect. Corbyn is so ineffectual and reviled, particualrly with Labour's working class base, that his explicit support against Brexit would only hav increased support for Brexit.
The Tories were much more divided on the EU than Labour was...and in the end two-thirds of Labour voters voted for Remain, despite Corbyn's derisory campaign. Yes, its true there were people in the Labour party 40 or 50 years ago who were against joing the Common Market for reasons that might have seemed valid at the time. But times have changed and now its basically , if you hate immigrants and are xenophobic and want the England to turn inwards and are nostalgic for the times depicted in Downtown Abbey - you supported Brexit. If you were in favour of an open society and multiculuralism and a free exchange of ideas, you supported Remain.
The fact remains that attitudes towards the EU are the top wedge issue in Britain and Labour has no voice on that issue that now that Corbyn has embraced Brexit and xenophobia
The Tories were much more divided on the EU than Labour was...and in the end two-thirds of Labour voters voted for Remain, despite Corbyn's derisory campaign. Yes, its true there were people in the Labour party 40 or 50 years ago who were against joing the Common Market for reasons that might have seemed valid at the time. But times have changed and now its basically , if you hate immigrants and are xenophobic and want the England to turn inwards and are nostalgic for the times depicted in Downtown Abbey - you supported Brexit. If you were in favour of an open society and multiculuralism and a free exchange of ideas, you supported Remain.
The fact remains that attitudes towards the EU are the top wedge issue in Britain and Labour has no voice on that issue that now that Corbyn has embraced Brexit and xenophobia
However they were divided on the issue then, the Conservatives are far less divided now. And if the folks I mentioned were around now, they would have been in support of Brexit. Having seen their fears of loss of control over domestic economic policy realized. And those who want to chalk up opposition to the EU simply to racism, are sticking their heads in the sand by overlooking the economic dimension of the opposition.
In the Brexit referendum virtually all Labour MPs were on the Reamin side...but Corbyn was totally asleep at the switch and could not articulate a position. That's been the story of his leaderhsip - he is always absent and unfocused on the key issues. He reminds me of an absent-minded tenured professor who talks to himself while wearing a moth eaten sweater covered in dried oatmeal
1/3 of Labour voters voted for Brexit. They voted for Brexit because they've seen the result of decades of Thatcherism and Blairism. As we've seen, the PLP has been out of touch with the rank and file lately.
Thatcher was always a Euroskeptic and the biggest proponents of Brexit are rightwing bigots...if anyone thinks leaving the EU is supposed to "protect" the UK from Thatcherism, they have a nasty surprise coming. Britain outside Europe will be a nasty, rightwing place with no EU-wide policies to mitigate the harsh Tory rule
Thatcher was always a Euroskeptic and the biggest proponents of Brexit are rightwing bigots...if anyone thinks leaving the EU is supposed to "protect" the UK from Thatcherism, they have a nasty surprise coming. Britain outside Europe will be a nasty, rightwing place with no EU-wide policies to mitigate the harsh Tory rule
Thatcher was by no means always a Europe skeptic. As leader, she was a big supporter to stay in the common market in the 1975 referendum.
Of course there are no guarantees. But Britain has the ability to make economic policy based on what British voters want, not what EU bankers dictate.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=YI6mzHkx3xA
Ken, Michael etc;
If you look at this story and the various comments that folow you will see that most of your questions are addressed:
https://politicalwire.com/2017/04/16/labour-party-fades-u-k/
it is not since 1918 that Labour has polled a lower vote, and then barely, than what Corbyn is polling now. That is 99 years.....
There are many sincere people in the Labour party, including well more than 80% of its MPs who believe Corbyn out of ego, myopia and incompetence is dragging Labour not just to electoral disaster but to long-term impotence.
I don't personally see anything wrong with a 15% nomination requirement among MPs to stand for the leadership. Many other parties have similar threshholds. It may be necessary to save Labour from repeating the Corbynite nightmare that threatens to destroy the party.
I also think it is facile to say there is no difference between mainstream Labour and the Conservatives. I deplore many of the things Blair did in foreign poicy and civil liberties but it seems that moderate Labourites have learned the necessary lessons and espouse more left wing approaches in those areas.
The left often loses track of Blair's considerable accomplishments in eduaction and social policy which actually helped the working and middle classes. Conservative policies have been uniformly regressive.
Labour can only help its voters if it is electable. Corbyn has amply demostrated that he is unelectable and therefore useless to Labour's electorate.
Corbyn has used every feeble excuse to justify his electoaral failures except accepting rsponsibility himself. More disasters loom in the local elections and Manchester Gorton by-election in three weeks. Will Corbyn again blindly blame the Blairites? Or will he smell the roses?
It is ironic that no MP voted against his own party in the Commons as often as Corbyn did. Yet he expects uncritical subservience from his own MPs.
Anyway, off to work. I'm happy to take another stab at answering your quesytions if you like.
Thank you for finally responding to some of the points I've asked you to respond to. Why did you refuse to do so for almost two years?
Perhaps the Labour "mainstream"(I assume you mean the PLP) has learned some things, but they still have a lot of work to do to restore the trust they had betrayed with the Labour base(most of which is well to the left of the PLP).
Many of the MPs who have spent the last two years trashing Corbyn spent the previous five years undermining Ed Miliband, a leader who was only microscopically to the left of Tony Blair, and claiming that he had betrayed his right-wing brother David by standing against him in the 2011 leadership race-apparently believing that David Miliband was simply entitled to an unchallenged coronation as Gordon Brown's successor. They endlessly repeated the despicable claim that Ed "stabbed his brother in the back" by daring to seek the leadership himself, and they viciously attacked and undermined Ed from the right during the campaign. They helped destroy the case for voting Labour in 2015 and drove the voter turnout down massively by insisting that a Labour goverment would continue making cuts in benefit-having abandoned nationalization or even the preservation of the patheti remnants of state assets, having abandoned any defense of the trade union movement, a defense of benefits and benefit claimants was the last meaningful difference between Labour an the Tories. And the PLP-including Ed Miliband's own shadow chancellor, Ed Balls, did all they could to obliterate that difference and reduce the contest to just electing something CALLED a Labour government.
After destroying the party's chances for winning by refusing to allow it to stand on a "no cuts" program-in other words, after committig the party to being just as hostile, judgmental, and paternalistic towards the poor as the Tories were-the same PLP, after the election, decided to start joining the Tory government in voting for further cuts in benefits and further sanctions on benefit claimants.
It was THOSE choices, more than anything else, that drove the Corbyn surge.
If the PLP wants to unify the party now, and if it is still adamant about removing Corbyn and only allowing right-winger(that's what Labour "moderates" became, once they started voting for Tory benefit cuts)to stand on any and all post-Corbyn leadership ballots-that's the purpose of the 15% threshhold, to give the PLP a veto over who is even allowed to stand as leader-it needs to admit that blurring the difference on this issue, as it previously blurred the difference on almost all other issues, including the NHS, was an indefensible choice. It needs to admit that the Labour Party exists, as much as anything else, to DEFEND the welfare state, to defend the poor from sanctimonious moral attack from above, to defend the trade union movement and to help it regain strength, and, as much as possible, to work for an economy that puts human need and dignity at least at the same level as private profit and a foreign policy based on restricting the use of force as much as possible.
None of that is "hard left". It's moderate in the best sense of the term.
The PLP also needs to admit that the activists in the party at the grassroots level are just as much the party as the PLP is and should have as much say in what the party stands for as the PLP does. Yes, the PLP is a group of people who've been elected to Parliament-but the vast majority of them represent constituencies that would elect ANYONE as a Labour MP. There are almost no seats anymore where the Labour MP was only elected because she or he was imposed as a candidate against the wishes of the constituency party or because that MP takes positions sharply to the right of those most people in the CLP hold. Being an MP is not proof of personal superiority or deep political insight.
The PLP also needs to recognize that it's going to have a lot of work to do to get the rest of the party to accept whoever the PLP allows to stand as leader. The PLP spent the last seven years sabotaging the last two leaders-it will have no right to simply demand support for whoever it accepts as leader. And it will have a lot of apologies to make for the way it treated Jeremy Corbyn and for the false accusation that the Corbyn phenomenon was a Trotskyist plot.
Whatever Corbyn's shortcomings as leader, he represents what most of the people who will be needed to work for Labour at the next election believe...the PLP can't treat that as something to be erased from the party.
Labour was formed to be a party dedicated to equality. If it is to survive, the PLP needs to go back to that, and to abandon its current attitude of parliamentary elitism.
Well said.
I'm looking forward to reading what you all write about Corbyn's electoral performance after the local elections on May 4.
It's not all on Corbyn. And in the EU campaign, I don't know of ANY Labour figures who made effective speeches for the Remain cause. All were free to go out on the hustings and say whatever they wanted. Liz Kendall, Yvette Cooper, Andy Burnham, Dan "I was a paratrooper and that's all that matters"Jarvis, David Miliband, Chuka Umunna-NONE of them ever gave
All Corbyn was guilty of was not giving passionate, stemwinding speeches for a cause that no one of consciece and goodwill could passionately and unambiguously support.
If he had been allowed by the party to make a "Remain-and Rebel" argument-that is, to pledge Labour, if elected, to a commitment to fight the EU on austerity and other issues-that might have made the difference, but since party policy is still largely being decided by the anti-Corbynite right and was at that time to stay in the EU and not to question anything the EU did, let alone ever to defy it, he didn't have the latitude to make that case. He did argue clearly for Remain, and when he said he wouldn't try to restrict immigration, he was simply pointing out that further restrictions on immigration were impossible within the bounds of EU membership.
I'd like to to answer these question-
1) Whatever Corbyn's shortcomings, if the PLP had accepted that the 2016 leadership vote put the leadership issue to rest and had then given its wholehearted support to Corbyn, rather than continuing with an unrelenting campaign to force the guy out, could anything possibly be worse for Labour than things are right now?
2) how can PLP have any right to demand that the pro-Corbyn majority of Labour supporters and activists accept whoever the PLP essentially imposes as leader-and they WILL be effectively be imposing a leader by restricting access to the leadership ballot- after the same PLP has spent the last two years treating the current leader as if he has no right to be in the job?
3) Through their post-2015 tactics, haven't the PLP pre-emptively sabotaged anyone who could possibly end up in the leadership if Corbyn does what you want and just steps down?
BTW, I agree that Tony Blair did some good things as prime minister. It's just that I utterly reject the idea that he had to make the party become militarist, anti-socialist and rigidly anti-activist to get the chance to do those things. Labour would have won in 1997 without any significant swing to the Right after 1992 and without endorsing Thatcherism and the idea that the existing order was the natural way of things.
We are about to get the ultimate verdict on Corbyn.
May couldn't resist and has called an election for June 8.
God help the once great Labour Party. Let's hope there are enough pieces left to be re-assembled by a sensible new leader.
It would serve the anti-Corbynites right if Jeremy stood down as leader right now and made them choose someone else. If the party does badly, it's entirely do to the hate campaign the PLP has waged against their own leader.
They now have an obligation to finally get fully behind him and try to salvage the situation.
So much for May's word. There's no reason for an election now except that the Conervatives want a bigger majority. But the PLP is probably happy because for them losing seats is worth it to get rid of Corbyn. Here's the latest poll:
https://mobile.twitter.com/EuropeElects/status/854297989069897728
to pledge Labour, if elected, to a commitment to fight the EU on austerity
Fight what? The EU has no control over the fiscal policies of its members. I think even the Labour left would do handstands if the UK could ever get the level of government spending and services that, say, Denmark has.
You want to see austerity? Just wait until May is re-elected. She knows that in order to get businesses to stay after Brexit she's going to have to bring in cuts that would make Thatcher look soft.
How about if Labour takes a stand that they will reverse the process of leaving the EU?
At this stage, that might help.
to pledge Labour, if elected, to a commitment to fight the EU on austerityFight what? The EU has no control over the fiscal policies of its members. I think even the Labour left would do handstands if the UK could ever get the level of government spending and services that, say, Denmark has.
You want to see austerity? Just wait until May is re-elected. She knows that in order to get businesses to stay after Brexit she's going to have to bring in cuts that would make Thatcher look soft.
The EU sure does have control over fiscal policy. Try running a big deficit to combat a depression.
Hoqw about if Labour takes a stand that they will reverse the process of leaving the EU?
They'll lose all their seats in the north of England.
How so many on the left ended up wedded to that neo-liberal EU monstrosity should be the subject of an interesting book someday.
From josh, in response to my suggestion Labour makes reversing the process of leaving the EU a part of their campaign:
They'll lose all their seats in the north of England.
How so many on the left ended up wedded to that neo-liberal EU monstrosity should be the subject of an interesting book someday.
They may lose all their seats there in any case. After all, it is now the Conservative party that is the leader of the EU exit strategy. Those voters that are strongly committed to the exit will vote Conservative.
Further north, those voters who opposed the exit (and are in the majority) will vote for the Scottish National Party. Perhaps that's because they can't figure out how the left ended up wedded to that neo-Liberal monstrosity known as the United Kingdom.
Which leaves Labour where, exactly? They were opposed to the EU exit. Why not continue with their opposition.
And what did Marx and Engels mean when they wrote, "Workers of the world, unite"? What they understood, and what some of the left nowadays seems to have forgotten, is that national boundaries are for restricting workers, not capital. This allows capital to pit 'our' workers against 'their' workers in a destructive battle that capital wins, and workers lose.
Besides which, with the Conservatives carrying the flag for leaving the EU, what does Labour campaign on? We will make 'our' capitalists will be more responsive than 'their' capitalists? Gee, that's worked so well in the past, I don't see how it could fail now...
Which leaves Labour where, exactly? They were opposed to the EU exit. Why not continue with their opposition.
And what did Marx and Engels mean when they wrote, "Workers of the world, unite"? What they understood, and what some of the left nowadays seems to have forgotten, is that national boundaries are for restricting workers, not capital. This allows capital to pit 'our' workers against 'their' workers in a destructive battle that capital wins, and workers lose.
They shouldn't continue because the people have voted. Those voters who believe Brexit is the most important issue, and oppose it, have the Liberal Democrats to vote for. Nor do I believe that Labour will lose all those seats in the north if they continue their present position on Brexit. As for Scotland, Labour lost almost all the seats there before the Brexit vote.
National boundaries can restrict capital. Through capital controls, taxes and protection of domestic industries. First time I've seen the argument that the EU advances Marx's dreams.
this pretty much captures it: disaster for Labour, will it remain Official opposition?
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/19/opinion/the-foregone-conclusion-of-br...
Many see the Labour’s problems as deriving primarily from its leader, left-winger Jeremy Corbyn. Mr. Corbyn has been markedly ineffectual as leader, unable to enthuse even his core supporters. A recent poll suggested that fewer than 40 percent of Labour voters think he would make a better prime minister than Mrs. May.
One Labour member of Parliament, John Woodcock, told his constituents, “I will not countenance ever voting to make Jeremy Corbyn Britain’s prime minister.” When the party’s own lawmakers can’t face the idea of their leader as prime minister, it is difficult to know why anyone should vote Labour.
Labour’s crisis runs deeper, though, than its leader. It no longer knows what kind of party it is, or whom it seeks to represent. So it has been unable to take a stand on the big issues of the day, most notably Brexit. Fearful of losing its residual working-class base, the party shrank from full-hearted backing of the Remain campaign. Neither, though, can Labour — anxious not to alienate middle-class, urban voters — truly embrace Brexit.
The result has been an irresolution that has leeched support from both constituencies. Labour’s vacillation over Brexit has led many middle-class liberals to switch to the Liberal Democrats, or simply drift away. Tony Blair has already called on voters to support anti-Brexit candidates, irrespective of party affiliation. There are reports that Labour’s former leader may campaign on this platform with the Liberal Democrat leader Tim Farron.
Decimated in the 2015 election, after its unhappy phase as the junior partner in a coalition government with David Cameron’s Conservatives, the Liberal Democrats have now repositioned themselves as the party of Europe. Making a play to win the support of the Remain voters who still feel resentful about the result of last year’s referendum on Britain’s membership in the European Union, it is calling for a second referendum at the end of the Brexit negotiations.
It no longer knows what kind of party it is, or whom it seeks to represent.
The result of years and years of "New" Labour.
The British left’s task isn’t to win the next general election — it’s to fight for the survival of the Labour Party itself.
quote:
Corbyn has attempted to reckon with the overpowering forces against him by placating his rivals and softening his stance on key issues like NATO and nationalization, to no avail. Rather than propounding Bennite socialism, he steered down the historic center of Labourism. The idea was to acculturate the party’s establishment to a peaceful status quo with a left-wing leadership, and isolate the most belligerent rightists. This would buy time for an inexperienced and fragile left-wing leadership to develop an agenda, and a disorganized base to get organized. The ranks and ranks of Labour MPs joining the coup effort last year demonstrated how little effect this had.
The strategy didn’t work, and it is part of why Labour is in the difficulty it is in. The leadership looks increasingly paralyzed: plenty of good policies, a lot of uneasy fudging over key issues like immigration and Brexit, and no “vision.” That doesn’t mean any other strategy would guarantee better results. But ironically, as Labour’s polls get worse, it was the neoconservative columnist Danny Finkelstein who had the best advice for Corbyn: he should assume he has nothing to lose, forget about trying to conciliate with the backbench mob, be the radical socialist that his supporters and voters want, and see how far he can get.
So why doesn’t Corbyn simply go for it? There was a brief, though seemingly abortive, “populist” moment in the new year, wherein Corbyn was about to emulate at least some of the insurrectionary language of Jean-Luc Mélenchon. If he took this out on the campaign trail, addressing packed meetings, it would surely be a welcome alternative to the awkward, peace-making triangulations. It would help counter the internalized defeat, confusion, and demoralization of the British left, by creating a militant, vibrant, political counterculture in an era of reaction.
They need to get their act together and quick. First thing be careful about fighting battles that are already lost. They should take a hard look at Brexit and make a call of whether it is even possible to turn back the clock and what are the consequences of fighting that battle. If it isn't worthwhile they should look at what the left needs to stand for in a Brexit England. They need to decide how they are going to handle Scotland. In a perfect world they would allow Scotland to negotiate seperately with Europe (if Europe is interested).
Then they should look at the harm that is coming fast and furious with Brexit. No doubt there are numerous voters that are looking there also. They need to come up with solutions even if they are temporary triage for the suffering that a massive change like Brexit brings. The Conservatives want a blank slate, it is Labour's job to make sure that they don't get it.
Labour's nightmare may continue after Corbyn gets creamed in the election.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/jeremy-corbyn-stay-on-lead...
Labour's nightmare may continue after Corbyn gets creamed in the election.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/jeremy-corbyn-stay-on-lead...
He wants to stay on through the party conference to make sure the PLP doesn't raise the threshold for getting on the ballot. Jim Callaghan pulled a similar move in 1980 to prevent Tony Benn from winning leadership.
No, he wants to lower the threshold from 15% to 5% of MPs to ensure that some fellow crackpot makes it on the ballot.
Not a crackpot...he just wants to make sure that the PLP don't get to limit the leadership candidates to right-wingers. Most of the party agrees with Corbyn on the issues...it can't be a fair process for the PLP, the ONLY part of Labour that still supports the Third Way and military intervention in the Arab/Muslim world, to have exclusive control over who is allowed to stand for the leadership. They won't allow anyone to the left of Yvette Cooper or Chuka Umunna.
There's no reason the MPs should have any greater say in who gets to be leader than anyone else. The MPs still don't get it that the party has to be a party that defends the working and jobless poor-that it can't put moneygrubbers and CEO's first and still be have a reason to exist.
From josh:
National boundaries can restrict capital. Through capital controls, taxes and protection of domestic industries. First time I've seen the argument that the EU advances Marx's dreams.
It's not so much that the EU advances Marxism, as it is that the EU doesn't kill Marxism any more than single nations do. If those favouring an exit from the EU think they're going back to some workers paradise, they're dreaming. The 'return of sovereignty' they think they're getting is nothing more than a return of control to the local bourgeoisie.
To put it another way, what will Labour campaign on? Being in favour of the exit won't buy them anything, that position already being taken. Ignoring it won't help, because that is specifically what the election is about. Maybe they can fall back on the tried and true, "don't vote for those guys, they're assholes".
From josh:
National boundaries can restrict capital. Through capital controls, taxes and protection of domestic industries. First time I've seen the argument that the EU advances Marx's dreams.
It's not so much that the EU advances Marxism, as it is that the EU doesn't kill Marxism any more than single nations do. If those favouring an exit from the EU think they're going back to some workers paradise, they're dreaming. The 'return of sovereignty' they think they're getting is nothing more than a return of control to the local bourgeoisie.
To put it another way, what will Labour campaign on? Being in favour of the exit won't buy them anything, that position already being taken. Ignoring it won't help, because that is specifically what the election is about. Maybe they can fall back on the tried and true, "don't vote for those guys, they're assholes".
Apparently they will campaign on a "soft" Brexit.
The EU hinders the possibility of governmental actions to help workers. Whether through higher deficit spending to stimulate the economy, or nationalizations. It is austerity economics writ large.
No, he wants to lower the threshold from 15% to 5% of MPs to ensure that some fellow crackpot makes it on the ballot.
Crackpot. LOL. If being opposed to neo-Thatcherism and to participating in illegal wars makes him a crackpot, bring on the crackpots.
Yes ken, there ia a very good reason why the PLP should be able to nominate leasership candidates. It is to protect their party from the utter destruction a leader like Corbyn will visit upon it.
Hilarious... the issues with Corbyn and his disaterous leadership are the fault of New Labour... you know, the New Labour that actually won elections. But no, has nothing to do with Corbyn or a lurch to the left...
Latest? May Conservatives 48%. Corbyn Labour 24%. Jesus. Some on the left need to get out of their own little bubble.
The PLP are the ONLY people in the entire party who want Labour to move to the right on the issues. They are out of step with every other faction of the party. Why should this one, tiny group of people(a group that only hold seats that ANYONE would automatically win as a Labour candidate) matter more than everyone else?
Would you at least agree that, now that the election has been called, the PLP should STOP, at least for the duration of the campaign, trying to force Corbyn to resign?
Even you would have to agree that continuing to call for that can't possibly do the party any good.
More to the point, if Corbyn were to resign now, no one who took over for him, other than maybe McDonnell(who comes across as a stronger person)could possibly do better in the time remaining in the campaign.
There would be no surge back to Labour if the PLP replaced him with a centrist.
Would you at least agree that, now that the election has been called, the PLP should STOP, at least for the duration of the campaign, trying to force Corbyn to resign?
Even you would have to agree that continuing to call for that can't possibly do the party any good.
More to the point, if Corbyn were to resign now, no one who took over for him, other than maybe McDonnell(who comes across as a stronger person)could possibly do better in the time remaining in the campaign.
There would be no surge back to Labour if the PLP replaced him with a centrist.
The worse, the better. They want Labour to do as badly as possible to tarnish the Left and return the crowd that brought you 35, 29, 31 raging successes. A lot of the same crowd, including the Lord Mandelson, undermined Milliband in the last election
I know. They've been a party-within-a-party since 2011. They're a right-wing version of what Militant was just accused of being.
From josh:
The EU hinders the possibility of governmental actions to help workers. Whether through higher deficit spending to stimulate the economy, or nationalizations. It is austerity economics writ large.
Well yes, I understand how frustrating it is to have the EU prevent the Conservative Party from making the UK a workers paradise.
If you can believe that, you can believe pretty much anything.
From Hunky_Munky:
Hilarious... the issues with Corbyn and his disaterous leadership are the fault of New Labour... you know, the New Labour that actually won elections.
Would that have been the Labour partry run by the international criminal Tony Blair? The guy who should be rotting in prison in the Hague? The corrupt, lying, war-mongering cretin who destroyed the reason for existence of the Labour Party? Is that the New Labour you're speaking of?
'New Labour' was nothing more than the old capitalism, with a few bombs thrown in.
From Hunky_Munky:
Hilarious... the issues with Corbyn and his disaterous leadership are the fault of New Labour... you know, the New Labour that actually won elections.
Would that have been the Labour partry run by the international criminal Tony Blair? The guy who should be rotting in prison in the Hague? The corrupt, lying, war-mongering cretin who destroyed the reason for existence of the Labour Party? Is that the New Labour you're speaking of?
'New Labour' was nothing more than the old capitalism, with a few bombs thrown in.
Preach it, Rev.
Jeremy Corbyn was the right leader for the right time in history of the wrong party.
From josh:
The EU hinders the possibility of governmental actions to help workers. Whether through higher deficit spending to stimulate the economy, or nationalizations. It is austerity economics writ large.
Well yes, I understand how frustrating it is to have the EU prevent the Conservative Party from making the UK a workers paradise.
If you can believe that, you can believe pretty much anything.
Of course it could be just as bad, or worse. But it could also be a lot better. And it will be the British people deciding, not a bunch of EU bureaucrats and bankers.
Let's be brutally honest here. The real reason May called the election had nothing to do with Brexit.
There was some prospect that orbyn might step down after the next labour conference in September, especially if it relaxed the rules to ensure one of his allies was on the next leadership ballot despite minimal support in the PLP.
May wanted to run against Corbyn, not some new Labour leader who could scarcely be more maladroit or less electorally appealing than him.
This on a pro-Labour blog:
http://labour-uncut.co.uk/2017/04/19/corbyns-a-disaster-but-we-must-figh...
In the end, it’s a question of whether it will be 50, 100 or 150 seats we lose. And that’s worth fighting for.
We can choose to do nothing, and let everything fall apart. Or choose to resist, for what will come after the election. This party has been a great force for good in this country and it can be again. But it is on life-support. It needs help. This election is about staunching the flow of blood out of the wound, so as not to kill the patient. Saving those seats we can. Fighting not just the Tories without but the far left within.
The only sensible choice is to hold your nose and vote for Jeremy Corbyn. He will never become prime minister, so your conscience is perfectly clear. Hold your nose and door-knock. Hold your nose and come out for your decent local councillor or MP, who deserve better than this.
In Hugh Gaitskell’s brilliant, defiant words: to fight, fight and fight again, to save the party we love.
Let's be brutally honest here. The real reason May called the election had nothing to do with Brexit.
There was some prospect that orbyn might step down after the next labour conference in September, especially if it relaxed the rules to ensure one of his allies was on the next leadership ballot despite minimal support in the PLP.
May wanted to run against Corbyn, not some new Labour leader who could scarcely be more maladroit or less electorally appealing than him.
No, I think it had more to do with her wanting more leeway to negotiate a soft Brexit. There is no way of knowing whether Corbyn would have stepped down in the fall. And even if he did, Labour would have no chance of winning an election in the near future.
