..you keep making the same point over and over again ndpp. the eu is bad. but no one is argueing that it isn't. not ever on this board since the rise of corbyn. but you use it like a hammer..as an accusation.
..it's about how to deal with the eu. a ground up struggle is needed. your strategy was always bad strategy. terrible strategy. disaster strategy. it was always based on division and blame which never works.
what drivel. doubling down on arrogance, ignorance and the-world-according-to-paul mason or plp hustlers, the same who so obviously led labour to a spectacular failure nor to predict what i saw coming a mile off won't help you now anymore than it did before. if i repeat things it's because thick heads here ignore or malign important and relevent information, choosing instead to follow stupid bourgeois fake left political road-maps and advertising campaigns designed to fool the gullible who act surprised to then find themselves again off the main road and into the weeds.
..and following a non existant left movement as you promote is a dead end. you can't pick a tweet here and a tweet there and call it a left movement. should any one of those tweeters ever step outside your mind set they will feel your rath..like corbyn like mason.
..you personally though present no vision. no path or plan other than chaos.
Ultimately that's for the british people to determine (which they have decisively in the matter of uk labour) not me or you sitting here amidst the unmitigated disaster that is the canadian liberal-left.
..i agree with that. but that was never the point. the point of our discussions here was to learn from it. so lets learn. blame and division does not work for a better future.
Well said.
https://twitter.com/bbcquestiontime/status/1205600286842085376?s=20
The same person led the party in 2017 and it won an 8 point higher vote share and some 60 more seats. What changed? Not the leader. Not the manifesto. The change was Labour's pledge to hold another referendum.
Who's to say that if Labour had not pledged to hold a referendum the Liberal Democrats would have come in second place and pushed Labour into 3rd party status that could have turned Labour into the UK's version of our NDP? Driving away the many Labour Remainers would also have led to electoral disaster especially since there are more Labour Remainers than Labour Leavers.
They didn't promise to hold another referendum last time. And the Lib Dems did worse.
The Lib Dems went up 4.2%
..again it's the remain (not talking about those that manipulated this) that takes the hit. as if they were the unreasonable one. as if because there was a vote back when they should have accepted this...imo remain had every right to express there desire as much as leave..in spite of the vote way back when. they were right to fear a brexit brought on and manipulated by the right. it was no secret that neoliberalism and austerity had run havoc for years. yet leave blew up the labour manifesto for a mythical brexit.
..this is the story. how manipulation and division works. how we either overcome this or we perish.
Remain did express their desires, and the voting public said they disagreed with that point. It's that simple. If we on the left are going to preach democracy, then we have to accept it when the voting public makes decisions with which we disagree.
Meet Boris Johnson's Kingmakers
https://twitter.com/communicipalist/status/1205433656401178629
"It gives me no satisfaction to say all of my predictions for the last 3 years came to pass yesterday. Comfy-class Labour smartarses blew everything on London and lost the country as a whole. Playing fast and loose with democracy is political suicide, meet Boris Johnson's kingmakers."
Constituencies where the margin of Labor defeat was< increase in Brexit/UKIP vote (minus increase in Lib Dem/Green vote)
Blyth Valley (1.8, 7.0)
Don Valley (8.0, 9.5)
On the other hand:
Constituencies where the margin of Labor defeat was< increase in Lib Dem/Green vote (minus increase in Brexit/UKIP vote)
Bolton North East (0.9, 1.3)
Gedling (1.4, 2.3)
Heywood and Middleton (1.4, 3.0)
Kensington (0.3, 7.4)
Stoke-on-Trent Central (2.1, 2.3)
Constituencies where the margin of Labor defeat was< increase in Lib Dem/Green/Plaid Cymru vote (minus increase in Brexit/UKIP vote)
Bridgend (2.8, 3.5)
Constituencies where the margin of Labor defeat was< increase in Lib Dem/Green/Women's Equality Party/Labour MP running as an Independent vote (minus increase in Brexit/UKIP vote)
Bury South (0.8, 6.5)
Plus the 6 Labour seats lost to the SNP. Then there is the case of Ashfield. Labour lost by 14.9%, Brexit up 1.3 over UKIP, Lib Dems/Green up 0.9, Ashleigh Independents (whoever they are) up 18.4%
Well said.
https://twitter.com/bbcquestiontime/status/1205600286842085376?s=20
The same person led the party in 2017 and it won an 8 point higher vote share and some 60 more seats. What changed? Not the leader. Not the manifesto. The change was Labour's pledge to hold another referendum.
Who's to say that if Labour had not pledged to hold a referendum the Liberal Democrats would have come in second place and pushed Labour into 3rd party status that could have turned Labour into the UK's version of our NDP? Driving away the many Labour Remainers would also have led to electoral disaster especially since there are more Labour Remainers than Labour Leavers.
They didn't promise to hold another referendum last time. And the Lib Dems did worse.
The Lib Dems went up 4.2%
Worse in 2017
..and following a non existant left movement as you promote is a dead end. you can't pick a tweet here and a tweet there and call it a left movement. should any one of those tweeters ever step outside your mind set they will feel your rath..like corbyn like mason.
..you personally though present no vision. no path or plan other than chaos.
The worse, the better.
..again it's the remain (not talking about those that manipulated this) that takes the hit. as if they were the unreasonable one. as if because there was a vote back when they should have accepted this...imo remain had every right to express there desire as much as leave..in spite of the vote way back when. they were right to fear a brexit brought on and manipulated by the right. it was no secret that neoliberalism and austerity had run havoc for years. yet leave blew up the labour manifesto for a mythical brexit.
..this is the story. how manipulation and division works. how we either overcome this or we perish.
Remain did express their desires, and the voting public said they disagreed with that point. It's that simple. If we on the left are going to preach democracy, then we have to accept it when the voting public makes decisions with which we disagree.
..this was no more about democracy than the election of trump or trudeau.
If you've been lost in a delusion, reality asserting itself is a good thing. So now what? Canadian progressives should be as urgently questioning themselves and the road ahead as the British already are...'
Why We Lost, How We Win
https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/b/why-we-lost-how-we-win
"On the central issue of Brexit, Corbyn's Labour chose to side with its enemies, at the expense of its base - and the election. But the Tories' apparent strength is a temporary illusion, writes Paul O'Connell
Lindsey German: Where Do We Go From Here? Election Breifing, 13 December
"The lesson of this is that you can't just trash people's votes and expect them not to notice. It is obvious that the left has to look very seriously at its strategy, and that this has to shift from parliament..."
The Artist Taxi Driver: 'Never Give Up!'
"Every single day I'll be here!"
'There is no final victory, just as there is no final defeat. Just the same battle to be fought over and over again. So toughen up, bloody toughen up!" - Tony Benn, UK Labour -
..and following a non existant left movement as you promote is a dead end. you can't pick a tweet here and a tweet there and call it a left movement. should any one of those tweeters ever step outside your mind set they will feel your rath..like corbyn like mason.
..you personally though present no vision. no path or plan other than chaos.
That's true...while NDPP's point about brexit has merit-though I don't understand why that poster saw it as a betrayal to try and keep the rights guarantees, since they have nothing to do with economic policy-NDPP's discourse has never been about anything but trashing for the sake of trashing. Always tearing down, never trying to build, never offering a positive alternative.
NDPP's approach is exactly that of the WSWS-a site which exists for no reason other than to attack the rest of the left. The WSWS thought it was "left" to attack the Quebec students' movement, one of the strongest left formations in recent Canadian history.
It's not left to just attack for the sake of attacking.
Well said.
https://twitter.com/bbcquestiontime/status/1205600286842085376?s=20
The same person led the party in 2017 and it won an 8 point higher vote share and some 60 more seats. What changed? Not the leader. Not the manifesto. The change was Labour's pledge to hold another referendum.
Who's to say that if Labour had not pledged to hold a referendum the Liberal Democrats would have come in second place and pushed Labour into 3rd party status that could have turned Labour into the UK's version of our NDP? Driving away the many Labour Remainers would also have led to electoral disaster especially since there are more Labour Remainers than Labour Leavers.
They didn't promise to hold another referendum last time. And the Lib Dems did worse.
The Lib Dems went up 4.2%
Worse in 2017
There weren't enough areas where going all-out Remain would have helped Labour do better. Labour went as far towards appeasing the Remainers as it could, and the Remainers still denounced them for not totally telling the Labour Leave voters that they no longer mattered.
There was no good reason to push this hard to make Labour to all-out Remain, and no reason to keep attacking Corbyn when they knew he COULDN'T go all-out Remain and couldn't pledge to campaign for Remain in a second referendum.
And yes, the LibDem vote went up...but they had a one-seat loss overall-that proves there was nothing more to gain for Labour going all-out Remain. The LibDem gains were mainly that party simply recovering to something closer to its relatively normal post-1997 level of electoral strength.
In many respects, the key mistake Corbyn made was in listening to the advice of Seamus Milne-not because that advice was too radical-it was never actually radical at all-but because that advice was mainly to never fight back against the smears, and especially since that advice, on the AS smear, was to continually appease those doing the smearing by not defending the party and himself, by not stating clearly that the party and his supporters were innocent of the charges, by repeatedly sacrificing allies-such as Chris Williamson, whose only crime was defending Corbyn and the party from the false accusations-in the hopes of silencing the smears. THAT was the big mistake. Had Corbyn faced down the smears strongly, they could have stopped them. Refusing to challenge them-a choice in which Milne's guidance appeared to be based, on all things, on the utterly stupid choices made by the Dukakis and Kerry presidential campaigns in the U.S. when faced with their own smears-simply gave the smears a validity they would otherwise never have had.
And when Corbyn faced Andrew Neil, he could have brought him to a stop by pointing out that, as a person who had employed David Irving as a "historical researcher" on one of his projects, Neil had no claim to righteousness on the AS issue at all.
The problem was timidity, not radicalism.
Labour will lose the next election if it fights it with a left-bashing centrist as leader.
It can win that election if it fights it with a left leader who fights back without hesitation against unfounded smears like the AS smear, if that leader can spend more time in the run-up to the election making an organic case for how the policies will make a difference in people's lives, if that leader is not continually disrespected and sabotaged by her own MPs.
..and following a non existant left movement as you promote is a dead end. you can't pick a tweet here and a tweet there and call it a left movement. should any one of those tweeters ever step outside your mind set they will feel your rath..like corbyn like mason.
..you personally though present no vision. no path or plan other than chaos.
That's true...while NDPP's point about brexit has merit-though I don't understand why that poster saw it as a betrayal to try and keep the rights guarantees, since they have nothing to do with economic policy-NDPP's discourse has never been about anything but trashing for the sake of trashing. Always tearing down, never trying to build, never offering a positive alternative.
NDPP's approach is exactly that of the WSWS-a site which exists for no reason other than to attack the rest of the left. The WSWS thought it was "left" to attack the Quebec students' movement, one of the strongest left formations in recent Canadian history.
It's not left to just attack for the sake of attacking.
Not new. Elements of the left treating others on the left as a bigger threat than the right has a long history.
It lost far more in Leave areas, as that chart shows. And here's a difference: getting out of the EU is seen as life and death in the North and Northeast in England; to those in the Remain areas, staying in is mainly a way to travel more easily to other countries-a solely bourgeois and mainly white issue-and to get greater access to luxury goods from European boutiques. No one's survival or dignity or hope has ever been at stake on the Remain side-it's mainly been about getting to go to the great free-market theme park on the mainland. It's not about jobs or getting out of poverty or being free from any level of oppression. Remain is almost entirely a cause for the privileged.
..and following a non existant left movement as you promote is a dead end. you can't pick a tweet here and a tweet there and call it a left movement. should any one of those tweeters ever step outside your mind set they will feel your rath..like corbyn like mason.
..you personally though present no vision. no path or plan other than chaos.
That's true...while NDPP's point about brexit has merit-though I don't understand why that poster saw it as a betrayal to try and keep the rights guarantees, since they have nothing to do with economic policy-NDPP's discourse has never been about anything but trashing for the sake of trashing. Always tearing down, never trying to build, never offering a positive alternative.
NDPP's approach is exactly that of the WSWS-a site which exists for no reason other than to attack the rest of the left. The WSWS thought it was "left" to attack the Quebec students' movement, one of the strongest left formations in recent Canadian history.
It's not left to just attack for the sake of attacking.
Not new. Elements of the left treating others on the left as a bigger threat than the right has a long history.
True, but hardly a mitigating factor.
It lost far more in Leave areas, as that chart shows. And here's a difference: getting out of the EU is seen as life and death in the North and Northeast in England; to those in the Remain areas, staying in is mainly a way to travel more easily to other countries-a solely bourgeois and mainly white issue-and to get greater access to luxury goods from European boutiques. No one's survival or dignity or hope has ever been at stake on the Remain side-it's mainly been about getting to go to the great free-market theme park on the mainland. It's not about jobs or getting out of poverty or being free from any level of oppression. Remain is almost entirely a cause for the privileged.
Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes and yes! (I don't think I can say enough "yes" to this.) I can remember with neo-liberalism and globalism being on the rise in the 1990s, there was talk about all the wonderful opportunities it would bring for people to travel and experience other cultres. No doubt more people started doing that, and more people began to study in other countries, and in some cases even loved them so much that they stayed there. My intuition, however, is that the vast majority of the migration of people around the globe in that time was brought on by such things as economic dislocation (particularly gutting of rural communities as people moved into the cities in the hopes of finding jobs) and displacement from war and persecution. We're going to see much more of that from climate change. Someone from Denmark or Sweden or Britain or France can now easily move between countries without having to carry a passport? That's a matter of mere convenience, it's not life or death. Watching jobs collapse in your communities, out-migration as young people who are able move to cities to find new opportunities, and after a while despair and hopelessness cause problems like opiods, meth, and suicide? That's life or death.
The real irony of traveling is with the same corporate chains spreading across the globe, is there even any point in travelling, since all the brands look the same everywhere anyways?
That's rich coming from an ideologically possessed Russiagate conspiracy theorist and US Democrat who attacks those who don't share his msm implanted lunatic delusions as agents of the Kremlin working for Trump.
It lost far more in Leave areas, as that chart shows. And here's a difference: getting out of the EU is seen as life and death in the North and Northeast in England; to those in the Remain areas, staying in is mainly a way to travel more easily to other countries-a solely bourgeois and mainly white issue-and to get greater access to luxury goods from European boutiques. No one's survival or dignity or hope has ever been at stake on the Remain side-it's mainly been about getting to go to the great free-market theme park on the mainland. It's not about jobs or getting out of poverty or being free from any level of oppression. Remain is almost entirely a cause for the privileged.
Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes and yes! (I don't think I can say enough "yes" to this.) I can remember with neo-liberalism and globalism being on the rise in the 1990s, there was talk about all the wonderful opportunities it would bring for people to travel and experience other cultres. No doubt more people started doing that, and more people began to study in other countries, and in some cases even loved them so much that they stayed there. My intuition, however, is that the vast majority of the migration of people around the globe in that time was brought on by such things as economic dislocation (particularly gutting of rural communities as people moved into the cities in the hopes of finding jobs) and displacement from war and persecution. We're going to see much more of that from climate change. Someone from Denmark or Sweden or Britain or France can now easily move between countries without having to carry a passport? That's a matter of mere convenience, it's not life or death. Watching jobs collapse in your communities, out-migration as young people who are able move to cities to find new opportunities, and after a while despair and hopelessness cause problems like opiods, meth, and suicide? That's life or death.
The real irony of traveling is with the same corporate chains spreading across the globe, is there even any point in travelling, since all the brands look the same everywhere anyways?
Let's face it-the whole point of the Remain cause was to destroy the last of the old-time working-class in the UK. It was a right-wing cause to which some on the left were recruited in the delusion that the EU was an effective means to fight racism and xenophobia-things the EU, with its insistence on creating the conditions that feed racism and xenophobia through its demands for perpetual austerity, has never actually been interested in fighting and has never done a damn thing to fight.
At this point, the EU needs to die and be replaced by an internationalist European body that puts people before profits, and democracy-from-below before bureaucrats. It can't be reformed and it can't be saved.
That's rich coming from an ideologically possessed Russiagate conspiracy theorist and US Democrat who attacks those who don't share his msm implanted lunatic delusions as agents of the Kremlin working for Trump.
I'm not a Russiagate believer and never have been-it's just that I disagree with your notion that Putin, a far-right Great Russian Orthodox nationalist, homophobe, Islamophobe, and authoritarian dictator, is in any possible way worthy of the left's support. The enemy of the enemy isn't always a friend...in this case, he's just another enemy. Nothing he does helps the left or any of the left's objectives. And if the 20th Century taught us anything, it's that the left should never defend dictatorial leaders.
Ultimately that's for the british people to determine (which they have decisively in the matter of uk labour) not me or you sitting here amidst the unmitigated disaster that is the canadian liberal-left.
What are you doing to create an alternative to that disaster, though? What are you proposing as a positive alternative-in ANY situation?
It's not as though there'd be anything to gain from everyone switching to the CP or the CP-ML. Those parties are dead zones.
..it was the right that drove the agenda. with the support of the media. from exploiting what people thought about the eu re: the vote leave or remain. without ever defining how this is to be done. without ever addressing the reality that it was the uk governments that were the worst of the zealots that produced what was coming out of the eu..that the people hated. the right transformed itself into champions.
..this manipulation, this lie continued right up until this election. which won them a landslide majority.
..so what now? trying to twist labour into a pretzel of all seeing all knowing will not work. this is not the lesson to be learned. i'm not saying that labour has nothing to learn but the election should not be the focus. ie: labour could have said this or done that. that approach does not work when the right dominates the message by working with the media and secret services as contrarianna pointed out.
..i propose a different approach. one with more democratization of the labour party. more local control. more organization at the local level. here is an example of what i'm talking about.
The popular assemblies at the heart of the Chilean uprising
..these assemblies can discuss things like brexit or remain and how best to achieve it. they can do this at a moments notice. they can be inclusive. they can be an antidote to the tory and media manipulation and control.
That's rich coming from an ideologically possessed Russiagate conspiracy theorist and US Democrat who attacks those who don't share his msm implanted lunatic delusions as agents of the Kremlin working for Trump.
I'm not a Russiagate believer and never have been-it's just that I disagree with your notion that Putin, a far-right Great Russian Orthodox nationalist, homophobe, Islamophobe, and authoritarian dictator, is in any possible way worthy of the left's support. The enemy of the enemy isn't always a friend...in this case, he's just another enemy. Nothing he does helps the left or any of the left's objectives. And if the 20th Century taught us anything, it's that the left should never defend dictatorial leaders.
[quote=NDPP]
A curious notion I never made - I'll add it to the diverse and growing pile fake-left fanboy.
The Brexit Election & the Death of Project Corbyn
https://thecommunists.org/2019/12/12/news/brexit-election-death-of-proje...
"Rarely has the British public entered a general election with less enthusiasm or interest in the election campaigning and manifesto promises of its contending parliamentarians. Why? Largely because, as a nation, our trust and belief in the statements of British bourgeois politicians is at an all time low. 'They never do what they promise' is the overwhelming sentiment. So let us survey the political scene that actually lies before us..."
That's rich coming from an ideologically possessed Russiagate conspiracy theorist and US Democrat who attacks those who don't share his msm implanted lunatic delusions as agents of the Kremlin working for Trump.
I'm not a Russiagate believer and never have been-it's just that I disagree with your notion that Putin, a far-right Great Russian Orthodox nationalist, homophobe, Islamophobe, and authoritarian dictator, is in any possible way worthy of the left's support. The enemy of the enemy isn't always a friend...in this case, he's just another enemy. Nothing he does helps the left or any of the left's objectives. And if the 20th Century taught us anything, it's that the left should never defend dictatorial leaders.
A curious notion I never made - I'll add it to the diverse and growing pile fake-left fanboy.
You've consistently pushed the notion that the left should see Putin as anti-imperialist, and that any distance from Putin is support for U.S. world domination. Putin is not fighting against imperialism-he just wants his own empire.
The left shouldn't have anything to do with anybody who wants to be a tsar.
Introducing the Workers Party of Britain
https://workerspartybritain.org/about/
"It is enough to note that the Corbyn project is dead and buried and that with it, British workers should bury any illusion that electing a left-wing leader can change the fundamental character of the Labour party, which remains a party committed to capitalism and fully integrated into the workings of the British state..."
WATCH: Workers Party of Britain Goes Live!
https://twitter.com/georgegalloway/status/1205943842136117
'We're a Brexit labour party but real brexit and real labour. If you support a socialist Britain then join us and fight for it. You'll be most welcome.'
Labour Centrists: you must offer a second referendum!!
Corbyn: *sigh* okay.
*Labour lose historically safe seats in leave areas*
Labour Centrists: this is ALL Corbyn’s fault!
https://twitter.com/tezilyas/status/1205840416563748866?s=20
At this point, the EU needs to die and be replaced by an internationalist European body that puts people before profits, and democracy-from-below before bureaucrats. It can't be reformed and it can't be saved.
I have consistently said that a unified Eruope has been a dream of European elites since the time of the Roman Empire, however there have always been large differences in geography, economy, culture and politics rendering such a project impractical over the long term. The EU is just the latest manifestation of that.
Jeremy Corbyn killed the Labour Party. Now we must fight to revive it.
by Ayesha Hazarika
Jeremy Corbyn killed the Labour Party. Now we must fight to revive it.
by Ayesha Hazarika
Dragging the party back to Blairism and the myth of "humanitarian intervention" would do nothing to gain votes. The 2010 and 2015 election, fought on rigidly Blairite manifestos, reduced Labour to 30% support. If it was at 30% support on manifestos which were as far to the right as Labour could go and still have any legitimate claim on the term "Labour", that proves Labour could never win another election running from that part of the political spectrum.
That piece was simply a frothing rant-it even repeated the totally unjustified antisemitism slur-written by a vindictive Blairite hack and posted on a far-right UK website that rages against Labour no matter what policies it espouses.
For those who spent the last four years vilifying Corbyn, it should be more than enough that he has announced he will not fight the next election as leader. Those of you who have vilified the man still don't get it; his election as leader was never about anyone worshipping him or believing him infallible. It was the party rank-and-file, at all levels, totally and categorically rejecting the Third Way. Given that the Third Way had moved so far to the right in the post-2010 period that it no longer had any connection with Labour values at all-no MP who abstained on Theresa May's savage cuts in benefits had any right to claim to still hold any Labour values on anything at all, as even nicky would probably have to concede-it was inevitable that the Labour base would want a total repudiation of Blairism.
Faced with this reality, the PLP-the last Blairites in the party at all, for all practical purposes-had two options it could have chosen in response:
1) It could have accepted that Blairism was dead and offered to meet the new majority in the party at least halfway, could have proposed real compromises with those who had repudiated Blairism, could have admitted that those who rejected Blairism had valid grounds for doing so, and could at least offered as much cooperation as the left offered to Blair in the election of 1997, which was quite a lot, really-the left worked just as hard for a Labour victory in 1997, even though the Blairites had spent three years metaphorically kicking them in the teeth and literally treating them like vermin, as it had in 1983, 1987 and even 1992-a year where the party had already punished the left far more than it had ever deserved-and should have felt some obligation to do so because Corbyn hadn't inflicted any retribution or suffering on the Blairites at all. If they HAD to keep pushing for Corbyn himself to go, they could at least have given him some kind of signed commitment that the next leader would stay with the policies the Corbyn majority supported and that that majority would not be kicked out the party. If they actually cared about antisemitism, they could have agreed that the fight against that form of bigotry would never involve equating criticism of the Israeli government OR nonsupport of Zionism with hatred of Jews. The Blairites could have chosen that approach, and had they done so, the Tory era would almost certainly have ended two years ago.
or
2) Simply refuse to accept that Corbyn's election as leader was legitimate, refuse to accept that the rank-and-file had rejected Blairism at all, refuse to accept that they owed Corbyn and respect or loyalty as leader, seek his personal destruction through endless false accusations, continually try to not only force him out as leader and force socialism back out of the party entirely even though his election meant the Labour base wanted the party to be socialist, force him to agree to a second referendum on the EU even though they knew that stance would cost the party dozens of Leave seats while gaining them no Remain votes at all. and after all that to, for all practical purposes, campaign for a Labour defeat at local elections, EU elections and even in general elections just because Corbyn had not yet stood down-in short, to refuse to accept that the repudiation of Blairism by the Labour base was real, to refuse to accept that they needed to accept the restoration of socialist values, to refuse to listen to and respect the majority of the party which no longer bowed down to them and no longer accepted the idea that the party was not their exclusive domain or private club.
As we know, the Blairite PLP chose the second option and apparently refused to even consider the first. In making that choice, a choice the PLP knew all along would never result in Corbyn resigning and simply handing the party back over to them, the PLP has to admit it bears at least partial responsibility for the election results.
If they do manage to reassert dominance in the party, if they do purge all socialists again, if they do reduce the party to the Blair policies again, they will simply lead Labour to further decline.
No Blairite policies can ever win back Labour Leave voters-if the EU is somehow still an issue at the next election, and a Blairite leader fights it on an all out Remain position, every one of those voters will take it as a sign that the party doesn't even want them back.
No Blairite foreign or defense policies can increase Labour's vote share-the people of the UK are sick of the Anti-Muslim wars and universally regard humanitarian intervention as a code for "wars for oil". the young voters who backed Labour under Corbyn will switch, as a bloc, to the Greens, because no party with a militaristic foreign policy can possibly offer anything that young voters would want.
Corbyn is gone-but the values Labour stood for under his leadership are overwhelmingly the values the Labour base wants the party to stand for. The man was defeated-largely through smears and through the treachery of the PLP-the values weren't.
Labour cannot win, and cannot have any reason to exist any longer-since the only reason for Labour to exist is to fight for totally different values than the Tories stand for-if it once again erases socialism from its soul and once again embraces greed, inequality, and perpetual war.
The solution lies in engagement, not erasure.
Corbyn is standing down…which means that there’s no good reason for anyone to keep attacking him anymore…but it’s also time that one particulary noxious line of attack against those who defended Corbyn be forever put to rest: The canard that Corbyn’s supporters somehow thought he was infallible.
That has simply never been the case.
A lot of us have found flaws in choices he made, and criticized those flaws:
Here’s some of the critiques I have to offer:
In my view, Corbyn SHOULD have responded to the AS slur in two ways:
Instead of doing either, Corbyn kept trying to appease the authors of the AS smear-most of whom were right wing Gentiles-and kept sacrificing innocent people allied with him, such as Jackie Walker and Chris Williamson, in the hopes that his tormenters would finally, at some point, give it a rest. He should have known they never would-that the only thing that could stop them, other than his agreement to become a Likudnik, was to stand up to the slurs and call them out for the toxic lies they were. He simply could not bring himself to do that.
"Tonight, I wish to address my future as leader of the Labour Party"
“Those in this party who want me gone. who have pushed for my resignation endlessly from the moment I was first elected to it by an overwhelming margin, have continually said they just have an issue with me personally, not with the policies the majority of the party I stand with support. I make the following offer to my opponents in order to give them the chance to demonstrate their good faith:”
“I am prepared to stand down and be replaced in a free vote, via a new leadership ballot, at the earliest possible opportunity, if those who want me gone will sign an agreement, in public, to the following terms:
“First-that the PLP will agree that a strong left-wing candidate, a candidate reflecting the view of that great majority of the party with which I stand, must be guaranteed a place on the leadership ballot. For leadership elections following that, you will support the revocation of the MP endorsement requirement, as it serves no valid purpose in the Labour Party of today.”
“Second-that if that candidate is chosen to replace me, as she almost certainly would be in a free and fair vote, you will give that new leader your full respect, support, and loyalty. You will agree not to brief against her, not to undermine her, and to campaign wholeheartedly for the party at all elections, including local elections, in which she leads the party.
“Third-you will support the restoration of full control over candidate selection, the introduction of Open Selection for all sitting MPs seeking re-election, and the return of full control over party policy to the party conference.”
“Fourth, you will guarantee that there will be no campaign to discipline, suspend, or expel left-wing people from the Labour Party, and that, in particular, no one will face retribution simply due to their association with my tenure as leader. My leadership campaign was not a crime, nor was my tenure as leader itself, and its simple decency to expect that no one will be punished for their occurrence”
“if these terms are agreed to in writing, I will stand down at once. If the issue is simply my presence as leader, my opponents, especially the PLP, will have no valid reason not to agree to these terms. If they refuse, I will owe it to the majority in the party with whom I stand to fight on-and if the party should do badly as a result of the refusal to agree to these very reasonable, honest, and human terms, any misfortune for this party at the polls will be the responsibility of those who refused- for in their refusal, they will have proven themselves completely untrustworthy. Should they refuse I will do nothing to prevent their constituency parties from de-selecting them”.
It was Corbyn’s greatest mistake, in my view, that he did not seize the moment and make such a proposal.
None of those who supported Corbyn ever thought he was infallible-it’s just that we rejected the idea that he had no right to even hold the leadership at all, or that those who put him in the leadership, as a representation of their categoric rejection of Blairism had had no right to put him in the leadership at all.
It’s not as though the only possible views people could take of Corbyn were blind adulation or utter contempt.
Jeremy Corbyn killed the Labour Party. Now we must fight to revive it.
by Ayesha Hazarika
In the paper edited by George Osborne. How appropriate.
In 2017, Corbyn took the party to its best share of the vote since 2001 and its best seat total since 2005. The moderate remainers who tied his hands on the Brexit question this time around were in large part responsible for the results.
"The election we just had is evidence that politics in England can never be the same again. Westminster is not now and never will be the locus of progressive politics. There can be no way forward via The Bubble populated by liars, spongers and the parasitic detritus of corruption."
https://twitter.com/communicipalist/status/1205836751916425218
Ken pleads that there is no good reason to continue to “attack” Corbyn, now that he is stepping down.
Well, for the sake of Labour’s future there certainly is good reason, in fact it is essential, not to let Corbyn and his faction off the hook for this fiasco.
They are already propagating the most ridiculous reasons for the defeat in order to deflect blame from where it properly and emphatically lies - they themselves.
They must not be allowed to force another Corbynite into the leadership. Or fail to deal decidedly with anti-Semitism or extremism in the party.
If they continue their control Labour will never form government again.
Yes, really ridiculous
https://twitter.com/chelleryn99/status/1205584303817732104
Remainers refused to accept the decision of the people in 2016, and forced Corbyn to pledge to hold another referendum in 2019. Handing the Tories seats in the north, the Midlands and Wales. They're the ones who elected a Tory majority government.
Nick, give it up. Nobody is seriously defending the idea that Corbyn should stay around, and he's already announced his departure as leader. With a Conservative majority, this will work itself out in due time. If we come back and Corbyn is still leader after 2 years without a clear plan to replace him, then we can join the rest of you in being angry.
As for the anti-semitism thing, you have been around these forums long enough to know that the anti-semitism charge is always thrown at anyone remotely critical of the Israeli government. You also know that the media plays a role in shaping public opinion and is often biased. You were among the loudest critics of the media pumping up Trudeau at the expense of Mulcair during the middle years of Harper's majority government.
Finally, in an effort to reduce hostilities and have actual discussion: what do you want the government to do? We know you hate Corbyn and the Crobynistas. Let's put that aside for a second. Without getting into names or politicians, what public policy proposals would you like to see take place in Britain to address the challenges the country faces? Why do you feel that those proposals would be the right thing to do?
My problem with many of the left politicians who sound very left -- not to mention names -- is that they trade on this apparent distance from the people. They use it to advance their causes but these are self-defeating if the public is too far from them.
In many cases people on the left long for the real practical left over volumes of rhetoric. The people that shut up about being socialist and show what socialism looks like. The people who advance more policies that are life chanign to real people than spend time talking about how left they really are.
I will take a person who never stands up and says they are a socialist but rather one who puts forward policy after policy that makes a difference. I am fed up with those trying -- on purpose -- to prove worth by being as objectionable to the mainstream as possible thus guarnateeing that they will always have a job pissing in the wind.
Fine. Be angry at the mainstream. But in politics you need votes to do anything. Some of those need to come from that mainstream you have such disdain for. When you are going to lose votes make it for something you have done over something you said.
I think the left is lead by a bunch of spinelss individuals who are afraid to go out in the real world and make a difference and instead want to talk endlessly to their belly buttons about how pure and virtuous they are. They seek popularity among the people they should count on for support and slap the people they actually need to get support from about the side of the head.
I advocate not being afraid to do something and not spending your energy and goodwill by making that something just talk.
The voters actually want you to show and not tell. This industry of name-dropping and talking over the heads when they are not scaring the people directly is sustaining the politics of anger. It does this by ensuring that nothing is ever done about that which is producing the anger. Really I am a bit fed up with it here as much as what I hear of it elsewhere.
Politicians hide in an identity to avoid the burden of advancing real ideas and having them debated.
I would love to see a socialist advance ideas without labels and then on retirement say "that was socialism."
This right-wing tendancy of attacking the mainstream and only inspiring the base - they learned that from the left. Except the left have fewer resources to even get as far as they do.
At some point you have to take your "radical ideas" and then sell them to the middle if you believe in democracy. Attacking the middle won't achieve that.
George Galloway: MOATS LIVE - Episode 26
The Election! 'Get Brexit Done' should have been Labour's slogan...'
In 2017, Corbyn took the party to its best share of the vote since 2001 and its best seat total since 2005. The moderate remainers who tied his hands on the Brexit question this time around were in large part responsible for the results.
In 2017 Theresa May also ran one of the worst election campaigns in UK electoral history and Labour was still not able to win even though they were handed every advantage during that election. Corbyn's unpopularity even then prevented Labour from winning. Corbyn has had extremely low approval ratings for a very long time and it was ridiculous that he was able to lead Labour into the election when his approval ratings were so low for such a long time.
I think we should also remember that Remainers make up over half of Labour's voters. I think it makes no sense to blame over half of Labour's voters for Labour's disastrous election results. If Corbyn had agreed to some sort of soft-Brexit deal, Labour's Remainers and Leavers would both mostly have been satisfied. But instead Corbyn always saw Brexit primarily as his opportunity to force an election and win power and that strategy totally backfired on Labour and the left. Corbyn should have dealt with Brexit on its own terms and not tried to use it to win power. Corbyn's short-term greed for power led Labour to the position it now finds itself in.
The Election! 'Get Brexit Done' should have been Labour's slogan...'
I agree with that.
