Labour Leadership 2016

So, are we all still expected to line up behind Angela 'failed assassin' Eagle?
Policies?

But their problems go deeper than that. Thus far, the critique of Corbyn is strikingly vapid. It is a meaningless and self-cancelling complaint to say that Corbyn can't unite the parliamentary party around him. All these MPs have to do is accept the mandate of the party membership, work with the elected leadership, and the complaint disappears. But that complaint is the entire substance of most of the resignation letters.

In fairness, Chris Bryant goes further. He blames Corbyn for defeat in the European Union referendum on the basis that he articulated the critical Remain stance that he was elected to lead the party on. The inadequacy of this critique and was underlined by Bryant's extraordinary resort to rumour-mongering, claiming to have evidence that Corbyn "secretly" voted to Leave – no doubt while twirling his moustache and cackling about the "fools".

There has also been no indication of any plausible alternative. There has been little discussion of actual policy. As in the 2015 leadership election, one senses that they would like to be able to oppose Corbyn on such fundamentals as his anti-austerity stance, but are perfectly well aware that their own position of "austerity lite" is not a winner. There are some signals from the Labour Right that yet another sop to anti-immigration politics is called for, but this hardly amounts to a coherent solution either for Labour's dilemmas, or for the coming economic and social crises. All it will do is cultivate ideological terrain for the far right, who will duly seize it when their time comes.

Even on the terrain in which they should have the greatest advantage, public opinion, it is not clear that they are winning: a Times poll of Labour voters suggests that 54 percent want Corbyn to stay, as opposed to 35 percent who want him to resign. Of course, this is just a snapshot of opinion in an incredibly volatile situation. But all the advantages in shaping opinion have been on the side of opposition. It is the Hillary Benns and Angela Eagles who have cultivated the best relations with political editors, and it is they who have been best able to pose as anonymous "top-level sources," fuelling hundreds of sabotage stories throughout the last ten months. And yet, they may have miscalculated, and that there is a backlash against such an obviously orchestrated crisis.

http://www.vice.com/en_uk/read/the-no-confidence-trick-corbyn-labour-post-brexit

Just going to re-post this for emphasis:

There are some signals from the Labour Right that yet another sop to anti-immigration politics is called for, but this hardly amounts to a coherent solution either for Labour's dilemmas, or for the coming economic and social crises. All it will do is cultivate ideological terrain for the far right, who will duly seize it when their time comes.

Yes let's drag it all out while 68 million people need leadership!

Those people [including ALL politicians also Labour] need to be banished to a rock where we can throw stones at them. This is purely a suggestion of course like all the Brexit campaign slogans :P

^^Wow.

https://twitter.com/BBCNewsnight/status/748174931234529280

Edit: The trading of statistics and poll data is kind of endless and can never actually predict the future. We'll both always be able to find another link that back us up.

The other thing both sides of the argument are doing here is gradually characterising the other side as more extreme- me with my comment about the Communists and SWP, and now you with the quote about "ideological terrain for the far right". I'm sorry it's come to this, it's not constructive.

I'm staying in Blackpool for a while for work, and I feel relieved to be out of the london bubble for a while. Seen a few "independence day" leave stickers around. The place is markedly more run down than even the crummier bits of london, it's a very different athmosphere.

Ha, potentially the highest approval rating for any politician in the UK right now!

Anyone remember Gordon Brown's infamous 'British Jobs for British Workers' speech? Two years later the BNP had won two seats in the European elections and Labour came third behind UKIP.

Trying to appropriate the language of the racist parties to appear tough on immigration backfired last time and will again.

I also remember when he called that old lady a bigot.

He was right, and the inability to call bigots bigots is a problem.

potentially

Yes, all these statistics and polls we have been trading have the potential to be interpreted.

Thing is, it's fine for you or me to call someone a bigot, but to personally insult someone when the whole country can hear you is political suicide.

The two things are unrelated. I'm not sure how the "Thing is" connects them. So:

1) No, yours are presented as evidence of Corbyn being unelectable.

Mine are evidence that this is debatable.

They are important distinctions. I accept that he may be unelectable. I also figure for something as oft repeated there would be fairly substantial data which show him to be an extreme outlier, rather than a spectrum of "not popular", "as popular", "more popular."

2) My point is that the world should care a bit less when a bigot is called a bigot.

Yes, unrelated like the two posts I was replying to. Sorry I'll try to be more clear in future :)

1) No, yours are presented as evidence of Corbyn being unelectable.

Mine are evidence that this is debatable.>

You mean I'm being a bit more assertive? Could be, might be why I edited my post and tried to find common ground, stop this getting repetitive.

2) Thing is, sometimes you have to take the world as you find it. We're not going to change the way the world reacts.

I guess the issue is it's not the Labour party members you need the backing of, they're going to vote for the Labour party regardless, it's those who aren't currently voting for the labour party.

How the hell you do that is obviously more of a challenge.

Edit: Dutch coffeeshops for everyone?

😃

Joking aside surely median wage people are also worried about study fees, banks, benefits...

It's getting more and more confusing.
Guardian.

1 Attachment

more confusing

"Jeremy McDonnel" is MI5 jargon for the amalgamated perceived viewpoints of Jeremys Corbyn, Hunt and Clarkson.
It is hoped that Boris Johnson will ultimately prove to embody these.
Sans any awkward socialism of course.

I'm still sticking with the PLP, who represent voters, and a broader section of society.

But but the PLP approved candidates lost two general elections and a leadership contest.

Which voters do the PLP represent ?

Which voters do the PLP represent ?

The 9.3 million voters who voted for them last year.

Which still lost them a General Election.

Yes, so they need those 9.3 million, and more.

Good thing they have a plan.

I hope labour and the lib dems accept the green proposal and do the right thing for the country. Very possible the SNP would support the idea in principle. And hey! Unity government!

I'd be very much in favour of a progressive coalition. With the SNP, it could help hold the country together, an issue I feel quite depressed about, having family living in Scotland. Labour would still need to be the biggest party though, which means making big gains.

I'm not sure what you mean by "labour would still need to be the biggest party, which means making big gains."

Labour would be the biggest party, but gains would be made by not running against each other.

Thinking about it a bit more, I think this is a deal which could be sold to labour party members who support Corbyn, and a possible way of finding an amicable resolution to the, now obvious, war between members and the PLP.

The problem is, I can't imagine the PLP agreeing to it. I'm going to send a message off to my MP tomorrow.

Well, just joined the labour party to support Corbyn.