Labour Leadership 2016

So new members now can't vote despite being told that they would be able to...

That'll go down well.

The anti austerity stance is valid. This should be a key "thing", people will get behind this.
People who live in the north told me their branch is solidly behind him.

Fuck me the PLP are desperate to destroy the party aren't they. Didn't they get the message that people were pissed off about a perceived democratic deficiency during the referendum?

Can you still register to vote if you're a trade union member?

I voted for Corbyn last year, as did a lot of people I know. Included are my parents, who are neither metropolitan not elite, but northern small-town dwellers who were able to vote due through union membership. They had been distanced from Labour by the Iraq War and the steady Blair/Brown move towards the neoliberal consensus.

Fair enough, Corbyn isn't a great leader, or even the leader most on the Labour left would ideally have.

But there isn't another option, Angela Eagle and Owen Smith are just a step back to what no-one really wants Labour to be, and they're like broken fucking records just repeating the same mantras about Corbyn being unelectable, or having failed the Remain campaign, neither of which stand up to scrutiny.

Whatever happens, launching a coup was a fucking stupid, selfish and damaging idea which has fucked all of Labour at the worst possible time - another reason not to vote for someone who helped launch or supported it.

I just realised that, as I'm a GMB member, I can actually vote.

Is this true? My partner looked into this and thought she couldn't. Pass on the details, plz!

N/m. 2 seconds of googling answered all.

How to vote for Corbyn (if you weren't a LP member before Jan 12th) for cheaper than registered supporter status:

• Students or unemployed: Join Unite Community branch £2.17 a month

• Black, Asian or Ethnic Minority: Join BAME Labour £5 for 2 years

• LGBT Labour: join for £8 a year (or join as an ally/'solidarity member')

• Scientists for Labour £5 a year concession rate

• Labour Campaign for International Development £5 a year

Well, this is shit.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/jeremy-corbyn-labour-leadership-membership-nec-momentum-blairite-angela-eagle-a7133556.html

The words Pissup and Brewery spring to mind. Whichever side of the labour argument eventually wins, they are showing that they don't have what it takes to provide an effective opposition to Theresa May.
Can the SNP extend their franchise south of the border? They seem to be the only party with their shit together.

I guess there's probably a few people like me who would get shouted down by Momentum who would like a more centre-left candidate. There's not one on display, that's true. But Corbyn ain't it.

Edit to add - when I was younger I rubbed shoulders with the SWP. Nasty bunch of naive ideologues IMHO. But they've exploited the voting rules change to do entryism in a big way. That seems to me to be the core of the Labour schism - MPs who have been elected but in doing so have made compromises that mean they can be tarred as Blairites, and a massive influx of ideologues who think that any appeal to the centre is Blairite.

I've always been in favour of PR and coalition governments, FWIW. I think we'd carve out a much better middle ground that way, and people would feel more enfranchised.

https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/752991634669920256

Here's some evidence:
https://www.politicshome.com/news/uk/politics/opinion-polls/news/77197/labour-would-lose-snap-general-election-new-poll-suggests

If Labour can't poll ahead now - after all the mess the Tories have created recently, people still think they're a better option than Labour - they're fucked.

I'm not the political establishment or the right wing media and neither as far as I know is @andyp but we think he's unelectable. Plenty of other people I've spoken to do too and they're not the political establishment or the right wing media either.

As at Will Melling says anyone could get elected as Labour in Islington. Being elected PM is a totally different thing.

Edit to add - when I was younger I rubbed shoulders with the SWP. Nasty bunch of naive ideologues IMHO. But they've exploited the voting rules change to do entryism in a big way.

I mentioned this up thread, but will repeat it again for your benefit because, well it's easier to just believe what you read in the paper, innit?. The membership of the SWP, Socialist Party, CPGB etc and all the other far-left parties combined is absolutely miniscule compared to the 400,000 odd people who have joined the party since Corbyn was elected. The idea that they could sway the vote decisively by joining en masse just does not stack up. Corbyn won because he secured massive support from trade unionists, young people and new middle-class members (from London predominantly).

Typical dodgy Pesto journalism - says in one paragraph they won't be able to vote, says in the next paragraph anyone can vote actually.

Ah right wasn't aware of all that. Labour may perhaps pull Alliance votes or engage younger voters. Maybe.

Mo Mowlan was quite popular as secretary of state and labour.

Unfortunately Westminster has a bad habit of appointing secretary of states that have a habit of not engaging with the wider Ni population. She bucked that trend from what I know.

It's not difficult is it?
I'm guessing the general population wants:
Anti austerity
Invest in infrastructure and NHS
Fairer taxation
Collect corporation taxes
Better schools
More equal society
Don't be a cunt

Who is the acceptable, electable potential Labour leader then?

I'm pretty sure it's not Angela Eagle, who is on the wrong side of a lot of the issues traditional Labour voters care about. And I don't think Owen Smith has time to give himself a profile.

Also, do you think it's just Corbyn's fault that Labour is currently unelectable?

If he'd been able to do his job post-Brexit, and been allowed to present a united, left-wing opposition to the Tories it's likely they'd be in a much stronger position now.

The reason this wasn't possible is probably 15% down to his leadership abilities and 85% down to people who have never liked him, would never have let him succeed, and show contempt for the membership of the party.

@Fox
That snap election piece, if they're polling the right people (hello pollsters) and the correct sample size, that's worrying.
The fucking around by both camps, "he's a cunt" "i'm not talking to those cunts", isn't going to win votes around the country.

NEC retroactively disenfranchising members. corbyn might as well thrown in the towel - there's no way anyone can succeed against such levels of mendacious, gerrymandering cuntery. £25 to vote? and here i was thinking the PLP wanted to wrestle the labour party away from a metropolitan elite.

this sort of of shit is beneath even the pissing tory party.

join a union.
https://www.unitetheunion.org/campaigning/unitepolitics/your-party-your-voice/

Listening to Eagle (who was woeful on Newsnight last night) and her supporters right now, their clear, constantly-repeated agenda is that anyone who supports Corbyn is a post-Militant relic sleazing their way back into the party to get revenge on our beloved war leaders. Also, that JC is personally responsible for any atmosphere of mistrust or intimidation and, although there were no fingerprints on the brick itself, no one can say for sure that it wasn't him that did her window.

The Tories are pissing all over Labour in terms of dealing with divisions (no self-serving mass resignations despite Brexit being a bigger issue than Corbyn's suitability, Grayling leading May's campaign), organisation (leadership election organised and carried out before a challenger to Corbyn has formally declared), and even on shifting policy and appealing to a broad party base (May abandoning the budget surplus idea and pretending she likes ordinary people).

They must be absolutely pissing themselves at the moment. And I'd put all of that down to the toys out of the pram PLP who put their own interests first.

Anyone notice how Corbyn's apparent lack of effort in the Remain vote isn't even a topic for discussion any more, since Eagle's own comments contradicting it came to light?

I'm guessing the general population wants:
Anti austerity - got ya
Invest in infrastructure and NHS - yup
Fairer taxation - yup
Collect corporation taxes - yeah
Better schools - would be good
More equal society - love to see that
Don't be a cunt - oh, I'm out

I wish I knew! I'd say it's definitely not Angela Eagle - I don't think it can be anyone who voted for the Iraq war. Sure they were mislead but they're all tainted.

I don't know a lot about Owen Smith but Labour people I respect seem to rate him, at least a lot more than Eagle. I need to read up on him more. I know @greenhell called him Mr Pfizer but apparently it was his briefings that lead Miliband to the conclusion that the Astra Zenecer merger shouldn't happen:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/10817853/Revealed-Ed-Milibands-Pfizer-insider-in-the-shadow-Cabinet.html

The profile thing is the problem with all the good Labour MPs I know of - they don't really have the experience or the profile to be leader. But the party has to find a way to let them move up.

Also, do you think it's just Corbyn's fault that Labour is currently unelectable?

No, but I think Labour is unelectable as long as he is leader. I don't really care about who's to blame, I just want an electable Labour party.

Although you have to wonder why so much of the PLP doesn't like him - he's spent years making enemies within his own party which does not a successful leader make.