-
Starter good, Starmer bad - returning to Corbyn’s approach isn’t an option anytime soon unless we want to give these current shower in government even further scope to do what they do
This is also my view. I'm not even a huge Starmer fan, I just recognise that after our worst result in a hundred years we need to try to do something different. And I've felt like anyone trying to do something else deserves at least as fair a crack of the whip as I gave Corbyn (three or four years in my case, and my vote in two General Elections). And I think I've felt that Labour supporters should get behind the leader, and one side of the membership is not holding up its end of the bargain.
However I've had a bit of a change of heart on this. I've realised that - especially on Twitter - this often isn't a conversation between two Labour tribes. It's a conversation between people who are Labour supporters, and those who are Corbyn supporters - and there's a difference between the two. Whenever you see someone chortling about '20 points ahead' and 'Kieth', those are the people I'm talking about. And so many of the people I find myself getting miffed with were not Labour supporters before Corbyn, and now he's gone, are no longer Labour supporters. They joined the Jeremy Corbyn Party, and have no loyalty to Labour beyond Corbyn.
And the realisation I've had is, that's fine. Yhey're perfectly entitled to make criticism on that basis. No-one owes Labour any support and no-one needs to justify their withdrawal of support. But what I need to remember is that criticism from these people should be seen as being about as weighty as criticism from the Tories or from the Greens or the SNP - it's criticism coming from the outside, not the inside. That's a realisation that's helped me quite a bit.
You are reading a single comment by @Big_Ted and its replies.
Click here to read the full conversation.
ReekBlefs
@Big_Ted
One thing the Conservative Party is good at is replacing leaders, resetting and moving on seemingly seamlessly. Not edifying but it is effective.
Contrast to Labour - a defeat at last election of such magnitude that may not be overturned until the next GE but one. But still reference to the last leader despite having a continuity leader would have been such a delicious political gift readily accepted (“we smashed you last time and you want more? Ok, if you insist”). And that’s before looking at the performance of the previous leader since defeat, whether it’s the “we won the argument” or the response to the anti semitism report - it doesn’t matter if he feels he’s right on either, it’s politically boneheaded.
Starter good, Starmer bad - returning to Corbyn’s approach isn’t an option anytime soon unless we want to give these current shower in government even further scope to do what they do