Those ‘question marks’ over Corbyn’s leadership? July 23, 2016
Posted by WorldbyStorm in Uncategorized.trackback
What a meal opponents of Corbyn are making. Unedifying is the word that springs to mind on reading stuff like this.
But perhaps the exaggerated claims are a response to some basic facts.
First up despite the woes of the BLP in relation to this leadership contest, support for the party is considerably stronger than might be expected. Tories are on 37%, Labour 31% (hardly stellar but still, given the rhetoric…), LD’s on 6, UKIP on 15, SNP on 6 and GP on 4.
Meanwhile, Corbyn, when voters are asked, that is LP supporting voters, remains the overwhelming favourite in terms of support – 54% as against 22% for Smith.
It’s this gap between what the parliamentary party say is a problem and what appears to be not quite as problematic – that being Corbyn’s leadership, or indeed the state of the Labour party in terms of public support, that makes all this so frustrating. Again, as argued here before, the very least Corbyn’s opponents should and would be expected to do is give sufficient time for a reasonable and fair assessment of his leadership. That they are unwilling to do that, to in fact do the very opposite is both depressing and telling.
The Cedar Lounge Revolution 
Is the national executive committee supposed to be the bridge between the party and the members?
Reading about deselection and trigger ballots and branches, should Miliband have done more on deselection pre-2015,make it little more possible, so its MPs may have represented the people a bit more.
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The only ‘electable’ leader Labour have had in 37 years has been Blair who won three elections with a diminished share of the vote each time and is a major league war criminal, which is not a great advertisement for ‘electability’. Foot, Kinnock, Brown and Miliband all proved they were ‘unelectable’, you’d think Kinnock at least, would hold his tongue. I can remember the 1992 UK election going to bed where it seemed certain Labour had won, only to wake up to find that the Tories had won, again. To use a football analogy, Kinnock is like the striker who keeps missing the open goal. And he still has the gall to lecture Corbyn. Corbyn might not win the next election outright but, who knows, a decent showing and a coalition deal with the SNP and/or Plaid Cmyru could be on the cards. A lot can happen in a few years. 31% after nothing but negative coverage for weeks on end is quite good.
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CMK, one of the most disgusting spectacles was reading Kinnock, Brown & Miliband lecturing Corbyn on not being qualified to win an election. Well, with 4 losses and 0 wins between them, they’d be the bloody experts in that department.
And to think that Pfizer Smith is their replacement? Bloody hell.
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Blair got elected because the Tories were so mired in corruption Screaming Lord Sutch could have been elected before them.
Blair managed to stay in office on the back of the boom / bubble until the Blairites crashed the economy and buried Britain as US lapdogs in a war for oil.
Blair was no more electable than Kinnock, Milliband or any of the rest of the right-wingers – he just happened to be in the right place at the right time.
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JRG, good point. The proverbial ‘donkey in a red rosette’ could have beaten Major in 1997.
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have just analysed the corbyn leadership problems from a different aspect here
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“Support is considerably stronger than might be expected”, well look on it this way, UKIP & Conservatives 52%, Celtic Fringe SNP/PC/DUP/SDLP/Provos 10%, leaves 38% for Greens, Lib Dems & LP to fight for. Recent Local Authority bye-elections, would suggest Lib Dems are doing better than poll ratings.
With or without redrawn constituencies the BLP is heading for oblivion. If he survives, his twice weekly mauling at the hands of Mrs. May will just become worse. He couldn’t even react on his feet to her failure to defend Johnson.
Corbyn has no attraction to “middle England” & it would appear little attraction to much of the Welsh & North of England “working class” vote. I can only imagine Mrs. May’s advisers are hoping for his return.
Offering Corbyn a GE in the Spring before she gets tied up with EU discussions is the perfect trap to spring, probably resulting in her return with a majority of well over 100. UKIP attacking the LP’s core areas in Wales & England, pinning them down.
SNP are too clever to be linked with a loser like Corbyn, knowing that a Conservative landslide is in their interests, either within a much looser UK, or as an Independent state.
It can only get worse with Corbyn!
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Fixed term parliament.
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The squealing evident among the TINA-crowd at the mere existence of Corbyn is delicious 🙂
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‘You can only imagine’ because your half-baked musings about Corbyn and Labour are so embarrassingly detached from reality. If we want the banalities of conventional wisdom there are plenty of Guardian columns already, thanks.
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“SNP are too clever to be linked with a loser like Corbyn, knowing that a Conservative landslide is in their interests, either within a much looser UK, or as an Independent state.”
Bullshit.
Alex Salmond MP has, on the record, said the SNP could work with UK Labour.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/scottish-independence/11203868/Alex-Salmond-SNP-could-do-a-coalition-deal-with-Labour.html
Alex Salmond MP, on the record, said the SNP could work with Jeremy Corbyn.
http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/13462923.display/
Mhairi Black, a very articulate young Scottish MP, has often (see youtube for many videos) called on UK Labour to work with the SNP.
The SNP are never adverse to working with other parties when it suits their objectives. It something to do with a thing called politics.
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Guess who said it:
“I find it depressing to see people that he appointed, most of whom the public have never heard of, stabbing him in the back. I find that is a debilitating sight, and personally I hope he sticks it out and is vindicated, because I’ve never seen such a disgusting, organised coup. On the hour, every hour, one of them resigns, and if they think the general public finds that impressive I think they’ve got another think coming. I can’t help but have a good deal of sympathy for Jeremy Corbyn and some contempt for the tactics of those who he appointed, who now feel free to stab him in the back.”
http://www.heraldscotland.com/news/14583184.Labour_resignations_a__disgusting__organised_coup___says_Alex_Salmond/
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Labour need to get around to de-selecting the anti-Corbyn folk.
I think that even if Corbyn goes, the members are staying. And they will make their voices heard.
Corbyn’s greatest weakness since becoming leader is the lack of support from the LPP. They are the problem. He’s doing what the membership want him to do to the greatest extent possible with a couple of dozen knives in your back. They anti-Corbyn MPs are not doing what they were selected to do.
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There is practically no democracy in the British LP. The reason they implemented the £3 membership voting was in order to by-pass the trade unions. Corbyn should never have been on the first ballot for leadership – he had 17 nominations. The right-wing nominated him because all four right-wing candidates were saying the same thing and they thought if Corbyn was a candidate it would give them a target they could all attack. It blew up in their faces spectacularly.
What will happen if Corbyn is defeated? Prior to the leadership challenge many of the people who joined during the first contest had started to drift away because they found that they could have zero influence on what LP branches were doing (i.e. no votes were taken and no decisions made). The approach of the right-wing has already cearly been demonstrated in the last couple of weeks – LP branches, CLPs and DLPs are currently not allowed to meet. Several CLPs and districts have been suspended. A defeat for Corbyn would result in no reselection of MPs, no votes at party branches, suspension of any LP structure that exhibited a left-wing bone – and a mass purge, openly for the crime of ‘intimidation’ and covertly by ensuring the new members cannot change anything and probably by pumping up the membership fee so that most of the new members would simply walk away.
The lack of support from the PLP is not Corbyn’s weakness – it is a strength – these chancers and careerists are just as dispised in working class communities as the Tories – and the reason why the LP vote was rapidly disappearing across the political spectrum to anyone who wasn’t regarded as part of the establishment. The key to dealing with it is to have mandatory reselection – and the sooner the better.
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– the #1 reason for Corbyn to stay isn’t to win the next GE, it’s to deselect the Blairoids. If he can do that, it’s a win, surely.
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Corbyn has extended “the hand of friendship” and the Blairists have bitten it more than once. Leaving Benn and shadow cabinet others untouched after the time of the Syria bombing vote only weakened him. Corbyn since said his attitude to rebels who opposed his leadership would be one of “charity” rather than “malice”. When he pleaded that opponents should “get behind the Party”, I get it; I really do.
But should Corbyn win, I hope he doesn’t come out with a knife when there is a gun fight going on. I am up for “de-selecting the anti-Corbyn folk” asap and driving the ‘I am the leader, come follow me’ dynamic.
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There’s a lot of ‘centrist’, ‘moderate’, ‘Third Way’ grifters on the gravy train who are discomfited by an actual socialist becoming BLP leader, and so the attempted coups will continue.
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Mr McCluskey told The Guardian that when files on what is happening now are opened in 2046 under the 30-year rule, the role in the intelligence services in smearing Jeremy Corbyn will come to light – in the same way that he recently discovered that when he was involved in a dockers’ strike in 1972, the union president was an MI5 informant.
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An away at the moment and seriously miscalculated the number of books I brought to read and found myself looking at the various UK papers(poor selection as they don’t even have the guardian). Some of the front pages against Corbyn are incredible. I bought the Times which had a number of pages dedicated to Corbyn. The funny thing is I suspect that any Labour leader would eventually get the same amount of negative press
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Naw – not any leader – as John McDonnell said yesterday – they fear the idea of the LP being led by a socialist and the potential of a socialist leading a socialist administration.
They would have zero fear of this from the Blairites and their lapdogs.
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The two G(J)errys have a lot in common with regard to press coverage.I’m sure the beard will be telling Jeremy to battle on when they next meet!
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I’m sure they’ll have a lot to talk about – like SF voting to allow the ECB scrutinise opposition bills, like SF supporting new EU blanket bailout commitments of at least €1.6billion that will probably end up in zombie Italian banks in the next few weeks, like SF supporting criminalising people addicted to prescription medicine. ‘Our’ Gerry will be able to give him loads of pointers on how to cave in to the neo-liberal agenda.
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And yet, JRG, the oddest thing is that Jeremy Corbyn doesn’t seem to have disowned SF in the slightest. Not at all. And only a comment above this you are lauding him as socialist who may well lead a socialist administration. Don’t you find it an odd contradiction that a man who you clearly believe to be – correctly – of such vision somehow manages to be supportive of SF? I mean it can’t be that he hasn’t heard the criticisms. So what gives?
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I haven’t heard him shouting his association with SF from the roof-tops WbS – and you should have noticed that I was quoting McDonnell about the ‘socialist administration’ stuff. And while it is noted that he has a left republican position on the North that has not, in the past, prohibited him from supporting the Militant or having a comradely relationship with the CWI since or prohibited him and his supporters from having meetings with the leadership of the Socialist Party in England to discuss current developments.
I do find it interesting though that you seem to have difficulty reconciling my support for Corbyn (or more specifically what his leadership of the LP represents) with the fact that I don’t happen to agree with every detail of his political outlook. Furthermore, I have – on here and elsewhere – been critical of some of the compromises that Corbyn has made wth the right-wing since he became LP leader – but again that does not prohibit me from supporting his campaign to hold the leadership. And I am sure I will be criticising him again in the future assuming he wins – most likely initially his lack of urgency in pushing for mandatory reselection of MPs and the removal of pro-austerity councillors.
Corbyn is a left reformist – but he is a genuine bloke who, by chance circumstances, has an opportunity to have a significant impact on the development of a left alternative – an opportunity that hasn’t been on the cards in Britain since the mid-80s.
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You didn’t qualify your other comment above re socialism, and you most certainly haven’t been qualifying your ‘support’ for Corbyn in other comments hitherto as you suddenly now do when a basic contradiction is pointed out.
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I am surprised that teh many supporters of Corbyn in both the SP and SWP in England and Wales do not dissolve TUSC, an electoral formation which opposes Labour.It is a filed entity and dissolution would be a step forward.
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Well, Corbyn’s survival is not 100% guaranteed, despite being a certainty to win the leadership election. TUSC was a point of organisation for those on the Left outside Labour which was built over the long years of Blair, Brown and Miliband.
Also, you’re forgetting that Labour councils, with the support of Corbyn and McDonnell, continue to push through cuts budgets that result in the running down of public services. Where the Labour Party continues with that approach then electoral opposition from the Left is fully warranted.
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Got to say the LP under Corbyn or not from what you are saying sounds less than optimal.
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Let’s be realistic about Corbyn, he is a social democrat who would have been middle of the road in old Labour in the 60s and 70s. The Blairites demonise him as some sort of hard left extremist, which is rubbish. Having said that it is vital that he wins the leadership election and we deselect those MPs who refuse to serve meaningfully under him. It is also vital that if Corbyn wins that the Labour Party is democratised as a mass membership party. Right now “the struggle” in the UK is focussed on this fight in the LP. Afterwards, who knows.
I admire Corbyn, he is standing up to an absolute mountain of abuse. When Blairites complain of abuse they are such hypocrites when you consider the way they, and their undoubted allies in the media (BBC, Guardian as well as the ususal suspects) abuse, lie and misrepresent Corbyn.
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You’re right about Corbyn: he’s a Keynesian social-democrat, probably somewhere to the right of Harold MacMillan on many things. The argument is about whether or not Labour is to be a party run by its members, or a fundraising agency for election campaigns.
Worth reading on where all this started:
http://www.lrb.co.uk/v15/n03/ross-mckibbin/labour-blues
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“he is a social democrat who would have been middle of the road in old Labour in the 60s and 70s.”.
But we have been beaten back by Thatcherism and it’s heirs. One indice would eb strike days before and after the defeat of the miners. The battle over Corbyn is where it is at. Rebuilding an even mildly combatitive Labour Party across the water is where it is at. Rebuilding unions etc.
And doing this is a long struggle. Not a “join Labour today, deselect tomorrow, and a government to the left of Atlee the day after”
Some parallels here but, also, differences. Labour here effectively gone.
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+1 re long struggle JM. +1
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I agree, there is an oportunity to build a mass movement. That will be easier, however, if the mass of the membership gain control of the pary apparatus from the Balirites.
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I couldn’t agree more. It is the control of the party appartus that needs to be taken back if gains of any substance are to be made.
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