Owen Jones had what I think to be a powerful piece on the Medium website yesterday. He began by saying:
Labour and the left teeter on the brink of disaster.
On the way through he explains why he is simply not convinced by Jeremy Corbyn. I am convinced of his sincerity. At one point he says:
Corbyn's leadership acceptance speech the day he won – his first real opportunity to speak to the country – was not, let's say, a classic in the genre of reaching out to a wider audience.
I spoke to Owen within five minutes of that speech ending: he said exactly the same then. He was not alone with his concerns. I was meant to go out with Jeremy Corbyn and the 50 or so family and key players who helped get him elected that evening. I admit I went home instead.
And it's not as if you can accuse either of us of not trying: I have known John and Jeremy for a decade. Owen worked for John. Neither of us are saying what we do for effect, and it certainly isn't the easy or popular route. I can tell you, it would be much easier to get down to the rallies and soak in the atmosphere.
But rallies are not everything and I agree with much of Owen's analysis and his conclusion:
Labour faces an existential crisis. There will be those who prefer me to just to say: all the problems that exist are the fault of the mainstream media and the Parliamentary Labour Party, and to be whipped up with the passions generated by mass rallies across the country. But these are the facts as I see them, and the questions that have to be answered. There are some who seem to believe seeking power is somehow ‘Blairite'. It is Blairite to seek power to introduce Blairite policies. It is socialist to seek power to introduce socialist policies. As things stand, all the evidence suggests that Labour – and the left as a whole – is on the cusp of a total disaster. Many of you won't thank me now. But what will you say when you see the exit poll at the next general election and Labour is set to be wiped out as a political force? What will you say when – whenever you mention anything vaguely left-wing, you're mocked for the rest of your life, a throwback to the discredited Labour era of the 2010s? Will you just comfort yourself by blaming it on the mainstream media and the PLP? Will that get you through a lifetime of Tory rule? My questions may strike you as unhelpful or uncomfortable. I'm beyond caring. Call me a Blairite, Tory, Establishment stooge, careerist, sellout, whatever makes you feel better. The situation is extremely grave and unless satisfactory answers are offered, we are nothing but the accomplices of the very people we oppose.
Precisely.
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I share your deep concerns about Corbyn’s obstinacy and tragic failure to grasp the bigger political issue in order to challenge and eventually overthrow the Neo-liberals. Hopefully Owen Jones can reach out to and convince a wider audience especially among the under 40s. He projects integrity and sincerity.
I thought yesterday’s open letter from Neal Lawson made a similarly effective plea for sanity: https://www.opendemocracy.net/uk/neal-lawson/dear-labour. His earlier letters to the Greens, LibDems and SDP are also worth a read.
Watching the drama unravel from the sidelines is both dispiriting and frustrating. And, like you, I’m not even a member of the Labour Party!
A good letter from Neal
We are broadly on a wavelength
I too think Neal Lawson’s piece is good – and more fundamental to the problem than Owen Jones’s (though I don’t say he is wromg within his own terms – but Lawson identifies Jones’s terms as inadequate to the full ramifications of the situation).
Lawson says what I have been convinced of all along, but, just judging from the words, I don’t think you can have yet fully digested his piece if you truly believe you ‘are broadly on a wavelength’.
Lawson’s rejection of Owen Smith’s chances of providing the answer, both tactically and philosophically, in his opening paragraphs is devastatingly put and contrasts markedly with your own strong, if rather tentative, endorsement of Smith’s candidacy.
Lawson is clear that there is no chance of a labour renewal unless it can fully understand all the forces that put Corbyn as leader (and will almost certainly do so again). You now repeatedly cast Corbyn supporters as blinded cultists who are effectively set to undermine the basis of parliamentary democracy. I don’t think that is helpful – or in most cases just.
Lawson thinks Labour must abandon he idea that it can espouse a single internal policy project that will provide the essential answer, now or soon, to our basis social, political and economic woes. It is something of that sort which it appears to me you sincerely believe you can offer – although I recognise you favour coalitions.
I do not suggest your programme is wrong or undesirable, only that it does not answer to the full terms of Lawson’s analysis. I apologise if I misrepresent you and I certainly do not doubt your good motives.I can only respond to what I read and observe. Others of course may have better information – or better judgement.
I do not for a minute deny the existence of demand for change
I hope I have helped fuel it
I do deny the ability of JC to deliver on it
I think there is a cult around him that denies this
And I am not yet convinced there is much beyond a personality that unites this social movement and that is why as yet I think it more cult than reality
That said, it can transform, but if it is to do so then it has to a) recognise the movement cannot control a parliamentary party because that will be as unpopular as Labour controlled by unions was with the wider electorate and b) that sentiment is not enough: a core competence is also vital and that will require trust in a leadership that is much more broadly based
I am wholly open to change in all these things being possible but that requires that those who are rejecting all who do not support Corbyn as being neoliberals blah blah blah as being able to hold valid opinion. Right now I don;t see that
Apologies for a second comment and for cross-blogging but it strikes me that this piece yesterday from Arthur Bough has some relevance as it describes how both Marx & Engels understood the necessity to co-operate with and within other Socialist parties in order to further their agenda – https://boffyblog.blogspot.co.uk/2016/08/us-socialists-should-campaign-for-vote.html. Maybe there is an historical lesson herefor Corbyn & McDonnell?
Interesting article. The impression i got from what Jones says about adopting all the 2015 policies is that underneath the populist side of the Corbyn project (ie all the people going to rallies etc), the Corbyn machine ie the advisors and leadership is as visionless and clueless as the Miliband machine was.
If they were not I’d still be working with him
And singing his praises
This is not personal: I’d much rather the Corbyn project had worked than not
But it crashed rather too quickly, and that’s the crisis in a nutshell: a replacement was not ready and available
Firstly let me say I am a member of the Labour Party and have signed up for Owen Smith. I believe a Corbyn victory will be a disaster which will have generational repercussions. I will probably need my own flack jacket today.
I detest the vilification of Blair. He was absolutely wrong about the Iraq war (it was totally obvious at the time to me but not to many other of LP members). To me it comes down to “Would the Americans have gone in without him?” – some LP members think yes and forgive him on the basis that he genuinely thought that he some influence on Bush. Clearly Blair was totally ignored and the UK just provided cover for the US. PPP was also a disaster. He did try for a 3rd way, it was not clear to me in 1997 that it was fundamentally wrong and Labours handling of the economy and country was considerably better than that of the coalition and streets ahead of the Tory government. With 20:20 hindsight it is clear that Blair got some things wrong.
Margaret Thatcher believed she was doing the right thing. I thought she was insane and that her policies had no chance of making Britain a better place. My utter contempt however is reserved for Nigel Lawson who does have the benefit of 20:20 hindsight and is clearly putting heated interest before truth regarding climate change.
I don’t believe most of the PLP are bad people; most probably couldn’t solve a linear ordinary differential equation or have a good understanding of macroeconomics. It was not clear in 1997 that the Blair project would the way that it did; there was a lot of genuine hope.
A Corbyn victory in the LP election fills me with despair. He couldn’t organise a piss up in a brewery an just as the Lib Dems went into melt down in the last election the same will likely happen to Labour loosing sets in the south to the Torys and in the north to UKIP.
“I’m with Owen Jones”
That presents a rather unedifying picture.
Like him, you are thrashing about in desperation as the UK rejects socialism and all its inept failings. It’s really rather funny watching you desperately try to cling on to a succession of coat-tails in the hope you can personally benefit financially from doing so. But when even wacko-jobs like Corbyn and McDonnell reject you, you must surely realise the game is up? I doubt Owen Smith would touch you with a barge pole, despite all your pretence that you and he talk to each other. “Goodbye” is probably the only thing he would want to say to you.
You’re a laughing stock in politics, Richard. A laughing stock.
Which makes me wonder why you bothered to comment?
You may find doing so again is not worth your while
My experience is that people tend to see mirror images of themselves and that such Ad Hominem comments reflect much more badly on the people who make them than those at whom they are directed. Strangely I see Richard as a man of tremendous integrity and your proposition totally preposterous. If Richard wanted to make money there would be much easier ways of doing this. Possible Left and Right Wing simply can’t understand each other.
If I’d wanted to make money I’d have sold all that I know about tax haven abuse to the highest bidder from a place like Jersey
Bizarrely I have been head-hunted for such roles (I do not know how seriously)
I will never take them but in cash terms I suspect I would be very much better off now
And morally bankrupt
I am not a Labour voter and never have been. However, it fills me with dismay to see our democratic system without an effective Opposition; a void that is likely to be filled with the extremists of Ukip. Labour must be rueing the day they dismissed David Miliband.
I doubt it….
If David Miliband is the answer the wrong question has been asked
There’s two problems as i see it with Owen’s piece. His dismissal of the ‘Blairite’ pejorative aimed at the Labour MP’s [many of whom are busy scurrying around trying to work out how to do an end run around the likely democratic choice of party members in the upcoming election for party leadership] seems to fly in the face of reality. The immediate response of those same ‘Blairites’ post Milliband defeat was to state categorically that that the lesson of that defeat was that Ed had made a mistake in adopting a slightly left of center manifesto and that was proof positive that Labour needed to move to the right in order to contest the ‘center’ ground.
There are dozens of such MP’s including the much lauded Chuka[get closer to business]Umunna and they positively exude ‘Blairism’ and it is they who will likely hold sway in an Owen Smith cabinet.
A far more useful piece was written yesterday by Simon Wren-Lewis, ‘mainly macro’ where he rejects the notion that only extremists are supporting Corbyn [obviously false] and explains that the reason why momentum et al are so reluctant to accept Corbyn step aside is the realisation that will be the death of the left in Labour, full stop.
As we know full well, most of the Labour MP’s would rather commit harri kari than allow another ‘token’ left candidate in any future leadership contest. Furthermore, if Owen Smith wants to allay such fears he ought to consider making McDonnell the shadow Chancellor [rather than arch centrist/Blairite Eagle]and also offer to change the rules on party leadership contests so that a smaller number of MP’s are required to sponsor a candidate, a move which will favour the minority of left leaning MP’s who would otherwise be redundant in any future leadership contest.
That’s not what I read either Owen or Simon saying, by some way
Are yo sure you read rightly?
But OwenS is not going to win. JeremyC is probably going to win by an even bigger margin than he did last year – have you seen the crowds? This is all a pointless distraction. Owen should just sling in the towel like the sensible tory candidates did when they saw that May was unbeatable.
And then what?
No opposition?
The end of left wing politics in the UK?
Why would you want that?
‘The situation is extremely grave and unless satisfactory answers are offered…’
OK, What?
Was Corbyn wrong not to give in? Were the new Labour members (with a small n)wrong not to be affected by spin, gossip & fabrication?(or is that Media Management)I like reading Owen Jones, but I take issue with him on his characterisation of the situation, it needs reframing. If a snap election was called, it wouldn’t matter who the leader was, Labour would lose. It lost its identity some time ago.
But at least it is trying to find it now. And at least Social Democratic ideas are back on the agenda. Owen Jones, as do many in the Labour party, allows himself to be characterised as ‘left’. I’d call that misguided & self-indulgent. I’m not singling out Owen, many are guilty.
Here are two lines from Momentum’s website:
-Target growth not austerity, invest to create tomorrow’s jobs and reverse privatisation of railways, the energy sector and public services.
-Ensure decent homes for all in public and private sectors through a big houseÂbuilding programme and rent controls.
How is that ‘hard left’? I’d call it basic Social Democracy – the things our parents ACTUALLY DID! once. And it brought about the ‘golden age of capitalism’.
Owen says:’we are nothing but the accomplices of the very people we oppose.’ He’s got that right.
To quote from NILE in a post earlier this year: ‘if we fall into the trap of speaking as they do, we will slide ever-closer to thinking as they do; and on our way down there we become decreasingly effective at persuading others to think otherwise.’
When it gets a leader that says simply ‘Labour will give the next generation all those things their grandparents had before the Baby Boomer generation were swindled out of it’ Labour will walk it.
It is only social democracy
But it has to be delivered and right now it is not clear that is the case, at all
Hence my argument with team Corbyn
OK McDonnell doesn’t understand macroeconomics. How many MPs actually do? How many MPs actually try? Most of them stick to ‘The Narrative’ Changing The Narrative is a huge task that cannot be done by MPs alone, even if they knew how. That’s where a mass movement comes in. I agree that the place for social democratic change is parliament, but first, parliament will have to change. Track record – have you seen it deliver anything but the Neolib Agenda for the past 36 years? If it weren’t for the unexpected success of team Corbyn last year, social democracy might be dead & buried by now. So if team Corbyn can’t deliver, who can?
Richard, have you had a look at this Indian party called the ‘Aam Aadmi Party'(The ‘Common Man Party’)? They were last year able to secure almost all the seats in the local Delhi elections apart from 3 and were quite the grassroots sensation. Since then they have been governing Delhi and have been making some basic,ground level changes to reduce the vast inequalities in this state. The other incumbent parties(The Congress and the BJP) hate them because they challenge so much of the current neoliberal ideology. Maybe UK politics can get some useful knowledge from what they did?
I will take a read
I saw Jones on Channel 4 New last night.
He came across as plastic to me. Sorry. He did not mobilise my base at all. You’d lose him in a crowd.
Jones must do more than create panic in the vein of speeches like you quote above. There has been too much panic in the Labout party of late.
However, Jones certainly needs people like you and others to help formulate his alternative vision. He must listen and be prepared to be courageous and have faith in himself and the voter so that he can sell a different world based on your work and others whose ideas are ripe for the trying. I need those ideas; my children need those ideas; my neighbours; my elderly parents. I suppose we’ll just have to wait longer until they see the light of day. We are a species guided by hindsight unfortunately.
I live in a Tory safe seat so I will continue to vote Green – although they seem far too quiet for my liking. The Derbyshire Labour party seem more interested in stopping wind farms to be honest and pandering to other rural prejudices.
My philosophy at the moment is based on my accepting that the Tories will rule for some time as the Left undergoes a correction of sorts (even an outside chance of oblivion). I will continue to be involved with online campaigns as long as they are effective and try to prepare my children for the harsh world ahead.
I am banking on the Tories taking their foot off the neck of the British economy because they know that after BREXIT, the country is on the cusp of being ungovernable, so an injection of cash here and there might calm the natives down a bit. But then again, they might just behave like the a bunch of piranha’s who have sensed blood in the water.
All I know is that I have worked hard and done my best and will coninue to do so.
But make no mistake – it is Labour’s kowtowing to neo-lib dogma, armchair cabinets, focus groups and the wooing of Tory voters that brought us to this sorry place.
So it goes………………..
Smith or Jones?
Which Owen?
Alas Smith and Jones! They are going to get mixed up a bit I think.
I liked OJ’s piece; it was heartfelt and honest.
Although I also think Neal Lawson’s Dear Labour letter was very good as he points out the problem with both Smith and Corbyn and the general crisis Labour is in.
I do think Smith would be likely to adopt the kind of fiscal rule that Richard doesn’t want to see. I just think he might feel he has to at some point.
However, currently it’s looking like we won’t find out as Corbyn will probably win again. I don’t have a vote in this contest but I am left wing and keen to see Labour do well.
So assuming it will be Jeremy I think Labour will just have to try and make the best of it. Like Neal Lawson says he may be able to get a million members. This has to be turned into a genuine social movement. And then those other Labour names Lawson mentioned can push for a progressive alliance.
Corbyn and co should take on board some of this criticism from the left that is currently aimed at them. I can see the possibility of a split. Which is a big worry under first past the post – unless all sides take on the progressive alliance message. But given the bad feeling in the party they might end up contesting each other and splitting the vote.
I suspect that social movement is no such thing: it’s a might lot of aspirations that may well be very disparate being pinned to a board all ot conce and few will be near the donkey’s tail when push comes to shove
I wonder what will be left then
Unless they can get people on board who can inspire a social movement then it will be a disaster. Turning up to rallies is not enough. I don’t know whether they will or can but it’s the only hope at the moment as Corbyn will probably win easily.
And if they all think they’re in a different social movement (and no one has asked them) then it could be even worse
I found Owen’s piece defeatist and far too self-centred(a large part being about his CV and credentials). Paul Mason has also written on Medium blog and answers many of the questions Owen asks. This is not the time for a crisis of confidence. As a Corbyn supporter I have faith in the movement being created right now. Yes there are inherent dangers ahead, but none so great as capitulating to the will of an out of touch PLP.
And what if the PLP is closer to the electorate than the movement?
What then?
I would say the fact that we failed to get elected last year answers that question. You seem a little contemptuous of the numbers who have joined/ go along in their thousands to meetings. Labour grew from a movement of the people and not vice versa.
Like many other commentators (and we’re not all as so often described) I am not yet convinced there is much of substance, let alone agreement to this social movement
I may be wrong but I think any wise person must have doubt
Well latest reports suggest that the NEC has barred 40,000 of them from voting with another 10,000 to be reviewed by an NEC committee. “And they call it democracy.”
Do you know it isn’t?
I have some problems with democracy being for hire
Don’t you?
‘democracy for hire’ – isn’t that a little over the top?
Political parties normally elect their leaders.The membership has a role that the party decides. Membership normally involved the payment of a subscription. Last time the criticism was that the effective subscription was too low – should the ‘hire charge’ have been higher? Should there have been no ole for the non-parliamentary membership in the election? What should it have been? But the rules were as they were set some time previously.
This time people who joined, paid the set subscription and were told ‘in terms’ that they would thereby be entitled to vote in any leadership election are now, when one arises, that they cannot – unless they pay a significant extra sum in a very narrow time scale. Is ‘democracy for hire’ really the right response in your own cause? Is it helpful?
Does it not rather reinforce the sense amongst Corbyn supporters, including hose coming to his support now, that there has been a sustained attempt. to deprive them of their legitimate opportunity to vote for him? Remember what short shrift the judge gave, when it came to court, the claimed interpretation of the party rules that Corbyn had to secure nominations like a challenger?
If Corbyn is the ‘wrong’ leader this is not the wy to replace him.
I have no problem with one member one vote
I do think it bizarre you can buy a vote and not be a member
He is right in identifying the crisis that Labour us in, self-inflicted by decades of ignoring and talking down to its core voters.
He is not the man to get Labour out if this crisis.
I abhor canvassing and lobbying. Infact I would argue that it us immoral and should be criminalised.
Yet the man proclaiming to be Labours saviour worked as a lobbyist for a pharma company.
This same man now claims to be a radical and Labours messiah.
I prefer the honesty, proven by his track record, of true radical JC
So choosing to work in PR bans a person from public office for life?
How do you mix that with basic human rights?
I believe Jeremy’s problem is that he hasn’t any faith in the PLP otherwise he would have called for a leadership contest while excluding himself,after the vote of no confidence.On the other hand it could well be that Jeremy believes only by splitting the LP can a real socialist party be created.I believe Jeremy has moved the party in the right direction the problem is he’s not a leader or have the competence to be a pm of a socialist government as he’s more interested in building movement.
I’m not actually sure what Owen Jones is saying any more. I thought I did at one time. Last year he wrote a good article making the left case for Brexit or Lexit. This year he campaigned for a Remain vote. I can say the same thing about Jeremy Corbyn too. Last year he was anti EU. This year he’s changed his mind. Last year he was into Corbynomics. This year he and John McDonnell are telling us how they’d have a balanced budget. No matter what excuses people like James Meadway may contrive, that means he’s changed his mind on neo-liberalism too. Or he’s pretending to have?
So it’s all rather confusing. The question is whether Owen Smith be any better. I can’t see it somehow. So I’ll be voting for JC in the Lab election but I’m not as enthusiastic as I was last year.
He can’t have changed his mind on Neoliberalism, as he’s promising not just to stop privatisation, but to reverse it. To understand Austerity, you need to understand what it’s for. Austerity was never about balancing the books, it was about demolishing the welfare state. Since team Corbyn want to reinstate what the Neolibs have already nicked, then either:
– They don’t understand Austerity, or
– They intend to balance the books by taxing the financial elite, or
– They understand, but are rightly wary that until the Narrative is changed they’ll get slaughtered by the Neolib media if they are seen to be espousing the sensible economics that Richard & MMT economists advise.
By & large, the most usual explanation of unexplained situations is a cockup.
As a member of the LP who joined after Jan 12th and paid the extortionate (you must admit that)sum of £25 to enable me to vote in my party’s leadership election, I shall be keen to discover whether I am included in the 40,000- 50,000 persons excluded from voting. Would being a regular contributor to this site who has supported your social democratic, Keynesian programme be sufficient to disqualify me, do you think?
I wonder if the NEC will be returning the £1m + they have extracted from those rejected. The word I would use to describe this process is chicanery, not democracy, and it may turn out to be downright fraud.
Unlike Owen Jones, I think you underestimate the lengths the New Labour grandees will go to to stop Corbyn – or anyone else who genuinely proposes a radical departure from neoliberal economic orthodoxy.
I accept that there are some in Labour who will do all they can to stop Corbyn
I have no time for them
What I, and I think Owen Jones, want is a viable left wing alternative. Our concern with Jeremy is he cannot deliver it. I do not pretend otherwise that my concern with Owen Smith is that whatever he wishes (and from what I know of him I think most comment aimed in his direction is wrong) he may be prevented from doing so even though he is able.
Either way things are not pretty
I did not part with £25
If no vote is permitted I cannot see how Labour could refuse a refund
But maybe you need to check the fine print
Spot on. To my mind it is just gerrymandering.
It’s all theoretical anyway. If labour cannot get support, or at the least fairness, from the media, they are not going anywhere.
I suspect Corbyn & CO know that very well, hence the “building a movement” activity.
The present gov are supported by a wide network of tax avoiders and assorted crooks and con-men, with rarely a word being printed about it. Corbyn fails to wear a tie and it is immediately a traitorous act on a par with spitting at the Queen.
Owen has a supporters rally with a hundred showing-up and it gets press coverage, Jeremy has one with thousands and schtum….
If labour goes back to Tory-lite, I’ll vote Tory…no point in voting for an imitation if the “real-thing” is available.
Brand-name over generic every time!
It’s time for a new party
Labour gave blown it
Not some liberal metro elite concoction that paddy imagines
But a party borne out of the needs of the deserted core labour voters, in the Brexit badlands
Unfortunately the only existing party that seems to recognise this need (and indeed generational political opportunity) is UKIP.
I would far prefer this new party to be spearheaded by JC and selected others to give direction and purpose