So Jeremy Corbyn is leader of the Labour Party, again.
Last summer I very rapidly realised he had no idea why he wanted to be leader, and that became apparent to everyone all too obviously very soon afterwards.
This time I hope he has a better idea.
And I sincerely hope that his idea is inclusive of all on the left. That does not require it to embrace everyone who has at one time been in Labour. But if the change in politics that this country needs is to happen then to be tribal now, within and beyond Labour, would be a big mistake.
The big question is whether Corbyn's big enough to avoid that big mistake.
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I quite agree that this is now the key question. And it also applies to the PLP and the tribalism that lies there too. This is important not just for Labour’s internal workings but also if they are to galvanise and act as a rallying point for HM opposition as a whole. Because we need a bloody opposition NOW and especially from this point forward.
In terms of winning elections, Labour now has to move on and be a viable party otherwise if the in-fighting continues any credibility they still have will go – period. Where I live and work people are losing their patience or indeed it has gone.
Owen Smith’s declaration that he would not serve in Jeremy’s shadow cabinet was not very clever. Indicative of a man not really fit to run a party in this circumstance I’m afraid. Jeremy has a second chance to prove himself. I hope he takes it. Inshallah.
Last year when the Labour party elected JC it was because people wanted real change and together with Richard’s ideas about QE many people became inspired to join the party.Unfortunately JC team have been more interested in building a pressure group than a party that as policies to bring about real change.During JC re-election he came out with slogans such as he would re-nationalize the NHS without spelling out what that would mean.The problem as I see it until JC actually harnesses all parts of the party by respecting different views Labour will remain unelectable and the type of society we all want will just remain a pipe dream.
The initial poll analyses suggest that Owen Smith won a majority of the votes from long standing party members, whereas Corbyn is presiding over something which is, for all practical purposes, a new party. I would love to believe that Corbyn is capable of understanding the reasons for this, as well as genuinely engaging with long standing members, but I very much doubt it.
Initial poll analysis? Please could you quote your source.
I don’t want to speak for Strvie, but: https://yougov.co.uk/news/2016/09/24/labour-members-exit-poll-corbyn-wins-all-except-yo/
You have to take into account that many of those that have joined recently have actually rejoined.
I’ve long since given up on Corbyn being any kind of leader. I hold out very little hope that he can bring all sides together. He’s said absolutely nothing today that gives me any confidence that he can unite the party, though I’ve a feeling that getting the PLP back on board is not a major priority.
I saw a comment earlier that said that now we have the Jeremy Corbyn Party. Feels that way to me, it seems the Labour party as we used to know it has effectively been replaced.
Whether its been taken over by anything better remains to be seen.
I don’t think it matters. Labour is finished as a political force capable of providing effective opposition and a credible government-in-waiting. But its inevitable extinction will probably be a long drawn-out and painful affair. Labour lost it when so many of the PLP succumbed to the greed and rent-seeking of the corporate elite, of the well-heeled baby boomers and of the armies of functionaries and flunkies they retain.
And while this may be seen as Corbyn’s victory, it is really that of John McDonnell. He will now be able to turn Labour in to a vehicle for his dangerous, incoherent and outdated ideology. Jeremy Corbyn happens to be his accidental, though useful, idiot.
Eventually an opposition to the Tories will emerge.
You have to admit, Richard, that Owen Smith was pretty dire. Jeremy Corbyn doesn’t really exist. He is simply a figurehead for the utter loathing of many of the educated young and old gits like me for the neoliberal policies pursued by both the Tories and New Labour. Without a grassroots movement/uprising, Parliamentary opposition will never succeed. Don’t play the game; change the rules.
Owen did not do nearly as well as I hoped, I admit
But the grassroots has to embrace parliament – please
“Don’t play the game”
I don’t know how old you are, but if you’ve paid attention long enough to politics, you’ll know that rarely can a party or organisation overturn a country’s whole political process. History is littered with people who thought that by not playing the game and trying to install revolution, they would create a progressive country. Instead, when their movement inevitably fails, it is those who have been playing the game who win.
So unless you genuinely think that Jeremy Corbyn and his mates will create a serious recalibration in our politics away from Parliamentary democracy, all this ‘movement’ does is give a free pass to the Tories. Because they know that the parliamentary game matters, and they know how to play it well.
Corbyn is a good honest man but has to compromise some of his views to unite the party on common ground and build the future we all hope is possible.
The battle for a fair and just government will be resisted by the corrupted.
Perhaps a sober reflection on why he increased his mandate despite everything that was thrown at him, including your hatchet job, will be more beneficial. Corbyn has a mandate to deliver his agenda and does not owe back-stabbers anything.
I criticised Jeremy and John for not delivering
I was right: they did not – and no one could say they did, and it was their own chaotic fault. I make no apology for saying so
They have to deliver now
But that is a bigger task than I still think they have appreciated
Strangely enough the spirit of this election is quite similar to Delhi’s local elections. The incumbent chief minister was much criticized for not being a good enough leader and being ‘too radical’ when he was running for chief minister. He got elected by a landslide, resigned(because of principles) and then got re-elected.
And that is where we are Steve.
For all our sakes Corbyn’s Labour must reflect. But so must the PLP. Too many of them are already shooting their mouths off as though THEY matter and the country does not. Huge mistake. Huge.
Again the death of Labour will be by its own hands – its inability to work with the factions within it. The Tories saving grace is that they can do this. And this all started for Labour when having curbed the Left, the leadership then sought to marginalise it further thinking that there would never be a backlash. But they were wrong. And this is what you get.
They don’t owe you anything, Richard. You’re not even a member of the Labour Party. You bit the hand that fed you. Enjoy your time with the clueless Blairites.
Thanks for your comment
You do realise they borrowed my ideas?
Corbyn’s appeal last year was in no small part my ideas?
And my criticism is he has failed to deliver?
Why not do some thinking and analysis, not sill sloganeering?
More worrying for me was the apparent repudiation of your input Richard where they seemed to back track saying that you were ‘very good on tax but that you were not an economist’ (or something like that) in order to explain their new found belief in the Osbourne balanced budget narrative.
That’s when Corbyn lost me. For good I’m afraid. Or until I hear better. And it had better be good believe you me.
It sometimes seems to me that you were ‘punished’ for making known your concerns about Corbyn’s leadership capabilities. And if that is how Corbyn’s Labour continues to work then Labour are indeed finished.
It was a rather bizarre comment when a university had decided to appoint me as Professor of Practice in International Political Economy
But there we go: I will still reach out, but I do to everyone and I never expect favours
I’m afraid I don’t have your respect for/ faith in Parliament as a democratic institution. It remains medieval in form (Monarch, 850 Lords, soon to be 600 MPs), archaic in procedure and elitist in practice. Can it ever be reformed?
So what would you prefer to democracy?
In my darker moments –
– when I see how the NHS is being purposely made to work badly,
– when I see the Tory Government led asset stripping of the country and the
commons,
– when I see hard working public sector workers treated like merde
– when I see British business treating its staff the same way because
Government thinks it makes us more competitive
– when I see the Tory Government pretending that it has the right to take
us out of the EU when in fact it is only Parliament that can do that.
– when I see our children worked hard at school and robbed of their
childhoods or made to go onto debt for education and then cast out into a
world which has no intention of providing work or decent pay and
conditions for more of them every year
– when I see a Government resolutely refusing to invest in the country it is
supposed to be managing,
I tell you – what I would prefer to democracy at this moment in time cannot be uttered.
Then that worries me
PSR
But is your argument then not about democracy per se, but about the way it has been corrupted? It is the same as the arguments about ‘capitalism’ or even religion. Capitalism itself can be a force for good; FERAL capitalism is the problem. There is nothing wrong with religion, its the way some have narrowly interpreted it and acted upon those interpretations resulting in harm to others.
So the issue is about how we reset those buttons / take the corruption out of the issues. That can surely only come through better exposure of the corruption and a clear sense of the alternative (and a clear, digestible, factual broadcast costs/cost benefits of both).
I am not surprised that a majority of longstanding members voted for Owen Smith. These are those who swallowed their pride and I am sorry to say their principles, and remained members throughout the years when Blair and then Brown watertered down the reasons for the existence of the Labour Party and turned it into Tory-Lite. Anything for an easy life seemed to have become their motto. Meanwhile thousands like me gave up in disgust and resigned.
The mainstream media and Corbyn supporters seem happy with the claim that winning 62:38 in a 2-horse match-up is a bigger victory than winning 59:19:17:5 in a 4-horse match. Any statistician will tell you that it is not.
Even Owen’s team haven’t rubbished the claim. Their campaign was all about more this, bigger that, but never less of something else. It’s no surprise they can’t do numbers either.
Blair and Brown reasoned that a left-leaning Labour had limited voter appeal.
If Labour now move to the right…and it will have to be a big move to encroach upon the nearly-fascist Conservative party we have now…it will be seen as a vote-grabbing move..
The totally-fascist “free” press will not fail to trumpet that from the rooftops (or the frontpage).
Given that Labour has extremely limited media friends, if any (as Corbyns rise shows), I doubt that there is any way they can depend upon the corporate media for either support or fairness.
Hence Momentum.
The next few years will be very interesting. Given that the fixed term act straps May into a 2020 election, and that the only was to an earlier election is a two-thirds majority vote of ALL common members OR a repeal of the fixed term act, which means no snap election, it gives Labour another four years to Get Things Right.
Corbyn is a lesser problem than you think…he has amassed, if not a team, then certainly a very talented collection of supporters.
The next move will be control of the social media by the people who control the print and broadcast media…at least that is my considered opinion.
The next few years sees the government “legalising” citizen personal data exchange across all government departments…which basically means that all departments will have access to all data held by other departments, which they do not have at the moment. That includes health/social data, and certain chosen “third parties” will also have access…..
Does that sound Orwellian?
Jeremy Corbyn is leading the creation of a party with a comprehensive set of policies designed to appeal to all, whether in the past they thought themselves sympathetic to the left or to the right. For example no-one wants an NHS that doesn’t deliver free to all at the point of delivery; and all want an NHS not exploited for private profit, not just those on the left. Likewise, we all want to see an education service which helps everyone, not just a favoured few.
It is Jeremy’s job now–with the help of everyone– to communicate these policies to appeal to all, not just those on the left.
Sorry to make you worry Richard – just sounding off. It’s obvious to many of us what the Tories are doing but too many of us are playing on their phones or booking their next holiday.
I agree with that
So what do you suggest?
I advocate self defence for aware citizens and the defence of the realm/the commons from vested foreign interests for all.
I do not have the money, links or desire to buy arms nor the money or links (but the desire) to set up and fund a new party (which would be my own preference). It is hard to know what to suggest. I’d better start doing the lottery.
To carry on as we are now seems to be the only option but in that case we all know it is going to have to get a lot worse (and it will take a long time) plus with this new post BREXIT nationalism in the mix I believe it CAN only worsen.
As for my children, they will be encouraged to emigrate, for the country where they were born does not want them for anything other as an income stream from debt and as pawns in the desire to make education into a money spinner. Our leaders have nothing to offer them. It is not only a failure of capitalism we are looking at but a failure of capitalist democracy.
We are at the end of the road. And now anything can happen.
Richard
The answer to your rhetorical question is, IMO:- “almost certainly not”.
I fail to see how a politician who has spent virtually the whole of his career as an MP in open and continuous revolt against his own party’s leadership in the Commons, and who in consequence is bitterly opposed by many of the leading figures in the party, can be expected to rise above that legacy. He long ago cast himself in the role of a pocket-sized Lenin, a “professional activist” no less. What other occupation has he ever had?
His chosen “mission” is not to lead a party but a “movement”. Such self-appointed messiahs are not as a rule conspicuous for being tolerant of lack of belief in their message on the part of doubters. If he runs true to form I expect any such in the PLP to receive rough justice.
Well said David
Did JC really choose to to be a messiah? I may be wrong but I heard that the group of dissidents like him and Diane Abbott were discussing who should stand last year in the annual leadership election and they all said ” come on Jeremy it’s time you had a go” . Hence the law of unintended consequences came in.
Windsor Lass
Yes – I repudiate a democracy that has been captured by vested interests as much as I would treat religion that way (in fact I already have on a personal basis). Such a democracy is not actually a democracy. And we should seek to other throw it in the defence of the realm and ourselves. That is my view at the moment. Self defence – simple as that.
Real democracy however is built on give and take – balance. We voters may have the numbers – but we don’t have the money. And money talks these days. That is grossly unfair.
The problem with your suggestion however, is that I feel that the amount of outrage that we should feel at the misuse of democracy is declining and all we are doing by reporting it is making it seem acceptable – as the way to get what you want, how you want. We may be actually normalising this bad version of democracy rather than laying it bare to be challenged. The longer this goes, the more it will become normal. That is the risk.