Peter Mandelosn has written in the Sunday Mail, saying:
I believe if [Theresa May] shows flexibility, most of the country will back her.
It would be churlish for people like me and other Remainers not to give her political backing.
There are Labour MPs who want to work in the national interest and will support her if she does the right thing for the country.
Mainstream Labour MPs, who worry about the impact of the continuing Corbyn revolution on centrist voters, should be prepared to stand by the wounded PM, and likewise she should welcome their approach in the national interest.
I think if prove were needed we now know three things.
First, Mandelson has no political judgment left. No one is backing May now.
Second, if there Labour MPs who agree they really do not have a place in that party.
Third, if Mandelson is so frightened of real social democracy then it's time he stopped pretending to have anything whatsoever to do with the left.
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The truth has been drawn out by Corbyn: Labour infiltrated by establishment.
Owen Smith challenge was directly a consequence of Labour right wanting to keep the rich enriched and rule by division.
While unity is a natural step fro progressive thinkers, calls for unity are often traps.
Mandelson has decided that fighting on the inside is over and now at last we can more clearly see how and why the last forty years happened.
His last rallying call
Um. Mandelson? Iraq? An admirer of Fred Goodwin? Etc. etc.
Guacamole
Tory mole!
This was precisely why some of us believed that nothing positive would come out of the Mandelson-backed Owen Smith leadership bid. Tony Blair said he wouldn’t want to win on Corbyn’s platform during the first leadership bid. Mandelson is now so terrified that Corbyn is on the cusp of victory that he would rather back May. Time for mandatory re-selection and expulsions, I’d say. We knew that for the Blairites it was never about Corbyn’s supposed lack of electoral appeal or incompetence but the threat he posed for the Thatcherite consensus on economic and foreign policies. Hopefully the majority of the PLP would see that now and isolate the likes of Chris Leslie and Mike Gapes.
Yes indeed.
Leslie was on Today early Saturday morning still moaning about Corbyn and how “he didn’t win”. Pathetic. I would say i don’t know what planet he is living on but i think he is just a tory agitator
Benz0,
The thing with Leslie is that the election result has stuffed him full of sour grapes. The day before he probably thought that he was just biding his time, waiting for the Corbyn aberration to be wiped away so that he and his Tory-lite friends could launch their triumphant comeback.
Suddenly he realises that there is no abberation, he has openly backed the wrong horse and he has no future in cabinet or Labour generally. His statement on Today is nothing more than the bitterness of a sore loser.
BTW he had a similar “Corbyn didn’t win” moan in the Guardian and deservedly got ripped to shreds by readers in the comments section:
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/jun/10/chris-leslie-labour-should-have-won-against-theresa-may-open-goal
An interesting perspective Richard
https://www.opendemocracy.net/can-europe-make-it/jonas-fossli-gjers/jeremy-corbyn-mainstream-scandinavian-social-democrat
Richard,
Perhaps now you’ll understand what many supporters and members of the Labour Party have been saying for a considerable amount of time, namely, real change was required after the Blair/Brown years both with policy and, more crucially, internal Party structures, which to put it bluntly, are wholly unfit for purpose.
Mandelson now exhibits all that was wrong with the Party, namely that it was completely out of touch with the nation and its own membership – a fact that is exhibited daily by a significant Rightist faction unable to accept that the policy prescriptions they pushed and believed in have resulted in great misery for many.
Indeed, Corbyn offers somehow, but unless he’s able to grasp the full extent of the Party’s internal ailments, his room for action is going to be continually curtailed.
In a nutshell, the Party requires a modern Constitution, far greater transparency at all levels and a total democratisation, which many of the members, both old and new actually support – obviously Blair, Mandelson, Kinnock et al don’t share this opinion, but they are of the last century, whilst Labour is very much of this century, as witnessed by the large number of under 25s who decided to vote for it last Thursday.
We are not, and never have been ‘radicals’ or ‘ultra-Leftists’, whatever these may constitute in peoples imaginations.
Can I be clear: I am not a member of the Labour party and so not anything like an expert on its rule book
But I note what you say
Mandelson hasnt been a voice worth listening to for a very long time now.
He is completely out of touch with what is going on.
Politically, he is the living dead. One among a number of die-hard zombies.
The election result was a critical blow for them. They must know by now that they are shut out of cabinet and executive power for ever (unless they join the Tories, which they probably should).
Chris Leslie got bucketed savagely and extensively in BTL comments when he put this ludicrous offering forward in The Guardian.
Its worth a look just for the comments:
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/jun/10/chris-leslie-labour-should-have-won-against-theresa-may-open-goal
This has to be added to context of Yvette Cooper advocating cross-party Brexit negotiations, led by David Davies.
Which in turn has to be added to context of suggestion that DUP demand Farage included in Brexit talks.
With conclusion that Mandelson linking up not just with Tory Party but Hard Brexit populism in desperate anti-Corbyn (and anti-democratic) punt.
I am pretty distrustful of that suggestion as well
I can’t see merit in it
To really understand the Labour Party and the struggle between the left and right wings I can’t recommend Robin Ramsay’s the Clandestine Caucus
http://powerbase.info/index.php/The_Clandestine_Caucus
I think it’s fairly safe to say that the Blairites take their lead from Grosvenor House.
For this people movement to take hold we need the US left to pull its finger out and I don’t mean Hillary.
Shocking and I agree with all your points.
The Sunday Mail! Pah!
I think that one of New Labour’s problems was that they were so warmly welcomed by the Establishment in 1997 and essentially co-opted into the exclusive club that it is.
After that, they were always goings to lose their way and stopped being as progressive as they could have been.
It must not happen again. This election has shown that.
I wonder what his grandfather, Herbert Morrison, would say?
Actually, I don’t: I’m pretty sure “our Herb” would have banned him from the house, and closed the door on him.
Still trotting out the discredited terms “mainstream” and “centrist”. I’m surprised he didn’t add in the equally discredited “moderate” – not a term that sits easily with a willingness to launch illegal invasions of sovereign states (Iraq), bombing of sovereign states (Syria) and the encouragement of chaos in others (Libya), not to speak of supporting Welfare caps the poorest of the poor, and an unwillingness to oppose the cruel “Bedroom Tax”.
Richard has implicitly identified the meaning of these terms in Mandelson’s thinking – a hostility to Social Democracy and the pursuit of fairness and equality in favour of the rentier class, who have already siphoned off FAR too much of our financial and social capital, immeasurably harming the common good and the sum of human happiness.
But then, I’d be willing to wager that in Mandelson’s eyes such concepts are “for wimps” unwilling to embrace market disciplines, as every good “mainstream moderate centrist” should.
It was Toynbee wasn’t it who referred to the unfettered market as being a pond in which the minnows went in fear of the puke? Well, on Thursday the minnow banded together and scared off the pike. Next time, they’ll scare it death.
Andrew
Are you sure about Herbert Morrison?
That’s what I was thinking. The Labour Land Campaign have always had a problem in that the most high profile supporters of LVT had the dirtiest names, i.e. Herbert Morrison (who introduced the Site Value Rating for London Bill, 1938) and Philip Snowden (Finance Act, 1931). People like Ed Balls, who knew his LP history, always dismissed us on that basis.
“pike” not “puke”, despite the latter’s applicability to Mandelson’s piece.
Puke is just fine!
Quite agree. Mandelson’s judgement is absurd. Backing Owen Smith and writing off Jeremy Corbyn? What a plonker. Even if Mandelson did an about face and tried to curry favour with an apology it would be transparent and worthless.
Mandelson lost it years ago, indeed, never ‘had’ it in the first place. he should have been ditched after the mortgage scandal. never have a seen such self-preening narcissist like him-one talks of lips sore from kissing mirrors, this man must go through crates of lip balm.
These people love the sound of their own voice and can no longer detect whether they they are in touch with any shared reality .
He should sod-off to the nearest oligarch’s yacht and stay there drinking Martini’s and kissing Mirrors.
Does anyone have any data to back up this idea that the electorate is centrist?
Does that equal neoliberal?
From everything I’ve seen, the establishment is centrist/neoliberal but the general public is soft left – e.g., pro public ownership of rail, mail, utilities etc, free healthcare and education paid for by taxation.. of course they all moan about tax and believe the lies that ‘we can’t afford it’, but I don’t see them asking for more privatisation, for example.
I agree with you
And most people care
I agree too.
There is no such territory as ‘the centre’ in British politics as a stand alone political idea in my view.
What the ‘centre’ should be in my view is a method of rule: when either a Left or Right party rules for all and that means fairly – in particular being fair to those who have been apparently ‘vanquished’ by the FPTP system.
The Tories habit of increasing the wealth of their fan base whilst stripping wealth from working people comes to mind. That is not ruling fairly.
And as for New Labour – well their self imposed blind spot on how people made money was a big mistake in trying to win Tory voters over.
Naom Chomsky said that to end democracy one only has to end debate. He also argued that to give the illusion of democracy one had to allow a narrow framework for debate within which rigorous discussion could be allowed. Thus, the USA ended up with a “democratic choice” between Clinton and Trump!
My contention has always been that, following Thatcher’s introduction of neoliberalism into our politics, the backroom corporate lobbyists have been instrumental in the destruction of democracy in this country. Blair and his cohort were, as Blair himself recently admitted, were continuing Thatcher’s ‘legacy’! (Which I take to mean, the end of democracy!)
The ‘Establishment’, as we once knew it, is not the Nuevo riche, aristocracy, church and royal institutions, but the corporates. And corporates hate democracy! It curbs their ability to make profits. (A look at the recent trade deals which have included ISDS clauses bears witness to their disdain for democracy.)
‘New’ Labour was the final step towards a one-party, corporate fascist state! Jeremy Corbyn is the fly in the ointment.
Was it likely there was a third coup planned for after the election and now the centrists still have their jobs this recent increase in support for Corbyn has scuppered those plans?
Mandy has finally run out of road to stop Corbyn. Desperately hoping May clings on whilst he works on plan b. Time to kick him and Blair out.
Why isn’t he thrown out of the Party?…sauce for the Livingstone is sauce for the Mandy!
Richard is right Mandelson has lost it if this is a position he has hung his hat on.Everyone is right he was never anything but a bourgeois centre rightist a la Thatcher/Blair and Brown. Use of the ‘centre’ word is alarming if you wanted Corbyn to be more than a bourgeois radical. His modus operandi is successful when he is personal and instinctual. When he tries to be tactical and technical he is a dunce, like his shadow chancellor. Mandelson is conducting a war of position to ‘shape’ Corbyn’s response towards what is labelled ‘the centre’. The ‘centre’ is an ideological construct marshalled by elites [bourgeois left and right] to maintain the status quo. Leslie [another dunce] and Cooper are the outriders for that position. Labour can match anything the Tories produce in meaningless melodrama while people starve and go uneducated.
He does not represent the Labour party and should leave and join the tories as he’s clearly an Tory. 1000’s of people have just joined the labour party because we believe in Jeremy Corbyn and his manifesto and we are not all young people i personally know range in ages form 47 to 76 we just wanted a position we cold believe in and who’s not in politic for personal gain and vanity. Its simple.
This is precisely why the terms “Blairite” and “Red Tory” are interchangeable in Scotland. tbh, there are few non-Blairites in the Labour contingent – I can’t think of a single one.