As is being widely reported, Jeremy Corbyn's head of policy, Andrew Fisher, has apparently either resigned from his job, or intends to do so. According to the Observer (and the same quotes appear almost everywhere):
Fisher wrote a memo to colleagues saying members of Corbyn's team had a “lack of professionalism, competence and human decency”. He also accused them of making a “blizzard of lies and excuses” and apparently claimed that the highest ranks of the party were engaged in “class war”.
Andrew has my sympathy right now. I know a bit about what it feels like to alienate the Corbynites having once been close. And in my case I was close because of Andrew Fisher.
Before working for Corbyn Andrew worked for Alan Simpson MP and then PCS, the trade union. I knew him in those roles. He also became co-ordinator if the Left Economic Advisory Panel, a then obscure group that offered advice on issues such as tax justice and the Green New Deal to Labour MPs willing to listen, who were mainly in the left and included John McDonnell, and occasionally, Jeremy Corbyn. It was Andrew who put my ideas in his 2014 book, 'The Failed Experiment'. And Andrew who then made them the basis of Corbynomics in 2015, without me even knowing it was happening. The rest, as they say is history.
It was Andrew too who told me about Labour's EU referendum campaign in 2016 that led to my concerns about what it was doing. As I said then:
What I would stress though is that there is no point in a change if Labour is not going to learn its lessons. ... It must have a substantially different approach to the Conservatives. It must embrace the counter-cyclical investment that is so desperately needed at present in housing, business, sustainable energy and (perhaps most of all) people, who should have a right to debt-free education. In the process it would put finance and big business in its proper place, where it is treated as very significant, but not the real power in the land.
I think I was right, both at the time and now.
I have never doubted Jeremy Corbyn is a decent man. I have always wondered at the chance that made him Labour leader.
I have never doubted that Labour has needed to offer radical new visions that reject all that is bad about neoliberalism. That is what it is for.
But, as I also argued in 2016:
If I was not an idealist I would not have created the ideas that Corbyn borrowed from me. And if I was not a pragmatist I would not be writing now. My appeal at this moment is for Labour to embrace these two positions simultaneously. That is because whatever Labour's pragmatic need might be it must be infused with a new sense of idealism. If not it is wasting its time and those fighting its internal wars will end up with the prize of perpetual irrelevance.
Labour had to be pragmatic now. In effect, and if you want a few words for it, it had to be radically social democratic, but not socialist.
I am not talking the Chukka Umunna or Chis Leslie embrace of neoliberal social democracy here, which is nothing close to being left or even social-democratic.
I am talking the pragmatic, principled driven social democracy that recognises that capitalism works within the rules that states set, and goes out of its way to write rules for economic engagement that grants a licence to trade within a state so long as people, planet, communities and the people the enterprise deals with, including regulators and tax authorities, are all respected. Profit comes only if those other things can be achieved first. And if need exists and cannot be met by for-profit enterprise, as so often will be the case, then the state can and must deliver.
This is social democracy. This is radical, pragmatic and viable politics. This was and is the alternative that's needed.
But that's not what Labour has gone for, as yet.
I do not know if what Andrew Fisher says about the waging of class law is right but I am sure there remain strong Lexit factions around the leadership that are wholly ideologically driven.
I am sure Fisher is targeting Seumas Milne, in particular.
I am sure that alongside Len McCluskey he is right to do so.
And I wish Andrew well, because the backlash will be vicious. It was when I criticised Corbyn. It was when I criticised the hard left coterie who support the ill-advised rantings of Bill Mitchell on modern monetary theory. Fisher will now find he is called a neoliberal, a Blairite, a Tory, a LibDem and so much more.
But he's not. Maybe there was a reason why our paths crossed. Maybe we both wanted pragmatic social democracy - delivering real reform for the people of this country in a way in which it really could be delivered. But we did not want class war because that makes no sense whatsoever to anyone but a tiny core of fanatics, who I know just happen to be around Corbyn, whether he shares their views or not.
The UK needs a competent, committed, pragmatic left of centre party. I think that's what Labour Party members want. It has not got it. If Andrew Fisher has joined the club that realises that going back to Blair is no answer, and that supporting those currently around Corbyn is not either, welcome to reality I say. Welcome too to where most Labour members are. But that is no guarantee we'll get it as yet. There has never been a moment when we have need clear, cohesive leadership more. If Andrew Fisher is angry that Labour is being denied this by a few he's not alone. I just wish Jeremy Corbyn might smell the coffee.
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I share you concerns.
The Observer is also talking about some plot to get rid of Tom Watson as well as some shenanigans over a vote by members to become a Remain party being knocked aside by the Union block vote.
Brilliant!
How typically short sited and introverted our opposition parties are just when we need them the most at a national level?
This closed shop bollocks around Corbyn though……..? The next election IS about BREXIT Jeremy – you can see it in the on-street interviews already in the news. GND, PQE, ending austerity, climate awareness and even the Labour suggestion of getting rid of OFSTED – all these urgent issues are now sub-servient to something that is totally unnecessary to be honest.
The highlight of today’s Observer to me is Nick Cohen’s piece about the Queen’s role in all of this which echoed why I wrote to her and asked her to abdicate. Our politics has ceased to function.
Pilgrim SR:”How typically short sited and introverted our opposition parties are just when we need them the most at a national level?”
Two things:
1. Labour would be unelectable if it positioned itself as a resolute remain party. Our reformism and ending austerity to achieve it matter much more than brexit (as important and dangerous as brexit is), and
2. the national good requires that a party of government rebalances our economics away from free-market extremism and the power this gives some pretty-nasty developments and people and that a party of government (see 1.) champions and deploys the GND
Also, is your suggestion to our head of state that she abdicates not the worst type of Ad hominemism? Brenda only did what she thought the wretched rules dictated.
Sorry qwerti-whatever – are you being serious or just sarcastic?
You’ve lost me.
qwertboi says:
“Two things:
1. Labour would be unelectable if it positioned itself as a resolute remain party. Our reformism and ending austerity to achieve it matter much more than brexit (as important and dangerous as brexit is), and”
Agreed in part. And we can only go from where we are. I think Labour could have been highly electable if they had challenged Brexit with rational argument and made the case for remain, stressing the on-going need to work on the EU project. But they haven’t. Which means the rest of the reform agenda, and what you say in your second ‘thing’ are not likely to happen.
I think that’s a lost opportunity. ………I think it’s lost. For the time being at least.
Let’s see what happens today….
I initially supported Corbyn and joined Labour as a consequence but more recently I quit the Labour party over concerns it is now taking a stupid, old fashioned class war based, overly statist and idenitarian approach that’s dangerous and bound to fail.
Therefore I pretty much agree with your sentiments here Richard.
I have to disagree with your assessment of Bill Mitchell though.
Bill’s position on the need for real social democracy is really not much different to yours. I’ve had conversations with him about the lunacy of the hard left’s near revolutionary approach and he has absolutely no time for it. Bill wants pretty much exactly what you describe above. Only real difference is his belief that Jobs Guarantee is an essential element in achieving it and that the EU is an irrevocably neoliberal venture.
I know hard left Lexiters. Some of them effectively want the shock of a disastrous brexit in order to bring about radical (revolutionary?) change. They’re the same folk who want to take (violent?) revenge against the percieved enemies of the supposed “working class”. They’re dangerously deluded.
Myself and others, Bill Mitchell included, are nothing like that. We just think brexit doesn’t have to be a short term disaster and that it can help facilitate all the things you explain we need above in the medium and long term.
I think you’re so angry about right-wing brexiters that you’re lumping all who favour brexit (or merely fail to rage against it hard enough) together in the same loony bin! As such your normally sound judgement escapes you on this specific topic.
Bill is the biggest threat to MMT
His politics are most unwise, as is their delivery
And I gave to disagree on Brexit
I’m with Richard on this one Adam.
Outside of the EU, we are really going to be a very small country indeed. Leaving is going to hurt even if Labour get ‘their deal’ – a deal that will – once you have considered it in more depth – will make is wonder why we even went through the leave door in the first place.
In other words, we could have stayed in and used our veto just like we always have and even sought out like minded politicians in the EU to re-orientate it (the burgeoning problem of the extreme right must be halted and even the EU knows that).
We also need to be honest about the BREXIT referendumb.
It was badly done, badly executed, badly managed, badly over-seen and badly interpreted with no basis in our constitutional rules for us to magically become an democracy mandated directly by the voter; we have always been a representative democracy with Parliament weighing up the pros and cons before calling a decision on the basis of what is best for the country.
BREXIT Adam is totally illegitimate – it is as simple as that. The failure of courage to deal with that is a disaster.
Richard Murphy: “Bill is the biggest threat to MMT. His politics are most unwise, as is their delivery….”
Geeky I know, but although I visit here for other reasons (and I don’t want to distract you from your mission, the reason I visit), I’d love to know (well, understand) more about your analytical differences with Bill..
Working on them
Tax is a major one
But most of my problem with Bill is his absurd interpretations of MMT when it comes to politics and his aggression with opponents
Differing is fine
Bill goes a lot further. It does not help
Richard,
How on earth is Bill Mitchell “the biggest threat to MMT”?
He’s one of the main and original proponents of MMT. He’s spent the best part of four decades working on MMT and it’s foundational ideas in an academic capacity. He’s spent two decades (or more) putting a lot of time and effort into communicating MMT o the general public.
With all due respect to you Richard I believe your attitude to Bill Mitchell is completely out of order. Even if you objectively disagree with the substance of his ideas or subjectively disagree with the way he presents them I don’t think it’s reasonable to take such a hyperbolic and insulting critical approach to a man who has worked so hard on these ideas for so long.
Bill isn’t a politician, he’s an academic so I don’t think anyone should expect or want him to be a smooth political operator. Nevertheless, I do don’t see what’s so wrong with the way he presents his ideas.
What precisely is it about Bill’s politics that’s so unwise? Does it extend beyond you two disagreeing over brexit?
I truly believe you owe Bill an apology.
Bill’s aggressiveness undermines MMT
Simple
Never been on the sharp end of it?
Try it
He’s got all the apologies to make
Agree with all you say. It’s unfortunate (understatement) for the country that Labour are going through an internal upheaval at such a crucial moment in our political history. Voters don’t like disorganised parties, do they? This latest TED talk from the renegade billionaire Nick Hanauer offers some pragmatic pointers for a radical social-democratic agenda that shouldn’t frighten the horses to death – https://www.ted.com/talks/nick_hanauer_the_dirty_secret_of_capitalism_and_a_new_way_forward.
Good video
Whether you like it or not you and your blogs undoubtedly promote “class war”..no doubt you masquerade it as something else
With respect, the only class war being waged right now is by the wealthy
There you go..having made it clear that hard left has taken over and is messing up the Labour Party through its class war agenda you bash the wealthy as if they are a label ..I am not wealthy but I really don’t want the State talking control at the expense of the individual. Does that make me neoliberal?? Too be honest the electorate do t care about labels and are bored with the agenda they promote..
With respect I do think the country wants an NHS, education, social care, and so much more
Even a Green New Deal
And you’re saying they don’t?
Pull the other one
As Buffet said some time ago.
It really is incredible that in the middle of the greatest crisis since Munich, maybe even earlier, opposition parties – the No Referendum Lib Dems who are up to their necks in neoliberalism from their coalition with the Tories and who may even get into bed with them again if it means Power – and the facing all ways at once Labour, with the faction who put “ideological purity” before the good of the country – cannot get an act together to consign the Tories to oblivion when we have quite clearly the most incompetent, lying, deluded, narcissistic bully promoted far beyond his abilities in No 10 trashing parliament, yet, amazingly, riding high in the polls.
What more can the Tories do to dent their popularity? What more can Labour do to show they too are unfit for office? We await the next absurd revelation.
Steve pesenti says:
” ..I am not wealthy but I really don’t want the State talking control at the expense of the individual. Does that make me neoliberal?? ”
Yes. Or at least an unthinking apologist for neoliberalism.
“Too be honest the electorate do t care about labels and are bored with the agenda they promote..”
Speak for yourself. We’re not all bored. Though it has to be admitted a lot of the labels are not helpful.
Steve
Call me a Murphy Fan Boy – I don’t care – but you Steve for sure are talking absolute baloney – this blog has never been about waging ‘class’ war on anyone.
All it has done is track the economic warfare being waged on ALL classes of working people by vested interests who think that they can get away with it.
And in doing so Richard has suggested better ways of doing things. That’s all.
If you don’t like it or you feel threatened – go somewhere else for goodness sake why don’t you? There
are plenty of places for you to validate your views – whatever they are – so go and find them. No one is making you come here Steve!
🙂
And there are no Murphy fan boys
There are some critical friends
“Whether you like it or not you and your blogs undoubtedly promote “class war”..no doubt you masquerade it as something else”
Sadly Steve pesenti “Class war” as a term and idea is often used wrongly to describe combative hostility and, in particular, is used as a baton by some to demean marxian analysis and others to imply a case for revolution instead of reformism.
In fact, Marx and Engels used the term as Young Hegelians might, to mean ‘class struggle’
In case it’s relevant, I think Andrew Fisher’s concern (about the use of the phrase) is relevant. Reformism is the current in the Corbyn Project which aims to bring about change, in particular to advance the interests of the oppressed people (the Many), without UNPRODUCTIVELY threatening the state and the vital class interests of the ruling class (the Few). The privileges of the Few can continue until they threaten the well-being of the many, then they will be reduced.
Richard M uses ‘class war’ in the sense it was intended by the dialectical endeavours of its young Hegelian originators.
The observation “Tony Blair never wanted to be leader of Labour party; he just wanted to be prime minister” is generally attributed to Roy Jenkins. An appropriate up-to-date paraphrase is “Jeremy Corbyn never wanted to be prime minister; he just wanted to be the leader of the Labour party”. And thanks to the “Four Ms” and others close to him the Labour party is becoming a narrow, sectarian, cult-like political faction.
History shows that when it comes to choosing a government British, but perhaps more emphatically English, voters prefer two clear competing political blocs each of which is capable of providing governance. And so it has been cavaliers vs roundheads, Whigs vs Tories, Liberal vs Conservatives and eventually Labour vs Conservatives. It also appears that voters have traditonally preferred that these political blocs formed of coalitions of various combinations of competing and co-operating factions thrash out their internal differences to present unified parties either delivering governance or capable of delivering governance.
And voters tend to deliver severe judgements on divided parties. These electoral judgements are not delivered because voters are engaged with the issues and factions roiling a party – most voters, quite sensibly, don’t bother themselves with the minutiae of internal party squabbles; they are delivered because the internal party divisions are either depriving them of effective governance (if the party is in government) or of a credible and viable alternative party of governance (if the party is in opposition).
A broad consensus is beginning to emerge that the current economic model is no longer fit-for-purpose. This tends to be most clearly expressed by people in Labour, the Lib Dems and the Greens, but quite a few sentient Tories and establishment commentators and opinion formers share this view. Obviously opinions vary widely about the nature and extent of change required, but it is for Labour as the only party capable of capturing and forming a vote-winning consensus and of providing alternative governance to ensure that it does so.
Most voters express their judgement in hindsight. Incumbent governing parties performing badly will be treated brutally, but if and only if there is a credible alternative government. A party which should provide, but presents itself as being incapable of providing, a credible alternative government will be treated even more brutally by voters than an incompetent incumbent government. That is the situation we are in and there is a high probability that the current incompetent government will be returned with a majority. And that is the tragedy of the cult of Corbyn.
I agree that the Labour Party is more like a cult than a political party.
One reason I will probably be returning my membership card in the next few days.
I left the Liberal Democrat’s over the Tory coalition but hell the Labour Party have made their share of errors. I think Diane Abbot has forgotten she was a member of the Iraq War party with her sanctimonious remarks.
This is why we are currently suffering under a Tory extremist government and before that suffered under a neoliberal coalition; this rejection of the near-term possible in favour of the further-off utopian. The desperate urge to tear-down the flawed-but-acceptable in the name of spotless virtue-signalling.
If, as many, many commenters on this blog have done, you carp and cavil and niggle and disrupt about every possible aspect of a large, complex and dynamic set of solutions to difficult wide-reaching systemic issues do not be surprised if your opponents sneak into power because you couldn’t find it in your heart to support someone/something not quite the perfect blend for your taste. They have no such qualms; they fix on power and attain it at all costs because they know that nothing counts until you have it. You appear to disdain the necessary step of winning in order to have the chance of doing the good things we all want. How else to explain the constant undermining?
“How else to explain the constant undermining?”
Lack of trust in the integrity of purpose. Combined with a lack of trust in the competence to deliver.
For a Tory voter it isn’t an issue apparently. 🙁
Well, well!
I’ve just finished watching the news. Labour made a debacle of themselves tonight on that vote. Wow!
We have one of the most awful Tory parties in living memory in power, a Lib Dem party behaving like the vultures they are and a BREXIT party who are beneath contempt – but Labour just had to go and behave really badly today – just when we wanted to see a well ran, reasonable and principled display of democracy we had a…………………………….show of hands!!! In the 21st century!! Quaint!
I tell you politics has gone insane – it’s a parody of itself.
And to watch Steven Kinnock calling the BREXIT refrendumb a ‘democratic vote’!!
My other half has immediately cancelled her Labour party membership tonight and we know of 5 others who have had enough.
My Verdict: F**k the Labour party. They’re done.
Pilgrim Slight Return says:
“My Verdict: F**k the Labour party. They’re done.”
Hmmmm… they aren’t dead yet. Even if they are they haven’t ‘done smelling’ and won’t for a while.
Anyway today’s ‘debacle’ as you call it wasn’t addressed to you. Or your other half. Nor even your five (acquaintances or friends) There aren’t enough of you to win an election.
Actually I don’t think it was addressed to anyone. Labour is doing what the Tories have been doing. They are squabbling amongst themselves. The media will enjoy it. The party spokespersons won’t. They’ll wriggle like worms on a hook as I heard somebody doing on the radio news this evening.
I ditched my party card during Blair’s reign. A lot more people should have too and probably should have been voting Green ever since, but did they? Did they….what was that word you used..? f**k ?
Did they F**k.
No sympathy from this quarter. I’m in Scotland. I’ve got a political party to vote for. With a leader, an agenda and a track record. And an electorate on board. And some Greens aswell FFS.
Easy to see why some of us want out of the union isn’t it? I don’t think England will have an ‘Irish Problem’ for much longer either.
You’ll get an election, probably quite soon, and your compatriots will vote the same bunch of tossers back into parliament again.
There’s empty shed here at present if you still want it.
@Pilgrim
Actually….declaring war on the public schools is enough in itself to ensure the Tories win the forthcoming election.
The media will play that as a restriction of parents’ choice and nobody will vote for having choice taken away from them….even if it wasn’t a choice they could even dream of being able to afford to make.
Even if the Supreme Court declares Boris Johnson HAS broken the law he’ll still win an election….even if the cabinet has to meet in Wormwood Scrubs.
@Pilgrim
My Word! This Shiraz is good. 🙂
Humour noted. But funny it ain’t – not over the border here.
All they have to do with public schools is (if I remember correctly) make them lose their VAT exempt status for goodness sake. They are not charities. Those who send their kids there will have to pay the full cost for once (they are the sort who buy expensive top of the range 4 x 4’s but will park on public green space to avoid paying a few quid in the Council car park).
We could emulate any of these public schools in the state sector with smaller class sizes and bigger budgets and the right GCSE curriculum. The kids going through would benefit from PQE and GND.
There is nothing nothing funny about last night. It’s as if the party decided to collectively not listen to reality. It was a coup committed against rationality – by the people we were relying on. ‘Truth is – we can’t rely on any of them in England at least.
What is worse is that we know BREXIT is going to hurt in any form. But what about about the rest of policy following on? What about the follow on years? There is no jesting on that prospect.
One thing has occurred to me though: I think that Corbyn may well have signed off the end of his career as a result of last night. A lot of scales will be falling from people’s eyes this morning.
Shiraz!? Yuk! You Scottish cheapskate you! Enjoy your hangover.
The other big change would be to take away their charitable rate of business rates.