Clive Lewis announced his bid to lead the Labour Party yesterday, and I admit to two things. The first was knowing he was going to do so. The second is pleasure that he is.
Clive is a member of the Green New Deal Group. He gets what is required. And he has risked the wrath of existing leadership to stick his neck out for it.
Clive had also been willing to work across party lines. Hallelujah!
And he is talking real reform, including PR.
I know he's not a woman, but the whole 'the next leader of the Labour Party has to be a woman' claim is deeply patronising to all the woman standing in any case, as if they could not make it without such bias, which is ridiculous (as many left of centre women tell me).
Clive brings a distinct policy difference to the leadership campaign that is welcome, in my opinion.
I will not be voting, of course. I am not a Labour Party member. But it's good to have a red-green in the field.
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Yes I can see this. I think that Clive with Angela Rayner as deputy could work well. It would certainly be good for fostering co-operation between Labour and the Greens (which was sadly lacking in GE2019, with it must be said the principal fault being on the Labour side – the Greens made several moves which were not reciprocated).
Clive and Angela would be highly likely to get my vote.
I know little about him, but someone with a sense of purpose and a willingness to collaborate would be welcomed.
I am very glad to see him running.
A cross-party alliance will be essential to winning the next election. Had Lib Dems, Labour and Greens run under a single banner, without a single vote cast differently, Johnson would not be Prime Minister.
We will lose more valuable years before we can get there, but the GND remains key to writing a positive narrative for that alliance, beyond just getting the Tories out and changing the voting system, which seems arcane and self-serving to many.
Clive Lewis is the only truly exciting candidate in the race because he gets that, through no one’s fault but their own, Labour – specifically Labour exceptionalism – has let down an entire nation. As Clive said to the Guardian: “The truth is that to change our country, we have to change ourselves.”
Clive also gets that in a ‘Climate Emergency’, when we only have 10 short years to act, Labour should have acted like our lives and our very civilisation depended on it (because they do) and formed a ‘progressive alliance’ for the 2019 election. Such an anti-Tory alliance (that all other progressive parties wanted) could very conceivably have won, and won by a landslide.
And yet, due to it’s almost criminally backward-looking tribalism, Labour unforgivably refused and chose ‘the party’ over alliances & support for PR and so turned its back on near-certain victory that would, through the GND, have defended the very future of our children.
Ironically they chose the few over the many.
Clive Lewis is a visionary who recognises the true level of Labour’s folly. He stands head and shoulders above the other candidates. I wish him well.
Clive Lewis will be a disaster in my opinion.. he feels the Party didn’t succeed in the election because is hadn’t rid intend of the new labour image!!.. also wants to give more say on power to Labour membership. Isn’t it evident that there is a massive gap between Labour membership and the electorate who used to vote for it??
The Party becoming more left wing and remaining in the grip of momentum is a Party further marginalised when it comes to the next election. There clearly is no real period of reflection. The more I hear the more I believe the Party is turning into a protest group more than a party aiming for government.
I thought his piece in the guardian yesterday about standing as leader was really good.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/dec/19/im-standing-labour-leader-clive-lewis
Open selections, PR and Green New Deal are all winners for me on policy.
The fact he was in the army might help with the problem of Labour not being seen as patriotic (the fact this is the case is a sad indictment of the state of political discourse in this country, but we have to start from where we are). Also, for similar reasons, his occasional “un-PC” gaffs might actually be helpful, in that they make him not seem overly “woke” (although don’t trust the media to be consistent on this – they are perfectly capable of monstering Labour being “too work” and then monstering the next leader for being not woke enough).
The one thing that gives me pause is that groping alligation (although he was cleared). Instrumentally, this has to be noted as something that the hostile media will make as much fuss as possible about if they can. Morally, it also makes me pause. I don’t go with the “believe women unconditionally” line of thought, but it nevertheless makes me uneasy.
Completely support GND. Very important that we implement a just transition, transitioning workers into the sustainable sector without destroying jobs. Let’s hope all progressives can agree and work together on this.
Oh, also, he was a big remainer – to the extent of resigning over Article 50. Personally this only increases my respect for him. But will it be a problem for the voters we lost in the North?
Leave voters who normally vote Labour but voted Tory in the general election don’t appear capable of joined-up thinking and any new Labour leadership has got to work on this problem. For example, today we’re told that the government will be stripping worker’s rights out of the Withdrawal Agreement yet it was abuse by employers of economic migrants that has largely driven worker support for Leave. The Tory government is of course sponsored by employers!
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/dec/19/johnson-revises-eu-bill-to-limit-parliaments-role-in-brexit-talks
https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/eu-brexit-uk-labour-laws-migrant-workers-a8375836.html
On the subject of Clive Lewis he appears to be a good bet. At least he has an economics degree and his teaming up with Caroline Lucas as a Labour MP to push the Green New Deal (GND) means he must be aware of MMT since Caroline Lucas will have explained to him that Mark Carney agreed in principle that Green New Deal Bonds could be purchased by the Bank of England by BoE money created from thin air and that essentially these were future Reserves GND bonds the BoE has no need of since it’s an issuer of reserves not a spender of reserves! Of course, Mark Carney tempered his statement by saying he’d have to agree such action by the bank with the government which is where Clive Lewis comes in.
https://www.carolinelucas.com/latest/financial-times-mark-carney-boosts-green-investment-hopes
http://neweconomicperspectives.org/2019/10/the-peoples-money-part-2.html
Clive Lewis in his leadership campaign will encounter much criticism for his support of a Green New Deal particularly how to pay for it and many will not under the explanation I provided above about cancelling out future reserves GND bonds. It would seem best for Clive Lewis to deflect this criticism by simply saying that there is a great deal of concern about the Tory government’s justification for its excessive austerity and that under his leadership the Labour Party will push for a modern version of the Radcliffe Commission to examine this issue whilst also having the broader remit of agreeing how the UK monetary system does work and publishing a definitive official explanation how it does.
As already noted Clive Lewis is in favour of getting rid of the First Past the Post system to make democracy fairer and this would appear to reflect his outlook on life that what’s important for human societies is that it encourages the type of “political marketplace” where all kinds of new ideas can be given a fair hearing for all manner of purposes apart from the sociopathic.
Clive has people who can help answer all those questions….
I think Lewis is fantastic and the fact that he is leading with PR and GND is good too.
He should be made into the figurehead within Labour for promoting that through the country.
The charge of no female leader of Labour has more substance than the AS bs and WILL be used as it has been to attack the current Labour leadership unless a Liberal Guardian friendly Leadership is elected by the membership.
Think he would be excellent, and for me someone who gets the GND is absolutely crucial. Not a woman, but he is black, so there’s some credits in the identity politics scorecard nonsense. His background as a journalist, and his natural agility, will serve him very well in the areas where Corbyn failed. I know we don’t agree on the importance of dealing with the media bias, but Lewis and Laura Pidcock were for me the only two who consistently handled effortlessly the kind of hostile interviewing we know all too well any left-wing leader will get (which isn’t to say that others amongst those putting their names in the ring didn’t also handle it well, just that CL and LP were, for me, stand-outs at it.)
I find it bizarre that he chose to join the army in 2006. Did was he especially motivated to participate in illegal wars?
I would also say that his involvement in People’s Vote showed a complete lack of strategic awareness and is unlikely to be forgotten by the members.
As a Labour member that will be voting, my initial reaction was, this is the man that will get my vote. I will listen to all of the leadership contenders, and, judge them on their merit. As so few have yet thrown their hat in the ring, I can only say that Clive Lewis, who I have long admired, is way ahead of anyone else, for me at least.
I like the triumverate of Long-Bailey, Lewis and Starmer as the core.
It replicates Blair, Prescott & Brown. Not necessarily in a direct way, you understand. There was Cook, Mowlam..and others.
I think now that brexit is boged through, the super analytic and competence of Starmer is probably best deployed at the Treasury (how advanced is his grasp of mmt?), he would be on top of the numbers i bet.
The everyman appeal and pugnacity and big thinking on PR and GND is Clive’s natural calling to spread across the populace who will like him.
That leaves young fresh everywoman Beccy as the fresh new face – female – to appeal to the everyman & everywoman and she is not from London! Her background is as egalitarian as Clives and Keirs.
Around that a strong mature and new team can exist. We don’t have to subscribe to a presidential type of government this could be the chance to be as radical as Thatcherism.
Just like the latest starwars or GOT leads?
We are now a fifth of the way through a new century and we can not carry on as if we can have the same politics of the last. It is time to renew. The new parliament rebuild should not be the same model as the old. Enough of the swords length separations of just two sides.
I’m not saying it’s my final word and I am not yet a party member.
He’s got no chance. He’ll be destroyed in the press over that 2017 accusation of assault. Rayner has already said she won’t run for leader, and given the attacks the sadistic UK press will rain upon her, I can’t blame her. It doesn’t matter who is leader, their life will be made miserable. We don’t live in a democracy anymore, we live in a pressocracy.
Or maybe a mediaocracy [mediocre-cy]