Should Corbyn remain as Labour leader?

[Brownie]

Haha what a fucking snake Eagle is.

 

John McDonnell made some interesting points in his speech today on Labour's post-Brexit plan.

 

The main ones being that Labour accepts that there will be no freedom of movement for people and also that they will fight to keep passporting rights for the financial sector: "It won't just be a few fat cats who suffer".

[Brownie]

Of course these should be the topic of discussion now but who cares about policy eh?

[Anubis]

One thing this has all brought home is the dire need for electoral reform. The general fucked up nature of the world is producing too many different views and strands of politics to be contained to two parties forever. If we had some kind of PR system now you could quite easily have two Labour parties, the Greens etc all with their own MPs creating different policies, working together etc.

I agree. But too much of a challenge to a large portion of the current electoral class.

[Anubis]

Blair offering to be the Brexit negotiator.

 

Not sure it can be done via video-link.

Sublime.

[Strontium]

Terrible, terrible times when we won 3 elections in a row.

 

You would think the only Labour leader to win an election in the last 40 years would be feted as a party hero. Instead, the current leader wants him prosecuted for war crimes.

 

You can't get a better indicator for the party's problems than that.

[Brownie]

Yeah because winning is all that matters. Social justice is secondary.

[dennis tooth]

He's threatened by a man who can garner three times as much support as his own party has members. In less than one week. When he's supposedly on the ropes. Let's allow strontium some room to thrash his arms about like a malfunctioning robot whose batteries will drain soon.

[Biscao]

Yeah because winning is all that matters. Social justice is secondary.

 

I'd say he did pretty well on social justice as well.

[dennis tooth]

I'd say he did pretty well on social justice as well.

Were you born in iraq?

[Guest Numero Veinticinco]

Yeah because winning is all that matters. Social justice is secondary.

Winning certainly matters if you want social justice.

[rubble-rouser]

You can't deliver social justice from the opposition benches. 

 

The idea of Corbyn ever persuading the majority of people to vote for him in an election - when people generally put their self-interest first whatever their replies to vague and hypothetical vox pops - is nursery school fantasy. I also think he's a complete cunt. He is not fit to lead any kind of movement as he lacks the power to persuade. He says stupid things without thinking them through despite knowing that his every world will be twisted, and he lacked the moral courage to tell the truth about his views on Europe.  He is a turbo mong and a narcissist who will do nothing to dilut ethe wave of right-wing hell that is about to be unleashed on those he claims to represent. 

[rubble-rouser]

Were you born in iraq?

 

What does that even mean you weird twat?

[dennis tooth]

What does that even mean you weird twat?

Quiet ewe

[Sugar Ape]

I've just been reading that a branch of Tristram Hunts CLP have apparently passed two unanimous motions:

 

1) Support of Corbyn

2) No confidence in Hunt

 

I'm no sure how true it is, it's just something I read on Twitter earlier so please take it with a pinch of salt initially.

Sec referred to it as a civil war the other day and that's exactly what it is. Don't get me wrong, I think it's still overwhelmingly positive for him at the grassroots but It's not just MPs and MEPs against him, Some CLPs are and contrary to popular belief, loads of members. I just don't see how this ends well; the whole party is split from the top to the bottom. Interestingly a CLP for a shadow cabinet member voted against him but he hasn't stood down and respected their wishes. Paul Waugh was tweeting this yesterday:

 

Streatham Labour party GC just voted 53-13 for Corbyn to resign. "The members are really turning against Corbyn" says one member.

 

Here's another #savelabour move.

Motion of no confidence in Corbyn passed at Camberwell & Peckham 32 for, 15 against and 2 abstentions

 

Leeds NE CLP, also tonight rejected "motion of confidence" in Corbyn by 2/3 maj. Fabian Hamilton's seat, one of few left in Corbyn shad team

 

But then someone replied with this which just shows that the party is split:

 

Doubt it @paulwaugh Tottenham, Sheffield Hallam, Totnes, Gateshead, South West Norfolk, Wallasey + more CLPs voted to back Corbyn this week!

[dennis tooth]

You can't deliver social justice from the opposition benches.

 

The idea of Corbyn ever persuading the majority of people to vote for him in an election - when people generally put their self-interest first whatever their replies to vague and hypothetical vox pops - is nursery school fantasy. I also think he's a complete cunt. He is not fit to lead any kind of movement as he lacks the power to persuade. He says stupid things without thinking them through despite knowing that his every world will be twisted, and he lacked the moral courage to tell the truth about his views on Europe. He is a turbo mong and a narcissist who will do nothing to dilut ethe wave of right-wing hell that is about to be unleashed on those he claims to represent.

So should we put you down as an ed milliband man or more of an angela eagliter?

maybe with your obvious eloquence you should stand for pm.

[Jairzinho]

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jul/01/momentum-and-liverpool-is-labour-heading-for-a-split-jeremy-corbyn

 

 

 

Momentum, the grassroots movement set up last year to support Jeremy Corbyn, held an emergency meeting in central Liverpool on Tuesday night that attracted about 130 members, the biggest turnout yet, according to the organisers. It was no ordinary meeting. It was nothing less than the opening round on Merseyside of the renewed fight for the leadership of Labour. In a rallying call on Facebook, the group said: “We have to mobilise to keep Corbyn, strengthen the left and keep the party from falling apart.”

 

I was in London because the evening before I had been in Parliament Square with the thousands who had turned up to voice their support for Corbyn as the parliamentary Labour party was calling on him to resign.

 

But I asked my colleague Frances Perraudin, based in Manchester, if she would attend the Liverpool meeting, held at Unite headquarters. There, Edd Mustill took aim at the parliamentary Labour party’s coup attempt, saying: “It’s a childish tantrum that will, if we let it, tear the Labour party apart.” While warning members not to take another Corbyn victory for granted, Mustill told them that if they played it right, they would “smash it”.

 

The leadership challenge adds urgency to this Labour and Liverpool project. The entry into the race of the MP for Wallasey, Angela Eagle, puts Merseyside at the centre of what is shaping up to be one of the most fractious Labourcontests since the days of Militant in the 1980s.

 

An early sign of this – and potential trouble for Eagle – came when the deputy chair of the Wallasey constituency party, Paul Davis, told BBC North West Tonight: “Jeremy Corbyn hasn’t been given a chance to be a good leader. If you are being stabbed in the back all the time by your own people on the Labour benches, it’s very hard to get your message across. So yes, I do think he’s a good leader.”

I hope to go to Wallasey within the next 24 hours totry to gauge whether Eagle does face a revolt in her local party. Could any members of that constituency get in touch?

 

And there are the bigger picture questions. Will Liverpool fall in behind Corbyn again? Or has his support eroded, amid scepticism over his chances of winning a general election, poor performances at prime minister’s questions and resentment over his half-hearted European referendum campaign? I would like to hear your views.

 

In a phone interview councillor Barry Kushner, who represents Norris Green, said he voted for Corbyn last time but thought it might be harder for him this time, describing the mood on Merseyside as “mixed”.

 

Kushner got in touch with me as a result of last week’s piece, in which I talked tocouncillor Peter Mitchell. Kushner did not know who he would vote for when it came to the leadership. It depended on who the alternative was, he said – but Tom Watson and Angela Eagle, the names mentioned at the time we spoke, did not feel to him like ones to take the party forward.

 

As the member of Liverpool city council’s cabinet responsible for jobs, Kushner expressed concern about the impact of the leave vote, saying that the injection of EU funds had helped mitigate some of the effects of the Conservatives’ managed decline of Merseyside. Brexit put some major projects at risk, he said.

 

On Tuesday, I wrote a piece saying that Corbyn remains well-placed to win the leadership because he retains the support not only of much of the grassroots but also the unions, including Unite and GMB.

 

Among those speaking at the Liverpool Momentum meeting on Tuesday night was Rhea Wolfson, the Momentum-backed candidate for a place on the Labour national executive committee, which helps govern the party. She said it was significant that the biggest unions had come out for Corbyn. “The Labour party is the political expression of the union movement and the moment we forget that is the moment we lose the soul of the party.”

 

Her prediction for the campaign: it’s going to be “messy and its going to be quick, so we need to be ready for it”.

 

Frances, attending on our behalf, reports that at the meeting, there was concern that Momentum did not have access to lists of local members. Someone else argued that mandatory reselection of MPs, something Corbyn had ruled out at the start of his leadership, needed to be brought to the table: they referred to those MPs hostile to Corbyn as “this treacherous bunch”.

 

One attendee proposed that the group stage a protest in support of Corbyn in central Liverpool: “The people in Parliament Square, while the rats were inside – sorry to use unparliamentary language – while the gentlemen and ladies were inside committing treachery, that sets us a challenge in Merseyside.”

 

A member from Eagle’s Wallasey constituency said: “There’s talk that Angela Eagle will be one of the people standing against Jeremy. If she does, we will be ready.”

 

The group agreed that they would make representations to their MPs in person at their surgeries, and would hold pro-Corbyn demonstrations this Saturday and outside the Labour party conference in September.

 

Despite a few voices arguing that Momentum should stand simply on the policies on which Corbyn was elected, the meeting ended with the group voting overwhelmingly to adopt a motion to ban zero-hours contracts, introduce a £10 minimum wage, create 2m jobs in the public sector, build hundreds of thousands of council homes a year, introduce rent controls, increase taxes on the rich, bring the banking sector into public ownership, increase education funding, restore and increase benefits and reverse cuts to the NHS.

 

There has been a lot of criticism that the London rally, held the evening before, was dominated by the Socialist Workers party (SWP) and other leftwing groups. But I was there – and while there were members of the SWP and other veterans of decades of leftwing infighting, the rally was dominated by young activists brought into politics last year after the Conservative general election win and inspired by the Corbyn campaign. These people see Momentum as a broad social movement.

 

The sense that the rally was dominated by the SWP can be explained partly by its members bringing their own banners, but also by the “Corbyn In, Tories Out” placards they produced and that carried an SWP logo, which many of those present waved. Momentum, short of cash, apparently failed to make placards of its own. But, with the unions backing Corbyn, funds for campaigning are likely to become more readily available.

 

When this journalistic project began, the intention was to see Liverpool as a microcosm for what was happening to Labour throughout the country. The leadership challenge has given the project an immediacy it did not have at the start. It also offers the opportunity to look at the party in detail at a time as tumultuous as the 1980s, when it splintered, leading to the creation of the now defunct Social Democratic Party.

 

My question for you is whether Labour is now heading for another split.

[ElishaScottBC]

Principles have no place in real world politics anyways.

 

 

Could you pass the beans please?

[Stu Monty]

You're right, I'n mostly just enjoying this. Can't wait for the hardcore lefties to lose power and be gone once and for all.

 

See, that sort of thing just marks you out as a clown. And the constant refusal to respond to people asking you to define your definitions of "extremism" and "moderates" marks you as an intellectual coward.

[rubble-rouser]

So should we put you down as an ed milliband man or more of an angela eagliter?

maybe with your obvious eloquence you should stand for pm.

 

Fuck you twatguzzler 

 

I'll support any leader that will get these horrible thundercunts out of power, get racists away from positions of authority and do stuff like not closing libraries, not reducing investment in mental health services and housing and not give tax breaks to the rich. 

[dennis tooth]

Fuck you twatguzzler 

 

I'll support any leader that will get these horrible thundercunts out of power, get racists away from positions of authority and do stuff like not closing libraries, not reducing investment in mental health services and housing and not give tax breaks to the rich. 

 

Unless their names Crobyn and the media tells you theyre unelectable.

 

Idiot.

[bonesman]

Corbyn Coup Misjudges Public Mood

 01/07/2016 12:19

 

Tess Finch-LeesJournalist, ethical Blogger & Human Rights Campaigner

The Blairite coup against Jeremy Corbyn has sorely misjudged the public mood. The economy is in free fall and the rampant racism unleashed by the Leave campaign makes the “No blacks, dogs and Irish” signs of the 60’s seem welcoming. Vigilante bigots now roam our streets attacking “foreigners”, issuing unofficial deportation orders demanding, “We want our country back”.

 

The first parliamentary debate I attended ten years ago was on the Darfur genocide. I took my place in the press gallery just as the then secretary of state for International Development, Hilary Benn, stood up. His opening words served as my first lesson in political chicanery, “I am delighted to see such a full house”. There were 6 people present, including himself.

After wards, I asked John Bercow (my then MP and Darfur ally) why Benn had implied there was a full house. He said, “One word Tess. Hansard” (the official public record). Since then I’ve never taken what a politician says at face value.

The architects of the Corbyn coup, including Benn, defend their treachery by claiming that, if Corbyn couldn’t convince Labour voters to Remain, then he can’t win a general election. But, Corbyn delivered a 2/3 Labour majority for the Remain camp, something Margaret Hodge, who tabled the motion of no confidence against Corbyn, ironically couldn’t achieve. Her constituents voted to Leave.

The truth is that the coup wasn’t staged because Blairites don’t think Jeremy Corbyn could win the next election. It was because they fear he could. A Corbyn win would be an unequivocal endorsement of his progressive Labour and yet another outright rejection of Blair’s right wing New Labour/Thatcherite agenda.

 

As chair of the Labour In campaign, Alan Johnson’s line up of pale, male and stale spokespeople failed to inspire. Women, young people and ethnic minorities hardly got a look in. Producing the toxic trio though (Blair, Brown and Campbell), was the final nail in the coffin. I know people who voted Leave out of protest at being pontificated at by “The war mongering Bliar”. The idea that the men who presided over the financial crash would boost trust and credibility to the Remain camp signals the extent to which Alan Johnson, like his Blairite plotters, is in denial about the incendiary legacy of New Labour.

 

The Blairites went up against Corbyn nine months ago. He won the leadership with a landslide victory. The membership rejected their right wing austerity agenda, which lost Labour the last election. They rejected the “Tory light” candidates, who failed to vote against Tory welfare reforms last July, which proposed abolishing legally binding child poverty targets, cutting child tax credits and Employment Allowance, as well as housing benefit for young people.

Among the 10 thousand people that flooded parliament square on Monday to show Corbyn their support, were junior doctors. They weren’t there to mourn the resignation of Shadow Health Secretary, Heidi Alexander, who refused to stand by them on the picket lines. They were there to reciprocate the unequivocal support Corbyn showed them during their months of bullying by Jeremy Hunt.

New Labour supported the Con-Dem’s Health and Social Care Act, which sanctioned the privatisation of the NHS. Heidi Alexander had the opportunity to reverse elements of that by backing Caroline Lucas’ NHS reinstatement Bill, but she declined to do so. At a time when the NHS is under constant attack, Alexander lacked the conviction to fight for it.

 

One of the few people on the political landscape that people trust, whose integrity we cling to as we drown in a quagmire of Brexit fallout, has been stabbed in the back. The brutality of the attack has fuelled the contagion of hate and makes the Tories look like teddy bears.

When all Labour’s guns should be pointing at the industrial incompetence of the Tory wreckers, the Blairites are plotting to oust their own leader. Someone even they agree, is an honourable, decent man. They want to replace him with a Teflon Tony or a PR Dave. Media darlings they may be, but arguably two of the worst Prime Ministers in this country’s history. If ever there was a time for principled leaders, like Jeremy Corbyn, it’s now.

 

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/tess-finchlees/jeremy-corbyn_b_10760550.html?

 

edit- Ive tried to split it up so its easier to read.

[dennis tooth]

You can't deliver social justice from the opposition benches. 

 

The idea of Corbyn ever persuading the majority of people to vote for him in an election - when people generally put their self-interest first whatever their replies to vague and hypothetical vox pops - is nursery school fantasy. I also think he's a complete cunt. He is not fit to lead any kind of movement as he lacks the power to persuade. He says stupid things without thinking them through despite knowing that his every world will be twisted, and he lacked the moral courage to tell the truth about his views on Europe.  He is a turbo mong and a narcissist who will do nothing to dilut ethe wave of right-wing hell that is about to be unleashed on those he claims to represent. 

 

I think youre a cunt and he is leading the movement, thats why the membership is growing to silly levels, despite his apparent lack of ability to persuade. The truth about his views was irrelevant, it was a vote for the people, most of whom had made up their minds.

I doubt he is as cowed by the threat of right wing hell as you are.

Prat.

[Stu Monty]

It's rather handy when discussing Blair's record to hold up what he managed to achieve and then suddenly lose all grasp on how cause and effect works and pretend that where we are now is not, in large parts, because of the very things he did. 

 

I'd like to have another Blair right now is basically just saying you'd like to have another shitfest that we have now a decade later.

[dennis tooth]

It's rather handy when discussing Blair's record to hold up what he managed to achieve and then suddenly lose all grasp on how cause and effect works and pretend that where we are now is not, in large parts, because of the very things he did. 

 

I'd like to have another Blair right now is basically just saying you'd like to have another shitfest that we have now a decade later.

Maye as well ask for Churchill back, hes gone.....

 

The blair myth, he beat who? John Major, Ian Duncan Smith and some other derps, the tories were a mess for the blair years because he was their best leader, taking ownership of their policies so they had little to argue for.

 

Another thing, these 'we need to get rid of corbyn to have another blair' people need to wake up anyway, there isnt anyone who is another blair, just blairites none of them have the 'gravitas' there is no one in the mutineers capable of what he acheived, even if you accept the premise that a blair would be the answer, well there isnt one, the closest was possibly the now forgotten milliband brother and he was a watery version who couldnt even win the nomination and didnt have the appetite to take the long run back.

[Jairzinho]

Fuck you twatguzzler 

 

I'll support any leader that will get these horrible thundercunts out of power, get racists away from positions of authority and do stuff like not closing libraries, not reducing investment in mental health services and housing and not give tax breaks to the rich. 

 

Another vote for Corbyn then. Good man.