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Should Corbyn remain as Labour leader?


Sugar Ape
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Should Corbyn remain as Labour leader?  

218 members have voted

  1. 1. Should Corbyn remain as Labour leader?



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Instead of idle speculation and rumours, it's probably worth looking at the proposed motions themselves.

 

https://www.politicshome.com/news/uk/political-parties/labour-party/news/101694/luciana-berger-face-vote-no-confidence?fbclid=IwAR2ns_dpsM6o-jpMFNugOHHvT90nBEgnA9fYb5gjGkWIuQmUv4s4WnrezYo

 

1

 "The UK is in crisis because of the appalling austerity policies of a government that serves the interests of the rich. We need a Labour government under the socialist leadership of our twice-elected leader Jeremy Corbyn.

"Instead of fighting for a Labour government our MP is continually using the media to criticise the man we all want to be Prime Minister."

 

2

 "The Tories are deeply divided, but millions are still suffering from their austerity policies. We desperately need a socialist Labour government led by Jeremy Corbyn.

"Our MP is continually criticising our leader when she should be working for a general election and opposing the Tories."

 

Interesting that so much of the commentariat has tried to claim that there's something anti-Semitic about either motion, when there self-evidently isn't.  

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If anyone is unsure about the meaning of the phrase "weaponising anti-Semitism", take a look at the quotes from Streeting, Umunna and Austin i this.

 

https://www.politicshome.com/news/uk/political-parties/labour-party/news/101706/john-mcdonnell-sparks-fresh-labour-anti-semitism?fbclid=IwAR25Ma5-Po2x9iPMs9WCvmazslsQ0QUYxc-KE-ovFXXKYr51abL2WoXSeaI

 

 

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It's always the same half a dozen turbo cunts. Just sling them out with a very short press conference. "They have been booted out of the party for being snide, shit stirring, press briefing, fucking cunts. Bar a few utter loons on Twitter no-one gives a fuck what religion or race they are. They're just cunts. Thank you, and good night. Oh, and Laura, you're a cunt as well".

 

I'd like Jeremy to read it out, but failing that perhaps get Joe Kinnear to do it.

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19 hours ago, Section_31 said:

That's my view too. A bigger rebel in Parliament you'd struggle to find.

Well, did he ever ride a couple of dolphins, dressed in furry chaps whilst listening to deep funk on a ghetto blaster...?

 

poster1.jpg

 

Let's keep some perspective, eh?

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4 hours ago, AngryofTuebrook said:

Instead of idle speculation and rumours, it's probably worth looking at the proposed motions themselves.

 

https://www.politicshome.com/news/uk/political-parties/labour-party/news/101694/luciana-berger-face-vote-no-confidence?fbclid=IwAR2ns_dpsM6o-jpMFNugOHHvT90nBEgnA9fYb5gjGkWIuQmUv4s4WnrezYo

 

1

 "The UK is in crisis because of the appalling austerity policies of a government that serves the interests of the rich. We need a Labour government under the socialist leadership of our twice-elected leader Jeremy Corbyn.

"Instead of fighting for a Labour government our MP is continually using the media to criticise the man we all want to be Prime Minister."

 

2

 "The Tories are deeply divided, but millions are still suffering from their austerity policies. We desperately need a socialist Labour government led by Jeremy Corbyn.

"Our MP is continually criticising our leader when she should be working for a general election and opposing the Tories."

 

3.

"She's a jewess and we don't like them.  Unlike the famously racially-tolerant right wing."

Found in the manifesto of Jeremoth, in the Appendix to the Apocrypha.

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40 minutes ago, aRdja said:

 

Campbell, 80, who jointly tabled a second motion to oust Berger with his wife, Agnes, 75, has also previously shared a Facebook post that called the Labour MP Margaret Hodge, who is Jewish, “utterly shameless” and has written posts that allude to the media being controlled by “Zionist masters”.

 

zT7ZY4t.jpg

 

 

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This is good from a Labour candidate who ran in 2017. I might be stating the obvious but our elected representatives are not in favour of accountability. 

 

 

Nearly all members hold it as an article of faith that the ultimate goal is to kick out the Tories, and to install a Labour government, and nearly all of us will swallow personal dislikes, policy disagreements and tone-deaf hymn-singing from the other side of the aisle, in order to elect any Labour MP who is working towards that goal. If that means supporting and campaigning for someone as candidate when you really wanted someone else, then so be it. I was aware in 2017 that some people would have much preferred a different candidate, but those same people still put in a shift to support me in that campaign, and some of them have even been won round to my dubious charm. Well, I like to tell myself that. Don’t disillusion me.

 

 

Some members will swallow political views they dislike, as long as the result is more likely to be a Labour government – for many on the left, that describes the entire period between 1997 and 2010. There are many current Labour MPs who are not particularly sympathetic to the politics of either the leadership or members, yet few have faced motions of no confidence, because their members will accept their lukewarm enthusiasm for socialist politics as long as they are seen as working hard to bring about a Labour government.

 

 

Some members will swallow opposition to the party leadership as long as that opposition comes from a political perspective with which they have sympathy, which explains why Jeremy Corbyn himself survived the Blair years. It’s also why plenty of MPs who have criticised the leadership’s stance on Brexit have gone unchallenged by members, because most members tend to have sympathy with more pro-Remain views.

 

 

Where members tend to draw the line, in my experience, is when a representative is seen as both politically unsympathetic and not helping to obtain a Labour government. If an MP ever crosses a line to be seen as actively helping to prevent a Labour government, then members will almost always move against them. If one looks at those Labour MPs who have faced motions of no confidence – and it is a relatively small number – one finds that it is inevitably the case that they not only have serious political differences with the leadership, but they are seen by members as making a Labour government less likely through their public provision of ammunition to the hostile media and the Tories.

 

 

That’s the explanation for why some members in some CLPs are tabling motions of no confidence in their MPs. But ultimately, whether you believe MPs such as Chris Leslie are damaging the party or not, is irrelevant.  Whatever the reasons, whatever the accuracy or otherwise of the motives of the CLP members, one thing is very clear to me: they have the right to choose whether I’m the person who represents them, as chair, as spokesperson or as candidate.

 

 

If they decide they don’t want me any more, and would prefer to select someone else, then obviously I’d be disappointed. I might even be hurt. I may think the decision unfair (you’d hope so, because if I thought it was fair, then why would I be standing in the first place?). But they do have that right. Because ultimately, they ARE the local Labour Party, and I’m not standing as an independent, but as a Labour candidate.

 
That seems to me to be an unarguable principle. Labour candidates can never be separate from the CLPs they represent. And if those CLP members choose candidates based on personal preference, political alignment, ancient Balkanesque blood feuds (this is the Isle of Wight – memories go back a long way here), or just because they don’t like the candidate’s dress sense (yes, I have taken flak for that), then that is their right. The moment we start telling them they can’t, or shouldn’t, exercise it any more, then we’re no longer a democratic party.

 
That principle, it seems to me, applies whether I’m an aspiring MP or an actual MP. It’s particularly important in our broken electoral system, which guarantees hundreds of MPs jobs for life in safe seats. If an MP doesn’t have to work to be re-elected in a constituency which weighs one party’s vote in tons and the other in grams, and they don’t have to work to be reselected by their CLP, then who are they actually accountable to? How do we get rid of any candidate or MP in a safe seat? To suggest that we can only kick them out if they are actually convicted of a crime seems to me to be setting the bar rather low in terms of our expectations of accountability.

 
Which is why I am so uncomfortable with seeing MPs attacking members for tabling votes of no confidence. It’s my CLP’s right to select their representative. They don’t owe me their loyalty no matter what I do. Rather, I owe them MY loyalty, because I am the beneficiary of their work and their votes in selecting me as candidate. 

 

I’m even more uncomfortable with suggestions which I’ve seen from MPs that tabling such motions is “bullying”. It is not bullying to disagree with someone. It is not bullying to say “we don’t want you to be our representative any more”, as long as that is done in a clear and open process, and without personal abuse. Those who would support a different candidate at the next election are not bullying me, they’re exercising their democratic right. If I believed my own right to remain in position no matter what, trumped others’ right to remove me, then I’d have lost sight of what democracy is. 

 

https://disidealist.wordpress.com/2019/02/08/democracy-not-for-me/

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57 minutes ago, Bjornebye said:

Best thing for the Labour party would be to replace Corbyn with Burnham. As wrong as it is, the Tory slander over Corbyn has reduced his credibility as a PM in too many minds. 

 

They'd go after Burnham too mate if he made it clear that Labour would pursue a socialist government. The only Labour leader in my lifetime that wasn’t attacked by parts of the right wing was Blair, and that was because he pledged not to rock the boat when it came to the rich. 

 

I agree that it will be very difficult for Corbyn to become prime minister though, they’ve done a good job on him. I know a few lifetime Labour voters that say they couldn’t vote for him. If you ask them why though, they don’t really pinpoint it and just say there’s something about him they don’t like. I think it’s down to the continuous slurs against him, little by little they impact peoples views. 

 

I would like to see a more voter friendly leader, but I think whoever replaced Corbyn would water down the policies he wants to implement, and I think the country needs.

 

Burnham just doesn’t do it for me, he’s far too much “dear in the headlights”. I think Starmer would be a leader that could cut through and appeal to voters across the spectrum, but I’d be concerned that the party would go back to a Blairite agenda under him. I have a feeling that the party will look to a woman leader next, and think it may well be Angela Rayner, who is at least a socialist. 

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57 minutes ago, Vincent Vega said:

 

They'd go after Burnham too mate if he made it clear that Labour would pursue a socialist government. The only Labour leader in my lifetime that wasn’t attacked by parts of the right wing was Blair, and that was because he pledged not to rock the boat when it came to the rich. 

 

I agree that it will be very difficult for Corbyn to become prime minister though, they’ve done a good job on him. I know a few lifetime Labour voters that say they couldn’t vote for him. If you ask them why though, they don’t really pinpoint it and just say there’s something about him they don’t like. I think it’s down to the continuous slurs against him, little by little they impact peoples views. 

 

I would like to see a more voter friendly leader, but I think whoever replaced Corbyn would water down the policies he wants to implement, and I think the country needs.

 

Burnham just doesn’t do it for me, he’s far too much “dear in the headlights”. I think Starmer would be a leader that could cut through and appeal to voters across the spectrum, but I’d be concerned that the party would go back to a Blairite agenda under him. I have a feeling that the party will look to a woman leader next, and think it may well be Angela Rayner, who is at least a socialist. 

I agree with this to an extent but I also think one of the principal weapons of the establishment is sowing despondency.  

 

The idea that there's no point voting, or that the candidates are all the same, is something that's actively encouraged. 

 

I've said a few times that it's telling that Labour were miles behind in the poles before the election was called and we entered purdah.

 

The media then had no choice - legally - but to give both sides an equal shake.

 

Three things happened:

 

Corbyn got more popular 

Labour climbed in the poles 

May got less popular 

 

It's hard to overstate how much power the media have over how we perceive these people. Even without including the big scandals of Corbyn wearing an M&S raincoat for example. There's subtle stuff, calling him Corbyn and calling Johnson 'Boris'. 

Or the way they doorstep him every single day outside his house hoping for him to react.

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8 minutes ago, Section_31 said:

I agree with this to an extent but I also think one of the principal weapons of the establishment is sowing despondency.  

 

The idea that there's no point voting, or that the candidates are all the same, is something that's actively encouraged. 

 

I've said a few times that it's telling that Labour were miles behind in the poles before the election was called and we entered purdah.

 

The media then had no choice - legally - but to give both sides an equal shake.

 

Three things happened:

 

Corbyn got more popular 

Labour climbed in the poles 

May got less popular 

 

It's hard to overstate how much power the media have over how we perceive these people. Even without including the big scandals of Corbyn wearing an M&S raincoat for example. There's subtle stuff, calling him Corbyn and calling Johnson 'Boris'. 

Or the way they doorstep him every single day outside his house hoping for him to react.

I agree with all of the above apart from the doorstep. 

They know he won't react, he has stated numerous times that he will never answer questions on the doorstep. 

They then sell the narrative, why won't he answer perfectly reasonable questions, what is he hiding ? 

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3 hours ago, Bjornebye said:

Best thing for the Labour party would be to replace Corbyn with Burnham. As wrong as it is, the Tory slander over Corbyn has reduced his credibility as a PM in too many minds. 

The membership would be down to about 100k by the end of the week.

 

I wouldn't vote for Burnham.

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6 minutes ago, Content Providicus said:

The membership would be down to about 100k by the end of the week.

 

I wouldn't vote for Burnham.

Does having membership mean your vote counts double in the general election? I'm surprised that Labour didn't win last time out then.

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1 hour ago, Section_31 said:

*snip*

 

Three things happened:

 

Corbyn got more popular 

Labour climbed in the poles 

May got less popular 

 

It's hard to overstate how much power the media have over how we perceive these people. Even without including the big scandals of Corbyn wearing an M&S raincoat for example. There's subtle stuff, calling him Corbyn and calling Johnson 'Boris'. 

Or the way they doorstep him every single day outside his house hoping for him to react.

They're really pushing hard for that immigrant vote.

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