secondspace
Member
This still strikes me as their biggest problem, they simply aren't competent as a party at the moment. It's why they've lost Scotland and it's a bigger problem than Corbyn nationally.
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UK Labour Leadership Crisis: Corbyn retained as leader by strong margin
- Thread starter Hazzuh
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Snarfington
Member
It's amazing how few fucks Corbyn gives about tanking his own decades-held viewpoints out of relevancy. Any sane man would have seen by now he was better using his base to campaign for his ideals under a more competent and mass-appealing leader.
It's not an enormous surprise. Changing up the rules like that always seemed ripe for legal challenge, and are we really surprised that the Labour Exec can't read their own (very badly written) constitution?
To be honest I don't think it makes that much difference to the result, but it shows once again that the party can't draft things properly. And if they can't do that why would people trust them to be in government drafting laws?
Why would they vote for New Labour when they are just Old Tory?
The vestiges of illusion that we had anything resembling a multi party parliament died when Clegg decided he liked the taste of Troy Cool Aid and threw everyone that voted for the Lib Dems under the bus to suck on that diseased teat for four years.
And don't think we (Scotland) will save your asses ether, that time has passed.
You think so? I was thinking that with the "success" of the Brexit referendum, and the loss of Farage - we had probably seen peak UKIP. They don't really have a purpose now.
That could change if the government is seen to be looking like not going through with the promised Brexit of course.
You nailed it. The left just argues amongst themselves about different utopias. Instead of actually getting into govt and installing policies that became politically impossible to reverse like the right does.
JonathanEx
Member
Also if you were going to enforce a freeze, which I can sort of understand, don't apply it retroactively surely.
HazySaiyan
Banned
They're not entirely single issue anymore and campaign on a wider anti-immigration than just the EU. That clearly resonated with a lot of strong Labour areas if Brexit is anything to go by.
And of course like you say if there's a perception of the government dragging their heels on Brexit they could gain a lot of ground.
Exactly, the right do a ton of damage and when a left wing party get in they spend most of the time cleaning it up then the right turn around and say they're being ineffectual. Call them out on it! Fight back! Get some fucking balls for god sake!
It's especially frustrating when you see opinion polls agree with the left on a lot of areas. Well use that and hit the right over the head with it! Actually highlight how much the right have contempt for the average person.
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Deleted member 231381
Unconfirmed Member
The stupidest part was that real hardcore Momentum people simply used Unite's community membership offer for iirc £2 instead of coughing up £25 anyway, so all this did was drive away people not sufficiently invested in Momentum to know this (and ergo less likely to vote Corbyn) anyway.
Complete bunch of chucklefucks in the Labour Party right now.
Corbyn knows he is ideologically pure. That's all that matters, he has his dogma and when he strays from it (over the EU, royalty or having to park his support for 'freedom fighters' around the world) that's acceptable. I mean it's not acceptable when anyone else has to do it because they're not as ideologically pure as Jeremy.
For the left ideologically purity is the primary concern. It's why they fall out constantly.
Nah, that's not set in stone. Look at the democrats in the USA - easily the more competent and United party. Similarly, labour in 97 and onwards ran an incredibly smart, strong, United campaign that not only won a massive electoral landslide but also shifted the country to the left in a permanent way. Dave Cameron wasn't talking about hugging a hoodie from no-where, and similarity the social changes on equalities are massive and entirely down to new labour shifting the conversation.
At the same time as labour was doing that, the Tories were embroiled in their own idiot leader fiasco with Ian Duncan Smith.
I do think people are a bit too negative - the idea that we won't have a proper Labour Party until 2040 is simply not possible. Even at the height of labours dis function and Thatchers premiership she only got 10 years and the Tories 4 terms (and the final term saw a massive softening and withdrawal from thatchers policies). Politics can change fast, and the country always pushes back against extremes.
Camp Freddie
Member
Corbyn will take votes from the Greens and from some of the left wing 'others'. My constituency seems to always be contested by a few 'real socialist' parties, who would surely dissapear if Corbyn-Labour were on the ballot.
He'll also pick up quite a few votes from non-voters, particularly the young.
The problem is that those green and 'other' votes won't win an election, since they'll be outnumbered by middle-ground Labour voters who swing to the Tories, or LibDems, don't vote or draw a large penis on the ballot paper.
I'm hoping that there isn't a split, since I don't see a way to recover from it. Labour would be at LibDem levels of irrelevance in an FPTP election if they split into True Left and Center-Left parties.
They weren't perfect, but they made a dramatic improvement to my life as a gay man and changed how the country talks and legally deals with equality issues in a major way. Yes, they fucked up (bloody endless tax credits), and Iraq was a monstrous mistake thanks to Blairs ego.
But thy are the best government I've experienced in my lifetime, and they did a lot of good.
Yup. It was just asking for it!
England's politics seems fundamentally Tory and the Brexit vote shows, fairly right wing, whether people even realise they are or not.
If you just want to say you have power then a Labour party that is basically a less evil version of the Tories seems like the only way, and indeed is what Labour looked like to me during the Blair years, Iraq war, illegal rendition for the CIA, shit like that being why I think that.
So, do you go the easy route as the PLP want to, chase the Tories, Blairism getting another airing, but fundamentally if they got control it would still be doing many of the same things as the Tories. Or do you choose, when there such a groundswell of support for Corbyn amongst members, to go the difficult route. To try to seriously set yourself apart as the party that will tackle the big issues we have like huge tax fraud, like privatisation of the NHS against the wishes of the population, insanely costly and dangerous and completely useless trident and so on.
Do you do much the same as before and have a chance of taking the baton from the Tories, or do you choose to enter a completely different race altogether. I'd like to think there's hope that someday the people will want to stop voting for faux aspiration and out of fear and vote for something hopeful, vote to actually make radical changes to the makeup of our society and economy and deal with some huge issues that annoys us all, but which successive governments allow to continue u challenged, like tax evasion and all the other corruption going on (like board of directors endlessly giving themselves payrises while they slash pay and conditions for staff).
If you just want to say you have power then a Labour party that is basically a less evil version of the Tories seems like the only way, and indeed is what Labour looked like to me during the Blair years, Iraq war, illegal rendition for the CIA, shit like that being why I think that.
So, do you go the easy route as the PLP want to, chase the Tories, Blairism getting another airing, but fundamentally if they got control it would still be doing many of the same things as the Tories. Or do you choose, when there such a groundswell of support for Corbyn amongst members, to go the difficult route. To try to seriously set yourself apart as the party that will tackle the big issues we have like huge tax fraud, like privatisation of the NHS against the wishes of the population, insanely costly and dangerous and completely useless trident and so on.
Do you do much the same as before and have a chance of taking the baton from the Tories, or do you choose to enter a completely different race altogether. I'd like to think there's hope that someday the people will want to stop voting for faux aspiration and out of fear and vote for something hopeful, vote to actually make radical changes to the makeup of our society and economy and deal with some huge issues that annoys us all, but which successive governments allow to continue u challenged, like tax evasion and all the other corruption going on (like board of directors endlessly giving themselves payrises while they slash pay and conditions for staff).
as much as people are calling out corbyn supporters for not working together the exact same can be said for those that did not want him to be leader of labour.
This is a monster caused by people insisting on political purity on both sides. After corbyn won the leadership vote initially (by a massive landslide) people should have sucked it up and worked together, if corbyn fucked up it would have been with the rest of the party doing their best highlighting how bad for the party he was. If he didnt fuck up then we would of had potentially a PM that would be quite the paradigm shift for the UK. Instead by day 1 he was having to deal with unrest within the party, this has given the labour party a super shit public image due to their very public outburst and unrest. The political assassination of Corbyn has made him the underdog making his supporters even more determined to ensure he stays as the leader and making his opponents double down on trying to do shitty completely undemocratic and unfair things to prevent him getting the leadership.
So before shouting at corbyn supports about not getting in line and working together, the exact same thing can be said for you.
FYI: i have no idea who I want to vote for at the labour leadership. I don't see either candidate winning PM, not corbyn because he's been sabotaged by his own party and not Smith because for me he now stands for the undemocratic PLP that care more about their own agenda's than those of their membership. Im also having an internal struggle with myself about the positions listed in the post above. Do I vote for my beliefs and for real change, but at great risk. Or do i vote for lower risk but something that is only slightly less bad than what we have now.
This is a monster caused by people insisting on political purity on both sides. After corbyn won the leadership vote initially (by a massive landslide) people should have sucked it up and worked together, if corbyn fucked up it would have been with the rest of the party doing their best highlighting how bad for the party he was. If he didnt fuck up then we would of had potentially a PM that would be quite the paradigm shift for the UK. Instead by day 1 he was having to deal with unrest within the party, this has given the labour party a super shit public image due to their very public outburst and unrest. The political assassination of Corbyn has made him the underdog making his supporters even more determined to ensure he stays as the leader and making his opponents double down on trying to do shitty completely undemocratic and unfair things to prevent him getting the leadership.
So before shouting at corbyn supports about not getting in line and working together, the exact same thing can be said for you.
FYI: i have no idea who I want to vote for at the labour leadership. I don't see either candidate winning PM, not corbyn because he's been sabotaged by his own party and not Smith because for me he now stands for the undemocratic PLP that care more about their own agenda's than those of their membership. Im also having an internal struggle with myself about the positions listed in the post above. Do I vote for my beliefs and for real change, but at great risk. Or do i vote for lower risk but something that is only slightly less bad than what we have now.
From day one I was reading about infighting from the labour party, they certainly did not seem like a united party.
Just FYI, we have a pretty good idea of what Corbyn thought of the (dis)loyalty of the PLP a few months ago, the leaked list of Labour MPs from his office ranked by hostility.
Nicktendo86
Member
A real double whammy that judgement today, not just the having to let over 100,000 extra people, most of whom are probably Corbynistas, but also having to pay back the £25 to those who were already members will be painful.
I can't see any way Corbyn will lose the leadership election now, and I can't see a split not happening. No wonder there are rumours that CCHQ are starting prep for a 2017 GE.
I can't see any way Corbyn will lose the leadership election now, and I can't see a split not happening. No wonder there are rumours that CCHQ are starting prep for a 2017 GE.
Jezbollah
Member
oooooh boy.
They would need support from 2/3rds of the commons to call an early general election, and it's difficult to see Labour agreeing to it; unless they really are either delusional about how popular Corbyn is or else hell-bent on crashing the Labour Party just so they can say 'I told you so'.
No they don't.
No Government can be beholden to a previous act of parliament. The Tories can vote to repeal the fixed term parliament act with a simple majority.
JonathanEx
Member
Well, Labour's current policy is that there should be one. Yuuup.
Lords could cause an issue in theory? Not that it matters, there are ways.
They might not want to make it too obvious that they're gaming the parliamentary system to stay in power though, it's conceivable that at some point people would object to that.
"These testing times/brexit negotiations/whatever call for a strong Government with a healthy majority so we are going to ask the country to vote in a general election"
Very easy to spin it as a good thing.
If they want it through the Lords they can push that through to. If May wants an election she can have one basically. The FTPA was only put in there to sure up the coalition. It's pretty meaningless when there is a government with a majority.
Nicktendo86
Member
My theory is May will want to triggle Art 50 before trying to call a GE, once triggered it is not reversible so she would not have to fight other parties saying they would hold a second ref, not that I think that would be a particularly strong argument considering about 400 constituencies voted leave. The GE would be on 'we are leaving, you need to vote for a government that will secure the best deal' which would be potent.
So my guess would be Art 50 in March, GE in May or maybe June, something like that. Just my hunch though.
This literally reads like "I'm doing okay, sure, hundreds of thousands died, but I'm okay, so thanks New Labour"
Tha majority of MPs *did* back Corbyn. The number of outright 'never Corbyn' MPs was always less than 20. Blair, milibands and Brown both suffered more from plotting and backstabbing than he has over the last year (up until the leadership challenge).
The problem is that he is so fucking incompetent at basic management and leadership that what should be part of parcel of leading a party has instead become a vast blairite conspiracy because his supporters are unable to face reality that Corbyn shouldn't be in charge of a wet paper bag. Every leader has rebels, every leader has plots - the reason it resonates so much with Corbyn is because he is simply so bad at the job. The vote of no confidence happened because even left wing MPs couldn't work for him anymore - see the repeated testimonials from MPs who no-one in their right mind would consider a blairite.
He cannot lead. Regardless of what you think of his ideas or causes, on a very basic level he is completely unfit to run a party. Management isn't easy. Many people struggle to lead teams of 5, never mind parliamentary parties of 200+ people. He needs to recognise that regardless of anything else, right now he is dooming his cause and destroying his party
(Not that he gives a shit - he has openly plotted against every labour leader we've had since Kinnock. It's remarkable what a hypocrite he is).
I'd argue the majority of the PLP did suck it up and got on with it. Corbyn's own ineptitude caused the relationship with the PLP to fracture. There was a small Clique of Blairite who wouldn't engage and a slightly largely group of mainly ex-Brownites who did but continued to snipe. The vast majority of the PLP made a go of it, but it's pretty obvious that Corbyn went into a crony shell and utterly failed to properly engage with the rest of them while running the opposition in an utterly inept way (doing reshuffles on the day of the rail fare rises. etc)
Royal_Phalanx
Member
New Labour put in tons of knee-jerk laws though. Like 'extreme pornography' laws basically meaning you're a criminal if you possess BDSM porn taking place between consenting adults.
Every government fucks some people's lives up. I marched against the Iraq war, I have the 'not in my name' t-shirt. It's not something I write off, but at the same time I'm not going to pretend that new labour did nothing other than invade Iraq.
Any discussion on British politics that ignores the substantial changes and left wing policies that New Labour brought to the UK is a discussion not worth having. It's nonsense to pretend otherwise.
New labours nanny state laws were definitely one of the worse aspects of their tenure. I work in the crime and disorder field and Blairs policy of a new crime bill every year is still causing issues a decade later.
One thing I did find odd though was despite all their rhetoric about localism, the coalition government (and now th conservative government) somehow managed to be even MORE central control than New Labour, which I wouldn't have thought possible. Seems to be a common factor no matter the political party nominally in charge - white hall and the civil service will always grab more power, money and control at every opportunity.
Royal_Phalanx
Member
For all the Conservative moaning about the nanny state during the Labour government, they've shown no interest in getting rid of any of it despite their past rhetoric about giving people 'control over their lives'. I'd say the one Blair-era crime law that affects me the most as an airsoft player and a replica gun collector/would be cosplayer is definitely the VCRA which is essentially useless and unenforceable (even the police have said so). They thought spray paint doesn't exist or something and that criminals won't use spray paint. A lot of cosplayers I see are probably breaking this law already by having black prop guns without being an airsoft player or being covered by the other exceptions. Just one of many unnecessary annoyances for the normal citizen.
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Deleted member 231381
Unconfirmed Member
That's because local councils are almost universally shit at everything. Less than one in fifty people in the UK know their local councilor by name. Only just over a third voted. People just stick with the party label, and because these districts are so small, they're usually homogeneous, meaning most districts never change hands. That means there is absolutely no accountability. You become a councilor simply by being a sufficiently determined busybody of the right party. It's usually retirees, too, because they're the only ones with the time to do it, and they often have absolutely no relevant experience. Generally speaking, decentralization would not improve things.
Royal_Phalanx
Member
Let me not forget about Blair's terrible attitude to civil liberties. Undermining them at every turn. Not like Theresa May is any better, she's nanny state personified, ironically for a supposed 'conservative'.
I don't think they'll split. Some will grin and bear it, most will melt away to think tanks and consultancy positions.
Repealing any legislation requires political capital to be spent and no one wants to kick off an election under a possible cloud.
I disagree, strongly. The UK has, by most estimates, one of the most centralised forms of government in the west. Local authorities are, according to the former audit commission, one of the most efficient parts of the public sector and yet they are constantly undermined and overruled by central government, to the point of insanity (regulating how often bins need to be collected?).
Local councillors can be exactly as you describe - and they can also be the training grounds for future MPs. My borough has had so many councillors go on to be labour MPs and party big shots they may as well brand the town hall an academy. I also disagree on the rate of change - councils generally just reflect their area. If a council is locked to a particular party, odds are the MP will be as well. heck, surely the fact that the lib dems used to do so much better at the local council level than the national level indicates that local engagements isn't as dead as you suggest?
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Deleted member 231381
Unconfirmed Member
I agree that there needs to be some form of decentralisation, but it needs to be to a tier of government sufficiently visible to get attention and draw high political engagement - something like the German states. We do have that in Scotland and in Wales with the devolved assemblies, and both are far more popular with their electorate than Westminster is. But UK local councils are just too irrelevant to attract much attention from the vast majority of people. They're efficient in terms of money-spending, yes, but that's because Westminster gives them the tightest budget it can possibly get away with precisely for the reasons I outlined earlier, so there's not really any room to be inefficient with.
If I recall correctly, you live in London, though. London has always had a relatively high level of political engagement. Try living out here in the sticks - my local council was one of the ones considered for special administration (though eventually passed over). Despite this, the incumbent Conservative administration increased their hold at the most recent council elections. There's almost no correlation between council performance and council election results; by contrast there's a strong correlation between council election results and the performance of the respective Westminster parties at a national level. That alone should tell you the system is bust.
I don't agree on the correlation between Westminster elections and local elections, unless you mean a negative correlation. Usually it's the opposition who do well in he local elections, as people kick back against the current winning party?
(At work so will cover other bits later sorry!)
(At work so will cover other bits later sorry!)
CyclopsRock
Member
Re: local councils, I think part of the problem is that the general view is that they're basically responsible for bins and parks and that's it. I don't know if it's an educational campaign that's required or whether, were they given further powers people might be more interested in it, but I don't think councils being shit are an inherent flaw in the idea of "localism".
Whenever you're talking about predicting elections - or, rather, deciding if something's possible - there's basically just one question you need to ask. "Where will the votes come from?" That's really it. If you can answer that, if you can see a pathway to victory then at least it's possible, and it gives you some idea on the type of platform to pursue.
Corbyn winning the leadership was not predicted at the beginning, but by the time of the election it was clear that there was a groundswell of support behind him. But this was always possible. You only need to look to the US primary system to see that, when the party is given greater control to pick a candidate, they almost always end up being more to the left or to the right of the party's platform (depending on which way it leans), because the membership is too. Tory members are too. The difference with that election was that it was the first major leadership election which had a significant element of involvement from the party membership. So of course you could see a route for how someone like Corbyn could win, and this was the first election of a leader in which something like this could happen, so naturally it also has no precedent.
If we apply that the general election, though, it's basically impossible to see a route to power. In 2015 we'd had, in theory, 5 years of "ConDem" cuts and austerity. Doctors were angry, teachers we angry (when aren't they though, tbf?), UKIP was polling high and when people were presented with Ed Miliband as the alternative they said "Hmm, no, I'd rather have more Tories please". If people though Ed was a bit weird and not-very statesmanlike, what do you imagine they feel about Jezza? So Ed was either too left wing for people, or he wasn't left wing enough. But that latter one obviously makes no sense if people chose the Tories instead. What this basically leaves you with, as a "route",is two options; One is people who didn't vote at all now being energised. To some extent that's what we have seen with his leadership election, but not in anything like sufficient numbers, and it's often within areas where Labour is already going to win anyway. There's no point getting another 10,000 excited hipsters in Tower Hamlets to vote for you when Ali holds Bethnal Green with a 24,000 vote majority. There's evidence to suggest that non-voters don't have leanings that vary massively from the wider population, so there's no reason to think that a high turnout would break for Corbyn anyway.
The second route is to move to the right. This is effectively what Blair did when he ripped up Clause 4 on stage. The obvious benefit of this route is that - unlike trying to gain votes from the left - every vote you gain from the right is a vote you're taking away from the Tories, so it doubles up. Not only that, but UKIP* and the Tory vote shares demonstrates that half the country leans that way, so you know there are votes there to gain. This isn't always the case on the left, where you have parties like the SNP who are really no more or less left than Labour but have a hugely important USP that Labour simply can't reproduce. Finally, who are Labour's main marginal battle grounds with? Tories and Lib Dems (who, whilst they've been fucked in many ways, still have a strong ground game and are popular enough in certain areas that they can split the vote even if they can't win). Both of these parties are to the right of Labour, so if they're trying to beat these parties, moving further away is only going to alienate them. Sure, moving to the right will make taking Brighton off the Greens a little harder, but moving to the left makes taking all the others harder, except in Scotland but they're fucked there anyway until the independence issue is settled one way or the other.
* I know UKIP doesn't only attract people from the right, and it certainly does take a lot of Labour voters, but those voters are unlikely to be primarily motivated by economic policy, so the left-right alignment of the party trying to win them isn't really as important as the other axis.
So, yeah, basically, where will these votes come from under Corbyn? There aren't many votes on the left and he won't go to the right.
Re: your last paragraph, I think you can split Corbyn voters into two core groups; People who like him and think he can win, and people who like him, think he can't win but will vote for him anyway because they like him. The former group are, I think, incredibly, incredibly optimistic to the point of at least a mild detachment from reality, but they're at least earnest and you can honestly say they have the countries best interest in mind. But the people who support him despite knowing he can't win - what's their excuse? Why would they possibly support a candidate when they know he will make the opposition's chance of winning higher rather than lower? and with greater seats comes greater ability to run amok. With a PLP that clearly hates him, he can't generate a proper opposition but these people would actively prolong that, removing even more barriers from the Government.
Not only that, but on a meta-level, if he suffers a loss he'll become the "Michael Foot" of our generation - a loony lefty proving once against that the left can't win elections, that they're a laughing stock and that the only reasonable parties are those on the right. It took John Smith and Tony Blair to do what they did to "detoxify" the Labour brand, just like it too Cameron to detoxify the Tories. But you'll notice that both of those processes ocurred during lengthy, lengthy periods in opposition. By supporting him, you could - ironically - be doing the ideas you want to be implemented be dealt fatal blows for an entire generation. There'll be a resulting purge of the left within the party (just like the Blairites were purged) and you will draw significant power out of the left wing of the PLP, leaving more of the right.
Political parties aren't football teams, there's no glory in losing. If the people don't vote for you to do things, you can't do things, and the other guys can. It's really that simple. So if you do think Corbyn can win and you want to support him and his policies, voting for him is undoubtedly the right thing to do. If you like him and his ideas are great but you don't think he can win, you have an obligation, IMO, to vote for Smith if you actually care about people's lives being improved, because there's no version of a Corbyn future where that happens (unless you're a Tory).
Whenever you're talking about predicting elections - or, rather, deciding if something's possible - there's basically just one question you need to ask. "Where will the votes come from?" That's really it. If you can answer that, if you can see a pathway to victory then at least it's possible, and it gives you some idea on the type of platform to pursue.
Corbyn winning the leadership was not predicted at the beginning, but by the time of the election it was clear that there was a groundswell of support behind him. But this was always possible. You only need to look to the US primary system to see that, when the party is given greater control to pick a candidate, they almost always end up being more to the left or to the right of the party's platform (depending on which way it leans), because the membership is too. Tory members are too. The difference with that election was that it was the first major leadership election which had a significant element of involvement from the party membership. So of course you could see a route for how someone like Corbyn could win, and this was the first election of a leader in which something like this could happen, so naturally it also has no precedent.
If we apply that the general election, though, it's basically impossible to see a route to power. In 2015 we'd had, in theory, 5 years of "ConDem" cuts and austerity. Doctors were angry, teachers we angry (when aren't they though, tbf?), UKIP was polling high and when people were presented with Ed Miliband as the alternative they said "Hmm, no, I'd rather have more Tories please". If people though Ed was a bit weird and not-very statesmanlike, what do you imagine they feel about Jezza? So Ed was either too left wing for people, or he wasn't left wing enough. But that latter one obviously makes no sense if people chose the Tories instead. What this basically leaves you with, as a "route",is two options; One is people who didn't vote at all now being energised. To some extent that's what we have seen with his leadership election, but not in anything like sufficient numbers, and it's often within areas where Labour is already going to win anyway. There's no point getting another 10,000 excited hipsters in Tower Hamlets to vote for you when Ali holds Bethnal Green with a 24,000 vote majority. There's evidence to suggest that non-voters don't have leanings that vary massively from the wider population, so there's no reason to think that a high turnout would break for Corbyn anyway.
The second route is to move to the right. This is effectively what Blair did when he ripped up Clause 4 on stage. The obvious benefit of this route is that - unlike trying to gain votes from the left - every vote you gain from the right is a vote you're taking away from the Tories, so it doubles up. Not only that, but UKIP* and the Tory vote shares demonstrates that half the country leans that way, so you know there are votes there to gain. This isn't always the case on the left, where you have parties like the SNP who are really no more or less left than Labour but have a hugely important USP that Labour simply can't reproduce. Finally, who are Labour's main marginal battle grounds with? Tories and Lib Dems (who, whilst they've been fucked in many ways, still have a strong ground game and are popular enough in certain areas that they can split the vote even if they can't win). Both of these parties are to the right of Labour, so if they're trying to beat these parties, moving further away is only going to alienate them. Sure, moving to the right will make taking Brighton off the Greens a little harder, but moving to the left makes taking all the others harder, except in Scotland but they're fucked there anyway until the independence issue is settled one way or the other.
* I know UKIP doesn't only attract people from the right, and it certainly does take a lot of Labour voters, but those voters are unlikely to be primarily motivated by economic policy, so the left-right alignment of the party trying to win them isn't really as important as the other axis.
So, yeah, basically, where will these votes come from under Corbyn? There aren't many votes on the left and he won't go to the right.
Re: your last paragraph, I think you can split Corbyn voters into two core groups; People who like him and think he can win, and people who like him, think he can't win but will vote for him anyway because they like him. The former group are, I think, incredibly, incredibly optimistic to the point of at least a mild detachment from reality, but they're at least earnest and you can honestly say they have the countries best interest in mind. But the people who support him despite knowing he can't win - what's their excuse? Why would they possibly support a candidate when they know he will make the opposition's chance of winning higher rather than lower? and with greater seats comes greater ability to run amok. With a PLP that clearly hates him, he can't generate a proper opposition but these people would actively prolong that, removing even more barriers from the Government.
Not only that, but on a meta-level, if he suffers a loss he'll become the "Michael Foot" of our generation - a loony lefty proving once against that the left can't win elections, that they're a laughing stock and that the only reasonable parties are those on the right. It took John Smith and Tony Blair to do what they did to "detoxify" the Labour brand, just like it too Cameron to detoxify the Tories. But you'll notice that both of those processes ocurred during lengthy, lengthy periods in opposition. By supporting him, you could - ironically - be doing the ideas you want to be implemented be dealt fatal blows for an entire generation. There'll be a resulting purge of the left within the party (just like the Blairites were purged) and you will draw significant power out of the left wing of the PLP, leaving more of the right.
Political parties aren't football teams, there's no glory in losing. If the people don't vote for you to do things, you can't do things, and the other guys can. It's really that simple. So if you do think Corbyn can win and you want to support him and his policies, voting for him is undoubtedly the right thing to do. If you like him and his ideas are great but you don't think he can win, you have an obligation, IMO, to vote for Smith if you actually care about people's lives being improved, because there's no version of a Corbyn future where that happens (unless you're a Tory).
D
Deleted member 231381
Unconfirmed Member
I do mean negative, yes. My point is just that local council elections are appendices of national politics, and therefore are broken.
An interesting paper on how antagonistic the press have been towards corbyn
http://www.lse.ac.uk/media@lse/research/pdf/JeremyCorbyn/Cobyn-Report-FINAL.pdf
http://www.lse.ac.uk/media@lse/research/pdf/JeremyCorbyn/Cobyn-Report-FINAL.pdf
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