To be fair to Corbyn, I found his performance at the last PMQs to be quite good. Mainly focusing on the Tories going backwards on education. Which is a party-wide issue that they all agree on, for the most part. Hopefully he'll be consistent with these performances in the future.
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UK Labour Leadership Crisis: Corbyn retained as leader by strong margin
- Thread starter Hazzuh
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To be fair to Corbyn, I found his performance at the last PMQs to be quite good. Mainly focusing on the Tories going backwards on education. Which is a party-wide issue that they all agree on, for the most part. Hopefully he'll be consistent with these performances in the future.
Pie and Beans
Look for me on the local news, I'll be the guy arrested for trying to burn down a Nintendo exec's house.
Maybe you were too busy gawking at Vin Diesel posters while "growing up" that you failed to see how that 'Blairite scum' did more for this country by helping the poor and vulnerable than your beloved idiot protest party will ever achieve. No, Blair and co weren't perfect but welcome to reality. In the real world, you don't get perfect because thats not how 65 million people work.
It was on Corbyn's watch that we were voted out of the EU, and every single report of the man being an incompetent egomaniac cannot be ignored. I mean they can if you're privileged enough to live in a comfortable fantasy land where 10 more years of Tory rule won't affect you but "least I gots muh ideals man".
Every fire station that closes, every massive cut to education, the end of the NHS, every Polish pregnant woman beaten into a miscarriage. Don't matter mate. We're making jam over here and its bluddy gorgeous.
True, he has had a few bright spots but overall he's been quite ineffectual.
So Corbyn was the one that was elected with the promise of an EU referendum, then stood down immediately after the result of said referendum? Think you're getting him mixed up with someone else.
Of course they did a lot. Expanded the police and surveillance state, started wars, further fucked up the Middle East eventually resulting in an immigration clusterfuck that popularized and normalized the far-right lunatics across Europe, seamlessly continued the neoliberal economic policies of the tories and so on.
Pie and Beans
Look for me on the local news, I'll be the guy arrested for trying to burn down a Nintendo exec's house.
You know what, fuck vague, low grade political GCSE level discourse and cultured 1984 smug nods. Swallow facts:
-Introduced the minimum wage.
-Doubled funding per pupil for education, renovated thousands of schools.
-Funded thousands more police officers, nurses, doctors.
-Elevated millions out of poverty.
-Made breast cancer screening free for women.
-Winter fuel payments, bus passes for elderly.
-Banned fox hunting, testing on animals.
-THE HUMAN RIGHTS ACT.
-Prescriptions free for Cancer patients.
and just, you know, in general improved people of this country's lives. Yes, we went to another shit war because we're buddies with America or whatever. It happens. Mistakes were made abroad, but not at home.
You level your rudderless hatred at a party that did more for you and those around you than you will ever admit because... I dunno... actually even having to contemplate running a country scares the shit out of you. Better to skulk in the shadows and pretend things can change perfectly 100% than actually put in the hard work, compromise, and do what it takes to run a country for multiple terms.
The platform Jeremy Corbyn stands on is that his opinion is all that matters, and fuck actually getting into power and curbing the Tories destructive rule quickly or even reversing their terrible damage toot sweet. It's about getting in the way of other ministers actually trying to improve things like those that genuinely wanted to stay in the EU or those trying to launch shadow policy only to find their whole day fucked.
But yeah, Tony Blair and co are all Tory Lites anyway. So the best thing to do is make sure Full Fat Tories have un-contested rule for another 10 grim years by going full unelectable protest party. That seems like the mature adult approach to take and in no way involves bath water flying out from a tub, infant and all.
Royal_Phalanx
Member
Under New Labour's watch Brexit would never have happened. Now that this idiot Corbyn is pursuing ideological purity over everything else now we'll have to wait for a decade for a better government. The Conservatives made the same mistake of appealing to the ideologically pure grassroots once. Hence why Cameron campaigned from the centre.
I have plenty of respect for Blair's achievements, as I've posted above, but the Blairite wing of the party decrying "purity testing" while participating in exactly the same practice (claiming that literally any view outside of their clique is "unelectable", despite both the last GE and the EU ref showing exactly what the country thinks of Blair-era politics nowadays) is disgraceful. And frankly, the Blairite wing haven't fielded a convincing candidate since Blair left, so who are they to preach about electability?
The truth is that Corbyn and the Blair wing are aligned on 85%+ of the issues, in fact they are more aligned than the right and centre-right wings of the Tories. It is entirely expected that the wing of the party that has no popular mandate will concede on the remaining 15% (as the rest of the party did for many years) in the name of a unified front to get into power. The centre of the party needs to fucking suck it up and do the work of winning back constituencies that they are at a massive risk of losing in the GE.
I don't recall Blair threatening rebel MPs with deselection. Nor do I recall his supporters threatening Corbyn and other rebel MPs with homophobic, anti-Semitic insults. i don't recall the shadow chancellor sitting and smiling whilst a momentum activist campaigned for the deselection of sitting labour politicians, as happened in my borough.
Huw_Dawson
Member
Into the dustbin of history is where it is going.
All of the folks who are talking about how Blair did a lot of good for the country, check out Tim Farron's speech to LD conference a few days back that pretty much sides exactly with where you are at. Blair's early work was a lot better than his later stuff, but nobody should knock the serious bits of progress made by the overall government, even as they made many of the critical mistakes that still haunt us today.
Whilst Labour conference is ongoing tomorrow, I will be standing outside at a Lib Dem recruitment stand. Hopefully we should get a few more signups - after all, we're now at membership numbers we could only ever have dreamed of ten years ago - we're gonna keep that momentum moving.
User Name Here
Member
Off-topic, but I heard Bernie Sanders brother is trying to run as PM in the UK. Is that true?
D
Deleted member 231381
Unconfirmed Member
No. He's running to be an MP, which is something like a Senator. It's the lower house (like the House of Representatives), but in the UK the lower house has more power, so yeah, he's running to be a Senator in US terms.
So much this. That 1st term was the best government in my lifetime, easily.
Corbyn winning again is just depressing. Conservatives given a mandate by Labour voters to do whatever the fuck they want.
User Name Here
Member
Ah ok. I must of misread what I saw.
I think I've asked this a couple of times here at different points, but still no answer. I'm still very much curious to find out where this great "electable" would-be leader is hiding.
I don't think there is one. I think the party is so utterly lacking in talent right now it's depressing. The only thing I do know is I want a leader who actually wants to get elected, who is going to try to speak to the rest of the country rather than just his fan base, and who is actually capable of leading a political party.
Like I said, they're managers of neoliberalism. They do a few positives while continuing at the same destructive path. They're like the Democrats in the US that are supposed to be the good guys only when compared with the republican economic far-right.
You seem to forget a few other policies he enacted, like the continuation of Thatcher's privatizations with his PFI policies that affected every aspect of the public sector or the deregulation of the banking sector.
Like all liberals they create short-term gains while building neoliberal foundations that later prove absolutely destructive for society. Reminds me of Clinton, the so called great US president that repealed Glass Steagall-Act and was directly responsible for the 2008 economic clusterfuck or Obama with his TPP/TTIP shilling that will eventually decimate the world's middle class.
Giant Panda
Member
Well the labor party went with ideological purity, even though that ideology is stupidity. Corbyn has terrible ideas, at least he'll never get to implement them.
It's puzzling for sure. Even if you accept that New Labour were brilliant except for the whole murder of several hundred thousand Iraqis and the unleashing of complete chaos in the middle east, there doesn't seem to be much in the way of ideas, policies or leaders from the Blairites now. They sure didn't have a candidate in this most recent leadership election, and in the previous one the best they put up was Liz Kendell.
Maybe there's one hiding somewhere, perhaps in America. It'd be nice to see one Blairite actually stand for something rather than whinge and leak and undermine the now twice elected leader.
Pie and Beans
Look for me on the local news, I'll be the guy arrested for trying to burn down a Nintendo exec's house.
The AU where David Miliband won the leadership and the usual "slick rick"/"blairite scum" shit hadn't influenced anything is the one I probably want to be living in.
What the fools of the Labour party membership don't understand is every time they hiss "Blairite" or just cast the Iraq shadow over that decade entirely, they erase everything positive the Labour party did and could be pointed to for the general publics benefit. The jealous and self righteous need for the pound of Blair's flesh was some insanity that has driven most of the party mad and casts them into the fringe they now occupy because the public was watching this entire time.
Blairite is this slang for "successful, electable modern Labour politician" I guess and to not want that is to want uncontested Tory rule. Job well done.
What the fools of the Labour party membership don't understand is every time they hiss "Blairite" or just cast the Iraq shadow over that decade entirely, they erase everything positive the Labour party did and could be pointed to for the general publics benefit. The jealous and self righteous need for the pound of Blair's flesh was some insanity that has driven most of the party mad and casts them into the fringe they now occupy because the public was watching this entire time.
Blairite is this slang for "successful, electable modern Labour politician" I guess and to not want that is to want uncontested Tory rule. Job well done.
did you just discover this term or is it carved into your toilet cubicle's ceiling.
You cant ever address anyone arguments without vitriolic massive hyperbole. And buzzwords you don't even know the definition of but love to spam because it sounds menacing.
CyclopsRock
Member
"Uniting behind the leader" doesn't mean MPs have to start saying things they don't believe or say they think something's a good idea when it isn't. Corbyn, of all people, knows that.
Also, the idea that Corbyn's a crap leader isn't all just some media conspiracy. His office has routinely spent so long spaffing around with press releases that they get sent to newspapers after the print deadline. He campaigns against his own party's policy positions. He takes ages to respond to things that occur. None of these things have anything to do with the media interpreting what he does and giving a negative opinion of it.
Also, the idea that Corbyn's a crap leader isn't all just some media conspiracy. His office has routinely spent so long spaffing around with press releases that they get sent to newspapers after the print deadline. He campaigns against his own party's policy positions. He takes ages to respond to things that occur. None of these things have anything to do with the media interpreting what he does and giving a negative opinion of it.
WhateverItTakes
Banned
And would you prefer this to happen with none of the positives? Because that's what's gonna happen if Corbyn's Labour doesn't make the PR and policy moves to court Conservative voters.
It could very well be that there istalent there that are just fairly low profile. I'll admit to knowing pretty much nothing about Corbyn until early last year. I've been quite impressed by Clive Lewis anytime I've listened to him, similar politics to Corbyn, but better media skills. But a fairly new MP, and ruled himself out of the running earlier in the year. And I very much agree that there has to be more emphasis on getting his message out to a wider audience, and being more active with the media. As going to various rallies doesn't really do much, other than give the already established supporters something to cheer about. It's those that drifted from Labour in the last GE that you have to appeal to. Otherwise, history will repeat itself.
I think the decline in support since Blair left, and back to back election defeat (as well as two leadership election defeats, for believers in these politics) sends the message loud and clear that the old Blair politics no longer appeals to enough of the electorate anymore. At least Corbyn is actually trying a different approach, other than more of the same. But things will have to change going forward, with more compromise and unity needed from both sides. Otherwise, the party will end up with a big split, or another hammering at the ballot box.
He had an amazing prime minister's question session vs May that actually got good attention and completely ruined it with his team sending out a Labour political hitlist vs his own MPs. Its not like the media created that list, his own team released it.
How can you be that bad at leading?
Would you happen to have any studies into this? The only ones I've seen look at the incentive effects of redistribution, which are usually negative because they're badly designed. This is a bit more long-term than that.
Also did Neoliberals eat your dog or something Riddick.
If you're going to quote me you could at least address my points, instead of spouting a laundry list of things Tony Blair never had to deal with because the left wing of the party fell in line when he had a mandate.
There have been 2 Labour leadership elections in a year. Corbyn has won both decisively. We have seen the effects of 12 months of open revolt. At this point the only productive option left is to form a functioning opposition built on the majority of policy that both wings of Labour can agree on.
Anything else is just a variation of the same special snowflake bullshit argument that requires politicians to represent 100% of your views at all times if you're going to vote for them.
Like I said I'd rather risk it and wait for actual change than have short-term positive results and a continuation of neoliberal policies that eventually make the situation worse. Blair's legacy isn't the minimum wage or a relatively small reduction in poverty, it's a destructive war that now affects the entire world, deregulation that affected and still affects the entire country and the continuation of privatizations.
At least I address arguments instead of just commenting on how the posts are written or what I perceive as hyperbole.
fixed that for you, no need to hide it
So the videos of Corbyn mouthing off about Blair and wanting to challenge him for the leadership are fakes?
The rebellions in the commons didn't happen?
If you think the far left like Corbyn and McDonnell 'fell into line' I would invite you to look at their voting record and their public statements during Blairs time as leader of the party. They were a constant thorn in his side, -!; proud of it. Heck, it's one of Corbyn's selling points! He can't be a principled man who always stands by his beliefs *and* someone who fell into line and was a good blairite soldier at the same time.
Edit: Corbyn voted against Blair 428 times, and was consistently the most rebellious MP in the house. Interesting way to fall into line!
Name a current Blairite who wants to stand against Corbyn, and has policies that can deliver an election victory.
Everything else is utterly irrelevant.
It's also worth remembering there are probably only 10 'blairite' MPs left. The vast majority are no longer In Parliament for various reasons. It's a real fallacy to think that the opposition to Corbyn is just coming from fictitious 'blairites'. They haven't existed as a strong faction in the PLP for several years now.
(Although calling every MP who opposes Corbyn a blairite does make it easier to discount any valid critiscism of him of course).
(Although calling every MP who opposes Corbyn a blairite does make it easier to discount any valid critiscism of him of course).
i think there's a distinction between the electoral principles of new labour and the specific coalition of voters that blair assembled with a very specific message to get their votes that were only relevant in 1997, 2001 and 2005. you obviously can't win in 2016 on nineties political dynamics.
the electoral principles that new labour was formed on in my opinion still stand true. an we have to win over lots tory voters and start doing that by listening to what they say instead of lecturing or demonizing them, we have to have clear practical policies to improve people's lives not wishwashy shit, we have to have a strong and charismatic leader that people believe in, we have to embrace the media and engage with them to get the fairest hearing for our policies possible.
however i think it's absolutely true like you say that the blairites need new ideas. every labour election winner has done it on embracing the new - atlee on rebuilding britain from the ashes of ww2 on the collectivist model used to run the war effort, wilson on the white heat of technology and modern science bringing new jobs and opportunities, blair about modernising public services and embracing a confident globalism as we move into the new millennium. it's all well as good to whine about corbyn taking us back to the political battles of 80s when blairites are refighting the next decade constantly (like i just did!)
JesseEwiak
Member
Looking at this from America, the problem seems to be that you have nobody who doesn't have a poisoned chalice. Whether you Blair fans like it or not, the Iraq War + the "hippie punching" the Labour Party seemed to do during the Blair years, rightly or wrongly, made anybody connected to those years politically toxic to the base of Labour. I mean, just looking for the outside in, that list of Blair accomplishments looked like a lot of marketing speak "millions lifted out of poverty - yes, but for how long and at what cost once various benefits were cut to appeal to the Daily Mail or Sun crowd?" or frankly, half measures that sound kind of small bore - I mean, fox hunting, really? Which again, might be unfair, but politics ain't fair.
And the problem is, you guys both need the former ex-miner Britan Firster in Middle England, the upwardly mobile Indian banker in her 30's, and the pissed off students who have more debt than any other graduate in the history of the UK to win an election.
The positive thing, over here in America, is thanks to lots of Hispanic's showing up, we can kind of ignore the small towns slowly dying off in the Midwest. You guys can't and without a Barack Obama figure who can cleanly put forth center-left policies while having no connection to the massive missteps of the Blair Years, it might just be impossible to have a Labour Party that can actually win an election anymore, without either going much more conservative and being a Labour Party in Name Only or stay out of power and wait for demographics to catch up and a new generation of leaders to come up who have sane policies, but don't have the Blairite stain.
And the problem is, you guys both need the former ex-miner Britan Firster in Middle England, the upwardly mobile Indian banker in her 30's, and the pissed off students who have more debt than any other graduate in the history of the UK to win an election.
The positive thing, over here in America, is thanks to lots of Hispanic's showing up, we can kind of ignore the small towns slowly dying off in the Midwest. You guys can't and without a Barack Obama figure who can cleanly put forth center-left policies while having no connection to the massive missteps of the Blair Years, it might just be impossible to have a Labour Party that can actually win an election anymore, without either going much more conservative and being a Labour Party in Name Only or stay out of power and wait for demographics to catch up and a new generation of leaders to come up who have sane policies, but don't have the Blairite stain.
CyclopsRock
Member
No, it's not. Under first past the post, a party that splits is utterly, utterly fucked. There are worse things than losing an election, and a candidate that is able to lose the election without destroying the party is preferable to one who does both.
D
Deleted member 231381
Unconfirmed Member
Does a Blairite avoid a split any more meaningfully than a Corbynite at this point? Smith isn't even a Blairite, but suppose he'd eked out some 50.1% margin win on the back of an even more emphatic membership deadline dating to September last year (like the old Conservative rules). Do we really think at this point the Corbynites would have taken that lying down/not threatened to split? The Labour party being close to a split isn't because it chose Corbyn, it's because the basic internal coalitions of social blocs that make up the Labour Party are at loggerheads, and that's true regardless of which candidate you pick, unless that candidate is so charismatic and persuasive they can convince those blocs they don't actually oppose each other. As Uzzy points out, that candidate doesn't exist.
CyclopsRock
Member
I think, of all the various levels, having a leader and a PLP that disagree is the one most likely to lead to a split. The membership could hate a Blairite leader all they like; what are they going to do? The Corbynite presence in the PLP is so limited that I don't think it'll be too troubling. That's the problem with the impending reselections; even when Corbyn crashes and burns in 2020, the MPs that survive will alter the make up of the PLP to there point where there's no route back.
D
Deleted member 231381
Unconfirmed Member
The membership can set up a new party. If Corbyn announced he was leaving now, ~14% of Labour's votes would go with him. Momentum are organised enough to have candidates in every constituency, too. That means many Labour MPs would lose seats as the left split the vote.
Huw_Dawson
Member
That's not true. The SDP won a landslide in 1997, as they say.
More seriously, the split may not be bad for the party provided that local parties actually know how to campaign. Given that this is the Labour party, which are only on people's doorsteps for four weeks prior to the election and rarely build up any sort of rapport with their own electorate... Yeah it'd be bad for Labour.
The fact that nearly forty percent of the Labour Party electorate who voted voted for a total nobody like Owen Smith is not exactly a ringing endorsement of the leader.
A split or a major set of defections are inevitable at this point - Corbyn's core problems are not going to go away and his supporters are going to continue to tighten their grip. Labour has to retake council seats in the locals in 2017 to even begin to start mounting pressure to regain parliamentary seats in 2020. Is that going to happen under Corbyn?
Nicktendo86
Member
McDonnell refusing to go back on the lynching comments about Ester McVey.
Kinder, gentler politics.
Kinder, gentler politics.
There's ways to assist and work with Corbyn, and there's ways to disagree with policy ideas that don't drag the party through the mud. I, for one, would welcome a policy from the Blarites. It'd be interesting to see. But really, they can put up or shut up. Or if they continue to be mutinous fucks, then I guess they can enjoy deselection.
nelsonroyale
Member
Who is this candidate exactly? You would have to be naive to be believe that somebody of Smiths 'credibility' could keep the party together. Labour, as a party, are an ideological mess.
Yes the only reason you might oppose the man who has for years and years and years been holding up Venezuela as a model of economic planning and who sees Syriza as something to be emulated is blind self-interest. Excellent point.
Ha.
Over 60% of the vote (in a two horse race) is now not enough of an endorsement.
Amazing
I'm an American so I'm not super knowledgeable about U.K. party politics. What is a party member specifically and why are the numbers so low compared to the population as a whole?
I can't imagine a far left guy like Corbyn getting elected if everybody who votes Labour had a say.
I can't imagine a far left guy like Corbyn getting elected if everybody who votes Labour had a say.
The poster I was responding to is a proud, self declared neoliberal.
Furthermore what is wrong with Syriza? They have a great organisation and activist core. Some of the left in Syriza had some trouble with the current policies but nothing else is really wrong with them. You'd really need to talk to their campaigners/members to hear all the awesome stuff they did to become big.
So it seems like you don't know much of Syriza?
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