What now for Labour? (Part 3)

First topic message reminder :

Many of the members who regularly take part in the ‘Labour doorstep’ campaign are told in working class areas that the party doesn’t seem to care about those who should be its core supporters. This isn’t a response which has become prevalent in the last year or so, it goes back much further. Tony Blair, and to a lesser extent Gordon Brown, took the working class for granted, probably assuming that they had nowhere else to go. They were wrong. Labour’s parliamentary representation in Scotland has been virtually extinguished, and in England enough of its natural supporters have gone to UKIP to damage the party and let the Tories in. This all happened before Jeremy Corbyn became leader of the Labour Party, so let's not try to blame him.

If Labour has been perceived, rightly or wrongly, as deserting the working class, maybe it’s because it has been too concerned with chasing the votes of ‘moderate’ Tories. But ask yourself – what price has to be paid to gain the support of people who approve of the bedroom tax, savage cuts to welfare, the trebling of tuition fees, tax cuts for the rich and the creeping privatisation of the NHS? What sort of a Labour Party would emasculate itself to the extent that it is attractive to people who hold such views? The Tories have moved the centre of political gravity ever further to the right, so why should Labour try to occupy what Tories and their media poodles now define as ‘the centre ground’?

Those who have deserted Labour for UKIP have been persuaded that the EU and immigrants are the cause of most of their problems. If Brexit happens – and even if it doesn’t – at least some of those people will eventually realise that imports (and in particular food) are going to become dearer, an extra £350 million a week is not going to go to the NHS, and many bosses will continue to pay low wages, regardless of the number of immigrants in the country. They may even notice that the NHS is becoming ever more short-staffed. Labour must never pander to the ‘Alf Garnett’ mentality; to do so would betray the party’s basic principles and offend most of the membership so seriously that they would leave. History has also shown that trying to appease racists and fascists doesn’t work.

On the second part of this thread we were told by one poster that socialism is dead. I would suggest that it is merely dormant across most of the Western world, and that the needs which caused it to develop in the first place are very much in existence and requiring solutions. Capitalism doesn’t provide them, it just produces ever greater hardship and inequality. We can already see how in the UK home ownership is becoming out of the reach of more people, especially younger ones. The 62 richest people on the planet have as much wealth as half of the world’s population. On its present course, it will be capitalism that will destroy itself if low-wage workers can’t afford to buy what is produced.

"Decent Tory" sounds like an oxymoron, but I know what you mean; sometimes people don’t seem so bad once they’ve left office. I can’t forgive John Major for the pig’s ear he made of privatising the railways, or the 53 tax increases (including imposing VAT on gas and electricity and trying to raise it to 17.5%) after promising “tax cuts year on year” in the 1992 election campaign.

I don’t see why Theresa May would want to call a snap election. Yes, she would win it by a landslide, but in the current climate of nationalism and xenophobia the Tories will almost certainly win in 2020, so why start the clock ticking now? Besides, though not for the first time, May would be contradicting what she said last year if she called an early election. And then there is the little matter of the Fixed Term Parliaments Act of 2011, which makes a certain amount of absurd manoeuvring necessary if a PM with a majority wants to see Parliament dissolved.

I suspect the issues you mention had more to do with Major being a bit incompetent rather than the active malice we've seen from the Tories of late.

Somehow, I find incompetence slightly easier to forgive than deliberate wrong-doing

I think the basic problem is that many individual tories, in their muddled way. would like to do good. They are careerists, however, and their Party is irredeemably evil, spiteful and greedy: they are tolerated only while ineffective in going against the Party's Great Purpose.

around 7,000 of us have left the Labour Party in the last month.


There may be a variety of reasons for this - some, like me, will have left because of anger at the 'coup' and its aftermath (in my case, my local CLP is a bit too right wing or 'moderate' for my taste and I feel I can do more good concentrating on supporting individuals affected by Tory cuts); some, because, like you, they are disillusioned with Labour's handling of Brexit; some will have been fans of Owen Smith who are disappointed the party chose not to elect him as leader; some will be in despair at the leftward trajectory of the party and will have gone to join the Lib Dems.

I gather more than 500,000 remain in place and are broadly in support of Corbyn.

How this will all turn out is still unclear - the fat lady isn't singing yet - in my opinion

around 7,000 of us have left the Labour Party in the last month.

According to the news presenter Sophy Ridge, Labour Party membership peaked at around 554,000 last summer but has since declined to around 528,000. I would suggest that those who have left because Owen Smith didn’t become the leader would have done so soon after Jeremy Corbyn was re-elected in September. The most significant thing to happen in the last month that would cause a reduction in membership is the three-line whip on triggering Article 50, especially after the opposition parties in the House of Commons failed to make any amendments to the bill.

However, to keep this in context, Labour still has by far and away the largest membership of any political party in Western Europe and, as you say, most of them support their leader.

The fallout from the 'purge' is still ongoing - people still getting their 'warning' letters and still challenging them - I suspect some at least of the lost membership may be accounted for by plain frustration with that process and the fact that the NEC seems to be against socialism.

Corbyn's lack of a clear leadership position is also problematic - I think this is partly to do with the fact that his instincts are more to do with campaigning than with power, but also to the fact that the NEC, the PLP and the media seem determined to undermine and misrepresent what he says and does. A change of leadership seems inevitable - but given the NEC position that they will not support a socialist candidate (ie one offering the same policies as Corbyn) I'm not sure whether I could support a change of leadership

Luke Akehurst‏ @lukeakehurst  Mar 1

Renouncing the leader is a good but insufficient first step. His politics and factional groups and key personnel also need to be renounced.

Brexit is just impossibly horrible and I am finding it's impossible to have a sensible conversation with anyone about it - unless that person like me is in favour of remaining - which worries me a lot - the country seems to be degenerating into two armed camps on this issue

Isn't it about time Labour realised that things aren't going too well for them?

From an article by Mark Steel:-

There’s an innocent charm to some of the calls for Jeremy Corbyn to stand down, especially on the grounds he has a bad image in the media. Because if history teaches us anything, it’s that if Labour had a different leader, the press would be lovely to them. ‘The Sun’ would declare gracefully: “At last Labour has seen sense and selected the far more electable Clive Lewis, who unfortunately has a squidgy nose and wants to abolish the army and replace it with a falafel, and will use public money to build a mosque in space, and his hobby is waterboarding the Duchess of Cambridge and he wants to ban Boxing Day and make Vera Lynn apologise to the Germans. Here’s a picture of him mocked up to look as if he’s got fox mess in his hair.”

Maybe part of the problem is the obsession with who the leader is, which ignores the bigger question for Labour, which is why, across the West, parties that used to win elections by promising to moderate the excesses of big business, can’t seem to get elected any more. The more that big business becomes despised, the more the parties of big business, such as Trump’s and the Tories, seem to win support. In Britain, newspapers were caught hacking phones, but now Murdoch’s stronger than ever. Bankers are despised for bringing down the economy, so we vote in a party of bankers. A Tory PM tries to stop divisions in his party with a referendum, and accidentally wrecks Britain’s 50-year-long plan for the economy, and we decide the only people to trust are the Tories.

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/jeremy-corbyn-labour-owen-jones-soft-coup-peter-mandelson-brexit-a7608246.html

Mark Steel - the king of paradox - but he's not wrong - it seems somehow impossible to chart a path through the post-truth world of modern politics

The only Labour leader perhaps that could win a General Election at present would be someone just like Theresa May or David Cameron but with a nicer smile - and we'd all be no better off

The UK is strongly divided, but the Brexiteers scream their opponents down if they dare to discuss anything relevant to this huge balls-up. The Labour Party is just as divided, but tries to keep both sides happy while supporting the jackbooted Vill of ze Peepul. Can't be did!

Certainly a 52%/48% result might indeed suggest a divided Britain, but for sensible people the real problem is the division in the Labour Party, because until that can be resolved the Tories have a clear field to do more or less as they choose.

I wonder whether the old guard will have the guts to declare a complete separation from the Corbyn wing.

wish they would - at the moment no Labour group has any chance in the polls - we need a coherent message from a united opposition

Maybe Labour can learn something from this statement by Jesse Klaver, the leader of the Dutch Green Party, especially "stand for your principles, be pro-refugee, be pro-European".


https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C6_y7H_WsAA2WmE.jpg

Sky's Adam Boulton in today's Sunday Times says that recent setbacks force Theresa May to legitimise her authority with a clear personal mandate.

He believes a General Election will coincide with the local elections already scheduled for May 4 this year.

(No link - paywall)

Ivan - I think you're right - Labour has to stop being so cautious and get putting the message out without thinking about the polls - which we all now know are biased to put it kindly

Cruel - but they have a point...

ad hominem abuse is never a good look, though

Don't kick a man until you're sure he's down.  The demise of Jeremy Corbyn is
currently all in the fevered mind of Mr Watson.

Though cowards flinch and traitors sneer.......

"The Working Class can kiss my arse"

" ad hominem abuse is never a good look, though "

It has always appeared to me that Cutting Edge is entirely dependent on it to attack Tory ministers, however - and justifiably so.

But we mustn't lose our sense of humour, even when the jokes are uncomfortably close to the reality. Hypocrisy is a far less palatable look ...

sorry you took that personally - wasn't meant that way

I don't think I indulge myself in ad hominem abuse - you may want to correct me - but I have read many very nasty attacks on Corbyn and the more left-wing branch of the Labour party that have absolutely nothing to do with the quality of their offering, competence or integrity - qualities I tend to hope to find in a politician

I am entirely relaxed about it, boatlady

I know that many like Corbyn and I respect that, but I can see why he has become the focus of criticism for some...

IF watson is so anti-Corbyn why does he not stand for leadership of the party or does he feel more comfortable just sniping from the side?....

watson has much to say about what he sees as wrong with the current Labour party but seems reluctant to put his ideas of how to 'fix' it.

Is he giving a nod and a wink to those MP's who are constantly critical of Corbyn.

I am forming a strong impression that Watson is indeed someone who prefers just 'sniping from the side'
He seems very keen to get publicity by criticising others openly or by implication.

I may be wrong, but I have the impression he's been in politics for several years without achieving anything much although he contrives to get himself in the news a fair bit - seems a bit untrustworthy to me

Definition: schism.
[ˈskɪz(ə)m, ˈsɪz(ə)m]
NOUN a split or division between strongly opposed sections or parties, caused by differences in opinion or belief.


It may not be too fanciful to draw a comparison between today's Labour Party and the Spanish Civil War of 1936. A contemporary newspaper reported "four columns advancing upon Madrid, but with the most dangerous being a Fifth Column of traitors within Madrid itself."

Brexitland: With pay so low for this long, no wonder there’s anger in Sheffield

From an article by Owen Jones:-

"Imagine holding a referendum on the status quo when millions of your prospective voters feel poorer. Many looked at their bank balances, stared anxiously at unopened bills, saw their pennies didn’t go as far in the shops, and seized on the referendum as an opportunity. Why risk leaving the powerful with a complacent feeling that nothing is wrong when you can send them a message?

Blaming foreign workers for shrinking wages is, after all, a simple and easily digested message. Whatever Labour’s future, a return to a stale centrism that doesn’t understand people’s anger surely isn’t it."

For the whole article:-
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/apr/13/brexitland-vote-leave-sheffield-brexit-industrial-strategy

Today's Tory Party inherits a mindset which came over with William the Conqueror. Fight for supremacy, and fight to maintain continuance of that condition.

Descendants of the Robber Barons are firmly entrenched to the point where they now have a government employed to preserve the status quo.

The plebeians have the right to protest, and that is presented as democracy, but it's the dominant class which decides whether change will be allowed to occur. There may be a pretence of feverish activity towards "progress", but this eventually restores the status quo. The wealthy continue to prosper at the expense of the poor.

The poor support the system because they aspire to join the top table one day. Hope springs eternal - that's the clever part.

What now indeed? Mrs. May expects to strengthen her hand by achieving an absolute majority in the HofC in a General Election on June 8th. Perhaps she will, because the usual division along Party lines is likely to be blurred by the electorate who will presumably vote according to whether they are "For" or "Against" Brexit.

Pollsters will make the usual inaccurate forecasts based upon the perceived support (or otherwise) for Labour but the Labour Party now comprises two opposing factions - the PLP and Corbyn supporters. It's not easy to see such a divided "opposition" surviving unchanged. But will voters choose one side over the other?

Vote Tory to carry on ***king your kids, and grand kids, futures up and perpetuate the new trend for children being worse off then their parent's generation.

Vote Tory to ensure wealth divisions from top to bottom remain excessive.

Vote Tory to ensure the government and country continues to act at the behest of Farage, UKIP, EDL, and other assorted xenophobes.

Vote Lib-Dem, UKIP, SNP, or Green if you want to ensure we carry on with a Tory government.

......otherwise vote Labour.

The upcoming GE provides a good test of whether Labour chose the right leader to see it move forward and make inroads into the Tory dominance.

My own worthless view is that it did not, and that the party will become marginalised even more than it is at present. It will be no good blaming those Labour MPs who opposed Corbyn, since the electorate will have cast its own verdict on his tenure at the head of the party. However laudable his policies are, for most of the voters it is simply not an attractive proposition to see him in Number 10. He doesn't look like a PM, he doesn't sound like a PM and he certainly doesn't perform in the Commons like a politician of standing.

The best hope for Britain and those who , like me, detest the Tory evil is that Theresa May's majority is far, far smaller than she hopes for and that the opportunist calling of the election reduces, rather than enhances, her 'authority'. This can only happen if the votes for the opposition parties are cast in the right places and do not divide in such a way as to make life easy for Tory candidates. Accordingly, I would like to see some serious debate between the parties to not contest certain seats in order to leave the way clear for whoever has the best chance of denying a Tory victory.

Unless there is some move towards such a strategy, it does bring into question just how serious the opposition parties are about protecting the best interests of the nation's citizens. If the Tories are constantly left to benefit from the opposition votes splitting then we may as well prepare for 20 years or more of Tory government.

Sickchip - couldn't have put it better myself - time to bury all the hatchets, preferably in the Tory majority and get rid

Those Labour MPs who have worked studiously to resist the Socialist intentions of Jeremy Corbyn will now face the ultimate test - in their Constituencies. If traditional Labour voters effectively endorse continuance of a split in the party, then Theresa May will indeed have won.

Surely that can't be a sensible course. In unity lies strength, and notionally a Labour Government. Sick Chip and Phil Hornby have spelt out the alternative.

One thing is certain - before there is another general election - If the Labour Party hopes to form a government its component parts have to resolve their internal differences.

Or forget about ever governing again.

The saga continues:

Thing is - I'm not sure there is a 'hard left' in the Labour party any more - my friends in Momentum are all middle aged to elderly with only a slight warmth in their belly

witchfinder wrote:-
We all detest the Tories, we all want to see the back of this government, but that has got to mean an opposition party with a real chance of beating them and winning power, yet Ivan and many like him wont accept reality, Corbyn is a disaster, its never ever going to happen, not now, not next year, not in 2020

A month has passed since the general election, and yet we’re still waiting for those Corbyn detractors - witchfinder and Stox 16 - to return to Cutting Edge and eat humble pie. In the two years since the previous election and since Jeremy became the Labour leader, the party’s share of the vote has increased from 30.5% to 40% - from 9.35 million votes to 12.88 million - the biggest rise since 1945. That wasn’t achieved by being ‘moderate’ (in other words, following the Tories further and further to the right), but by offering voters, especially younger ones, hope of something better than the neoliberalism which, since 1979, has been destroying the fabric of the UK and causing ever-increasing inequality.

No doubt some will remind us that Labour didn’t win the election (realistically, it could never have hoped to gain 94 seats in order to get a majority of just 2), but Theresa May was seriously wounded and is, in George Osborne’s words, “a dead woman walking”. But just imagine how the party might well have done even better if the likes of Yvette Cooper, Chuka Umunna, Rachel Reeves and Stella Creasy had accepted the very clear results of two leadership elections and offered to serve in the shadow cabinet instead of signing motions of no confidence in Corbyn.

A YouGov/Times poll published this week has Labour on 46%, the Tories on 38% and the Lib Dems on 6%. This government is in a very fragile position and in hock to the DUP; the next general election may not be far away. Those MPs and Labour supporters who dislike Corbyn would be well advised to concentrate their fire on the Tories, not the party leadership. At the same time, those who are minded to try to deselect MPs such as Luciana Berger, simply because she isn’t left-wing enough for them, should desist. Labour has always been at its strongest when it’s been a coalition of socialists and social democrats who respect each other. They could all learn something from Alice Bacon’s approach to party loyalty.

https://cuttingedge2.forumotion.co.uk/t1150-alice-in-westminster-the-political-life-of-alice-bacon-by-rachel-reeves

In a notable volte-face, Rod Liddle in today's Sunday Times recommends that "Moderate" Labour MPs either get behind Jeremy Corbyn or join the Lib-Dems.

I see that the 'moderate' Jess Phillips is sniping again - this time because the 'moderate' Yvette Cooper isn't getting very far with her impassioned defence of Laura Kuenssberg - and has in fact attracted some criticism