What now for Labour? (Part 2)

First topic message reminder :

Phil Hornby wrote:I feel that Corbyn is sincere, polite, interesting and likeable - so are my neighbours but, like them, he isn't electable as Prime Minister.

In which case, why should we pay some phoney twicer to be something else?

astradt1 wrote:At what point should be considered that the representatives no longer present those who elected them?........Should the voter have to put up with some one who they feel is no longer representing their views or wishes?.....Do they have to wait for the next general election or imprisonment or death of the sitting representative or should they have the right of recall?.......
It seems that Parliamentary Labour Party have the right of recall (Vote of no confidence or stalking horse challenger back by a few MP's) but the voter, the employer of MP's, has no recourse to get rid of an MP other than at a general election and more often than not if it looks like the MP will be deselected as a candidate they state that they will stand down at the next election but not before thereby collecting they parliamentary pay and perks......

well they are the rules and i did not make them or set them up. not sure the other parties will agree to change the rules of elections for Mr Corbyn myself

i would say that not all the Labour party members will be voting for Mr Corbyn. plus given the fact that the Labour party had some 9 million votes i think i would call it a rather small group myself. you have every right to support who you like. as do I.

But in my union branch at work with a rather large membership Corbyn is just about everyone number one joke. maybe you should come and meet them. then you can tell them they are all wrong.

Penderyn wrote:

Phil Hornby wrote:I feel that Corbyn is sincere, polite, interesting and likeable - so are my neighbours but, like them, he isn't electable as Prime Minister.

In which case, why should we pay some phoney twicer to be something else?

not really sure either are electable as the PM myself. but one in my view has a chance and the other has no hope at all. but at the end of the day it will be the electorate that will show who is right and who is wrong. not some party membership or for that matter some MPs on both sides of the fence. no matter who they support. if i was a Tory i would be loving the whole idea of Corbyn winning myself. as you can do a great deal with 18 years of right wing power

So 1964 we had 47.9 per cent of the votes
1983 we had 27.6 per cent of the votes
2016 we had just 30 per cent of the votes

but yet we had a smaller party membership than both 64 and 83 than today?

Stox 16. Good to see you here again.  

In the 1960s, 95% of voters supported either Labour or the Tories. That has steadily shrunk to around 66% now, which is why the first-past-the-post voting system is no longer fit for purpose.

The table on the UK Polling Report home page shows that Labour and the Tories were level pegging on 25 June, two days after the referendum. Then Hilary Benn launched the coup against Jeremy Corbyn, and a Tory lead opened up again; the voters hate divided parties. On top of that, Theresa May is enjoying the usual ‘honeymoon’ that a new PM gets.

http://ukpollingreport.co.uk/

I agree that the membership of the Labour Party represents only a fraction of the electorate (around 1.3%), but the larger the number of members, the more foot soldiers there are to deliver leaflets and knock on doors at election times. It also means that the party doesn’t need to rely on donors, who no doubt expect something in return (he who pays the piper). If you want to understand why so many people are motivated by Corbyn, I suggest you read Sophie Crossfield’s letter on the previous page of this thread.

I hope I’m wrong, but I’ve said before that I don’t think Corbyn will lead Labour to victory in the next election, but I don’t think Owen Smith could either. Two of last year’s defeated candidates – Andy Burnham and Yvette Cooper – would have been more credible than Smith. Corbyn’s electoral record as leader isn’t bad, with all four parliamentary by-elections held easily and mayoral elections won. Some people unfairly compare his record in council elections with that of Ed Miliband at the same stage of the electoral cycle, ignoring the fact that Labour started from a much lower base in 2011. However, the party should be doing much better if it is to win the next election. The chances of that are made more remote by the Tory gerrymandering of the constituency boundaries and the collapse of the Labour vote in Scotland, neither of which are the fault of Corbyn.

In 1997, any Labour leader would have been victorious; the Tories had already lost that election on ‘Black Wednesday’ in September 1992. The political turmoil of June and July this year confirms that a week is indeed a long time in politics. So who really has any idea of what will happen in the next four years? Repeating the mantra that Corbyn is ‘unelectable’ is playing to the narrative of the right-wing media, and to MPs on the right of the Labour Party who won’t respect the fact that members gave Corbyn a massive mandate less than a year ago.

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/william-davie/eu-referendum-brexit_b_10755710.html

Meanwhile, Labour members are being suspended from the party just in time to prevent them from voting in the leadership election .

A Facebook friend, very nearly as dull and middle aged as myself has just had his membership suspended - reason given - someone was offended by one of his tweets. Needless to say, he, and his cat, were quite publicly declaring their intention to vote for Corbyn - of course, that would have had nothing to do with it ---

I'm glad that I've voted already. If you've seen what I've tweeted about Owen Smith - especially after he tried to cash in on the 'train gate' nonsense - I'm sure the knives will be out for me. I've also been blocked by the Labour MP Tom Blenkinsop (as have dozens of other Labour supporters), even though I've never had anything to do with him!

Here we have some more evidence that Owen Smith is thoroughly unsuitable for high office.......

The 'lunatic' incident showed us the real Owen Smith: and it ain't pretty

From an article by David Wearing:-

Owen Smith has embarrassed himself again. Having previously called for Labour to “smash” Theresa May “back on her heels”, advocated negotiations with ISIS, and described himself as “normal” with “a wife and three children” while competing with a gay woman to stand for the Labour leadership, you might expect him to have learnt the value of expressing himself more carefully. But no.

At a rally on Tuesday, Smith described Jeremy Corbyn as a “lunatic” with no “coherent narrative about what’s wrong with Britain”. We may look back on this as the final nail in the coffin of Smith’s campaign. Let’s be honest. Most of us at some stage have used casual language like this to describe those whose rationality we don’t share or understand. But it is wrong; it perpetuates a stigma around mental illness.

Smith has presented himself as substantively agreeing with Corbyn on almost all domestic and economic issues, and only seeking to pursue that agenda more effectively and professionally. But it is simply not credible to simultaneously say “I agree with Jeremy” and that Jeremy is a “lunatic”. His remarks indicate that, deep down, he shares the incredulity expressed by so many of his colleagues that anyone would want to abandon the Thatcher-Blair-Cameron “centre ground” of deregulation, privatisation, corporate-empowerment and widening inequality. This incident will confirm the suspicion of many Labour members that, if he did win, Smith would dilute or ditch most of the policies he has used to try and win their votes.

http://www.newstatesman.com/politics/staggers/2016/08/yesterday-showed-us-real-owen-smith-and-it-aint-pretty

Murdoch and the rest of the tory Noise Machine think we are engaged in electing Fuhrers at a General Election, but what we actually vote for is a local candidate, almost always because he/she is chosen by a political party we tend to approve of, though we are seldom personally interested in these 'representatives' as persons. Everyone I know of who has met Mr Corbyn or heard him speak thinks he is immensely superior to all these careerists who serve the Murdochs - but to see his honest approach prevails, we have to do a great deal of work to contradict the liars, rather than sitting back and waiting for Murdoch to turn honest. It's always been like that, actually, but it takes the brainwashed multitudes time to learn in every generation.

" ...the 'train gate' nonsense...

I'm not convinced that Corbyn didn't milk the incident in the full knowledge of seat availability.

And I do wonder what we would all be saying had it been a Tory who sought to make a point with a similar 'sleight of hand'...

The Ministry of Truth is scraping the barrel at the minute.   Stick to politics.

One of my priorities is sticking to the avoidance of hypocrisy...

Phil Hornby wrote:-
I'm not convinced that Corbyn didn't milk the incident in the full knowledge of seat availability.

And I do wonder what we would all be saying had it been a Tory who sought to make a point with a similar 'sleight of hand'...

When Cameron had a film made of him visiting a young mother and first-time buyer in Southampton (she turned out to be an estate agent), I don’t remember much of a furore. Then there was Osborne travelling first class on a train without the appropriate ticket and not expecting to be charged the supplement.

I may be wrong, but as far as I can see, the facts of the ‘train gate’ yarn are as follows:-

Corbyn, his wife and his team were on their way to a hustings in Newcastle. They boarded a Virgin train where most of the seats were reserved. As they went through each carriage, there were only individual seats which weren’t reserved and he was hoping to sit with his wife on the three-hour journey. By the time that he got to the other end of the train, more people had boarded and even the unreserved seats had been filled. He sat on the floor for the first 45 minutes, as did other passengers, including a woman with two small children. The train staff then upgraded some people to first class, making room for Corbyn to sit in a seat.

The question I’d like answered is - why did it take Virgin and Branson twelve days to come up with this smear? It conveniently appeared as the ballot papers for the Labour leadership contest were starting to be received. I suspect that Corbyn will win by a slightly reduced majority and that that will be spun as a sign that support for him is waning. Who knows, it might even provoke another leadership challenge in a few months.

" ...the 'train gate' nonsense...

Another example, if any were needed, of the wisdom of resisting the blandishments of a Press photographer who casually suggests, "I know what would make a good picture, Jeremy."

Traingate CCTV analysis shows 'empty' seats aren't empty

Blog by skwalker1964:-

Corbyn's wife was not on the floor with him. He found a single seat and, like any decent, able-bodied husband would, he made his wife sit in it while he went and sat on the floor. Among other passengers doing the same.

https://skwalker1964.wordpress.com/2016/08/24/traingate-cctv-analysis-shows-empty-seats-arent/

The antidote may be found on twitter.

https://twitter.com/InTheSoupAgain

To hell with bullshit stories!   I got a call this morning asking me to support Mr Corbyn, and I was able to say that I was, as were all my daughters and their husbands, and all my friends and relations apart from those who can't afford to buy votes because of arbitrary date lines.   Now I shall go away and fill up my voting slip, unhesitatingly.   It is like old times, marvelous!

Corbyn supporters are not delusional Leninists but ordinary, fed-up voters

From an article by Ellie Mae O'Hagan:-

"Lock up your children, for there is a sinister force taking root in modern Britain. It is a cult, with followers like those of mass murderer Charles Manson, shrouded in a cloud of spite and acrimony. The worst thing about this terrifying insurgency? My mum is part of it. I am, of course, talking about the people who support Jeremy Corbyn.

The media has shown a damning lack of interest in the fact that people who had previously written off party politics are now flocking towards it in their hundreds of thousands – preferring instead to dismiss them as an angry mob. One half of that description is accurate; Corbyn supporters may not be a mob, but they are angry. The anger is that its members feel as though the Labour coup is as much an attack on their right to participate in public discourse as it is on Corbyn.

Everything the left traditionally stands for has been marginalised or actively mocked in mainstream political discourse since the 1970s. And nowhere is this more apparent than in the depiction of the trade unions as insidious barons intent on wrecking British life. Worse still for Corbyn supporters, the policy positions they have taken over the last 30 years have often been proven right. Lack of social housing has led to a spiralling housing crisis; the deregulation of the financial industry would have caused economic collapse but for state intervention; queasiness around public ownership has caused escalating transport costs and arguably the shambles that is Southern Railway; inequality is the UK’s most pressing social issue; and even Tony Blair accepts that the Iraq war may have led to the rise of ISIS."

For the whole article:-
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/aug/09/jeremy-corbyn-supporters-voters-labour-leader-politics

I have been excluded from the Labour party - THAT'S what now for Labour - this stinks

boatlady wrote:I have been excluded from the Labour party - THAT'S what now for Labour - this stinks

Bloody hell! What terrible crime have you committed, Boatdlady?

It has been brought to our attention with supporting evidence that you have publicly shown support for the Green party and the National Health Action party on Twitter between 10 April and 6 July 2016.


I think I retweeted Caroline Lucas' comments on Chilcott and may have agreed with a tweet or two from the NHS party about the Tory neglect of the NHS.

Well, we'll soon be in a position to put a stop to that sort of nonsense, touch wood! A friend of my daughter's was denied a vote, as far as we can make out, for having once said 'eff' in a tweet!

boatlady. You join the allegedly 50,000 others in the same boat, and you all have one thing in common - expressing support on social media for Jeremy Corbyn. Letters like these are commonplace on Twitter (see #LabourPurge2):-


https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CrBs6w7WIAAypV4.jpg


https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Cq8pOgoWcAAGS6T.jpg

The understandable reaction of those who have been suspended, or prevented from registering as supporters, is to walk away. But it's the wrong reaction. It's just what the undemocratic plotters on the right of the Labour Party would like, so they can "get their party back" by, as Emily Thornberry explains, “putting the party’s members back in their box”:-

http://labourlist.org/2016/08/thornberry-says-party-hierarchy-is-trying-to-get-rid-of-corbyn-through-nec/

Yes, I gather there's a lot of it about
I am going to have to appeal if I want to stay in the party, or I will be excluded for 5 years and would have to reapply to join.

Apparently, people think an appeal has a good chance - but of course the timescale involved will exclude me from voting in the leadership election.

This is so blatantly undemocratic and unfair I'm practically gibbering with rage and distress that they are getting away with it - the election is massively weighted in favour of Smith with all these suspensions and exclusions.

I keep thinking, why would I want to be involved with a party that treats people this way? If they will go to these lengths, I can't see them stopping at anything up to and including assassination to get rid of Corbyn and his supporters. I can't see a good outcome, whether I appeal or not - and if they manage to get their man in I won't want to be in the party anyway.

boatlady wrote:I keep thinking, why would I want to be involved with a party that treats people this way? If they will go to these lengths, I can't see them stopping at anything up to and including assassination to get rid of Corbyn and his supporters. I can't see a good outcome, whether I appeal or not - and if they manage to get their man in I won't want to be in the party anyway.

As Ivan said, don't give the scumbags that satisfaction.   They'll soon be seen off anyway!

I'm practically gibbering with rage and distress that they are getting away with it

So am I, and they haven’t nobbled me – yet. The irony of this purge is that the plotters want to get rid of Corbyn “because he doesn’t have broad appeal”. Yet thousands of people who previously supported other parties have been attracted to Labour, and then they get banned!  

This is worth a read. Frank Parker has catalogued the squalid and contemptible shenanigans of those desperate to thwart the democratic will of party members:-

Labour vote-rigging: an aide memoire

https://medium.com/@Eques4/labour-vote-rigging-an-aide-memoire-72e17c62c8bd#.r7dw6qs7c

This is one particularly pertinent paragraph:-
“I have not seen one complaint from a Smith supporter saying that their vote has been removed, although I have seen some very abusive social media interventions from same. No action has been taken against Mike Foster, who likened Corbyn supporters to Nazis, or Lord Sainsbury, who donates almost equal amounts of money to Labour and the Liberal Democrats.”

If Owen Smith wins the election, the result will have as much credibility as a referendum in North Korea. I notice that Smith has kept very quiet – isn’t he supposed to believe in fairness and oppose injustice?

Ivan wrote:I agree that the membership of the Labour Party represents only a fraction of the electorate (around 1.3%), but the larger the number of members, the more foot soldiers there are to deliver leaflets and knock on doors at election times. It also means that the party doesn’t need to rely on donors, who no doubt expect something in return (he who pays the piper). If you want to understand why so many people are motivated by Corbyn, I suggest you read Sophie Crossfield’s letter on the previous page of this thread.

I hope I’m wrong, but I’ve said before that I don’t think Corbyn will lead Labour to victory in the next election, but I don’t think Owen Smith could either. Two of last year’s defeated candidates – Andy Burnham and Yvette Cooper – would have been more credible than Smith. Corbyn’s electoral record as leader isn’t bad, with all four parliamentary by-elections held easily and mayoral elections won. Some people unfairly compare his record in council elections with that of Ed Miliband at the same stage of the electoral cycle, ignoring the fact that Labour started from a much lower base in 2011. However, the party should be doing much better if it is to win the next election. The chances of that are made more remote by the Tory gerrymandering of the constituency boundaries and the collapse of the Labour vote in Scotland, neither of which are the fault of Corbyn.

I fully understand why people within the parties membership are motivated by Corbyn Ivan, I also fully understand why people from outside the parties membership are not at all motivated by him too. to win an election Corbyn would need 3 million more votes then we got in the last General Election and based on all the facts to hand he has no chance at all of getting them. No leader of the Labour Party has ever won and General Election without winning over voters from outside the parties membership or without bring in soft Tory voters into the middle ground. The truth is that many of the MPs who are now against him come from the left and middle ground within the party. true there are right wing MPs within that group and that does not mean there views do not matter. as most of the UK electorate also hold soft right wing views too.

I would never vote for Corbyn in any election myself and see myself as on the soft left of the party nor do i care what the UK media says about him. as quite frankly I find there views quite boring as a whole. as for the view that Corbyn is 'unelectable' well you only need to ask people outside the party what they think about him to find that out. i also have no time for the so called Corbynistas and there rather sycophantic obsession with him. in fact my own friend who works with me inside a local factory within my local area with a strong union membership could only find 3 members out of a branch union membership of 300 who would vote in a General Election for him. ( his words and not mine either) yet in the last General Election we know 195 vote for us. so is it the media or is it people voting with there feet Ivan?

So this is nothing but a Gamble by the membership and what will you all say when we lose some 100 MPs? are you all going to blame the media? or are you going to say we did not get our message over to the electorate? or will be hide behind the Tory gerrymandering of the constituency boundaries? as lets face it the boundaries with still be the same after we have lost the next election come what may. so you will still need to win over these people no matter what the boundaries are. so you are quite right when you say '' who know what will happen in four years time'' but the difference between us is i do not wish to lose 100 Labour MPs to start with or Gamble we can some how hold there seats and then pick up 3 million other voters on top of the 9 million we had last time out.

I was also out on the door step last weekend. not with a big sea of new Corbynistas either. just the same old gang we always have. we was working on support the local N.H.S. and i was totally shocked to find real Labour Party core voters who have supports us over the last 20 years telling all of us that a Corbyn win would end them supporting us locally. however, we did find four Greens who would now vote Labour in truth. so out of 400 doors we end up with a 17% drop in our local support from our canvassing  returns in the last General Election. So we all had a rather depressing Sunday dinner time drink in my local. So as someone pointed out. '' they are sure getting the Corbyn message ok'' maybe all his so called supporter would like to come out with us next time and tell them they are all wrong about him or that they should not read or watch the TV anything about him. as its all right wing lies.

Still what do i know about any of this. I have only been a member since 1979 and worked full time paid by the party for over 10 years. but as you rightly said Ivan both of the two in the leadership race cannot win. so we all face 10 years of Tory rule for what?  well i have also voted for Owen Smith and others will vote for Corbyn. as i see it the Labour Party will now split down the middle if Corbyn wins. so the goal of the Trotsky left will of won after all. as let be totally truthful how many MPs do they have now? or the Greens for that matter. while we are happy to just chuck our MPs away for little more than some 1980s re-hash of old failed polices that saw us out of power for 18 long years. ''Great'' I am sure the poor will love that.

Ivan wrote:

I'm practically gibbering with rage and distress that they are getting away with it

So am I, and they haven’t nobbled me – yet. The irony of this purge is that the plotters want to get rid of Corbyn “because he doesn’t have broad appeal”. Yet thousands of people who previously supported other parties have been attracted to Labour, and then they get banned!  

This is worth a read. Frank Parker has catalogued the squalid and contemptible shenanigans of those desperate to thwart the democratic will of party members:-

Labour vote-rigging: an aide memoire

https://medium.com/@Eques4/labour-vote-rigging-an-aide-memoire-72e17c62c8bd#.r7dw6qs7c

This is one particularly pertinent paragraph:-
“I have not seen one complaint from a Smith supporter saying that their vote has been removed, although I have seen some very abusive social media interventions from same. No action has been taken against Mike Foster, who likened Corbyn supporters to Nazis, or Lord Sainsbury, who donates almost equal amounts of money to Labour and the Liberal Democrats.”

If Owen Smith wins the election, the result will have as much credibility as a referendum in North Korea. I notice that Smith has kept very quiet – isn’t he supposed to believe in fairness and oppose injustice?

lets be truthful here. we have a party membership of 450,000 now. we need some 13 million votes to win an election and with our Dear Leader Corbyn we will lose even more of our core electorate than we have already lost now. but lets see who is right. you with your 450,000 members or me with a big drop in our core Electorate? I have a strong feeling who will come out on top and i am sad to say it will not be you. but who knows i could well be wrong. if i am i will say so too. not blame anything else either. Corbyn will lose big time in my view. you i think believe not. well lets just sit back and see then?

Stox 16. You’ve copy/pasted one of my messages, but your reply seems to have no connection with it! One of our administrators has been suspended from the party for no good reason. And she’s not alone. According to Emily Thornberry, thousands of people have been stopped from voting, either by suspension of membership, refusal of membership, or refusal to be accepted as a registered voter. So far I’ve only heard of one Owen Smith supporter being banned, an adviser to Stella Creasy who tweeted that Mrs May was the best of the Tory leadership bunch. I’ve heard of dozens of Corbyn supporters being banned for the most trivial of reasons, and we even had Tom Blenkinsop MP on Twitter saying that he was collecting evidence. He then blocked dozens of Corbyn supporters, including me, who had never had any interaction with him, provoking the hashtag #BlockedByBlenkinsop. Denying people the vote is an injustice and it’s undemocratic, not behaviour I expected to see when I joined the Labour Party. There is more evidence of the unfairness here:-

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/labour-membership-appeal-leadership-election-compliance-unit_uk_57c54b46e4b094071b4c8d8e?

It was also undemocratic to force another leadership election just over nine months after Corbyn won a massive landslide. That just showed contempt for the party members, those people who choose the candidates to stand as MPs and then deliver leaflets and knock on doors on their behalf. Yes, the whole thing is a bloody mess, and I’m fairly sure that Labour has already lost the next election. We can all blame who we like for the state of affairs – Ed Miliband for proposing the rule change to one person, one vote; Jeremy Corbyn for not being a master of spin and lies; those MPs such as Cooper, Umunna, Reeves, Creasy and Flint who walked away as soon as Corbyn was elected. But voters hate divided parties and that’s the reason why Labour has plummeted in the polls since the EU referendum.

I don’t do the personality cult thing, but I can’t see what’s considered so ‘extreme’ about Corbyn’s policies. When post-war Britain had higher taxes on the rich, stronger trade unions and widespread state interference in the economy, it also experienced higher levels of economic growth – which was much more evenly distributed than today. It all just shows how far the so-called ‘centre ground’ has moved to the right since 1979. As the playwright Alan Bennett said: "Since the 1980s, one has only had to stand still to become a radical”. I utterly reject the notion that the massive growth in party membership has anything to do with Trots; I suggest you read this article by Ellie Mae O’Hagan:-

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/aug/09/jeremy-corbyn-supporters-voters-labour-leader-politics

Labour doesn’t need 12 million votes (now you’re saying 13 million) to win an election. Blair won an overall majority of 66 in 2005 with 9.5 million votes, his ‘moderate’ policies having lost the party 4 million votes in eight years. You can’t put a figure on what any party needs to win an election; under the vagaries of first-past-the-post, it all depends on how votes are spread across the whole political spectrum.

Skullduggery indeed, and probably several other descriptions which might be actionable at law if expressed in writing.

When the truth emerges - as it has a tendency to do - we may eventually be told that material support for the anti-Corbyn faction within the Labour Party has originated from some surprising sources not usually associated with Socialism.

In practical terms of course there is no reason for anyone to allow themselves to be browbeaten. Founders of the trade union movement had much worse to contend with.

We have a choice between those who believe in democracy, who can win back the millions of voters who came to believe our Party no longer represented them, and believers in Murdoch-style richman's filth, who could can never win anything ever. Murdoch and the others will tell you only they matter. If so, we might as well all die now.

Are Jeremy Corbyn's policies really so 'extreme'??


https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CrBuSuiWgAAByZ6.jpg

Actually, that's what I thought Labour stood for

Well, I contacted Labour today about my expulsion - apparently there's no right of appeal.
They will contact me in due course with details of the evidence of my wrongdoing but I can only dispute the facts - otherwise I am out of the party and can't reapply for 5 years.

I thought Labour was the party to ensure that ordinary people get a say in how the country's run - I do think this blatant power politics is just wrong.

I've never been a particularly political person - more interested in social justice to be honest. As Labour no longer seems interested in social justice but only in getting rid of its elected leader maybe I'm better out

Annual Conference 2016 will take place from Sunday 25 September to Wednesday 28 September 2016.

It should prove quite interesting this year.

http://www.labour.org.uk/pages/annual-conference-2016

Nothing to do with me

Boatlady - Whatever particular tory took responsibility for this monstrosity (one of many, many, such) will either be brought to book in far fewer than five years or the Party won't be worth belonging to anyway. I am coming to believe that the whole tory manoeuvre, with its obedient careerist puppets and its hysterical media abuse of any socialists is, with the provocation of the doctors, all part of a plot to destroy the NHS. We shall see just how dim the populace is.

Penderyn wrote:.... We shall see just how dim the populace is.

I think that was established on June 23 this year.

Dr Éoin Clarke's explanation on Twitter of why he voted for Jeremy Corbyn this time:-


https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CrXP90rWAAA-mMO.png

" Labour Plotters, through their coups, purges and courtroom shenanigans have never give success a chance" ( my italics )

Looks like grammar wasn't offered too much hope either...!

boatlady. A YouGov poll last week suggested that Corbyn will beat Smith by 62-38. If the purge of Corbyn supporters has any effect it will be to reduce his margin of victory, and then the plotters and the media will try to spin it that support for him is waning.

I’m sure we can all understand your temptation to say “stuff it” and walk away from Labour. However, that’s exactly what the malevolent right-wingers in the party hierarchy who are responsible for the purge would like all Corbyn supporters to do. Nevertheless, at the party conference in just three weeks from now, six new members of the NEC will take up their posts - and they are all Corbyn supporters. I’ll be surprised if there’s not an inquiry into the shenanigans that led to so many bans and refusals of membership, and I suspect that Iain McNicol’s position as general secretary is now untenable. This blatant attempt at election-fixing in the Labour Party must never be allowed to happen again.

If somehow or other Smith is declared the winner, after this transparent purge of Corbyn supporters, the result will have about as much credibility as a referendum in North Korea. If that did happen, we can expect legal challenges from some of those who were prevented from voting. So please don’t surrender, the cavalry is close at hand; did I hear a bugle?

At the moment I have little choice - having been excluded from the party I have been consigned to the periphery with no voice in party development and no ability to be involved in local activism.

I have accordingly cancelled my Direct Debits - why pay for an organisation I am no longer a member of?

When I receive information about whatever it is I'm supposed to have said (I'm told it should be some time this week) I gather I can't appeal - I can only challenge the decision of the NEC on the grounds that the information used to reach the decision is not factual - as I understand it, this means I can only be reinstated as a party member if it turns out I've been excluded because of someone else's tweets.

Once the new NEC is in place I'll see whether I have any more confidence in the party.
At the moment I've been tarred with the same brush as the few dozen or so who have made abusive and insulting posts or have threatened harm to party members - as a respectful and peace loving lifetime supporter of the party this does not sit well with me