When you elect a party leader who can't even work with his own caucus? Very much so.
This is exactly why Sanders would have been a disaster for Democrats.
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UK Labour Leadership Crisis: Corbyn retained as leader by strong margin
- Thread starter Hazzuh
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This is exactly why Sanders would have been a disaster for Democrats.
This.
People here are just panicking because we need strong left representation NOW. The current Labour MP's haven't allowed him to be.
uncleniccius
Member
You make it sound as if things haven't been awful since he started.
He has been an inept leader to say the least. It doesn't matter where you sit ideologically, he has been useless. This is a good thing - if the tories win the next election that will be a disaster for the party. And he may have a mandate from party members, but party members are fringe voters and not in line with the public who will not vote for him.
Whether a smokescreen or not, these mps can see that he will never win an election and are taking action.
jamesmccloud
Member
No lies detected. This is very much the core of this clown fest. Corbyn is also objectively the right man for the job (of the candidates available; it's been quickly forgotten how uncredible Labour was before Corbyn).
Quite a victory for Tories to have this debacle land right at the moment of Tory weakness. Poor judgement from the dissenting Labour MP's.
Precisely. How can a shambling govt (which the Tories have been for years) get away with such poor second policy for so long?
Because . . . Labour. The only opposition to the Tories has come from the Tories!
The labour heartlands voted conservative last election. There are no labour heartlands anymore.
This is sad, understandable but sad.
I was excited that I finally had someone left wing I could vote into government. Sadly, the blairite right wing members of the labour party are going to take it over again.
uncleniccius
Member
Because people continually conflate popularity with party members and with the electorate at large. His "support" is still tiny in the grand scheme of things.If Corbyn has all of this support then why are they all resigning? You'd think all the cynical career politicians would be riding Corbyn's popularity to a thumping majority
Politics has in recent years diverged towards the centre to attract the maximum number of voters as appealing to the median voter is the way to take power. With Corbyn at the helm labour are a glorified protest party, and with his leadership you could say a poor one at that
Labour were at their most successful with a 'central' leader, if they want to win the next election they need a strong 'central' leader again, appealing to the liberal facebook/twitter student types has just put them in a race to the bottom with the lib dems.
They need to understand that the UK is a mostly 'middle' politics country and relying on the types of people who couldn't be bothered to go vote in the EU referendum (but are more then happy to bitch about it online) isn't the key to success.
Do you ever think even if the policies are right, he might, might just be completely the wrong guy to try deliver them or get them to resonate with the public. He's a dire politician who is a charisma vacuum.
Coriolanus
Banned
Wouldn't it be somewhat likely that corbs could secure an alliance with SNP?
And I wish them all the best, but centrist politics don't represent me and I won't support them.
Huw_Dawson
Member
Anybody who wants a left-of-centre party with competent leadership that passionately backed Remain already has a party. Let Labour be the party of the ideological left. It's what the membership wants. Winning elections doesn't matter. It's more important to be principled than run the country.
Our economy is tanking and racism is on the rise because of it.
So yes, democracy is great but it doesn't always work favourably for the people in the end. The current vote has left me a little annoyed too you could say.
What will happen is Corbyn will remain in leadership of the Labour party, however he has done nothing to gain supporters that they've lost or supporters that they need to reach out to and the infighting will continue causing more people to lose faith in the party. All the while Boris Johnson or a worst case scenario of Theresa May will be our Prime Minister and in order to support the country further austerity cuts are going to happen that will hit us even more.
Labour continues to implode and the Tory hard right will continue to run this country in the foreseeable future.
uncleniccius
Member
That would,do make absolutely no difference unless he somehow does a magic trick and manages to gain, rather than lose seats.
it's called the shadow cabinet here, though that does sound like something from Harry Potter. Hopefully he'll choose wisely next tim eand not try to make peace with the blairite portion of the party.
BossDarkseid
Member
I hope you're happy with Conservative government and a UKIP opposition in perpetuity then.
uncleniccius
Member
Or Libdems, they might bounce back if things go this way. I doubt UKIP will ever be the second biggest party.
I think they (LD) will do pretty well with remain voters, even if they won't be entirely trusted.
Sometimes people do need to make the least bad choice.
As opposed to a Conservative government and an indistinguishable opposition forever?
Besides, I'm going north.
jakonovski
Member
First ask, are the differences within the party irreconcilable. If yes, then it's for the best that the party splits. Trying to win on a platform of square circles will not work.
Honestly, I think Lib Dems could make some gains since they're going in hard on a policy of ignoring the referendum result.
In Lib Dem / Conservative marginals you should certainly feel free to vote for the Lib Dems. In many parts of the country if you support someone other than Labour you are getting either the Conservatives or at this point, UKIP.
Do you think any of the nonsense we have had to put up with in this referendum would have happened under even the most right wing Labour parliament? Do you not really not see how awful the Conservatives have been over the past 6 years? If you think the Labour party are just as bad then you should feel free to go.
whyamihere
Banned
There are not 172 Blairites Labour MPs, and to frame this as a Blairite coup of people who were against Corbyn from day 1 ignores that it's become much larger than that. It's a very convenient excuse, I guess.
I'd rather vote for what I believe and lose them settle for the lesser of two evils. That's what got us to this point.
If more people did this, we might actually get somewhere.
TheCrackInTime
Neo Member
One of the Tories' scare stories at the last election was "a Labour government, propped up by the SNP". While I have nothing against the SNP, it'd probably make Labour even less electable in England than it its now.
Which is entirely fine and democratic, if you decide to vote green/libdem whatever then that is entirely your right and I'm glad we live in a country that allows those choices freely. But they won't win.. So essentially the more left wing folk ditch labour the greater the chance of the next government being Tory as well.
It's unfortunate but just the way it is.
Bony Manifesto
Member
For a single term, but once Labour give Scotland the independence referendum they'll want for propping up Labour's government, they'll be gone. Not that it'll get that far - the Conservatives will do the same thing they did in the most recent general election and pressure Labour to commit to not forming a coalition with the SNP (but then use the prospect as political ammunition against Labour anyway).
Jimbob Smalls
Banned
This was his clear dilemma, which he clearly recognised.
There's barely 30 Blairite MP's left in the PLP and that's being generous.
I think he has problems with more than "Blairites." Unless all 172 who voted against him are Blairites, in which case he should probably make like a tree and leave.
The unfortunate reality is that the number of Labour voters utterly dwarfs the number of party members that Corbyn represents. If members are happy to be a party of protest with no chance of actually governing, then they should back Corbyn. If they actually want to get into power and have the ability to actually help people, they need to dump him. Placards are not policy.
whyamihere
Banned
Exactly.
WhateverItTakes
Banned
Labour has done a sucky job of standing behind it's leaders recently. Dave Miliband left the party rather than get behind his brother in a show of unity. The minute Corbyn got elected everyone was niggling at him for every little word. Now whoever wins this new leadership bid is gonna get abuse from their own party.
I'm in two minds about JC himself. On the one hand, I'm all for a radical shake up, on the other hand, he as a person doesn't inspire me at all. I haven't seen his passion, and I certainly haven't seen any political savvy.
Labour needs to stop the infighting and focus on whenever the next general will be. Because if they don't they're gonna stay losing.
I'm in two minds about JC himself. On the one hand, I'm all for a radical shake up, on the other hand, he as a person doesn't inspire me at all. I haven't seen his passion, and I certainly haven't seen any political savvy.
Labour needs to stop the infighting and focus on whenever the next general will be. Because if they don't they're gonna stay losing.
I thought like this when I was younger, I eventually realised how self indulgent it was. Beliefs don't help anyone, winning elections and passing good legislation does.
Huw_Dawson
Member
It's actually not ignoring the result. To implement re-entering the EU requires winning a general election, which would give the party a newer mandate than the referendum.
uncleniccius
Member
Definitely. They will be very interesting - I'm voting for them as they're going to be the only centrist (though not entirely centrist) party unless things change. The tories will near certainly slide right which is worrying.
Yeah, exactly. I'm really hoping they make gains as I quite like their politics.
I actually like Cameron and see him as a pragmatic politician constrained by a awful right of his party. My local mp is liam fox.. It literally couldn't be any worse.
The labour supporters would hate it but I would love a Blairite. At least they can win elections.
I also agree with you on the self indulgence of voting for something that'll never win by the way. It isn't pragmatic and just makes no sense really(imo)
if somehow this gets resolved and we stay in the EU, the SNP would be insane to start banging in the independence drum regardless of any coalition.
if you though the economics of the UK leaving the EU were complicated, wait until you try and untangle scotland from the rest of the UK.
that's just code for "we respect the people's decisions blah blah but it's all a load of bollocks really isn't it, let's pretend it never happened".
if you though the economics of the UK leaving the EU were complicated, wait until you try and untangle scotland from the rest of the UK.
that's just code for "we respect the people's decisions blah blah but it's all a load of bollocks really isn't it, let's pretend it never happened".
If he gets reelect then it's very possible the party would split. No one really knows really.
Coriolanus
Banned
i wouldnt be overly concerned with that since they've been running "corbs = satan" stories since he got the job.
I mean, wouldn't be ideal, obv, but i doubt that the hit would be larger than the votes the SNP can bring.
Real factor is that, if labour has any sense, they'll run with the tories having just imploded the economy. Is where their cred resided.
Stumpokapow
listen to the mad man
I think this is more a reflection of pre-existing concerns about Corbyn than the Brexit vote. I suspect if you had a confidence vote the day after he was elected leader, you'd have a similar breakdown. The challenge here is that the party membership and the party's MPs want diametrically opposite things in a leader right now. It's not clear which has the greater moral authority to lead, especially in light of the fact that Corbyn does not seem to be making much of an impact on the electorate at large (which I think is probably a factor driving some of the marginal Labour MPs to get onboard with the no-confidence motion).
One thing this highlights--and a variety of other cases in other Westminister parliaments over the last 30 years also highlight this--is that when you pick a leader who has some grassroots or public appeal, but no support within the party organization (or particularly a leader who is hostile to the party organization and sticks with his own people), things don't tend to work out. Parties work best as a well-oiled machine. Canada's Liberal Party (roughly analogous to Labour on the spectrum, including moving right in the 90s to capture the Center) went through this in the 2000s. Sometimes it takes a period of being lost in the woods to really unite the party and then be able to make a comeback in public support.
It does seem difficult for me to believe that Corbyn is, really in his heart, a Leave-r. Just on strategic terms alone: Labour cannot win anything resembling a government without Scotland, a "leave" result is the best way to lose Scotland. If the claim is that his support was lukewarm because he wanted a decent leave result to send a message, I could buy that (that would put him in the same vote as all the other turds whose strategic miscalculation led to this result), but if the claim is that he deeply personally supports Leave, I just don't see it. But again I don't think the confidence vote is actually about Brexit, I think it's just a proximate cause that the forces within the party who have been trying to get rid of him since day one are using to get rid of him.
One thing this highlights--and a variety of other cases in other Westminister parliaments over the last 30 years also highlight this--is that when you pick a leader who has some grassroots or public appeal, but no support within the party organization (or particularly a leader who is hostile to the party organization and sticks with his own people), things don't tend to work out. Parties work best as a well-oiled machine. Canada's Liberal Party (roughly analogous to Labour on the spectrum, including moving right in the 90s to capture the Center) went through this in the 2000s. Sometimes it takes a period of being lost in the woods to really unite the party and then be able to make a comeback in public support.
It does seem difficult for me to believe that Corbyn is, really in his heart, a Leave-r. Just on strategic terms alone: Labour cannot win anything resembling a government without Scotland, a "leave" result is the best way to lose Scotland. If the claim is that his support was lukewarm because he wanted a decent leave result to send a message, I could buy that (that would put him in the same vote as all the other turds whose strategic miscalculation led to this result), but if the claim is that he deeply personally supports Leave, I just don't see it. But again I don't think the confidence vote is actually about Brexit, I think it's just a proximate cause that the forces within the party who have been trying to get rid of him since day one are using to get rid of him.
You don't think that's a self-fulfilling prophecy?
His political heroes were dead set against the EU, seeing it as a neoliberal organisation which adversely affects workers, and open competition is obviously an anathema to public intervention and ownership.
No borders and international solidarity of workers only applies it seems if those workers stay where they are.
Bear in mind, Corbyn wasn't in a position where he needed to be a deep tactical thinker for almost all of his career, he's a backbencher in a ridiculously safe seat. He gets to be as ideologically pure as he wants to be
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