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If Jeremy Corbyn Resigned, does this prove the total disconnect MP's have? (UK)
- Thread starter Tak3n
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I think it's disgraceful that a left-wing liberal who's against extra-judicial killings that quite often involve murdering innocent kids on possibly faulty intelligence is in charge of Labour.
The choice is supposed to be between the centre, maybe centre-right (Labour) and the right (Tory) with a bunch of cuddly characters like the Lib Dems around to make it interesting. Corbyn actually believing that Labour is supposed to be left-wing is revolting and I'm glad his MPs seem intent on stabbing him in the back repeatedly and moving the party back towards 'Tory-lite' where it belongs. Surely 'worse version of the Tories' is a slogan that will resonate with voters. How could they fail?
(Whole thing is a massive embarrassment, imo - guy has a clear fucking mandate, deal with it)
The million-dollar question.
Only answer I have is 'satisfy our lust for revenge' and 'make good headlines as "decisive action"'. Neither passes the test.
The choice is supposed to be between the centre, maybe centre-right (Labour) and the right (Tory) with a bunch of cuddly characters like the Lib Dems around to make it interesting. Corbyn actually believing that Labour is supposed to be left-wing is revolting and I'm glad his MPs seem intent on stabbing him in the back repeatedly and moving the party back towards 'Tory-lite' where it belongs. Surely 'worse version of the Tories' is a slogan that will resonate with voters. How could they fail?
(Whole thing is a massive embarrassment, imo - guy has a clear fucking mandate, deal with it)
The million-dollar question.
Only answer I have is 'satisfy our lust for revenge' and 'make good headlines as "decisive action"'. Neither passes the test.
Jezbollah
Member
You do realise that Britain is already bombing ISIL right?
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Deleted member 231381
Unconfirmed Member
Britain bombs ISIS in Iraq as a means of helping the government of Iraq's security forces. Which ground troops are we supporting in Syria? What effect does this have on our negotiations with the Syrian government and the opposition?
They are supporting the Kurds and the moderate Free Syria Army.
What are you on about? It's all over the news not just a shitty paper.
Nicktendo86
Member
He has sent it to supporters apparently.
calling the free syrian army moderates is at best a half-truth only in comparison with who they are fighting against. it also should be considered that they are allied with islamist groups who could become the next ISIS should the chance arise.
supporting the kurds is also a very delicate issue because of the conflict between them and turkey. by supporting the kurds we could indeed be attacking our supposed ally turkey by proxy.
Rktk
Member
I'm not seeing the secret ousting of Corbyn as a headline in many places. There is pressure on Corbyn over Syria... that's it.
Miles Quaritch
Member
Minded to side with Cameron because they realise how well the Tories have played the 'security' card of late.
Their worry is they don't back him, the Tories will be able to play on security card. God, I hate how security has been successfully turned into this annoying point scoring ball for the Tories,
It's US lite politics. We're supposed to be better than that...
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Deleted member 231381
Unconfirmed Member
Do we have any confidence that the Free Syrian Army has the means to be able to restore order to the territories we restore to it? And what does this to our ability to be able to fairly broker a peace deal between the Free Syrian Army and the Assad government?
ISIS want to be bombed. It's their most succesful recruitment tool.
Sent it in. Decided to keep it short. I don't know what we should do, but I want it to be a free vote.
Right. The world should sit back and watch them take over Syria and Iraq.
ISIS have even stated that their long term goal is take over the world with their brand of craziness. If you sit back they are coming to Europe. There are already in Libya which is a short swim away.
What good would airstrikes do? Did you think we were negotiating before and were just holding off on wiping ISIS out? It's a guerrilla movement that's split up into well dug-in cells. Dropping bombs won't cut it.
Also Cameron has put out no details of what the plan is aside from bombing targets of opportunity. What are his plans for afterwards? How will it make us safer when in many past cases it has shown to make a country a target of revenge attacks?
And the FSA has been disintegrating over the years.
The only solution in Syria is a political one. The West alone can't broker a deal it needs the involvement of all parties involved in the conflict; that means Russia, Iran, Saudi and all the Arabs. Assad is supported by the Russians and Iran. The rebel groups are supported by Saudi Arabia. But a political solution will only happen if ISIS is out of the picture.
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Deleted member 231381
Unconfirmed Member
You have this back to front. A political solution is necessary before ISIS can be out of the picture. Assad's government has about 175,000 troops. ISIS has about 70,000. If the Syrian national government was focused solely on ISIS, with the support of Western powers, this would be a relatively brief affair at best. The Syran government is not focused on ISIS because of the presence of the Free Syrian Army. Until a power-sharing deal is negotiated, this will not change. At the point that you are helping the Free Syrian Army extend their territorial control, you are altering the balance of power between them and the Assad government, and therefore altering the terms on which a negotiation can be made [and in a manner Iran and Russia will object to]. This means defeating ISIS becomes harder, not easier.
Go_Ly_Dow
Member
No, ISIS should be bombed, but first the world should make a financial commitment to the development of these warzones during and after force/occupation. Instead of simply decimating the homes and lives of countless children and then saying, "oh shit, this is a mess, let's duck out now". Thus creating another young generation of psychotic and traumatized individuals with no future.
The world should also ensure that this is a unified response so that intelligence is accurate to avoid as much civillian casualty as possible.
That's what Corbyn wants.
I suppose that's too fair and not fear mongering enough for the modern world, eh? It's so piss easy for the media to drive a whole society into a bubble of fear. CORBYN DOESN'T WANT TO BOMB RIGHT AWAY? HE'S A DANGER TO OUR NATIONAL SECURITY. SPIN SPIN SPIN SPIN.
You my friend have played right into their hands.
And how do you think their horrific ideology has been able to spread so far?
Jezbollah
Member
Their ideology spreads regardless of if they are bombed or not. They are a media propaganda machine just as much as they are a military operation.
I just hate the fact that it's possible that human beings can be turned into something so aggressive and horrible, when in another life they could have been full of brilliance and opportunity. I always wonder what I would be like if I had been brought up in the conditions members of ISIS had been, what would I be like now? It's one of the most depressing thoughts possible though.
Go_Ly_Dow
Member
If ISIS media propaganda tells you the West will come destroy your homeland, but they don't come and start massively bombing every corner of your town or city....then you are less likely to pay attention to it and write them off as being radical nutters.
If ISIS media propaganda tells you the West will come destroy your homeland and then bombs come and take away everything from you and leave nothing, then anger and hate will easily drive you to arms with nothing else left.
A commitment should first be made across the world to give these people aid, education, resources and development before we bomb their homes and then duck out and leave them with nothing.
Otherwise we are making the same mistakes. Corbyn is thinking forward and if people can't see that then it has all gone to shit.
Jezbollah
Member
I can't disagree with either of you
Go_Ly_Dow
Member
I can't disagree with either of you
it makes me sad how blinded and out of touch the masses in this country are
Yes what a great move, tell your party membership they can't have the leader they overwhelmingly want because your lawyer says so.
If they tried this it would kill Labour. Probably just bullshit from the Times though.
I wasn't characterising the argument, I was paraphrasing you.
Goldfishking
Member
As someone who has always wanted to vote labour, all their leaders have been crap (since i've been of legal voting age). First Gordon brown and his upside down frown and then ed miliband, both people who i dont want leading our country. Honestly im glad david cameron became prime minister 5 years ago, the tories have done a pretty good job of running the country for those years but now their austerity policies are going too far.
Jeremy Corbyn is the first person in a long-time who I would love to become prime minister, the idea that people in his own party want him to resign is just mind-blowing to me.
Jeremy Corbyn is the first person in a long-time who I would love to become prime minister, the idea that people in his own party want him to resign is just mind-blowing to me.
SomethingInTheSea
Member
Your giving him too much credit, he's already admitted there is no situation in which he'd bomb Syria, even if there was a perfect plan to destroy ISIS and rebuild the country. It's just as much an ideological position for him as it is to the Tories.
In Iraq, yes.
Exactly all this.
Also, let's not forget, a couple of years ago Cameron was asking us to bomb Assad....
The whole situation is a mess... End of the day us bombing / not bombing isn't going to make a bit of difference either way, but the fact that it's happening anyway isn't a valid reason to do it ourselves.
This always gets me as well. "He's unelectable"
Except that he's been an MP since 1983, winning his seat 8 times, and actually increased his majority last time out.
Oh, and he got a massive landslide victory in the leadership election.
He's anything but unelectable
this is a very big point, and a perfect example of how radically things can change in these highly volatile regions.
corbyn may be ideologically opposed to these airstrikes, but history will prove him right to vote against them when the same old western interventionism playbook of short-termism backfires yet again. left iraq in the lurch, left libya in the lurch, actively attempted to depose assad, and now he's become an essential piece in holding syria together.
the global terrorism problem is not a black and white issue, and it probably couldn't even be accurately declared as several shades of grey either. it is instead a gigantic ball of elastic bands tangled up together.
CyclopsRock
Member
None of those things required leadership, though. Being an MP - especially a rabble rousing backbencher - and a party leader are completely different. Labour would get utterly, utterly fucked in a GE, tomorrow or in four years.
Nicktendo86
Member
Sam Coates from the times has clarified, the rules are that in the event of a leadership challenge the incumbent and the challenger are the only ones on the ballot. HOWEVER, it could be open to legal challenge as the 1988 Kinnock challenge was open to anyone which sets a precedent.
Edit: yeah, twitter storms always work.
Take a look at @JeremyCorbyn4PM's Tweet: https://twitter.com/JeremyCorbyn4PM/status/670585347273842688?s=09
Edit: yeah, twitter storms always work.
Take a look at @JeremyCorbyn4PM's Tweet: https://twitter.com/JeremyCorbyn4PM/status/670585347273842688?s=09
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Deleted member 231381
Unconfirmed Member
using the precedent of the '88 election still wouldn't allow the exclusion of Corbyn, it would just allow a challenger to happen despite not meeting the nominations bar, so I'm not really sure what the Times is driving at?
Nicktendo86
Member
I think the theory is that the 38 nominations to get on ballot rule would then kick in. I don't think any if this is likely at all anyway.
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Deleted member 231381
Unconfirmed Member
I am 99.9% sure that a legal challenge on that basis would be laughed out of court.
It is just the standard practice of printing a bullshit article and only clarifying things if you are called out on it.
It looks like the narrative for the by election has already been written. If Labour do well the membership will praise Corbyn and the PLP will praise the candidate. If they do badly the membership blames the PLP and the PLP blames Corbyn.
Given how openly racist UKip's campaign has been I hope they crash and burn.
War Peaceman
You're a big guy.
These Labour MP fuckwits need to get themselves in order. Corbyn was elected with a large internal mandate. They may thing he is rubbish and may disagree with him, but it is self-defeating to undermine him so openly. Just keep quiet and if he is so terrible, give him the chance to fail.
The irritating thing is that there are genuine criticisms of his leadership to be made, but they feel hollow in light of the barrage of abuse he's received over practically anything and the hand-wringing made about electability.
Labour has to rebuild and Corbyn is good for this. He has had a positive contribution to party membership, is more engaging to disaffected voters and crucially, allows the following leader to come in and look instantly more moderate (I'm using the journalistic euphemism definition for this). But by acting like children they just make Labour look inept, which is far worse than a party which you just don't agree with ideologically.
The irritating thing is that there are genuine criticisms of his leadership to be made, but they feel hollow in light of the barrage of abuse he's received over practically anything and the hand-wringing made about electability.
Labour has to rebuild and Corbyn is good for this. He has had a positive contribution to party membership, is more engaging to disaffected voters and crucially, allows the following leader to come in and look instantly more moderate (I'm using the journalistic euphemism definition for this). But by acting like children they just make Labour look inept, which is far worse than a party which you just don't agree with ideologically.
Coriolanus
Banned
If you'd be so kind as to remind me.. how much voice did the UK get in the strategy and "political solutions" in afghanistan?
...right.
Could you please provide a citation?
phisheep
NeoGAF's Chief Barrister
I can't see anything in the rules, other than the 20% threshold of Commons members of the PLP, to prevent there being multiple challengers. If the number of Labour MPs is divisible by 5 there could be as many as 5 challengers.
What's Coates trying to clarify exactly?
Amazing how the whole 'we need to remember the people who desperately need us to be in power' argument of the 'we shouldn't vote for Corbyn' lot has completely disappeared now that they seem to be intent on splitting the Labour party into two factions. Either they genuinely believe that they can win an election while losing the entire left wing of the party or they never really cared about the people who need them that much in the first place.
It really bothers me how support for Corbyn often comes with delegitimizing the views of others.
When Corbyn does something he sticks to his principles, but when his MPs criticize his actions they are traitors, sell-outs, shills, Tories. Maybe they are just Centre-Left people with Centre-Left views that just happen to disagree with Corbyn's position on the issues? Why should they shut up and put up instead of Corbyn trying to come closer to them, when these are the views they honestly hold and were elected on the basis of? The underlying, silent assumption that no one can actually think that Centre-Left moderation is the right path for the UK but that these people are just 'pandering' to the press or UKIP/Tory supporters is plain condescending and rude.
Secondly, Corbyn is not a victim. When you're running for the office of Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, you're going to get shat on by the press, the public, your MPs and your Shadow Cabinet. It comes with the territory. David Cameron had the entire nation talk about that one time when he drunkenly put his dick inside a dead pig's mouth when he was 18, and while that is admittedly hilarious it doesn't really have any relevance to his performance as PM. It's a tough job that involves coming under public scrutiny, and I dislike the sort of whiny tone coming from Corbyn's supporters, and occasionally even himself. If Corbyn is getting an unusual level of abuse (which I don't necessarily agree with) it is because his views are much more to the Left than most of his party, so there is honest disagreement about the issues, and because he is doing a bad job of leading the party.
When Corbyn does something he sticks to his principles, but when his MPs criticize his actions they are traitors, sell-outs, shills, Tories. Maybe they are just Centre-Left people with Centre-Left views that just happen to disagree with Corbyn's position on the issues? Why should they shut up and put up instead of Corbyn trying to come closer to them, when these are the views they honestly hold and were elected on the basis of? The underlying, silent assumption that no one can actually think that Centre-Left moderation is the right path for the UK but that these people are just 'pandering' to the press or UKIP/Tory supporters is plain condescending and rude.
Secondly, Corbyn is not a victim. When you're running for the office of Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, you're going to get shat on by the press, the public, your MPs and your Shadow Cabinet. It comes with the territory. David Cameron had the entire nation talk about that one time when he drunkenly put his dick inside a dead pig's mouth when he was 18, and while that is admittedly hilarious it doesn't really have any relevance to his performance as PM. It's a tough job that involves coming under public scrutiny, and I dislike the sort of whiny tone coming from Corbyn's supporters, and occasionally even himself. If Corbyn is getting an unusual level of abuse (which I don't necessarily agree with) it is because his views are much more to the Left than most of his party, so there is honest disagreement about the issues, and because he is doing a bad job of leading the party.
The 'centre left' have been in control of the Labour party for nearly two decades, during which time, to the best of my knowledge, the full-blooded left have never thrown all the toys out of the pram and tried everything in their power to overthrow the leader and replace him with their preference (Blairites vs Brownites I guess is the closest to this, but it's not like Brown, in practice, was very much different to Blair).
Now that the left does have control of the party, the centre-left are doing just that. Every single one of their arguments (we have to have a debate with the Tory party, we have to appeal to the voters, we have to remember the people who need our help) have gone out of the window in favour of trying to overthrow a democratically elected leader to get what they want, with apparently no concern for the fact that it's destroying their party credibility and can only end with Labour being out of power for the forseeable future. Calling them Tory-lite isn't intended as an empty insult; they've demonstrated over the past two months that they really do sit closer to the Tories on a wide range of issues than they do to the actual left wing of their own party.
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