Why Corbyn must go

[nwhyte]

I'm not deeply invested in the fortunes of Britain's Labour Party. (I accidentally rejoined the Lib Dems last year, but haven't paid any subscription this year so possibly am no longer a member.) But I am very interested in questions of political leadership, and in the quality of democracy in a political system

Comments

[smhwpf]

This sadly seems convincing. But at the same time I do not see Owen Smith, or Angela Eagle until a few days ago, as a viable alternative. They support austerity, and seem to basically accept the premise of pre-Corbyn Labour that winning requires moving to the center and adopting a slightly softer version of Tory policies on things like immigration and benefits

[stresskitten]

I joined Labour immediately after Corbyn won the leadership, because I wanted to support him. Now I am deeply concerned for exactly the reasons detailed in this post.

I am increasingly impressed with Owen Smith. He does not support austerity and it is shocking to me how many people are uncritically repeating this completely false factoid. Especially when it is often the same people who (rightly) cite the LSE study showing how many lies have been repeated about Corbyn. I did not know anything about Owen Smith a week ago but I have looked for myself at what he has said and how he has voted. He is not a Blairite, does not support austerity, and does not want to privatise the NHS -- on the contrary he is proposing massive public investment and insisting on a publicly owned NHS that stays free at the point of service. He's proposing to renationalise the railways for heaven's sake. I am sure he has flaws, but I am really fed up with people blindly repeating these complete lies.

[smhwpf]

OK, I just watched the video where he said "austerity is right", but it may have been a slip of the tongue, as he later agreed with Angela Eagle "we agree on anti-austerity". Or it may have been an attempt to appeal in both directions? I don't know. I've seen plenty of other stuff that gives reason to distrust Smith's politics, including a personal report from a disabled person who attended a meeting and challenged him on why Labour weren't opposing the iniquitous Work Capability Assessments, and he replied that it was because it would make them look "weak on benefits".

But maybe he's not as bad as I'd imagined.

[stresskitten]

I have read that personal report too, and I have some friends in Plaid Cymru who really dislike him. It sounds like he can be sort of a pissy jerk at times. But I guess it's possible to be a good politician and also an occasional pissy jerk. If you look at the transcripts of him speaking in the House of Commons as a shadow minister, he did really go to the mat to attack the cuts to PIP and other disability benefits. Regarding the video I think it's pretty clear it was a slip of the tongue as he has said the complete opposite in no uncertain terms on the record a number of times since then.

ETA: I am unhappy about his support for Trident and about the bit where he said on C4 that we might need a "progressive case for restricting immigration". He hasn't said anything about immigration since then that I am aware of, probably avoiding the topic for tactical reasons I suspect.

[steepholm]

there is crucially no mention of Corbyn commiserating with her on her illness.

From which you conclude that it didn't happen - even though the piece is specifically devoted to detailing his faults and shortcomings and justifying her resignation from his front-bench? I find that extraordinary.

[nwhyte]

It;'s crystal clear that he did not communicate with her at all for six weeks after the botched appointment in January, and indeed had not communicated with her beforehand either.

[steepholm]

On the contrary, there's nothing at all in the link that suggests he hadn't communicated with her when it became known that she had contracted cancer (which happened very shortly after her election, on which occasion Corbyn came to Bristol to congratulate her). If you can't see how implausible it is that he would not contact a new MP in that situation I can't help you, but even in this hostile article there's nothing to suggest it (and if it were true I think we can take it that there would have been).

As a constituent of Debbonaire's and a member of her CLP, I might add that the idea that people "piled onto her" for missing votes while undergoing cancer treatment is one I find very hard to swallow. If people were aware of her illness of course they wouldn't do that. You can never legislate for the odd bastard at any point on the political spectrum, but a cancer-patient dogpile, from a CLP half of which works in the NHS? I don't buy it.

A few weeks before the election last year I found myself sitting next to her at a hairdresser's,

[nwhyte]

Further detail.

[anonymous]

What utter hogwash. We've seen what heel-snapping leaders do & look where it's got us. Time for a change. It's not apathy, it's not rising to the bait.

[lovingboth]

A month after the Tories last showed they cannot be trusted to do anything right if it's vaguely connected with Europe - 'Black Wednesday' in 1992 - they'd gone from 3% ahead in the polls to 22% behind. They never recovered from that and it was twenty three more years before they won a majority in a General Election.

The latest YouGov poll has them 11% ahead of Labour. Despite Brexit being the worst completely unnecessary Tory wound on the UK since Suez, voters are going 'actually, I prefer that lot' in large enough numbers to increase their majority.

How bad an opposition do you have to be for that to happen? We now know the answer.

It's particularly significant because YouGov are the only pollster to have ever shown any Labour lead since the 2015 election. (Three times, max 3%, so within the margin of error

[steepholm]

The Conservative government has a wafer-thin majority and has just had one of the most bizarre and bruising leadership contests in living memory. A competent opposition leader would be snapping at their heels and making their lives utterly miserable.

This is precisely why I can't forgive the self-indulgence of those members of the shadow cabinet and PLP who deliberately chose this moment to make that impossible. Even if you don't think much of Corbyn, this was the very worst time to make such a move, and showed with crystal clarity that they see ejecting the left from power in the Labour party as more important than representing the interests of their constituents in parliament.

[lovingboth]

Yes, the bad - worse than Ed Miliband's, and way behind where an opposition that was going to win the next GE should be - local election results should have been one trigger.

But there is the tiny matter of the Labour Rule Book saying that 'no vacancy' leadership elections "shall take place so that the results are declared at an annual session of party conference", i.e. in September.

Doing all this in April would have meant a five month campaign, going through the referendum campaign.

Every she appears, Diane Abbott reminds us that anyone wanting a Campaign group leader should have gone for her rather than Corbyn.