The Labour Party

It’s not the same thing, safe Labour constituencies are voting BREXIT. Also Brexit isn’t simply a right/left issue. 80s Labour were BREXIT too, as deep down was Corbyn in all his actions leading up to the referendum.

@InvincibleDB10

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A large percentage of the working class are right wing is my point

While I am now also in the ‘COB’ (Corbyn out brigade) Labour’s problems go a lot deeper than that. If they were a well oiled political machine, they would have been able to oust Corbyn by now but they royally screwed that by being impatient themselves.

Take a look at their conference this weekend and Sadiq Khan’s comments. He has completely fucked it, and that has overshadowed their entire conference. How you can brand the exact voters that was your base, and try to get them back by calling them racist is beyond me.

In general they are an organisational and strategic mess.

A lot of work is required at all levels.

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Pessimistically, I think if Brexit were to be as total a catastrophe as it has the potential to be, people would be more likely to vote for an even more hard line right wing government, be that in the form of a new conservative leader who sweeps the current guard aside, or even in the form of a new or splinter party allied to UKIP.

Brexit has the potential to shatter the status quo, including the defacto 2 party system.

I don’t think that Corbyn loses on the Brexit issue - Stoke is case in point: Labour won in a very pro Brexit area with a pretty poor candidate, beating both the Tories and UKIP. The fact that Corbyn supports Brexit, despite the flak he gets for it, has saved Labours bacon. The loss in Copeland for me is down to a range of factors, most notably that it was a marginal, not a safe seat as the media has portrayed it.

However, granted Labour still need to be winning these marginal seats, and I fully appreciate your angst @JakeyBoy, but I still very much believe, as naïve as it might be, that Corbyn has a better chance that anyone else, if only he could better sell his core message, which is a very attractive one - everyone wants things like protection of NHS, protection of education from the new funding formula, nationalisation of energy and rail, and so on. On this stuff he can definitely get cut through, but for me it’s the failure of the media to properly report on this stuff that’s the real hindrance. And, perhaps Seamus Milne being hopelessly out of depth in his role as media man. The centre ground has shifted left on political things, but to the right on cultural things so its a really hard centre ground to capture. Corbyn can capture part of it; May another, but a Blairite captures precisely none of it. A centrist politician speaks to no one right now, and wont win Labour the kind of places it needs to win.

I personally would like to see Labour split. It would be a disaster in the short term, but long term I think it would be an advantage. I reckon it takes the Tories about 10-15 years to fully kill of the NHS and maintained schools, so I would aim to be electable by 2025, when the mood is even more radical. We just have to right off 2020 I think. Labour can’t do it no matter who it is.

I would be, in some ways, happy to see a Labour split. One thing that has been most eye opening in Corbyn’s reign is the Labour establishment’s visceral hatred for the idea of representing the ideas their members and constituents voted for. Their total opposition to fulfilling their democratic duty to follow the mandate that Corbyn has. Should they ever successfully unseat him, I would absolutely never vote for them under any circumstances.

If there were a split, there might at least be a chance for left wing politics to exist without constant internal underminement.

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I would also like to see the party split. BUT, and this is a big caveat, I would only agree with it fully if the electoral system changed (i.e one that favoured coalitions and proportional representation). Otherwise there would be no coherent left wing opposition, and no chance of ever having a left wing majority in government.

Remember, these things can seem terminal in politics (heck I’m depressed with labour at the moment and am seriously worried about the future), but they can change. Sometimes the change can also be relatively quick. We’ll know more by the 2025 election, and most likely after who is elected leader after a heavy defeat in 2020.

My left wing views (centre left) differ vastly to many in the party. One thing I don’t like about how it’s changed is the greater importance on members and not the electorate. People who have voted for the green party or not voted for Labour in elections at all, having a greater say than those who have continually supported them in elections (I admit this part is somewhat exagerrated, but the underlying point is something that frustrates me).

Proportional representation would be a disaster for this country, and the left at the moment. UKIP would be the only ones who really stood to benefit, and in the current climate we’d be well on our way to Trump-esque authoritarian, hard line right wing state.

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A Labour split just means it’s impossible for anything other than a Tory government.

Most people won’t know which flavour of Labour to vote for and they’ll just dilute each other and hand seats to the Tories.

You’d need a LeftLab, CentreLab, SNP, Liberal coalition to win, and the Tories would always be ahead in terms of seats so they’d always get first refusal on forming a coalition/minority government.

It could only work if we went proportional, which we won’t.

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I disagree with this analysis. A coalition with the SNP would be a disaster for courting votes in England, and what’s the value of the Libs or Greens? Labour has as much chance of beating them for seats as giving them a free run. It would also cement the opposition as hard remain, and that’s utterly futile. In fact, it would strengthen the hand of the hard-line Brexiteers. Not to mention that the solution based policies on offer from Corbyn would be replaced by more of the same, which means changing nothing even if by a miracle it got into power. I’m totally against the notion of a centrist coalition. It’s a total waste of time. Best to build a movement with a clear vision and a strong narrative and win people over to it. That takes time. And in my view a split. There wouldn’t be two competing Labour voices, as only one would retain the name, the other - the centrists - would presumably form something new, or merge with other parties. The key in the event of a split is to make sure Corbyn stays in power and thereby retains the brand name.

You’d need a coalition to form a government and who else would Corbyns Labour join with? Unless you’re talking about waiting 40 years for a more leftist Labour party gain credibility then destroy the SNP and UKIP and reclaim its place as the 2nd party in a 2 party system but I can only see an openly left wing party taking power after a catastrophe like a huge recession or war. But in the meantime it wouldn’t be a left wing opposition, it would be a left wing voice in among Liberal and UKIP voices and we’d be a one party country for a long time.

And we’re dealing with “career politicians” that are deemed by many as unprincipled so starting something new would be picking a losing team and unless they defect to the Tories then they’ll be better off being a silent Labour MP than an unemployed member of another party. We’ve seen no defections as far as I know, only people giving up and resigning but in your own words Blairite candidates are being offered up for by-elections anyway so there’s no great change.

I think the idea is that Corbyn will go in 2020 so those MPs will just bide their time until they get their party back then things will go back to how they were. Most people IMO still perceive Labour’s failings as “Milliband was rubbish” and “Corbyn is rubbish”.

This is a really interesting short blog on Copeland and the predicament Labour is in:

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The way I see it Dr is the voters don’t want Corbyn, the press don’t want corbyn, the Labour Party don’t want corbyn, the only people who want corbyn are the Torys and a few left wing power to the people freaks.
I was brought up on left wing politics and took me a long long time to realise that left wing does’t work. Their spiel all sounds great when they are stood on their soap box spouting off. But in real life it won’t/doesn’t /can’t work. The people who matter will never accept a left winger.
Corbyn scares the voters.

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You are right.

I don’t understand why Labour can’t see he is losing them votes.

The people who supports Corbyn are never going to vote Tory, so they don’t need to have a left wing leader, and loating voters or dissatisfied Tory or Liberal voters, aren’t going to touch him with a barge pole.

This is what happened in the eighties.
The Labour party lurched to the left, when Thatcher was in power, and she cruised to successive election victories because of it.

It was then New Labour came along and Blair became Prime Minister.
He might have turned into a megalomaniac, but he, and the party, became electable, something which Corbyn will never be.

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I remember the Michael foot era and there is a lot of similarities between corbyn and foot. Both are unelectable with zero appeal to anyone.
If corbyn cared about his vulnerable people he should walk away before he destroys this countries only alternative to those greedy, nasty, uncaring, vicious Tory scrum bags.

Corbyn might be unelectable, but as I have said above, my view is that all potential Labour leaders are unelectable right now, and in all honesty, looking at the alternate names floating about, probably more unelectable. And look, even if you’re correct, what’s the point of electing someone who is close to identical to the opposition. Why not just give up on democracy right now, and just crown Theresa May a monarch. And what you say about the Labour Party not wanting Corbyn is obviously bollocks, he was elected twice, and wiped the floor with his opponents, despite an attempt at rigging the vote. Worth noting too that Labour were ahead in the polls before the coup. It’s perfectly fine to say how hard it will be for Corbyn to win a general election, but everything else you say is utter bollocks really.
@lengooner

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When I say the Labour Party I mean the elected members, MP’S Dr. Corbyn is an isolated lonely man.
I respect a democratic decision, but the system that allows a few thousand to influence the lives of millions must be wrong.
A bunch of clowns giggling in a corner because thry’ve helped get a no hoper elected to leader does’t work for me.
As for leader of l/party i’d go Chucka any day.
Corbyn is probably the worst choice EVER.

I don’t know if you missed it, but he had a chance and he strangely dropped out of the running just four days after announcing his bid for leadership.

Didn’t miss it jakey. Chuka is just waiting his time i think. There were a few who could see that the left wing, happy to be outside pissing in brigade had the upper hand . I think he’ll keep his powder dry until a bettrr time.
How do I stop this bloody computer writing what it wants ffs? Lol.

I don’t think that after 4 days many people knew that Corbyn and the loony left had the upper hand and we’re going to win, I’m pretty sure that at that stage Corbyn was very much still the outsider just nominated to widen the debate rather than as a serious candidate to win.

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