Labour Party (UK) Leadership Election, 2016

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

If Corbyn survives, what do we think happens, especially at the top? Do the shadow ministers who resigned come crawling back or does he keep the latter-day 'Who? Who?' ministry?

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

If Corbyn survives, what do we think happens, especially at the top? Do the shadow ministers who resigned come crawling back or does he keep the latter-day 'Who? Who?' ministry?

I would think that if Corbyn survives, a big chunk of the PLP would have to to seriously reconsider their political future inside the party. With these levels of leader unpopularity within PLP it is very hard to see how the party could stay whole.

Oh great.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

I think the best thing that could happen would be for Corbyn to step down and enthusiastically back John McDonnell. McDonnell is basically the same as Corbyn on economics with the added benefit of having never been caught on tape praising Hamas. He could keep all of Corbyn's parliamentary support, probably hold on to a large chunk of his popular support, and hopefully win over some of the soft left and Old Labour MPs who only recently abandoned Corbyn.

For once I agree with you--that'd be an elegant and relatively painless solution to this mess, at least in the immediate term.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

I think the best thing that could happen would be for Corbyn to step down and enthusiastically back John McDonnell. McDonnell is basically the same as Corbyn on economics with the added benefit of having never been caught on tape praising Hamas. He could keep all of Corbyn's parliamentary support, probably hold on to a large chunk of his popular support, and hopefully win over some of the soft left and Old Labour MPs who only recently abandoned Corbyn.

For once I agree with you--that'd be an elegant and relatively painless solution to this mess, at least in the immediate term.

Instead, someone caught on tape praising IRA. That's much worse.

Oh. I wasn't aware of that.

sh**t.

#ReadyForAngela, then.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

I think the best thing that could happen would be for Corbyn to step down and enthusiastically back John McDonnell. McDonnell is basically the same as Corbyn on economics with the added benefit of having never been caught on tape praising Hamas. He could keep all of Corbyn's parliamentary support, probably hold on to a large chunk of his popular support, and hopefully win over some of the soft left and Old Labour MPs who only recently abandoned Corbyn.

For once I agree with you--that'd be an elegant and relatively painless solution to this mess, at least in the immediate term.

Instead, someone caught on tape praising IRA. That's much worse.

Oh. I wasn't aware of that.

sh**t.

Watson?

I meant than McDonnell is worse than Corbyn, as he was caught saying, back in 2003.

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Such a leader would get bulldozed by opposition.

Yes, I knew what you meant. 'Watson?' was supposed to be a question as to whether shoving Tom Watson into the leadership might help the situation at all. Then I remembered that Angela Eagle has actually said she'll go for it and Watson hasn't.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

I'm just absolutely baffled as to what Corbyn can possibly be thinking. Does he actually think he'll win people back if he defeats Eagle (or whoever)? Does he actually think Labour could possibly win a general election under him after this?

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

I'm hearing now Owen Smith will run- 2010 intake, from the soft left. 1000% stronger than Eagle

A quick Wikipedia skim makes him look promising. Six years in Parliament isn't really enough for my liking, but it's longer than either Cameron or Miliband had before becoming leader, and four of those years have been on the frontbench.

EDIT: And he worked in radio! Bonus.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Can someone well-versed in Labour politics explain to me the difference between the Soft Right and the Soft Left? I think I understand the fault lines between the soft and hard left, and between the soft right and the Kendallesque Blair fanatics, but what's really the barrier between Labour left and right? Is it rooted in specific issues, or is it mostly cultural or identity-based?

The Hard/Soft Left distinction is rooted in the politics of the 1980s; the Soft Left were those who backed Healey against Benn (or abstained) in the Deputy election, the Hard Left were those who (duh) voted for Benn. The leading figure in the Soft Left was Neil Kinnock and he formed an alliance with the Right (which by this point was almost entirely 'workerist'; the middle class element had almost all buggered off to the SDP) in order to cement his personal control over the Party with the aim of making a Labour win in a General Election feasible again. Throughout the 1980s there was a steady drip of defections from the Hard Left to the Soft Left, but the Soft Left never really organised itself as a faction (unlike the Hard Left which was organised at Westminster in the Socialist Campaign Group and in the CLPs in the Campaign for Labour Party Democracy) and has remained more of a tendency than anything else.

And the Soft Left is where you have to start in order to understand the splits on the Right; Tony Blair and Gordon Brown were both on the Soft Left when first elected but moved rightwards in response to the political turmoil (domestic and international) of the late 80s and early 90s. The same was true of most of the other leading figures in New Labour, from Blunkett to Beckett. They came to believe that the market could be used to achieve the old socialist goals and to heal the damage to the social fabric caused by Thatcherism. Because of their background on the Soft Left they were also socially liberal and they soon came to resemble (in one of Labour's greatest historical ironies) the intellectual Right that had been driven/had driven itself out of the Party in the early 80s. Disagreements between Blair and Brown over the direction of domestic and European policy saw this group fracture into the Blairites (who are grouped around the Progress organisation these days) and the technocratic grouping around Brown. The latter has often made common cause (at least at PLP level) with elements of the Soft Left; this is the best way to understand Ed Miliband's positioning. Note that (and very unusually for Labour) these are mostly 'elite' factions; they are comprised almost entirely of people who work in politics or used to. The major part of the Labour Right these days is the same 'workerist' Right (often referred to as the 'traditional Right' or the 'Old Right') as existed back in the 1980s and as has existed since the beginning of the Cold War. We're talking people who are firmly socialist, often as keen on State planning and hostile to the market as those on the Left, and frequently active trade unionists, but who are usually pro NATO, nuclear weapons and so on, and who are primarily political pragmatists. Almost all Labour members on the Right in the CLPs are like this, at least outside London. The traditional Right has always preferred organising behind closed doors which means there isn't the same laundry list of organisations that you'll find on the Hard Left: even 'Labour First' has until recently been a vehicle to get people elected to the NEC with no other real function, although this has changed of late.

Would it be fair, at all, to say that the Soft Left was the most middle-class tendency left in the party by the end of the 1980s?

Jeremy Corbyn Supported by Labour Party Members Across UK
By Joe Nerssessian
June 29 (Press Association) -- Jeremy Corbyn has been backed to continue as Labour leader by party members across the UK including those in the constituency of his rumoured challenger.
The signs of support come as research emerged revealing that eight out of 10 members who joined the party since he was elected would back him in a leadership challenge.
The study, conducted in May by Queen Mary University of London and the University of Sussex, also found 64% of members would reaffirm their support for the embattled leader.
-----------------------------
That was May.  It might have changed since. 

Blairite propaganda can probably reduce that, but the rank and file would probably reject Blairism again.

The options are not limited to Blarities and Corbyn, thankfully.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Things you shouldn't say if you're an under fire leader:


 "Our Jewish friends are no more responsible for the actions of Israel than our Muslim friends are for the self-styled Islamic State"

What the Christ

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

They said: "Jeremy and his team don't care about the public, they don't care about opposing this Government. Angela is the best hope now and people are prepared for that fight."

What in God's name does Corbyn care about? I've been wondering that for over a week now. It can't even be power for himself because he's got to know Labour can't win an election in this condition.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

In a strange way, given the current topic of the Iraq War,  I actually back Corbyn for now.  Even as my positions are on the Far Right and opposite of Corbyn's world view in every way, on the issue of the Iraq War I always saw eye-to-eye with Corbyn and was negative on Blair-Bush on this issue from the start.  Hope he makes it, for now.

I mean, yeah, on the Iraq issue Corbyn's right (and he's arguably right on Brexit too in that 'Remain, I guess, but not really feeling it' is a much more morally and politically responsive attitude than the kind of insistent shilling for muh Europe that the rest of Labour wanted him to do), but this was a good pretext to remove him before he could do much more extensive damage to the long-term prospects and image of the British left further down the road, and I'm deeply concerned that this will entrench him enough that we'll have to wait for a truly disastrous electoral defeat to get rid of him, if even then.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Jesus Christ this is ugly.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

TL;DR: John McDonnell is beginning the purges on people who are actually on the left (not soft left) of the party

Oh dear God...

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

If I'm reading what's going on correctly the Corbynistas are presently busily turning the Labour Party into a pure left wing protest party.

That's all fine and dandy but the end result will almost certainly be an open ended period of Conservative government.

I really don't see the point of doing that in all honesty.

I've read one theory that Corbyn would be happy turning his little bit of the party into Syriza , and I wouldn't put it past him on current form

Syriza got into government

And a fat lot of good that did left-wing principles!

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

I'm starting to wonder what actually counts as left wing for the most hardcore of Corbyn's support.

My impression is that it's more about style (anger; either unapologetically working-class (Skinner) or vague 'countercultural' or aging-hippie (Corbyn) vibes; unwillingness to be, look, or feel 'polished') than anything else. I could be totally off-base, though.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Sam Kriss is pretty terrible in general. He mostly writes clickbait-y articles for Jacobin about how "Suicide Squad is a metaphor for neo-liberalism" or things like that.

There are things about this piece that I really appreciated, but other than that, yeah, he's sh**t.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

And the purpose of the Labour Party is to form Labour governments.

Careful, you'll #trigger Corbyn.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Quality trolling by parts of the PLP here...

[img]https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Cs8Y2VkXgAAAXuv.jpg[/img

Because Israel is suchan excellent and potentially damage-free choice of political football to start kicking about...

Trolling Left-Antisemites is its own reward.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Yeah, the Tories could very well be in power for a generation. Ugh.