Jeremy Corbyn - Not Not Labour Party(?), not a Communist (BBC)

Cheesy said:
:lol:

Presumably they're worried about the drubbing he'd receive being too comprehensive and convincing, then? Better to brood in the shadows and plan for the next backstabbing instead of suffering something like an 80-20 defeat.

This further reinforces the idea for me that anyone who thinks replacing Corbyn with someone like Smith will result in any greater competency is in for a big shock. The planning and execution of this coup has gone beyond embarrassing.
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I don't know if you can embed Facebook posts but has anyone seen the really stupid Owen Smith 'pointing with his thumb' thing thats being shared at the minute?

This is the text that accompanies the picture:

This weird hand gesture is called the "thumb of power" and is something that is taught to professional politicians by their image consultants, who have the theory that politicians should never point with their index finger because it supposedly makes them look aggressive, so they train them to make this peculiar gesture instead.

It's an intensely unnatural piece of body language and one that (rightly) provokes a visceral sense of distrust and revulsion in ordinary people who never use it.

It's basically a visual marker that the person speaking is a professional bullshitter who has been trained how to lie to the public.

The fact that Owen Smith kept using it in the first Labour leadership debate against Jeremy Corbyn is proof that his "ordinary guy" posturing is just an act. "Ordinary guys" don't have image consultants to tell them to make ridiculously contrived hand gestures instead of pointing like ordinary people do.
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I'm pretty sure I've whinged about this before, but - as annoying as the gesture definitely is - man do Corbyn's supports need to cut it out with this shit.
 
Wasn't really expecting JC to be quoted directly in the MSM, let alone the Torygraph. Now look...

 
Called that at the time. Inevitable really, the NEC didn't have a leg to stand on.
 
:lol:

Is there a decent chance Smith will now just back out? He was already expected to be comfortably defeated. Another 100k + presumably with many of them being on the side of Corbyn could potentially turn it into a bit of an embarrassment.
 
With the NEC confirming that they will appeal I don't know whether new members will be allowed to vote after all if the appeal hasn't been heard by the time of the leadership election - unless they've paid the extra £25.
 
Cheesy said:
:lol:

Is there a decent chance Smith will now just back out? He was already expected to be comfortably defeated. Another 100k + presumably with many of them being on the side of Corbyn could potentially turn it into a bit of an embarrassment.
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You'd assume they'd more or less all vote for him as it was the plp trying to prevent them from voting.
Stupid decision
 
At this point am I the only one who thinks that the best course of action is for the Labour party to disband?
 
NinjaFletch said:
I'm pretty sure I've whinged about this before, but - as annoying as the gesture definitely is - man do Corbyn's supports need to cut it out with this shit.
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There's nutters everywhere:

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DenisIrwin said:
With the NEC confirming that they will appeal I don't know whether new members will be allowed to vote after all if the appeal hasn't been heard by the time of the leadership election - unless they've paid the extra £25.
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Appeal expected to be heard on Thursday.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-37009871

Labour is challenging a High Court ruling giving recent members a vote in its leadership contest, with the appeal hearing expected on Thursday.
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DenisIrwin said:
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By a bloke called Sam Glover.

On his website, you can read his recent post titled "The two main parties are terminally ill – let us hope for their quick and painless death".

http://sam-glover.com/

As much as I find it entirely believable that Smith's event was less than a roaring success, I'm not sure Mr Glover's account should be taken overly seriously.
 
Leader of expelled leftwing group Militant expects readmission to Labour

Peter Taaffe, the veteran leader of Militant – the hard-left group pushed out of Labour in the 1980s and now renamed the Socialist party – expects to be readmitted to Labour if Jeremy Corbyn wins September’s leadership election.

Taaffe, who was a founding editor of the Militant newspaper and has remained active throughout the movement’s existence, said he had sounded out Corbyn indirectly, including through Mark Serwotka, the leader of the PCS union, about the possibility of reversing Neil Kinnock’s ban on Militant.

He said he had met Corbyn on a number of occasions over the years, and believed the leader would continue to open up Labour “to all strands of socialist and working-class opinion” and reject control by a “top-down, centralised elite”. He added: “The lava of this revolution is still hot.”

The Socialist party’s website reports that members have attended a number of rallies and meetings of Momentum, the grassroots movement set up to back Corbyn. Taaffe said his colleagues had received a warm welcome from some in Labour. “People say: you were a long time gone, welcome back.”

He said: “I know Jeremy, he’s a good bloke. He’s principled. He’s on the left.”

The Socialist party published an editorial on Tuesday which argued for a Labour split, even if it meant Labour was left with just 20 MPs. “The civil war, now it is out in the open, cannot be simply called off,” the editorial said.

“The worst response to Jeremy’s re-election would be to attempt to make peace with the Blairites. Many Labour supporters will fear that a split would weaken the Labour party. In fact the opposite would be the case.

“True a Blairite split away would, at least initially, dramatically decrease the number of Labour MPs in Westminster. But a group of 40, or even 20 or 30, MPs who consistently campaigned against austerity and defended workers in struggle would do far more to strengthen the fightback against the Tories than 232 ‘Labour’ MPs, a majority who vote for austerity, privatisation and war.”

Taaffe has remained politically active throughout the decades since being expelled.

He hit back against the deputy leader Tom Watson’s claims that “Trotskyist entryists” were infiltrating Labour, saying: “I’m not sure whether Tom Watson was active in the Labour party when we were. He’s referring to entryists, but we were not entryists, we were born in the Labour party, and we were expelled because we fought Thatcher in Liverpool and defeated her.”

Instead, he said MPs who backed Tony Blair – who won three successive general elections for Labour – were “Tory entryists into the Labour party”.

Neil Kinnock’s purging of Militant, which culminated in a strongly worded conference speech in 1985 in which he berated the Militant leader of Liverpool council, Derek Hatton, is regarded by many in Labour as a key moment in restoring the party’s electability, though it was another 12 years before it won a general election.

But Taaffe and his Socialist party colleagues still believe they should never have been thrown out. “We were the ones who mobilised people against the poll tax and brought down the Thatcher government,” Taaffe said. Of Kinnock and his colleagues, he said: “They thought by an administrative measure they could erase social forces from history.”

Militant was criticised for operating as a “party within a party”, but Taaffe said: “What’s the difference between us being affiliated to the Labour party, in an open and democratic way, and the Co-op party being affiliated?”

He said he saw Corbyn’s leadership, and the rapid increase in the size of the Labour party, as part of a global phenomenon that could not be halted by opposition among Labour MPs. “Nothing they can do will stop the winds of history as they’re developing at the moment.”

On Tuesday Corbyn’s campaign team condemned Watson for “peddling conspiracy theories” after he warned of “old hands twisting young arms” to shore up support for Corbyn.

Taaffe rejected the idea that Socialist party members were only interested in promulgating political revolution rather than winning parliamentary representation.

He pointed out that Militant had stood candidates in a number of elections, and its successor organisations had continued to do so, adding that the route to progress for the working classes was “not exclusively on the streets, or the industrial struggle – the parliamentary struggle is crucial”.

Taaffe’s intervention will alarm many in Labour who fear that veterans of struggles to deselect sitting MPs regarded as on the right of the party in the 1980s have been emboldened by Corbyn’s decision to shift Labour decisively to the left.

Corbyn’s allies have said they want to “circle the wagons” if, as expected, he wins re-election, and tempt back some of the Labour MPs who resigned from his shadow cabinet.

But Taaffe said he should resist the temptation to compromise on his commitment to anti-austerity policies. “The big mistake for Jeremy Corbyn would be to seek peace with these people,” he said.

“Jeremy Corbyn has said austerity is a political choice, not a necessity. That’s the Ark of the Covenant of the movement at the present time.”
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http://www.theguardian.com/politics...litant-peter-taaffe-readmission-labour-corbyn
 
Former Labour minister Peter Kilfoyle earned the nickname “Witchfinder General” in the 1980s, as the party’s enforcer in the battle against Militant. Critics of Momentum often compare it to Militant. So Kilfoyle, who wrote a book about his experiences in the struggle against Militant, seems a good person to ask whether such a comparison is fair.

The idea for interviewing Kilfoyle came from a Guardian reader in response to this Labour & Liverpool project. The reader emailed to point to a blog Kilfoyle had written about next year’s election for metro mayor, a new position comparable to the London mayor and which brings together Liverpool, Halton, Knowsley, St Helens, Sefton and Wirral.

The reader seemed puzzled that Kilfoyle, given his background – he was one of the original team of four that Tony Blair asked to help organise his campaign for leadership in 1994 – appeared to be opposed to the “establishment” candidate, Joe Anderson, the present mayor of Liverpool. Did this mean Kilfoyle was supporting instead Steve Rotheram, Jeremy Corbyn’s parliamentary private secretary (PPS)? I replied that I would ask him.

The ballot for the Labour nominee – MP Luciana Berger completes the trio – closes on Friday 5 August and the result is expected to be announced on Wednesday 10 August.

Kilfoyle, aged 70, was one of a family of 14, worked in Liverpool docks, became a teacher, and in 1986 was appointed Labour regional organiser for the north-west and then in 1991 elected MP for Liverpool Walton until 2010.

I met Kilfoyle this week in the lounge of the Hard Days Night hotel in central Liverpool. Below is a complete transcript of the interview; you can listen to audio here.

Ewen MacAskill: You had a reputation as sort of Witchfinder General, the sort of scourge of Militant, the person that stood up, took them on, so you are well-placed to make the comparison with, when you see Momentum now, is there any comparison with Militant or is it completely different beast?

Peter Kilfoyle: “I don’t see any real comparison with Militant which was a tightly organised, highly motivated group with a particular ideological stance, quite clear and with a strategy which had been well thought out and which was inimical to the interests of the Labour party. I have never seen anything remotely to suggest that this Momentum is anything like that.

“I see it more as a reaction to Progress, representing the rightward elements of the Labour party, and Momentum taking up the cause of the left. It is as simple as that. I really do not see a comparison between the 1980s and today in that regard.”

Have you come across many people from Momentum? What are they like?
“Not personally, no. I have met a lot people who you would identify maybe as Momentum material. I don’t know whether they are in Momentum or not. And they are not all just young people. But a lot of people who are idealistic, who find what they consider the middle ground as being a repugnant position for Labour to take. They want more socialism as opposed to watered-down Toryism. That is the way they would describe it. That is the way they see it. And the people themselves are a rather attractive grouping of people. But the other thing I would say about them: an awful lot of it is a reaction to years and years of – these people seem to be reacting – to years and years of frustration with what they see as a Labour party and a Labour leadership which does not reflect their priorities. Simple.”

What do you make of Corbyn?
“Well, I knew Jeremy, obviously, for the years I was in parliament. He seems an amiable kind of a bloke. I would never have described him as a leader. I never voted for him. I would not have nominated him. But the fact is he seems to be sort of riding this wave in which he encapsulates everything that a lot of people in the party aspire to and on another level he rejects those things that they reject. I have had this conversation with people, including people in the party leadership, and I have made the point very simply. He did not draw up the rules. He stood. He was elected. You accept that. He is the leader. In the same way I didn’t nominate [Gordon] Brown. I thought Brown was a very destructive force in the Labour party. But once he became leader, I accepted him as a leader. That’s called party discipline. Unfortunately, too many people feel that they can’t do that in the case of Corbyn.”

You were talking about Gordon Brown and how you can trace back some of Labour’s problems to 1994 [when Brown failed to contest the leadership with Tony Blair]?
“No doubt, Gordon Brown from 1994 onwards – once Blair had won the leadership of the Labour party – he [Brown] was determined that he was going to have his day in the sun. I am not knocking him for his ambition. That’s him. But what he set out to do in my view was to destroy any potential challenger to be the successor of Blair and, in doing so, he took out a whole, if you like, generation of potential Labour leaders. So what you end up with today is a huge gap when you are looking around. Where are the potential leaders that might have led the party onwards and upwards? They are not there because I am afraid those conditions were laid down by Brown effectively.”

The competition between Corbyn and Owen Smith. Who do you think is going to emerge the winner from that?
“I think it will be Corbyn. And I think in part it won’t only be people who voted for him before but a lot of people who were enraged by what they see as a coordinated plot to undermine him and some of it has been downright silly, let’s be honest. It’s been what I consider student politics, amateurish, and it reflects what we said before about lack of real leadership, real authority and real, real deep thinking about the future of the Labour party. So I am quite sure that he will emerge as the successful winner in this contest with Smith. I don’t know Smith. I know nothing about him. But again, reflecting the fact that these are the new kids on the block maybe and maybe they are a little bit wet behind the ears.”
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https://www.theguardian.com/members...foyle-liverpool-labour-momentum-jeremy-corbyn
 
Read and listened to the interview with Kilfoyle, which was very interesting. The whole interview is well worth reading.

I also don't see the 'threat' Watson clumsily explained and Kilfoyle's position as contradictory. I have been to local party meetings where I have seen Militant supporters and members. They are also massively outnumbered by Corbyn supporters. However, I don't think that things like the NEC elections, talk of deselection, 'purges' and the rest can be seen apart from who Corbyn supported in the 1980's, and the institutional memory in many parts of the party about the fight with the Bennite wing in the early 80's.

I genuinely think the documentary I posted is useful viewing, because after watching that I can understand why so many grandees think history is repeating itself.
 
Doesn't Owen look tired...

The poor bastard went from wanting to speak at Corbyn's rallies yesterday to saying rallies aren't important today. He also 'doesn't want to be a protest movement' yet says he'll go back to the backbenches and refuse to serve if/when Corbyn beats him. Voting against Labour is a bad thing, yet he proudly claims (this week anyway) that he would have voted against the Iraq War.

This election was brought about by a group of people claiming a new leader was needed because Corbyn can't get his message across to the electorate. This guy can't manage to get his message from his brain to his vocal cords.
 
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Dobba said:
Doesn't Owen look tired...

The poor bastard went from wanting to speak at Corbyn's rallies yesterday to saying rallies aren't important today. He also 'doesn't want to be a protest movement' yet says he'll go back to the backbenches and refuse to serve if/when Corbyn beats him. Voting against Labour is a bad thing, yet he proudly claims (this week anyway) that he would have voted against the Iraq War.

This election was brought about by a group of people claiming a new leader was needed because Corbyn can't get his message across to the electorate. This guy can't manage to get his message from his brain to his vocal cords.
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These hustings are incredibly pointless.

His main argument seems to be about how Corbyn has dealt with the media(and he's got a point) but that's gone down the shitter, as within the first week of his campaign he was on tv apologising for his own gaff - ''Smashing Theresa May on her heels''. Hopefully Owen realises soon that simply thinking Corbyn is a bit rubbish is not a good enough reason to have a leadership challenge. He's the human embodiment of The Guardian or Che Guevara t shirt brought from Topman.

Actually ''Topman Socialism'' you can have that one Owen.
 
I went along today because it's on my way home (no ticket to get in but wanted to see what was going on). I'd say about 100 people or so waiting outside for Jeremy, good atmosphere but a bit odd because it was clearly divided by who had tickets to get in and who didn't. Dwindled a bit before either arrived as folks with tickets just went in.

Smith snuck in the back door, didn't see him. When Jeremy arrived, he turned and went the wrong way walking away from the door instead of into the building and I basically ended up face to face with him :D Then his handlers spun him 180 to go the right way.
 
Sweet Square said:
These hustings are incredibly pointless.

His main argument seems to be about how Corbyn has dealt with the media(and he's got a point) but that's gone down the shitter, as within the first week of his campaign he was on tv apologising for his own gaff - ''Smashing Theresa May on her heels''. Hopefully Owen realises soon that simply thinking Corbyn is a bit rubbish is not a good enough reason to have a leadership challenge. He's the human embodiment of The Guardian or Che Guevara t shirt brought from Topman.

Actually ''Topman Socialism'' you can have that one Owen.
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Top(man) Red.
 
These basically are changing no-ones minds then. Smith I thought was more impressive than Corbyn, who is still talking in soundbites and platitudes. I want feasible policies. The economic council was a massive open goal that was missed.
 
On Monday, Owen Smith said he welcomed the ruling that gave new members the right to vote. Today he has welcomed the decision to exclude them from the democratic process.
 
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