The truism is that you can only do what the electorate will let you - but this glosses over the fact that it is possible to win arguments with the electorate. At it’s worst, capturing the centre ground means chasing the headlines and narrowing the scope of politics. But people who can genuinely persuade can shift the centre. Look at mid/late 90s Tony Blair - he could start a speech telling Middle England that he believed in personal responsibility, the dignity of work and that welfare should never be too comfortable, and finish by explaining that this is why he’d be spending their tax money on free childcare for single mothers. And they voted for him.
What I’d like to see in Labour is a leader who cares as passionately as Corbyn claims to about the poor, but has both a) concrete policy ideas that will actually help and b) the authority, empathy, and persuasion to get people to buy in. Corbyn isn’t that guy, but it’s fair to say that neither are Burnham, Cooper or Kendall.
I think this whole episode demonstrates that the parliamentary system just doesn’t function with rival democratic legitimacies. The US constitution thrives on it - Senate vs House vs President vs States, and the rest. But parliamentary systems really struggle with anything beyond collegiate democracy.
A directly elected Leader of a party in the teeth of the views of his MP/peer colleagues was always going to be a mistake. The Leader (and the Prime Minister) is meant to be primus inter pares - first among equals - and use the legitimacy and authority they get through uniting and leading their party to demonstrate their right to govern. But the moment you have two clashing legitimacies, both valid equally to the two sides (albeit both understating the value of the legitimacy of their opponents - in this case the mandate of elected MPs versus the mandate of the directly elected party leader - it’s always going to be a mess.
The sooner Labour can go back to keeping the election of the Leader to the PLP, the better.
Yeah, I think you’re right. But the challenge then is how to present that as not just stripping power from the members. “You get to select the people who might get to be MPs, who will then select the leader” is a big come down from direct democracy." And it might lead to a strengthened interest in MP selection and deselection, such as we’re already seeing. Which promotes a lack of stability and leaves the same problem of asking who the MPs owe their first allegiance to.
This is a very good point. We’ve seen it play out in the Province of Alberta here in Canada. Two of the last three Progressive Conservative Premiers of Alberta were elected by general votes of the party membership. Neither one had very much support in the parliamentary caucus. (I think one of them only had one MLA supporting her leadership campaign.)
Naturally, when the normal stresses of governing started to apply, their lack of support in the parliamentary caucus meant they got pushed out of the leadership, even though both of them won general elections for the party. (The second one actually pulled a majority government out of what looked like sure defeat in the last few days of the campaign.)
I am also reminded of Israel’s experiment with actual directly-elected Prime Ministers in the mid-90s. It resulted in someone becoming Prime Minister with a huge personal popular mandate…but with a hostile Parliament and the PM forced to form a Cabinet with his deepest political adversaries. Abandoned after six years, I think.
Oldham byelection will likely show a Labour win with a sharply reduced majority.
I’m old enough to remember reading about (and finally subsequently seeing) the Geoffrey Howe resignation speech which set in motion the process which led to the Thatcher leadership challenge and subsequent resignation. Is Hilary Benn’s speech in the same category? Corbyn has got to go , so why not sooner rather than later?
Different category of thing, really. Howe’s resignation speech was a full set of daggers in the front, delivered by a very senior member of Government, against a three-term sitting PM. Benn’s was more a marking of territory I think.
Corbyn has only just been elected. The MPs can’t ditch him for a while yet. What they can do is ignore him and get him to resign.
Hilary Benn is 62 and thus possibly on the old side for the leadership - remember that there are sill four and a half years to go before the next election. And, as Corbyn is finding out, it takes more than a good speech to be a good leader.
The Labour candidate got more than 62% of the vote, which is a fair increase proportionally on the GE result. Turnout was down a bit as usual for a by-election.
Yes, a really strong result in Oldham, much stronger than predicted.
I came into this thread saying that if he couldn’t win big in Oldham he was a pure liability. Clearly he’s not. Which is good, because I differ from CRSP on the need for a viable national opposition party.
This was a victory for grassroots campaigning - a 40% turnout in a non-marginal by-election is pretty astonishing. Corbyn can claim I think some credit for that - he has brought new, energised members to the party - but I have no idea how strong the local organisation was initially.
(Also, I see Farage is disgracing himself by suggesting that some votes are more disreputable than others, but plus ca change.)
I think the result in Oldham highlights a London media focus on the perception that the white working class in England becoming more and more xenophobic. I have no idea whether working class white folk in places like Oldham are becoming more xenophobic but the media seems to think it is a fait accompli that Labour is being wiped out by UKIP in constituencies like this.
His main gripe appears to be that a population that they have specifically vilified have voted en bloc for someone not wearing a UKIP rosette. Personally, I don’t find this surprising - but, hey, it keeps him in the news whilst he prepares for the EU Referendum (another one where, if he loses, I expect him to complain about rigging, rather than conceding that people don’t buy his argument).
I suspect we’re at cross purposes, but you’d need to be less vague for me to be sure.
We’re definitely at cross purposes - I’ve not suggested that the party should fall in line with [insert your favourite communist slur here]. Buf if the Labour party do want to be electable, its MPs need to stop imagining that their views are more valuable than those of the vast majority of Labour members. The MPs are only interested in whether they are re-electable.
I’m assuming this is addressed to me, since it followed a quote of mine. But I’m not a Corbynista (Green Party member & candidate, as it happens), I didn’t ‘demand’ anything, let alone that Labour MPs obey a non-existent whip (my use of the words ‘free vote’ didn’t help your comprehension there? I was suggesting that those who are so determined to rebel against their democratically elected leader might show more honour by resigning from the party). And yes, if you insist, I’ll remind you that Corbyn has always stood by his principles - I’ll even acknowledge that some people find that sort of integrity ‘unelectable’ and ‘an absolute disaster’. Nevertheless, no argument you can bring would convince me to vote for a candidate with no principles and no integrity. But that’s democracy for you - you can vote for that sort of candidate, if you like.
They are absolutely entitled to represent their constituents. They are not entitled to try to bring down a leader who won a massive majority in a democratic election - and the only reason I can see for so doing is to protect their own re-election.
When talking of the election (by an electorate) of Corbyn, it’s poor form to confuse that electorate with the whole electorate. You’d say that Cameron was elected by a tiny self-selecting minority too? No, of course not. Corbyn was elected by a massive majority to lead the party, and re-elected as a constituency MP, again and again, by a significant majority. Let’s see how he does at a general election, shall we? If those with vested interests that have nothing to with any electorate respect democracy enough to let him fight one…
Thanks. Polls, of course, are much like PhDs - you’ll no doubt be aware of those more famous polls that were so famously and completely wrong in the past. But it’s possibly true - Murdoch lies to the public, and so many of them swallow it. Give them another 4 years of austerity and we’ll see how they feel.
Red-Tory Blairism lost Scotland. Northern Ireland always had its own opposition to the tories. UKIP is putting more pressure on the right, who are in danger of losing their bigoted heartland to that charming racist with his matey saloon bar ways. Blairism lost those voters in England too, didn’t it? Pretending to be Tory turns out not to be such a smart move… Oh, and Plaid Cymru is the party of Wales. That the Blue Tories and the Red Tories should have lost ground to both nationalist parties is not surprising.
With you so far…
The election of a leader with a massive majority over all other candidates, I think you meant to say. You may well say he’s ‘incompetent to lead’ and…
‘unable to win an election’ - Murdoch and his mates have been saying so even before his election. They really must be scared of something…
Labour MPs who wish their party to win an election need to get behind their leader, rather than trying to undermine him or
Leave the party and ask for another mandate as an independent from the electorate or
Do as they’re told by the press barons who aren’t remotely shy of claiming they win elections in a nominally-democratic system. Or…
Form a functional, modern, sensible, grown-up coalition with SNP and Plaid and the Greens, or…
[insert other alternatives here]
Alas, you do not see at all. When CRSP said Corbyn was elected by a tiny minority of the electorate, I understood that he was being deliberately misleading. I thought it worth making an effort to clarify that. Every party leader was ‘elected’ (not sure we can use that word for Farage) by a tiny minority of the electorate, so to make the point of saying so with regard to Corbyn (who was elected by a landslide with more of a democratic mandate than any other party leader) is clearly partisan piffle.
Why are you all so scared of Corbyn?
Is he? I know Murdoch was saying so even before his massive majority, but letting Murdoch decide elections has nothing with democracy or the voice of the electorate. Why do you believe Murdoch? I understand why Corbyn might frighten him, but unless you’re a multi-national oligarch (and I wager you’re not…), why does he frighten you?
Not why I was suggesting they resign. “Free vote” is also a direct quote from me, so do me the courtesy of assuming that I’m not entirely stupid (even if you feel must assume any support for Corbyn is stupid, and that by extension the vast majority of Labour members are stupid. Are you a member? Get over it, your candidate lost - respect democracy, if you can. Not a member? Why then the interest? Because deep down we know what you’re really scared of - that he might win).
I’ve supported and voted for Labour my whole life because I believe that Tory governments’ one consistent achievement is to hurt the worst off in our society. Labour are the better alternative to a Tory government - sometimes only narrowly, sometimes (as in 97) incredibly so. The reason I’m scared of Corbyn is because he might very well eliminate Labour as a serious electoral challenge to the Tories. You’ve offered the options of MPs getting behind him (the Tories will win), leaving the party (splitting the opposition vote so the Tories win) or forming a coalition with other opposition parties (see above).
Being in power instead of the Tories is the raison d’etre of the Labour party. Corbyn isn’t able to achieve that, and he’ll damage the party so much it’ll be unelectable for 5 years after he’s gone at least. There are four words that sum up why I’m frightened of Corbyn, and I doubt they’ll bring much comfort to you either:
I continue to hold the view that quite a lot of people who don’t actually like Corbyn himself have rallied behind him because he’s the only one sticking up for certain views that a sizable chunk of the electorate (I won’t say “majority” without cites at this point) hold. Labour pre-Corbyn offered no resistance to the Government’s austerity policies; when offered the chance to put an anti-austerity candidate in charge, tens of thousands of new voters joined up to vote for him. Corbyn also opposed the bombing in Syria, a position also held by many; I don’t know whether bombing is right or wrong but he represented a position that was being systematically marginalised in the House of Commons and the press despite significant public support for it.
I don’t particularly like Corbyn - I think he’s a terrible leader and would be an ineffective PM - but he speaks with a voice that no one else is speaking with, and as long as the choice is between him and nothing a lot of people (myself included) are picking him.
Furthermore - and I’ve heard at least a dozen people say this in person - the fact that the Prime Minister and all the mainstream media are continuing to blatantly lie about, misquote him and misrepresent his words, and pretend that he has no support at all is reason enough to actually support him. As you say - why are they afraid of him? If his positions are as extreme and unsupported as they say, why do they need the lies? I don’t think the backlash against the anti-Corbyn forces will be big (and I’m certainly not claiming a silent majority) but neither is it non-existent. The more they lie the more some will buy the lies but the more others will turn away from the liars.
I said when he was elected that Labour would undergo a battle for the soul of the party and that battle is now underway. There will be more betrayals and denunciations and defections and public arguments, but if in the end it results in a new leader who can satisfy both the guardians of the status quo and the insurgent left (and good luck to him or her if they can), Labour could still be in fighting form by 2020.
Let’s not collectively hold our breath…
**Jeremy Corbyn ‘Systematically’ Attacked By British Press The Moment He Became Leader, Research Claims
**Huffington Post26 — 11 — 2015 The Media Reform Coalition analysed nearly 500 pieces across eight national newspapers, including The Sun, The Times, Guardian and Daily Mail, and found 60% of their articles were ‘negative’, meaning they were openly hostile or expressed animosity or ridicule. Out of the 494 articles across the papers during Corbyn’s first seven days at leader, 60% (296 articles) were negative, with only 13% positive stories (65 articles) and 27% taking a “neutral” stance (133 articles), the report says.
**
…
***Around 70% of newspaper media is owned by just three companies - News Corp, The Daily Mail & General Trust, and Trinity Mirror.
*This sort of thing is very effective with the gullible plebs who are resentful of socialism.
Still, it’s like Trump: if they are so certain he **will never **attain leadership, and if they think such leadership — which will never happen — would be catastrophic, and if he is dooming the party they loathe to lack of power forever — because he can’t win at all: they sure spend a lot of time discussing why people shouldn’t vote for him.
I spent most of Wednesday and Thursday in bed fighting a fever, so I managed to miss the result from Oldham, where the electorate (or, if you insist on only one meaning for electorate, then ‘a tiny part of the electorate’) came out in favour of Labour. I haven’t seen any reports that the democratically elected Labour candidate has promised to do his best to oust his party’s democratically elected leader - but I can’t help feeling that if he had, I would have. So we can safely say that Corbyn’s ‘disastrous’ ‘inability to lead’ that makes Labour ‘unelectable’ is just the fearful rhetoric of some media barons and their sycophantic employees…and the more gullible amongst their readership…
It’s a great result in Oldham. But a highly popular local candidate holding on to traditional Labour stronghold by campaigning on his local record while Corbyn stayed the hell away is *not *an indication of Labour’s ability to win a general election. When Labour win a marginal byelection on the back of a campaign focused on Corbyn’s policies I will be glad to admit I was mistaken. Ecstatic even.
(Jim McMahon, funnily enough, didn’t start a major national row in the middle of his campaign - but he is a centrist, he has ducked every question about how he feels about Corbyn and his “close friends” are clear that he won this election by making the campaign local and personal - and strenuously avoiding all mention of Labour’s leadership.)
