It’s truly an amazing day in U.K. politics as Jeremy Corbyn has been suspended from the Labour Party. Corbyn was a heinous former leader of the party who was happy to lead a Labour Party full of the type of anti Semites which are often part of the hard left. Corbyn never met a terrorist he didn’t like but he definitely has an affinity for Hamas.
I think it’s great that Sir Keir Starmer is purging Labour of scum such as Corbyn. Naturally, Jeremy is whining loudly on social media and his leftist thugs are joining in. But, it’s not Corbyn’s party any longer. The far left has been a cancer on Labour for too long, it was in remission when Labour thrived under Blair and I’m confident Sir Keir will do it what it takes to eradicate the toxic influence of the hard anti Semitic left from Labour again.
Yeah, there is a bumping of a previous topic in relation to this but it probably deserves a thread on its own.
Good, I never liked him, trusted him, nor thought he was in any way a capable leader. He was a cipher for the worst stripe of labour reactionaries and surrounded himself with piss-poor acolytes as a shadow bench. Labour is well shot of him and this gives Starmer a chance to purge. (You’d think Corbyn and chums would nod in approval at that one) He already did it with Long-Bailey and he is unlikey to take his boot off the throat of the Corbynites now.
I have a few diehard fans of Corbyn and they are raging. I don’t have the energy to argue with them about it. They are too partisan to consider that this is anything but a fabricated/overblown attack.
Personally I feel Sir Keir is more of a Kinnock than a future PM. The party needs a good talking to itself before it’s electable again.
Mind you, you can say that about the Tories and look where they are…not quite ‘governing’ but they’re in the captain’s chair…
I sort of understand why you say that but I suspect he is more palatable in general than Kinnock was.
Of course the unspoken point here is that he is still miles beyond what Corbyn was, If Starmer is Kinnock, who on earth was Corbyn? Answers on a postcard please.
I surprised it is only Corbyn. After a devastating electoral defeat such as we saw in the last election, a wider political purge was on the cards.
Kier Starmer has got a few years until 2024 to get the Labour party into good enough shape to win an election. He has a lot of work to do to forge an identity, a set of values and policies that appeal to the electorate.
This internal fight between the radical Momentum faction led by Corbyn and remains of the previous Blair/Brown New Labour leadership has gone on for years.
Starmer now has to pull the party together, hopefully without splitting it. He seems clever. I hope he is up to it.
The position regarding the Palestinian Question conveniently separates far left from the centre. The radical wing of the party have always been supporters of liberation movements. The fact that the party is arguing about this eternal conflict in the Middle East with accusations of anti-semitism and racism is sign that it is a party that has lost its way.
It needs a fundamental rethink about what sort of party it is and what its objectives are. Then develop a set of policies that it can sell to the electorate in time for the next election. God knows what sort of state the UK will be in by then after Covid, Brexit and Boris and his merry band of chancers have finished with it.
The UK needs a coherent and credible opposition to counter to Tories and hold them to account. Starmer seems to be a step in the right direction. But he has a huge internal fight on his hands to unite the party without pandering to the extremes. This is the start.
I get the impression Starmer is more lilke Blair than Kinnock. Corbyn…well Foot had high minded socialist policies that were also roundly rejected by the electorate during the Thatcher years. But I don’t think Corbyn was in the same league. He was never party leader material. He has always been on the fringe, a protester for a wide range of causes. He was quite good at that. That is where he should have remained.
Sometimes political parties throw up unlikley leaders. Sometimes they rise to the challenge. Sometimes they are a disaster. Corbyn did manage to inspire a great increase in Labour party membership for a time. But he seemed unable to control his supporters and manage internal disputes. A competent party leader would have headed off the very damaging anti-semitism scandal as soon as it started to get heated. He also lost and election very badly.
To be precise, he’s suffering the consequences of his classically tin-eared, stiff-necked and “all out of step but me” response to the EHRC report. But that sums up what was always wrong with him in that position. He just can’t recognise the reality of people he needs onside, but who are suspicious of him, let alone empathise with them.
Which is not to say that Starmer, or the party generally, are moving decisively away from the broader economic and social policy direction Corbyn and Momentum exemplified. It’s not (so far) a shift back to the Blair/Brown ultra-caution on fiscal issues and their blind spot on housing - not least because it looks as though public opinion has shifted since then. On the other hand, it’s not clear to what extent Starmer may feel he needs, Blair-style, to placate the media barons, or whether he can risk ignoring them.
It means no longer considered part of the party. They have to sit as an independent. There won’t be a general election any time soon, but it would mean that Corbyn couldn’t stand for Labour if there was an election
Specifically no longer a member of the parliamentary party, i.e., the Labour group in the House of Commons. His membership of the party as a whole is in suspension while the party’s disciplinary body goes through a process of investigation. This is pretty much the nuclear option in dealing with perceived misbehaviour, especially with a former leader.