What is happening to the Labour Party?

[Wandering Warrior]

Owen Smith will then be declared the new leader as he will be last man standing. That is of course, if Jezza doesn't appeal, which he will. There'll be some brick showers in some areas as well as his supporters protest at the sheer thought of him missing out.

[nellywelly]

Eleven pages on the state of the Labour Party and its leader, but not a thing about how the Conservative Party is split into two big factions of left and right.

A massive split which has resulted in the country no longer in the European Union as a result of the right wing Eurosceptic's getting their own way of having a referendum, and a Government not anticipating that the electorate would use the referendum as a protest against the failure of the Government to control the mass immigration into the country and the cuts being imposed on Councils which are affecting essential services.

Those who vote Conservative airing their frustration by attacking the Labour Party leader instead of facing the fact that it is their own Party and it's leadership who are to blame for the mess the country is now in as a result of it's bad management.

The problem is that thanks to Tory Tony and his cronies, we now no longer have a real alternative in Labour to that of the Conservatives as proved at the last General Election.

The fault lies within the present Parliamentary Labour Party which today consists of MP's who are out of touch with the people who vote for them and have now shown with the selection of a unknown like Smith how poor the party has become in the eyes of the electorate.

It's a mixed up, muddled up, shook up World except for Lola!

The electorate in this country has moved on since the sixty' s and seventy's, I do not believe you can turn the clock back and hope a Labour Party moving back to its working class policy's will win a general election. This will only give them a following of 30 percent in a general election, that's why no matter how hard you try a true socialist Labour Party will never win power. The labour left hate him but Tony B did pull in the floating voter and the middle class without which the party would not win, now of course everything wrong with the country is his fault. That is an over exaggeration by the Tory press it is forgotten most of parliament voted in favour of invasion of Irac and the reason the country and the rest of the world went into decline was due to the Banks not governments, l do not wish to defend him but as I have said before I am a realist now and the scales have finally fallen from my eyes. I truly believe we only get the politicians we deserve and it is time we all woke up to it. Democracy is all about compromise and that's why you never get exactly what you voted for

[Wandering Warrior]

NW
I'm glad you noticed my drop back to the 60's and early 70's when the Labour party was in its pomp. You are quite right that middle England had to be won over for Blair to gain government, however it's lurch back to the left with Corbyn and his backing by the unions that will render the country a one party state for the foreseeable future.
Unions have not exactly been the flavour of the month in certain quarters for years and in McCluskey they have a real public turn off.
I've said for a long while that the working man is his own biggest enemy, and the fawning over Jezza by his supporters does nothing to negate my thoughts on this statement.
Such is life in Little England?

[Owd Codger]

Like I have said before, twelve pages about the Labour Party, but nothing about the mess the Conservative Party got itself into by splitting into two different factions with one faction forcing a referendum about membership of the European Union, the Conservative Government not getting the result they expected to get by a large majority which has resulted in the Prime Minister having to resign and be replaced by another Prime Minister elected by Conservative MP's with no mandate of the electorate and one of the leaders of the 'Leave' campaign appointed to the position of Foreign Secretary.

On the Labour Party side, we then see a rich supporter of the party going to court to prevent a MP standing for the leadership because the candidate does not meet with his approval or the right wing 'Tory' element that now controls the Labour Party.

And if that is not enough, we have those who voted to 'stay in' the EU, airing their frustration about being on the losing side by spending their time swiping at the Labour Party and who should lead it and not the party responsible for us now being out of the EU as a result of members of its own party forcing a vote on having a referendum in Parliament.

No wonder the people use the referendum as a protest when they see the mass that the two major parties are involved in today as a result of doing nothing about the real issues affecting our country over the last decade or so and a Government imposing cut backs on our Councils which are affecting their lives while millions of pounds are being sent to the former East European Communist States and other parts of the World. At the same time, their people's are flooding into our country to enjoy the benefits and free health service that they have never paid a penny to in Tax and National Insurance.

And some believe with Scotland wanting full independence from Westminster, we are still a Great Britain and a Democracy.

We are in one big mess and the politicians of all three major parties are to blame!

[Wintergreen]

Like I have said before, twelve pages about the Labour Party, but nothing about the mess the Conservative Party got itself into by splitting into two different factions with one faction forcing a referendum about membership of the European Union, the Conservative Government not getting the result they expected to get by a large majority which has resulted in the Prime Minister having to resign and be replaced by another Prime Minister elected by Conservative MP's with no mandate of the electorate and one of the leaders of the 'Leave' campaign appointed to the position of Foreign Secretary.

On the Labour Party side, we then see a rich supporter of the party going to court to prevent a MP standing for the leadership because the candidate does not meet with his approval or the right wing 'Tory' element that now controls the Labour Party.

And if that is not enough, we have those who voted to 'stay in' the EU, airing their frustration about being on the losing side by spending their time swiping at the Labour Party and who should lead it and not the party responsible for us now being out of the EU as a result of members of its own party forcing a vote on having a referendum in Parliament.

No wonder the people use the referendum as a protest when they see the mass that the two major parties are involved in today as a result of doing nothing about the real issues affecting our country over the last decade or so and a Government imposing cut backs on our Councils which are affecting their lives while millions of pounds are being sent to the former East European Communist States and other parts of the World. At the same time, their people's are flooding into our country to enjoy the benefits and free health service that they have never paid a penny to in Tax and National Insurance.

And some believe we are still a Great Britain and a Democracy!

er the thread is about the Labour party. Start another one called the Conservative party if you feel so strongly!

[Owd Codger]

Like I have said before, twelve pages about the Labour Party, but nothing about the mess the Conservative Party got itself into by splitting into two different factions with one faction forcing a referendum about membership of the European Union, the Conservative Government not getting the result they expected to get by a large majority which has resulted in the Prime Minister having to resign and be replaced by another Prime Minister elected by Conservative MP's with no mandate of the electorate and one of the leaders of the 'Leave' campaign appointed to the position of Foreign Secretary.

On the Labour Party side, we then see a rich supporter of the party going to court to prevent a MP standing for the leadership because the candidate does not meet with his approval or the right wing 'Tory' element that now controls the Labour Party.

And if that is not enough, we have those who voted to 'stay in' the EU, airing their frustration about being on the losing side by spending their time swiping at the Labour Party and who should lead it and not the party responsible for us now being out of the EU as a result of members of its own party forcing a vote on having a referendum in Parliament.

No wonder the people use the referendum as a protest when they see the mass that the two major parties are involved in today as a result of doing nothing about the real issues affecting our country over the last decade or so and a Government imposing cut backs on our Councils which are affecting their lives while millions of pounds are being sent to the former East European Communist States and other parts of the World. At the same time, their people's are flooding into our country to enjoy the benefits and free health service that they have never paid a penny to in Tax and National Insurance.

And some believe we are still a Great Britain and a Democracy!

er the thread is about the Labour party. Start another one called the Conservative party if you feel so strongly!

Why should Conservatives like yourself be so concerned about the Labour Party?

It's the folly of your own party and government which should be concerning you frustrated losers!

[Wandering Warrior]

Whelley
If you are not happy with what folk are writing about the Labour party then give the thread a swerve.
You can always start a Maggie May thread and create a bit of a mix and stir as to her credentials?

[Wandering Warrior]

And Corbyn wins challenge!
I'm reliably informed by a knowledgeable colleague that a poll carried out in the last couple of days would leave Corbyn losing forty seats to the Tories if there was an election in the near future. How sad!?

[morley pie eater]

Shocked Morley never posys in this thread. Either or both him and his son are big Labour party members.

Thanks for the testimonial, cp!

I'm obviously dismayed by the state of the Labour Party. Just fyi/background, I joined in the early 80s to do my bit to help stop militant, so can hardly be labelled an extreme lefty etc.

I agree that Corbyn doesn't seem to have the leadership qualities we need, though it has to be said that he hasn't been given much help by many Labour MPs.

Supporters of Eagle, Smith, ABC (anyone but Corbyn) always use the electability argument. I have a number of objections to this:
(i) In part, Labour are unelectable because they are split - a split caused by, er . . . let me think!
(ii) Labour lost the last 2 general elections. IIRC, Corbyn wasn't the leader then?
(iii) The loss of Scotland alone makes Labour unable to win a general election. On whose watch was Scotland lost?


Then we have the "must win the centre ground" argument. That famous Trot, Roy Hattersley, recently said that, on policy, there can be no doubt that Tony Blair was to the right of Ted Heath! From the 90s onwards, Labour have so firmly claimed the centre that they left room for the SNP to their left and lost 2 elections.

Peter Mandleson, the architect of this policy, was asked if New Labour moved to the centre, then what about the traditional Labour voters? His famous reply - "They have nowhere else to go?"

At the last election, for the first time ever, I didn't vote. I wrote "No-one worth voting for" on my ballot paper. My local MP WAS Ed Balls. A Tory got in to represent Morley, also for the first time ever. This was before Corbyn. I couldn't vote for Balls because the 3 letters I'd had from him in the year up to the election were all about immigration. Presumably he was worried about the threat of UKIP, and wanted to give the impression that he was strong on immigration.

I was crying out for someone who had the balls to stand up and argue for something instead of following opinion polls or focus groups. I'd swallowed the argument that we had to claim the centre ground, but the SNP were winning whilst being against spending £50 billion on Trident, and espousing other "left wing" ideas. Mandleson's "they've nowhere else to go" left me feeling used and cheated to the point where I sat back and let the Tories win. If masses of people in Scotland feel the same, surely I'm not on my own in England? Did Attlee win because he softened his policies to appeal to the centre?

Now Corbyn is the democratically elected leader of the Labour Party. Given a choice of 2 unelectable alternatives, I would have voted for him against Eagle (I preferred her brother, Eddie!), and possibly against Smith. I'd do this because, just like with Militant, I'm not prepared to see the party taken over by stop-at-nothing infiltrators: but this time it's the metropolitan elite MPs who wouldn't recognise a worker if one ran up their trouser leg singing "You won't get me I'm part of the union". They think it's their party: people called Tristram etc who've never done a proper day's work in their lives.

Until we get a decent man or woman of the people, democratic socialist with leadership ability, who will enthuse the party to go out and argue the case for what we believe rather than following what Murdoch's papers tell him, I'll support the leader elected by the members rather than the insurgents. Meanwhile, I cancelled my membership in protest at the withdrawal of voting rights from members who joined since January, whilst selling them for £25 to those well-off enough to pay for the privilege.

[cpwigan]

Cheers Morley. Is there any current Labour MP that you rgibk could lead the party and become electabe?