Angela Eagle set to launch bid for Labour leadership
Source: The Guardian
Angela Eagle is expected to launch a bid for the Labour leadership on Thursday as Jeremy Corbyn continues to resist intense pressure to resign, including from his deputy.
She is expected to pledge to reunify the fractured party, which has been locked in a vicious internal battle since the weekend, when Corbyn sacked his shadow foreign secretary, Hilary Benn, for plotting against him.
“We’ve got the numbers, we’ve got the big hitters, it will probably be tomorrow afternoon,” said an ally of Eagle, the former shadow business secretary.
Earlier Labour’s deputy leader, Tom Watson, became the most senior party figure to call on Corbyn to resign, intensifying the pressure on the embattled leader on a day of drama in Westminster.
Read more: http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jun/29/labour-deputy-leader-tom-watson-calls-for-jeremy-corbyn-to-resign
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Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)If Eagle wins, full Blairism is restored and Labour forever accepts being nothing more but the moderate wing of the status quo.
There's no one left in the "centre ground" anymore, and no one wants Labour to be just barely different than the Tories.
OnDoutside
(19,954 posts)Michael Foot, Militant Tendency, Scargill, Hatton where Labour were a joke.
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)The problem was that the right-wing of Labour sabotaged Foot(some departed and formed the totally unneeded "Social Democratic Party", knowing when they did that all they could ever do was guarantee a Tory landslide...an SDP-Liberal government was never going to happen, no matter what, some stayed in side and all they could internally to undermine him).
The message of the Eighties is not that Labour must always treat socialists as the enemy.
It's that the party needs to use media(including social media)well, needs to communicate its message coherently and concisely, and needs unity.
Labour has nothing to gain by putting the cynical, dismissive "professional politicians" back in charge...the people whose message to the electorate is "we hate activists and principles and we accept the idea that politics is about nothing at all but gaining power"-and who assume that the only way to gain power is to be as close to the Tories on the issues as possible.
Most of the people who are involved in this coup were demanding, before Corbyn won the leadership, that Labour support the Tory benefits cap and the Tory budget charter. Most of them were unalterably opposed to any reintroduction of internal democracy(they LIKED the fact that ordinary paid-up Labour members had no say in what the party's policies were and that the party conference was a bland, powerless, passion-free zone). What could possibly be improved by putting the people who lost the last two elections back in charge and telling the tens of thousands of good, idealistic people Corbyn has drawn to the party that they aren't welcome and should either shut up or go away? There is no huge block of voters waiting for the party to do that.
T_i_B
(14,737 posts)And in order to reach out beyond the "professional politicans" the party needs to be united and competent, so it can appeal to a wide variety of people. Corbyn has shown that he cannot provide this.
And you are (as per usual) wrong about the motivations of those who want Corbyn out. If he were a strong, capable leader he wouldn't have had most of the shadow cabinet he appointed walk out on him.
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)Why won't they commit to adopting any of Corbyn's policy proposals?
Why won't they accept that the hundreds of thousands of people who are new members of Labour because they were inspired by Corbyn should be welcomed and accepted, and that those people are NOT just a bunch of old-time Trots(there's no way SWP or Militant could ever get 500,000 people to come together and do anything).
Why do they keep sounding like they want to erase the entire Corbyn movement and go back to where Labour would have been under Yvette Cooper...a party that was just barely different than the Tories at all, a party that wasn't anti-austerity, and a party that was just fine with continuing to fight unwinnable wars in the Arab/Muslim world for the rest of eternity?
Why has their unyielding message been "it doesn't matter what anyone but the MPs want...and we don't want party membership to increase(even though a party whose paid membership isn't increasing has no chance of running ahead of the Tories in the polls or at a general election)"?
Why do the MPs have to be so bloody arrogant about all of this? It's not as it they are the party and no one else is.
T_i_B
(14,737 posts)...but Eagle and Smith were in Corbyn's shadow cabinet working together with Jeremy Corbyn on policy. The shadow cabinet walked out on Corbyn not because he's left wing but because he has proved to be a very poor leader.
It's very clear from the shite you keep posting that you are more interested in demonising people than finding out what they really think. It worries me that Corbynites are trying to frame this as a straight right v left battle because it's clear that the real issues are competence and preventing Labour from ripping itself in two. And I for one will not accept the argument that left wing = incompetent, in spite of what Corbyn is doing to the organisation he is meant to be running.
There are loads of people in Labour who want to welcome and accept new members, but it's very difficult to do that when party meetings have been suspended and the fee for registered supporters had been hiked up from £3 to £25
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)They snuck those rule changes in when the meeting that put Corbyn on the leadership ballot was officially over.
Yes, Eagle and Smith were in the shadow cabinet. So was Watson. So was Hilary Benn(the coup leader who has abandoned every single socialist value and everything his heroic father ever stood for). So was Rachel Reeves, the person who wants Labour to be harsher towards people on benefits than the Tories are.
Corbyn's original shadow cabinet was drawn equally from all wings of the PLP, so shadow cabinet membership under Corbyn, until the "Chicken Coup", was never a mark of personal allegiance to Corbyn's principles.
And I don't "hate"anyone...I oppose anti-democratic conspiratorial plotters, people who think that the fact that they managed to win a seat that was always going to vote Labour no matter who the Labour candidate was means that they, and no one else, should determine who leads the Labour Party-people who believe that no one else in the party should have any real say over who is chosen as leader and what the party stands for-people who want to prevent the party from ever becoming a grassroots organization again.
The MPs want to go back to the party being run the way Blair ran it...with everyone other than the leader and a handful of advisors being powerless and irrelevant, with the constituency parties barred from nominating candidates from their OWN chosen shortlists(they are forced to select solely from shortlists approved of by the leadership, which is why three-fourths of the PLP are Blairites-in most seats, Blair wouldn't let a non-Blairite even be considered for nomination(and that didn't change much under Brown or Miliband).
They think that Labour only won in 1997 because of anti-left control freakery by the leadership and because the manifesto that year was vindictively anti-radical and anti-activist(in truth, Labour was certain to win in 1997 under any manifesto...the voters weren't demanding the anathemization of the left and the abandonment of the lest vestiges of socialism). They hate democracy...and some days, it seems as though they hate and fear both the unions(if you're in a party names "Labour", you do kind of have an obligation to support the revival of the trade union movement and the cause of working people against the bosses and the wealthy)and most of the rest of the party.
The people who wanted Corbyn out didn't do the legitimate thing and just have a leadership challenge with Corbyn on the ballot...which would have been the only democratic method to resolve the situation...they wanted Corbyn to resign(after a "motion of no confidence" that has no official standing under Labour Party rules)and then have a leadership ballot from which Corbyn was able to be blocked from standing, a contest under which only candidates the PLP allowed on the ballot would be able to stand).
If they'd had their way the only candidates on the leadership would have meant only people from the Labour Right like Angela Eagle(Eagle forever forfeited any claim to be on the "left" when she refused to oppose the benefits cap and the budget charter(she abstained on both, which is the same thing as accepting them without challenge) and Owen Smith, who not only abstained on the benefits cap, but was also lobbyist for Pfizer and pushed for continued privatization of the NHS, so he's not on the left either.
Neither has agreed to support the restoration of internal party democracy(without being run democratically, Labour can't be radical or even mildly progressive in power), the restoration of control of candidate selection to the constituency parties, and the restoration of policy making power to the party conference. Both are supporters of continued western military intervention in the Middle East(including the bombing of Syria), neither wants Thatcher's anti-worker laws repealed(they wouldn't even repeal the ban on secondary picketing-a ban that makes it impossible for unions ever to WIN a strike).
I don't hate them. It's just that I don't think it's legitimate for those two and the PLP to treat everyone else in the party as if they are there solely to hand out leaflets and turn up at the polls. And that it is now clear that what they are doing can't lead to anything good for Labour's prospects in 2020. There is no way an anti-Corbyn leader, chosen in a rigged process, could ever have unified the party or inspired enthusiastic support from anyone. There is no way Labour could win under any of the leaders the coup plotters would like to see replace Corbyn
Even if Corbyn has flaws as leader, there's nothing wrong with the democratic revival he wants within Labour, and there is no reason to try to stop any Labour member or Labour supporter from voting(the cut-off date, if not removed, could make the party liable to fraud charges, since the Labour website guarantees that paid membership always includes the right to vote in leadership elections.
The anti-Corbynites could do themselves a lot of favours by making it clear that the issue is solely their feeling that Corbyn isn't personally up to the job...rather than paranoia about the party being run democratically and new people coming in to help it.
They've refused to say that, so far.
They've refused to say what policies they think Labour SHOULD fight the next election on.
They've refused to say who they think should and should not have a say in how the party is run and what it stands for.
How do you explain this?
T_i_B
(14,737 posts)As it stands my local Labour branch cannot meet but my local Momentum branch can, which plays into Corbyn's hands.
It's time that Corbyn and his fanboys accepted that power comes with responsibility and woke up to the grim reality of what is happening to this country.
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)Corbyn and his supporters(and please stop talking about Momentum as if it is an anti-Labour conspiracy...its place in the party is at least as legitimate as Progress, and certainly more legitimate than Portland Communications)WANT the branch meetings to go on.
The reason the anti-Corbynites(they did this in an illegitimate move when Corbyn and his allies had left the meeting, which was supposed to adjourn as soon as Corbyn's ballot status was resolved, as there were no other items on the agenda) banned branch meetings is that the overwhelming majority of the branches are pro-Corbyn and kept passing motions of no-confidence in the anti-Corbyn MPs the branches had just been responsible for re-electing in 2015.
I don't despise anyone. I disagree with anti-democratic actions and any attempts to prevent Labour from breaking with the pre-2015 status quo. There was simpy no reason for Corbyn's opponents not to be content with launching a leadership contest under party rules(rules that clearly mandate Corbyn's presence), or, at the least, not to agree to implement at least most of the policies the Corbyn movement-a movement which comprises the overwhelming majority of the party outside of the PLP-supports.
If they just wanted a different leader, they had no good reason not to agree to those things.
Instead, they made it clear that they would settle for nothing short of Corbyn's resignation, the exclusion of Corbyn or anyone even close to him on the issues from the leadership ballot, and the erasure of the entire Corbyn movement from the party.
What right did they have to be so arrogant, autocratic and inflexible on all of this?
Why could they not, at the least, played fair and acted democratically?
I don't hate them as people...I simply find their actions indefensible.
T_i_B
(14,737 posts)I'm sorry but that's pathetic. Labour cannot survive as the creepy Corbyn cult you want it to be.
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)I want it to be a party that wins elections-AND that keeps faith with its supporters and their dreams of a better world.
It's not as though Labour can get anyone to feel any enthusiasm about voting for it if Momentum is purged.
If Momentum is crushed, that won't leave any significant group in the party that wants Labour to stand for anything.
If internal democracy isn't restored, it won't be possible to get Labour to adopt any real program of change.
You'd end up with David Miliband policies(in other words, the Tory manifesto with a red cover.
What would be the point of even trying to elect that kind of a party?
Labour can't help anyone if it's elected on a "center ground" manifesto.
T_i_B
(14,737 posts)The Labour left has become too reliant on Corbyn as a figurehead, and is dragging the rest of the party into "Peoples Front of Judea" type idiocy, which prevents the party from being able to do much to help the wider community.
Like I keep saying, trying to frame Labour's problems in right v left terms hasn't achieved anything to resolve those problems. And that approach is clearly making things much worse.
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)1)Make it clear that, even if Corbyn was no longer leader, many of his ideas would be adapted as Labour policy.
2)Commit to restoring internal party democracy.
3)Accept that Momentum has just as much right to be part of Labour as any other group, including Progress.
I hope you would agree that the anti-Corbynites have no reason not to have agreed to those three things.
Their objective should be finding a better leader...not expelling Momentum.
Blue_Tires
(55,445 posts)His pathetic effort on the "remain" campaign only reinforces rumours that the fix was in...
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)That's what Corbyn's opponents want, a leader massively to his right-I.E., a leader who stands for nothing.
That's what "centre-ground" means-having no principles and not caring about anyone.
It means agreeing not to change much of anything.
geek tragedy
(68,868 posts)He and Cameron both failed the single most important political test of the UK's post-WWII history.
There needs to be accountability for such failure.
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)and who opposes the restoration of internal party democracy...that might be "accountability", but to WHOM?
Certainly not to anyone who wants the Labour Party to agree be different than the Tories.
hrmjustin
(71,265 posts)If he wants someone on the left to be leader he should step aside to give that possible candidate a chance.
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)Which will mean no one elected as leader will have any legitimacy in the job.
hrmjustin
(71,265 posts)Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)To stand for the leadership last year, you had to be nominated by 35 MPs(Corbyn just barely made it).
There are only about 40 MPs from the left wing of the party(thanks to a concerted effort by Tony Blair in the Nineties to block left-wingers from being selected as Labour candidates). The others are on the right-wing of the party, well to the right of most actual paid up members of Labour.
All they have to do is raise the required number of MPs to, say, fifty, and only people from the party's right wing will be allowed to be on the ballot for the leadership.
hrmjustin
(71,265 posts)Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)That's a fair-minded position.
T_i_B
(14,737 posts)She was a minister under Gordon Brown, and she was appointed as both Shadow First Secretary of State and Shadow Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills in September 2015 in Jeremy Corbyn's first Shadow Cabinet.
She was one of the many front bench politicians who resigned en mass following the vote to leave the EU in protest at Jeremy Corbyn's leadership.
Eagle is IMHO a poor public speaker, and although she is regarded as being on the left of the PLP she does carry baggage from the Blair years (including voting for the Iraq war, a position she needs to recant ASAP). She now needs to prove that she can engage and unify Labour whilst offering strong, competent leadership.
And there is also another challenger for the Labour leadership called Owen Smith. I will have more to say about him when I've found out more about him.
