2020 Labour Leadership Election

[DL]

Given that Brexit is about to become a fait accompli - whoever Labour picks as leader - their status as a "Remainer" or a soft pro-Brexiter etc... is 100% irrelevant - unless you seriously think that anyone is going to run for the leadership on a platform of wanting the UK to rejoin Europe if they win the 2024 election. That is clearly not going to happen.  

[DL]

Because she represents London-remainer tribe. The same can be said about Starmer. It would be a mistake for Labour to pander for this narrow segment of the electorate, but the media will certainly say they are the sane faction of the Labour party.

In the next election in 2023/24 one thing for sure is that it will not be another Brexit election. Unless you think that Brexit will be such a total catastrophe that the Brits are all clamouring for readmission to the EU!

[DL]

Are there no women between Blair and Corbyn ideologically? I don't really like to bring up US politics in UK topics, but who is your Amy Klobuchar? That seems to be the way to go, with just a hint more leftism.

Actually there is no one in the contest who could be described as “Blairite” the whole centre of gravity in the Labour is so much further to the left now that if Jess Phillips is now seen to be more moderate compared to Corbyn, she is still several quantum leaps to the left of Tony Blair

[DL]

I think Starmer will win. The legions of young people who joined Labour under Corbyn also tend to be passionately pro-EU and i think he would have won their hearts by being such a great Labour shadow Brexit minister

[DL]

Seems to be that RBL is not fairing too well among 'moderate' second preferences. For example:

Islington North: RBL got 125 votes to 80 for KS, who pips her to the post by 138 votes to 135.

City of Durham, my constituency, RBL got 37 votes to 23 for LN, who wins 52 to 41.

Should point out that in Durham most speakers supported RBL and RB, for deputy, but a silent more moderate majority prevailed

Who gets to vote in these CLP contests? Is it any Labour Party member residing in that seat? If so these seem like very low numbers of votes for a party that supposedly has half a million members

[DL]

Labour Leadership Voting Intention:

Keir Starmer: 53% (+7)
Rebecca Long-Bailey: 31% (-1)
Lisa Nandy: 16% (+9)

Via
@YouGov
, 20-25 Feb.
Changes w/ 13-15 Jan.

Looks like Starmer is running away with it!

[DL]

I see a lot of chatter from some people about the Labour leadership saying "Oh Starmer is pro-remain so he will do badly in Leave constituencies in the north etc..." but I think that's a silly argument. The next UK election won't be until 2024 and by then either Brexit will have been a total fiasco - in which case people like Starmer will be vindicated or it will be less of a fiasco in which case it will be a non-issue and the next election will be about something else. If you are a "leave" voter you got your way and the UK will no longer be part of the EU - so unless a Starmer-led Labour party runs on a platform of re-joining the EU (highly, highly unlikely) - what do you care about who was on what side 5 years earlier?

[DL]

Who could be more of an “out of touch metropolitan elite intellectual snob” than Boris Johnson? Anyways, you can pick a leader to try to refight the 2019 election. Who the hell knows what the zeitgeist will be in 2024?

[DL]

Nandy can quite reasonably be argued to have the *most* middle class background of the three hopefuls, though many of us find this "authentocrat" posturing distinctly tedious in any case.

Starmer seems to have the most impeccably "working class' credentials. His mother was a nurse and his father was a machinist. But I guess since he grew up in Surrey he doesn't talk with that northern twang that many people stereotypically associate with being working class in the UK

[DL]

Has the UK ever had a PM who spoke with anything resembling a working class accent? Judging from The Crown, it sounds like Harold Wilson had a bit of Yorkshire accent, but not a particularly strong one....not sure what Ramsay McDonald or Clement Attlee sounded like.

[DL]

He (Starmer) would, of course, be the first Labour leader from a working class family since Kinnock.

What sort of class background does Corbyn have?

[DL]

Now that Boris Johnson is gravely ill in the ICU, we have to consider the possibility that Starmer will be up against someone other than BoJo in the next election...