Labour Party (UK) Leadership Election, 2016

[Gary J]

The largest split in the history of the Labour Party is probably now inevitable. The election of a leader, other than Corbyn, was the only scenario which might have avoided the breakup.

It seems likely that a majority, quite possibly a large majority of the MPs will form a new party in opposition to a Corbyn led official party. If they become the official opposition in Parliament and can convince most centre-left voters that they are the real heirs of the traditional Labour Party, then they have a chance at becoming a party of government by the second half of the 2020s. If not the first past the post system will shred them to oblivion or minor party status.

[Gary J]

Come on y'all, don't be so pessimistic. We haven't got a clue what the climate will be around 2020 (except it'll be hotter), the Tories might very well sink their own ship into the ground on Brexit or anything else, Corbyn might get a little more... palatable to the general public, so stop acting like you gobble up everything the media feeds you. I'm not saying Corbyn is the best you could hope for, it seems he's not, but it also seems the membership is loyalist, and surely that is something of a certain value, isn't it ? Otherwise, let me point you to the nearest Brecht analogy : "The membership has forfeited the confidence of the Party's elite and can win it back only by redoubled efforts. Would it not be easier in that case for the Party's elite to dissolve the membership and elect another?"

Is not the dissolution of the membership and the election of another, precisely what the Parliamentary Labour Party will do when they split the party?

[Gary J]

Will an elected shadow cabinet be bound by collective responsibility? If so, what happens when Jeremy Corbyn is outvoted on issues he feels very deeply about? Would the leader have to resign or rebel against the party line or just allow free votes on all major issues?

[Gary J]

The point I was trying to make is that a shadow cabinet elected by the current PLP is likely to be hostile to Jeremy Corbyn. The leader would not have control over the shadow cabinet and would presumably find his views often rejected by its members. As the leader could not dismiss the members of the elected shadow cabinet, why would they not be free to impose party policy over the leader's objections and publicly repudiate the leader's position if he does not obey the party line in Parliament set by the shadow cabinet majority?

This is not really a situation which has arisen before in modern British politics. The conventions of cabinet government (usually applied by analogy to shadow cabinet's), would break down within the sort of institutional framework the Labour Party is thinking about adopting.

[Gary J]

If it's going to happen, it'll have to involve the Lib Dems "re-splitting" into their Liberal and SDP factions, and the SDP half becoming a safe-space for non-Corbynite Labour...

The Lib Dem factions are not "Liberal" and "SDP".

What exactly are their factions these days?

"Labour Can't Win Here. Vote Lib Dem to keep the Tories out" and "The Tories Can't Win Here. Vote Lib Dem to keep Labour out".

More seriously, what Phony Moderate said.  The point is that both sides identify as "liberals" and neither particularly derives from the SDP, whose less "liberal" figures mostly drifted away from the Lib Dems or (in the case of David Owen) never joined the merged party in the first place.

The Lib Dem approach, much as it irritates Tory and Labour activists, is sensible so long as there are only three parties that matter and the Lib Dems do not have to choose one of the two major parties. The rise of new parties has weakened the first precondition, but as we have seen from the political effect of the coalition it is the breakdown of the second precondition that is really toxic.