This Once Great Movement Of Ours

[EastAnglianLefty]

I also enjoyed the criticism of Rayner for missing the NEC meeting. Because she was in Parliament. Calling for the PM to resign.

[CumbrianLefty]

Strong Labour right 2018 vibes from todays effort by the Labour Left to put all their effort into an NEC vote they’re likely to lose, and which will make no difference.

Its been said enough times, but the ball is in Corbyn's court there.

[GoTfan]

I also enjoyed the criticism of Rayner for missing the NEC meeting. Because she was in Parliament. Calling for the PM to resign.

Probably not a smart move given that Rayner quite possibly has her fortunes tied to the party's left wing.

[CumbrianLefty]

The people criticising her for that don't consider her as on the party's "left" and mostly never have.

[TheTide]

https://twitter.com/NJ_Timothy/status/1486332405271212032?s=20

[GoTfan]

The people criticising her for that don't consider her as on the party's "left" and mostly never have.

Not sure how someone who supported Rebecca Long-Bailey isn't on the party's left wing.

[TheTide]

The people criticising her for that don't consider her as on the party's "left" and mostly never have.

Not sure how someone who supported Rebecca Long-Bailey isn't on the party's left wing.

Whilst Rayner is clearly on the left, all leadership candidates get support from seemingly unlikely sources. Dennis Skinner supporting David Miliband is a prime example, and even Liz Kendall's fringe neo-Blairite campaign had some support from people not associated with that school of thought.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

The point is that 'the Left' can mean different things in an internal Labour Party context depending on the context. Rayner has generally been associated with the left-wing of the Party as most people would define it, but she's also very firmly within its mainstream - which is enough for certain types to deem her as not 'really' being on the Left. She is also not (and never was) a member of the SCG. Related to this, she was also not a part of what I ended up calling (for want of a better term) the 'Left Cadre' during the Corbyn leadership, and there are certainly people who like to equate those two things absolutely. A big factor there, of course, was that she's a member of the 'wrong' union.

[CumbrianLefty]

With certain people in said group, it really is as petty as resentment at Rayner saying certain things the Blair government did made the life of her and her family better.

To some on the VERY ONLINE LEFT, this makes her functionally indistinguishable from Wes Streeting.

[Blair]

Laura Pidcock, the ex MP, has quit the NEC in protest over Keirs leadership.

This is strange as she has used he seat as a platform to well protest his leadership. Her statement should have included ‘I’m a fighter not a quitter’ just for a laugh.

[YL]

Does anybody have any inkling as to who the favourite to be Labour's candidate in the South Yorkshire Mayoral Election is? I haven't been paying attention to the state of the race.

A hunch would be Oliver Coppard- who imo should be the Sheffield Hallam MP. He stood against Nick Clegg in 2015 and your seat is actually one of the most depressing things about that night.

I know the left and some trade unions are backing someone else- I know next to nothing about South Yorkshire Labour stuff though.

Yeah - I like everyone else have heard nothing but good about Oliver Coppard. That left candidate is Lewis Dagnall who I believe is a Sheffield Councillor and the husband of Olivia Blake MP. From what I've seen he's campaigning heavily on transport - timely given the Stagecoach strike in Sheffield and Barnsley. However I've no idea how he's doing.

Yes, Dagnall is campaigning heavily on transport.  Most of what I've seen has been from him and Coppard but that's probably a reflection of where I'm getting things from rather than a strong indication that they're the front-runners.

I would vote for Coppard if I were a member.

Oliver Coppard has been selected as the Labour candidate for South Yorkshire Mayor.

[CumbrianLefty]

Laura Pidcock, the ex MP, has quit the NEC in protest over Keirs leadership.

This is strange as she has used he seat as a platform to well protest his leadership. Her statement should have included ‘I’m a fighter not a quitter’ just for a laugh.

Accompanied by a "resignation letter" that rivals War And Peace in length.

[Swedish Rainbow Capitalist Cheese]

Laura Pidcock, the ex MP, has quit the NEC in protest over Keirs leadership.

This is strange as she has used he seat as a platform to well protest his leadership. Her statement should have included ‘I’m a fighter not a quitter’ just for a laugh.

Oh... NOoooO, please don't... go! What will Labour do with-out you... Anyway bye bye, don't let the door hit you on the way out.

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

Tory Press is getting incredibly desperate if this is the kind of stuff they are resorting too.


https://www.express.co.uk/life-style/life/1555798/keir-starmer-handwriting-analysis-labour-leader-evg

[YL]

The Express is a particularly terrible rag and should be ignored.

[GoTfan]

With certain people in said group, it really is as petty as resentment at Rayner saying certain things the Blair government did made the life of her and her family better.

To some on the VERY ONLINE LEFT, this makes her functionally indistinguishable from Wes Streeting.

I'm as pro-Corbyn as they come, but saying Blair didn't do anything good is just denying reality. That Northern Ireland Agreement alone . . .

[CumbrianLefty]

Yes, as with many on the party right during much of the Corbyn years its just fumes and vibes.

[Blair]

https://skwawkbox.org/2022/01/29/exclusive-new-left-socialist-campaign-group-mps-form-new-separate-eco-group/

Reports the campaign group is splitting; well they're setting up a new group.

I assume the Lloyd might be a certain Brighton based MP; which makes sense. He served on the Frontbench and was always more sympathetic to Starmer than others (at least before his rather bizarre speech in the Tent in Brighton- he tends to get well carried away)

It doesn't appear to be a huge change; but rather using some money to coordinate research.

The interesting thing over the last year is that there's been some criticism of the Campaign Group & they're admittedly not that influential because they're a parliamentary caucus made up of a strange assortment; some are old hands who are happy talking about municipal politics (Graeme Morris), some are from the 19 intake & want to help the party (Nav Mishra) & some are frankly people you wouldn't want in a council labour group let alone the PLP.

Even with a skilled set of people there's not really much the group can do in opposition; especially when you can't get all 30 odd members to act as a collective.

It does come to a wider point about what the left within the Labour Party is suppose to do; there was a clear approach that would have worked in April 2020 (get high profile jobs, influence policy & keep Starmer out of the right) but this has failed for a number of reasons and is not possible at the moment. They lost at conference, they're highest profile internal candidate stormed off and they lost the guaranteed backing of UNITE in all internal fights.

Part of me wonders if they will have to do what the Labour Right did and essentially act as a parasite on a non-ideological candidate in the next election; but I feel a lot of the discussion about forgets that the norm is for the campaign group left to be outsiders with no control on the levers of power. I mean what since 1945 they've had control of the party machinery for about 5 years at most?

[CumbrianLefty]

What the left of the party should be doing is campaigning on issues where they have support in both the party and wider public, but where the leadership is (for varying reasons) wary at present. Which yes, means less emphasis on niche foreign policy issues and internal party politicking.

[Blair]

Curse of the 2017 intake- Rosie Duffield is 'considering my future in the party very carefully'.

https://twitter.com/RosieDuffield1/status/1487777220135464960

[Secretary of State Liberal Hack]

What the left of the party should be doing is campaigning on issues where they have support in both the party and wider public, but where the leadership is (for varying reasons) wary at present. Which yes, means less emphasis on niche foreign policy issues and internal party politicking.

I really do think that a significant proportion of the support base of the left of the party simply doesn't care about that and has simply becomes self-absorbed to the point that they are unable to do such things.

[MaxQue]

Curse of the 2017 intake- Rosie Duffield is 'considering my future in the party very carefully'.

https://twitter.com/RosieDuffield1/status/1487777220135464960

Would be good riddance actually. She is a one-trick pony focused exclusively on one issue (in which she is at odds with her university-dominated constituency).

[CumbrianLefty]

She moans that the party has done nothing to "help" her.

Others would argue that their inaction is a form of help, given some of the statements she has made.

[YL]

I suspect that there'll be a lot of "don't let the door hit you on the way out" type reactions...

However, I'm a little conflicted here.  I don't have much time for her position on the issue she's most associated with, but if she's really been the victim of "obsessive harassment" as she claims, then that shouldn't be acceptable (and, frankly, the people responsible aren't helping their cause much).

[MaxQue]

I suspect that there'll be a lot of "don't let the door hit you on the way out" type reactions...

However, I'm a little conflicted here.  I don't have much time for her position on the issue she's most associated with, but if she's really been the victim of "obsessive harassment" as she claims, then that shouldn't be acceptable (and, frankly, the people responsible aren't helping their cause much).

The party should help her if she is victim of harassment, but there is harassment and there is "those nasty people keep vocally disagreeing with me".