This Once Great Movement Of Ours

[morgieb]

As I do not want to go anywhere remotely near to Corbynite Twitter, can someone explain to me what Starmer has done wrong this time?

Written an article for the Mail on Sunday in which he attacks the mess that the government has made over A levels, says that the government is failing children because it has not taken seriously the problems caused to education by the pandemic (points out that more attention appears to have been given to how to re-open bowling alleys safely than schools), and says that there cannot be any more excuses and that they must re-open schools next month.

I gather that this is bad because 'never opening schools again' is praxis, or something.

Seriously, as someone with links to Corbynite Twitter (well the Australian equivalent thereof - and who most of my friends were having a stroke over), this is a pretty weird thing to attack. Of course the government should be looking into how to reopen schools safely, especially given Covid in the UK doesn't seem to be anywhere near as extreme as in the US.

[cp]

These things will keep happening because, even if Corbynista Twitter were not arguing in bad-faith, as they are, it isn't possible for Starmer to appease them because it would make no sense for a high-ranking politician who believes the institutions of the British state must be reformed to respect the rights of ordinary people to suddenly turn around and decide they should go out of their way to be intelligible to a tiny, very weird subset of the population (i.e. people who argue about Labour internal politics online) and almost certainly make themselves less intelligible to everyone else. At some point we must simply start to ignore it.

I suppose the point is that most people on the left of the Labour party don't believe Starmer is such a politician. And they have a point.

[CumbrianLefty]

Regardless of that, retreating into full scale crankery and conspiracism is not a solution. Believe it or not, the "never Corbyn" diehards of the previous five years are a warning not an instruction manual.

[Blair]

Since deleting my twitter (which I only ever used for political news) it's remarkable how quickly this stuff not only literally disapears from sight but also becomes more & more irrelevant; it was summed up on the NS podcast as...

'the exact same mistake by Corbynsceptics from 2016; they're confusing getting each other angrier with more people getting angry about Starmer''.

These are, on the whole, people who never supported Starmer. They thought that Jackie Walker was treated badly, they thought that Chris Williamsons should have stayed in the party, they thought Ian Lavery was fit to run the Labour Party & they thought that RLB sold out the movement for signing the 10 pledges.

In the same way that there was a arch-blairite rump which thought that Blair didn't go far enough there is equally a large part of the Corbynite tendency which believes it didn't go far enough.

If you basically accept that there are 20,000 people on twitter who ascribe to the above view it's perfectly easy for this issue to be whipped up every time it's socialist sunday; it's honestly the same as the 4-5 people shouting at the back of the CLP meeting who then proceed to lose very single motion by double digits.

[Blair]

I'd love to see a very deep piece on the organised left (within Labour) & how it has responded to Starmer. I think the thing that Labour twitter & the never ending outrage distract from is the longer & wider project (a mistake the Labour right made in 2016) & the success that Starmer has had & could have in reshaping the party.

Within the PLP it's clear that a large chunk of the 2017 & 2019 intake have rightly seen Starmer as the best wagon to hitch their cart to; Sam Tarry is by far the best example of this.

His selection, for fear of libelling anyone, was controversial. If Corbyn or even RLB was leader he would have been expected to have had a job- he's one of the most politically connected members
member of the '19 lot from the SCG group. How has he spend his time since Starmer won? He's served as Ed Miliband's bag carrier (PPS) & has spent his time doing committee work on BA & working closely with UNITE's campaign.  What he's not been doing is leading twitter pile ons & debating NEC slates.

Even the people in the intake who I'd describe as more crankish have been very quiet. I mean the only Corbynite MP willing to go on record for stories is Claudia Webbe & Dianne Abbott; neither are rising stars & I'd be shocked if neither were still here after 2024.

I'd ignore this if it was just PLP related but within the Trade Union Movement it was a resounding & clear snub for Howard Beckett to lose the UNITED LEFT nomination when he ran such an explicity anti-Starmer campaign; I mean he was literally touting his nomination from the weird online blogs & accused Starmer of selling out the working class movement.

The funny thing is that the person he lost to (Steve Turner) is probably equally left-wing; but he had much deeper routes in UNITE & said something along the lines of 'I need to work with Keir if I win, let this race be about industrial issues' etc etc.

If the race for GMB & UNISON chairs are won by either moderates or people on the left who can read the room then it's clear that you'll see a broadly similar approach- if you add even the worse NEC result for Starmer (a 6-3 momentum victory) & then see the TU section change with Community added then you've got an even bigger NEC majority & Starmer is even stronger than where he starts.

[CumbrianLefty]

Beckett's defeat by Turner was both hilarious and rather encouraging, yes.

The thing is, at least the "never Corbyn" brigade had most of the media on their side - which might provide something of an excuse for them so often misreading things. The "hate Starmer" crowd have literally nothing outside their own self-reinforcing bubble.

[EastAnglianLefty]

Even within said bubble, the more perceptive contributors to Novara et al. have distinctly more nuanced takes. The broader Corbynosphere isn't large enough to control Labour, but if all you've got in your court is Skwawkbox and Aaron Bastani then you are up the creek without a paddle.

[CumbrianLefty]

Only tweeting the worse polls for Starmer/Labour is a sure tell.

(and we've had a bit of that in the last 24 hours)

[Blair]

Beckett's defeat by Turner was both hilarious and rather encouraging, yes.

The thing is, at least the "never Corbyn" brigade had most of the media on their side - which might provide something of an excuse for them so often misreading things. The "hate Starmer" crowd have literally nothing outside their own self-reinforcing bubble.

Cursed it as Beckett is now running.

I don't know enough about UNITE politics to know whether he'll get 10% of the vote or win some bizarre 4 way race

[CumbrianLefty]

Well all the signs are that he is someone who hugely overestimates his own appeal, so.....

[Blair]

Even within said bubble, the more perceptive contributors to Novara et al. have distinctly more nuanced takes. The broader Corbynosphere isn't large enough to control Labour, but if all you've got in your court is Skwawkbox and Aaron Bastani then you are up the creek without a paddle.

Yeah I think frankly a good operation does make it a lot harder for broad based internal opposition to work without it appearing well cranky (Corbyn received historically high levels of unity from the party during the summer of 2017 because he controlled the agenda)

I still think there's a big problem with people (especially commentators, including those on the left) confusing noise with power within the Labour movement.

It's like when you see these various internal pressure groups (Labour for a Green New Deal being the most obvious example) tweet something angry &  brief against Starmer- but you then realise it's literally ran by two people & was set up to support RLBs then shadow leadership bid. It's not at all a thing exclusive to the left fwiw.

You see it on a bigger scale with Momentum; they're still able to generate articles & headlines with  'Momentum lash out at Starmer over....'. But the importance of them as an organisation gets weaker & weaker considering at best they can generate around 20K votes in internal elections & have been reduced to well just being social media warriors (whose once much feared output hasn't really be that ahead since 2017)

I should wait until the NEC elections to write their obituary but they're going to face the wilderness if Starmer gets a 6-3 NEC majority, boots out the smaller left unions from the NEC & then controls the officers group.

[CumbrianLefty]

boots out the smaller left unions from the NEC

Excuse my ignorance, but what do you actually mean by this?

[Blair]

boots out the smaller left unions from the NEC

Excuse my ignorance, but what do you actually mean by this?

IIRC (I don't know the logisitics or numbers) but there's talk that the Bakers Union and the FBU might lose their NEC seats- I think the same was done with Community who use to have an NEC seat but lost it during the height of Corbyns power.

I think it's done in the weird pre-conference or autumn away day the NEC has every year which serves as a quasi AGM for the NEC.

[CumbrianLefty]

Ah right, so its not just the leader deciding it on his own whim (though I also get what you mean)

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Note that ASLEF will almost certainly keep their seat because the sly buggers switched sides.

[Blair]

Note that ASLEF will almost certainly keep their seat because the sly buggers switched sides.

Were they not part of the hilarously inept attempt at stoping David Evans from becoming GS? I hadn't noticed that they switched!

I know that TSSA are relatively neutral if not pro-Starmer; although I think that had a lot to do with the GS liking Starmer & the members being ovewhelming anti-Brexit iirc.

[EastAnglianLefty]

Note that ASLEF will almost certainly keep their seat because the sly buggers switched sides.

Were they not part of the hilarously inept attempt at stoping David Evans from becoming GS? I hadn't noticed that they switched!

I know that TSSA are relatively neutral if not pro-Starmer; although I think that had a lot to do with the GS liking Starmer & the members being ovewhelming anti-Brexit iirc.

This is going to be the case for most unions, though. It's not like bakers as an employment category are particularly left-wing, it's just about the (often very small) cliques of activists who decide union leadership elections.

[CumbrianLefty]

McDonnell has made some comments on Starmer that the Twitter zealots might not greatly like.

[Blair]

Serialised passage from the new book from Pogrund & Maguire (two of the best sourced Labour reporters) makes quite good- for those who don't have a ST suscripition the book comes out on the 3rd September.

https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/aides-feared-jeremy-corbyn-was-sabotaging-his-own-campaign-in-labours-chaotic-ride-to-disaster-9n829p8hl

[Silent Hunter]

It's called Left Out: The Inside Story of Labour Under Corbyn, if you're interested.

[CumbrianLefty]

Well it maybe makes "quite good" reading apart from the identifiable factual mistakes that have been identified already. And that "Vauxhall was going to go Tory" headline grabber is itself a massive red flag - that wasn't going to happen if Labour had been reduced to 50 seats a la 1931, never mind 150.

(Vauxhall falling to the *LibDems*, on the other hand.....)

[Silent Hunter]

Pogrund has posted the MRP memo suggesting exactly that, mind.

[Blair]

Well it maybe makes "quite good" reading apart from the identifiable factual mistakes that have been identified already. And that "Vauxhall was going to go Tory" headline grabber is itself a massive red flag - that wasn't going to happen if Labour had been reduced to 50 seats a la 1931, never mind 150.

(Vauxhall falling to the *LibDems*, on the other hand.....)

I can't remember who said it but it's true that the noise that comes out of histories of the Labour Party is the grinding of axes.

I tend to read this with the knowledge that a fair chunk of it is questionable but frankly I just want to find out who's trying to grind these axes.

[DaWN]

My god, that MRP. That makes the American political pundits look like they know what they're talking about.

[CumbrianLefty]

My god, that MRP. That makes the American political pundits look like they know what they're talking about.

Tories to win Rhondda - a better example of GIGO would be difficult to find.