This Once Great Movement Of Ours

[CumbrianLefty]

I can tell this is a thread where I'm going to make myself very popular

There is no obligation to take part unless you have something useful to contribute

[CumbrianLefty]

I’ve already moved on, and I urge anyone else to choose better, albeit now smaller, pastures from here on out. The Labour Party’s ability to serve the British working class is dead, with cheers from the holders of Capital in Britain ecstatic that the nominal left party is of no threat to them.

A somewhat ahistorical statement that ignores the objective evidence that Starmer is actually one of the party's *more* left wing leaders, even if he is to the right of Corbyn.

(and exactly the same is true of his deputy, and possible successor)

[CumbrianLefty]

again, I didn't get to see, because the mods deleted everything.  For reasons that have become even more confusing now.  I had assumed the responses were just insults and the mods found the small hijack too distracting, but you're telling me they were just informative...well that's odd.

Simply making a statement that "Labour hates Jews" is trolling, and not the purpose of this thread.

[CumbrianLefty]

Yes, and the fact also remains (though some have tried to write it out of history) that Labour got 41% of the GB vote in 2017 - something that remains woefully under-analysed (by most of Corbyn's backers as well as opponents, it has to be said)

[CumbrianLefty]

Even if true, I would have thought just that merited investigation of why it happened - rather than merely sweeping things under the carpet and pretending it never did.

[CumbrianLefty]

Yes, and the fact also remains (though some have tried to write it out of history) that Labour got 41% of the GB vote in 2017 - something that remains woefully under-analysed (by most of Corbyn's backers as well as opponents, it has to be said)

The CW about Labour's chances made it easier for people to vote for them, did it not?

Polling at the time/just after the election showed this was actually a fairly minor factor.

(after all the polls also suggested a big Tory win last year, but the result was rather different)

[CumbrianLefty]

Indeed, puts that moronic centrist meme of "MAY RAN THE WORST CAMPAIGN EVER!!" in perspective.

[CumbrianLefty]

Angela Rayner has just urged anybody who isn't a union member, to join one if they can.

But yes, the new leadership is to the right of Blair

[CumbrianLefty]

Interesting discussion on the antisemitism report in the latest Private Eye; one lawyer thinks Labour could be facing 40 lawsuits over the leak and £2.5 million payouts even if they were to settle at first opportunity.

A piece that was almost certainly written by N*c* C*h*n, and actually cites E*a* P*i*l*p* as a reliable source - two things that seriously compromise its credibility from the off.

[CumbrianLefty]

If you have a situation in which a large majority of the electorate has a strong affinity with either of the two major parties, then swing tends to be very useful as a gauge in that sense; after all, when that is the case then there is a hard limit on the extent to which public opinion can actually shift. When that is not the case (i.e. now, but also before the 1950s) then, yes, every election is a blank slate.

Is there any set of weirder and wilder elections in British history than between the set between the 1922 and 1935 election?

I would extend that to 1906-1945 (ie from the last Liberal landslide to the first Labour one) but yes.

[CumbrianLefty]

As widely predicted, David Evans is the party's new General Secretary.

Some on the left are predictably unhappy with this - given the narrow margin of the vote to approve him, this merely confirms that splitting the left vote three ways in the recent NEC "by-elections" for the CLP section was not a terribly inspired idea.

[CumbrianLefty]

This thread has fallen into disuse despite important stuff happening in the UK Labour world.

Latest is that some people have been suspended from the party over the leaked report into internal matters that is now the subject of its own inquiry. The anti-Starmer conspiracy theorists immediately presumed it was the leakers, but that does not appear to be the case. In particular if it is true that Patrick Heneghan is one of them, that is maybe significant given his key role in the PV campaign.

[CumbrianLefty]

Turns out that Emilie Oldknow is another suspension.

She was widely tipped as Formby's successor as party GenSec before all this blew up.

[CumbrianLefty]

Given that this thread was ignored for yesterday's events, any point in it carrying on?

[CumbrianLefty]

Obvious trolling not worthy of a response

In a genuine attempt to revive this thread, Kate Green has been announced as RLB's successor in the Shadow Cabinet. As she is a previously highly sectarian anti-Corbynite who managed Owen Smith's flop 2016 leadership challenge, this is unlikely to please the left.

[CumbrianLefty]

But also the things I stated, which seems to be what people are noticing more at the moment.

(and as if to illustrate my point, "Owen Smith" is trending on Twitter right now)

[CumbrianLefty]

Yes, but that 14% of Labour supporters who don't agree still have votes as well.

I don't mind Starmer doing his own thing, I do mind that certain people in his entourage seem to be "hyper-factional clowns" in their own right who appear to think they are cosplaying Kinnock's "heroic struggle against the left" back in the dear dead 1980s. Hopefully the more sensible elements around him (including, of course, some former Corbyn supporters) will turn out to be more influential, even if less incontinently garrulous with our awful as ever media

[CumbrianLefty]

Yesterday the party's new GenSec David Evans started work, at the same time Thomas Gardiner - one of the last remaining holdovers from the Corbyn days - left. Its all change right now.

[CumbrianLefty]

Lots of people will welcome a move to STV for internal elections. The issue here is that it is coming in for the CLP section (one of the main strongholds of the left recently) and not for anywhere else in the NEC, which will continue to pick its people by FPTP. These areas "just happen" to be more right wing.

[CumbrianLefty]

That one is a complete red herring, as there's no reason to believe any other section would return a different factional balance under STV.

I think the union section is still done by general secretaries using bloc votes, but the representation is divided up broadly proportionally to the size of the unions anyway, with a small boost to the (generally much more left-wing) smaller unions. If the left wants to take control of the union section, it doesn't need STV for that, it just needs to get Unison back on side.

There are only three PLP representatives, and 3 quotas requires 75% of the vote. Corbynites don't have 25% of the PLP, so they'd be shut out anyway.

And there are only two local government representatives, but the position of the left in local government is if anything even weaker than in Parliament.

There's actually a decent case to be made that STV would make the union section at least *slightly* less of a carve-up than it currently (and blatantly obviously) is. And that the parllamentary/council results would not be altered by STV *as things currently stand* is no reason not to do it.

[CumbrianLefty]

If nothing else, he is an illustration that centrism is not *automatically* the same as liberalism.

[CumbrianLefty]

In more NEC news the Starmer Slate has been announced.

It's 6 people from 'Labour to Win', including the two sitting NEC reps. Luke Akehurst (former NEC & figure of some hilarity on the right) is running on the ticket; I couldn't bring myself to vote for him last time...

The joke being they are called that to distinguish themselves from "Labour to Lose" - which was their de facto if not actually officially announced position for the previous five years

[CumbrianLefty]

Actually there is an interesting divide in Corbynism with regard to Ed M - the pragmatists see him as an ally in at least some respects (not least due to how he got grief from some of the same people who so hounded Jez) whilst the hardliners see him as just another "enemy".

[CumbrianLefty]

I didn't even know Desmond was Jewish myself.

I think we can be *fairly* sure Reed didn't either.

[CumbrianLefty]

To clarify, Henderson is pretty much an outright TERF and Pidcock (like Burgon) is seen as dodgy.