Jeremy Corbyn vs Angela Eagle

the crisis we're having now is only an overt period in a decades-long crisis i.e. the "battle for centre ground" which has bubbled under with periods of seeming stability and e.g. the "party unity" of labour during blair and brown due entirely to its incumbency and essential complacency

But shouldn't the Tories be going through similar crisis? (Or are they?) How can they give both the rah-rah xenophile "true" conservatives and the neoliberal urban business class what they want?

It was that split which lead to the referendum being called in the first place.

The Tories had a brief but brutal leadership crisis after Brexit but have pulled together swiftly and ruthlessly under Theresa May. They are very good at that kind of thing, generally being far more concerned about the survival and strength of the party than ideology.

xpost

Okay, I get it... But wouldn't splitting into separate parties be the obvious solution for both Tories and Labour? Or are they to afraid of what they will loose to see the benefit of what they might gain with such a move?

IIRC you guys also have a winner-takes-it-all voting system, like the Americans? I guess that's what discourages a proper multi-party system from taking form?

(xpost)

The possibility for mass defections to the Lib Dems is surely there but there's no way that would play well in Brexit constituencies.

they are they just seem to be holding it together currently - in order to cling onto power. v broadly speaking there's a feeling that the parlimentary labour party are "too right wing" for the membership the conservatives are "too left wing" for theirs. theresa may believe it or not represents the liberal side of things while her final rival for leadership was to the rah-rah side of things which is why she had to drop out before it got to a membership vote.

xposts

Or are they to afraid of what they will loose to see the benefit of what they might gain with such a move?

It'll never happen with the Tories, they are incredibly tribal. It looks fairly likely it'll happen soon for Labour, it already did in the 80s which is why we now have the Liberal Democrats, the perrenially underachieving third major party.

The whole Cameron project has been the grassroots and a huge chunk of MPs voting for someone they actively disliked on the basis that he was electable. That need to cater to both wings has wrecked the country and means he'll go down as the worst post-war PM if things unravel like it seems they're going to.

May is widely distrusted by centrists (as illiberal) and by the hard right (as not illiberal enough, and too pro-Europe). She has been able to keep a cap on it so far but it has literally been three days and when the negotiations on EU membership start in earnest she'll face similar problems.

The parties would probably struggle to survive in a split. The Tories would either have political donations but no grass roots, Labour would either have no business support or members / unions behind them.

Ah, okay I didn't actually know the history of the Liberal Democrats... I thought they were formed to represent that liberal urban business class I mentioned (the ones for whom Tories are too socially conservative), not as a splinter group from Labour.

(xpost)

That's effectively what they became, but again there was a huge fault line down the middle of the party between those who wanted to be a left-ish party and fiscal conservatives who also happened to be social liberals. The latter won.

The Tories would either have political donations but no grass roots, Labour would either have no business support or members / unions behind them.

So the state in UK doesn't support parties monetarily? In here I think that's one of the main reasons why some parties with an (at least initally) weak economic backing have managed to thrive.

Though there was a good chunk of time in the 00s when the Lib Dems were to the left of Labour on most issues.

xpost

That's effectively what they became, but again there was a huge fault line down the middle of the party between those who wanted to be a left-ish party and fiscal conservatives who also happened to be social liberals. The latter won.

Wouldn't there be support for a proper, big left-wing party in the UK then? I've always thought there are a lot left-leaning people living there.

They are a mix of splinter Labour and the classical Liberal Party, which was formerly a party of government but declined after WW2.

I mean, I get that it's these people who are supporting Corbyn now, but wouldn't it make more sense to form a new, properly left-wing party instead of trying to salvage an old one that clearly doesn't want to make that move?

(xpost)

So the state in UK doesn't support parties monetarily? In here I think that's one of the main reasons why some parties with an (at least initally) weak economic backing have managed to thrive.

It does but not to an extent that covers the kind of party machines both run and associated advertising / marketing costs. Labour were in about £25m of debt after the 2005 election.

there is state money for parties but not the big bucks that modern political activities and campaigning are able to devour

some people have characterised this whole labour debacle as a battle over the labour brand and that's more or less what it is when it comes down to it

Wouldn't there be support for a proper, big left-wing party in the UK then? I've always thought there are a lot left-leaning people living there.

Not so sure about that.

Yep.

I mean, I get that it's these people who are supporting Corbyn now, but wouldn't it make more sense to form a new, properly left-wing party instead of trying to salvage an old one that clearly doesn't want to make that move?

The electoral system in the UK doesn't work in favour of smaller parties. UKIP got 12.6% of the vote at the last election and got one MP out of a possible six hundred and fifty something - and he started out as a Conservative. A breakaway Socialist party would probably only work out under PR.

Neither side wants to lose 'Labour' as a name though - it has a long history and people are tribal too.

Presumably there wasa time when Labour was just needing to make its initial name. It wasa party that was formed for the first time sometime in the early to mid 20th century. Or did it tie in with more people getting the vote than previously anyway?

Possibly should know more about Labour Party history, but do know taht vaguery. Not sure if there is much of a gap between the working class getting the vote and the formation of the party which was presumably initially to represent them and sympathetic leaning voters. Which seems to be a long way from what it is now or what parts of it want to be but I'm assuming Corbyn is trying to return to.

So echoing what Tuomas is saying, what is to prevent a broad left wing party from forming outside of infighting between leftist factions. Also that the name Labour itself has a weight to it now that it would take any new party an age to build to.
& that it would probably need some momentum already gathering to brig the broad left wing to join.

I know taht the initial 2 parties were the Whigs and the Tories which evolved into the Liberal party and the Conservatives. Not sure exactly when LIberal Party shrunk out of the main running. I think they were already becoming the 3rd party as I grew up. My mother used to vote for them is all that I remember.
Did they evolve into Lib Dem or is that a totally different party?

Not sure that the Labour Party has been anything more than the Stop-The-Tories party my entire adult life.

bingo

the slow-down-the-tories-somewhat party

very briefly, because i'm on holiday and i can't be arsed: the Labour Party from its inception has been a coalition of different interests, even little sub-parties within it: the Trade Union movement, middle class liberals like the Fabians, more left wing or "true" socialists crossing working/middle class boundaries to a large extent, "Christian socialists" and a bunch i'm probably forgetting. right-leaning working class members and "hard" left middle class theorists. a genuinely broad church that has been at war with itself from day 1. anybody who wants to write a broad narrative tradition for the party has to strain a lot if they want to pretend there's "consistency".

this is a battle for the brand, and i don't think the brand has much value in it, because the importance (notional importance?) of the party was bringing together all those disparate elements, however uneasily. Before 1979, there was a very loose consensus that the party favoured economic policies of redistribution and restructuring to try to somehow democratise the workings of the state. post-Thatcher, post monetarism, post the new orthodoxy, that consensus is dead and not coming back.

and i suspect there's no new broad-based left-ish party coming down the tracks because a) the First Past the Post system works against it, but mainly b) professional politicians are mostly navel-gazing arseholes

to add to the Owen Smith stuff above, Michael Crick linked to this 2006 article wherein Owen gives some unfortunate quotes on the Iraq war, private sector involvement in the NHS and PFI.

http://www.walesonline.co.uk/news/wales-news/owen-smith-opens-up-by-election-2338066

(he also says that local parties should be able to veto all-women shortlists, the context of this is an argument that all-women shortlists were being used selectively to stop local parties selecting candidates the central party didn't like, but this may still be a bad look for him considering that it seems like "Labour is overdue a female leader" is going to be one of the big arguments Eagle's backers use to make the case that Smith should be the anti-Corbyn candidate to stand down)

I mean, this looks like it could have been put together by the Corbyn campaign, it's pefect

Owen Smith on...

The Iraq War
"We are making significant inroads in improving what is happening in Iraq.

"I thought at the time the tradition of the Labour Party and the tradition of left-wing engagement to remove dictators was a noble, valuable tradition, and one that in South Wales, from the Spanish Civil War onwards, we have recognised and played a part in."

He didn't know whether he would have voted against the war, as the previous MP Llew Smith did.

The involvement of the private sector in the NHS
"Where they can bring good ideas, where they can bring valuable services that the NHS is not able to deliver, and where they can work alongside but subservient to the NHS and without diminishing in any respect the public service ethos of the NHS, then I think that's fine. I think if their involvement means in any way, shape or form the break up of the NHS, then I'm not a fan of it, but I don't think it does."

On PFI (Private Finance Initiative) schemes, etc
"We've had PFI in Wales, we've had a hospital built down in Baglan through PFI. If PFI works, then let's do it. What people want to see are more hospitals, better services.

"City academies in certain parts of inner city Britain, where schools were failing, where children were not being well served, have made great inroads.

"I'm not someone, frankly, who gets terribly wound up about some of the ideological nuances that get read into some of these things, and I think sometimes they are totally overblown."

Does Smith's history with Pfitzer have any effect on him now?

I'm sure he made plenty of money out of it.

i'm sure it gives him a thorough understanding of the needs of today's pharmaceutical industry should he be called to vote on any related issues

hard to say whether his lax perspective on the nhs as a vehicle for private profit as long as it stops short of precipitating its actual "break up" whatever that means is an effect of his involvement with one of the world's largest drug companies but...who knows eh?

I think the quote above is 10 years old so wondering if he's saying anything along the same lines now.

& I thought people were saying he was a leftist which sounds odd if he's in bed with big pharmaceutical business.

In the current climate Thatcher would probably be considered soft left.

smiths getting more of a battering than eagles took. finally ilm

lol mangled syntax

not sure if enough ppl remember Absolutely for this to have legs as a meme, but lol anyway

https://twitter.com/unklerupert/status/753221683742400512

Lol at this 'clean campaign pledge'. Publicly asking Corbyn to sign something to say that he takes responsibility for everyone on Twitter? So when some idiot tweets abuse at a Lab MP and Corbyn fails to... what? Have them put in the stocks? The party can cry about how he didn't stick to their very serious and important pledge. Including a line 'I promise to unite at the end of the contest to fight the Tories' is surely a major provocation too?

Why are these people so bad and terrible?

It's exactly what May did to Leadsom.

It was interesting to see that she could only rustle up 17 MPs for the photo op, though.

I know taht the initial 2 parties were the Whigs and the Tories which evolved into the Liberal party and the Conservatives. Not sure exactly when LIberal Party shrunk out of the main running. I think they were already becoming the 3rd party as I grew up. My mother used to vote for them is all that I remember.
Did they evolve into Lib Dem or is that a totally different party?

― Stevolende, Wednesday, 13 July 2016 13:09 (5 hours ago)

I'm no expert, but broadly speaking it was a two-party system (Tories v Liberals) before the First World War and was a two-party system after the Second World War (Tories and Labour), with the 1920s and 1930s seeing a lot of instability but the end result was that the Liberals were finished as a major force. They clung on to a very small number of seats in a few areas, but were never even remotely likely to come to power. Some people on the right of the Labour Party split off to form the SDP in the early 80s. They made an electoral pact with the Liberals not to stand against each other. For most of the 80s they had an awkward alliance with 'The Two Davids' as their leaders, before eventually merging into the SLD (which then became the Lib Dems).

Owen Smith just promised a second referendum. The chance of him being able to deliver one is basically zero but that's actually quite a smart move.

it seems weird that Smith has chosen the day that May becomes PM and announces her cabinet to launch his leadership bid (I know it was only Monday that Leadsom dropped out - I guess he figured that if he put it back then Eagle would have the chance to steal a march on him?)

i'm not sure that it's "smart" per se but by gum at least it's a policy

As a vote winning gimmick it might just work.

http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jul/13/owen-smith-to-offer-referendum-on-brexit-deal-if-elected-labour-leader

Smith, whose entry into the race for party leader threatens to derail the hopes of Angela Eagle, who first triggered the contest, said it was clear people wanted both access to the single market and controls on immigration.

But, he added, the public wanted to know what deal would be struck, adding: “And then we should give them another chance. That does mean a second referendum or a general election when the terms are clear. The Labour government should be committing to that.”

isn't the general consensus that these two things are mutually exclusive?

Trying to set himself out as a unifying figure with soft-left politics, Smith accused Labour MPs on the left and right of his party of being fatalistic about a split.

more like soft-in-the-head left, amirite

how do you get to self-identify as Left if you don't give a fuck about contesting the existing economic order?

soft-left is a feeling, a squooshy, cuddly feeling

also i was joking when i said "go to the country and offer a second referendum but with harder questions"