bojo is king, brexit is on, stuff is fvcked, tomorrow starts here -- new govt new thread new battle

Cowardly is probably not the word I would use in a situation where you and your family need 24hr protection because the very fact of your existence in your job means that everyone from the President of the United States down to thousands of invisible alt-right internet vermin have declared its basically open season on you. He's probably one of the top five or so biggest targets for Nazis anywhere in the world.

I disagree with Khan on lots of things - I agree with him on plenty as well - but culture war cuts in more than one direction and one of those is this seemingly endless, grinding, exhausting mutually hostile factionalism. Trigger ballots, purges and deselections didn't exactly work out well and on balance that's probably a good thing since they could quite easily be used against left-wing MPs in the future. Like it or not these are the Labour politicians we have and we have to work with what we've got in order to at least try and protect us from the government. I'm worried about what will happen if the Labour Party concludes once again that, for some groups of people, they basically shouldn't bother, but whether Starmer or RLB wins another five years of infighting isn't going to benefit anyone but the Tories, who are at least actually good at purges and a result have a Parliamentary party more united than any time in the last 30 years.

Obviously just waving your hands in a happy-clappy way and saying "let's all unite to defeat the Tories" isn't going to work either but I wonder if the Labour Party is just pathologically incapable of preventing itself from infighting at this point. They've been doing it since Tom Watson tried to take down Blair and they just like the drama too much, from what I can see. None of the candidates looks capable of overcoming that.

The PLP and the membership are at odds with each other and there's not much that can be done to paper over the cracks. One or the other has to substantially change.

"Trigger ballots, purges and deselections didn't exactly work out well and on balance that's probably a good thing since they could quite easily be used against left-wing MPs in the future."

We don't have deselections or purges?

Factionalism and infighting are here to stay as long as we don't have deselections. Saying 'this is what we have' isn't good enough.

But the PLP isn't a monolith - RLB got more nominations than anyone who wasn't Starmer, and if Starmer wins reasonably comfortably can they really be said to be at odds in any meaningful sense? Obviously this depends on the policies Starmer adopts but he's been so policy-lite up to now we'll need to cross that bridge later.

There is a disproportionately noisy faction on the Labour benches who have barely stopped criticising their own party over the past five years and they mostly appeared to nominate Jess Phillips. I suspect most Labour MPs are as sick of them as we are, and this faction isn't going to stop even if a milquetoast centrist wins, because they were pretty noisy and disruptive even under Ed Miliband.

If RLB wins it really should be put up or shut up time from a lot of these people but good luck with that.

The only figure who does appear to be capable of gaining notional support from both Wes Streeting and John McDonnell is Angela Rayner and that is at least in part because she's only going for Deputy.

"The PLP and the membership are at odds with each other"

I'm more worried that growing numbers of the membership aren't as at odds with the PLP as previously. Hence the irresistible rise of the great white melt.

Basically if you can unite the left and the soft/centre left in the PLP then what the right says or does is irrelevant. (Edit - I'm putting the likes of Streeting on the right here, but there has to be a way to consign these people to a fringe without wholesale personnel changes that can't happen for years).

I didn't realise Corbyn actually unified as many various factions within the membership, now he's gone it all seems much more fractious and meltified.

I think we are seeing the defeat work itself through as well. Lotta melting going on!

RLB has yet to talk about deselections. I do think she needs to address it. We need to be in a situation where members are working in harmony with both councillors and MPs that many are going to canvass for in a few years.

I'm still feeling a lot delayed remorse about Corbyn. Especially as now it is much more apparent that some of those that think they can do a better job than him are clearly not even fit to lace his boots, and won't even have as broad appeal to the electorate as he did.

Hardly anyone is going to vote for Long-Bailey because she's promised deselections and even if she does then it raises the promise of several more years of civil war which is going to put off more potential RLB voters than it attracts.

One of the reasons trigger ballots didn't really take off is because constituency parties weren't at odds with their MPs as much as expected, certainly less than on the Tory benches. But you can't have a huge, national party without disagreements, deselections won't necessarily endorse unity because there's no guarantee that whoever comes in in their place won't have their own differences, perhaps even bigger ones (eg on immigration policy).

When Corbyn picked his first shadow cabinet RLB was seen as a soft left figure and in terms of policy that's still about right, she's only been repositioned on the hard left because doing so is useful to her opponents. Getting the Corbyn/McDonnell endorsement has probably done her more harm than good in this regard and she hasn't helped her own campaign with statements like that "10 out of 10" one, which have only served to hand attack lines to other candidates. The LW vote is going to be largely loyal to her whatever happens so she doesn't really need to firm it up.

Cowardly is probably not the word I would use in a situation where you and your family need 24hr protection because the very fact of your existence in your job means that everyone from the President of the United States down to thousands of invisible alt-right internet vermin have declared its basically open season on you. He's probably one of the top five or so biggest targets for Nazis anywhere in the world.

"Basically if you can unite the left and the soft/centre left in the PLP then what the right says or does is irrelevant."

I wouldn't be so confident here. And if Lab were to get in government would they vote for rent controls?

That's why we need pressure groups and campaigns among members and among the wider public, to move these issues into the centre ground and force the leadership to take notice to the point where they become inevitable. That has happened several times over the past decade on both the left (gay marriage) and the right (Brexit).

Btw Laura Smith, recently MP for Crewe and Nantwich, has been tweeting some interesting things recently. Wish she hadn’t lost her seat. Her article about this was really good.

I would encourage anyone with a burning desire for change to now throw themselves into the fight. If my two years in parliament has taught me anything, it’s that we can’t let the privileged few determine our future. https://t.co/4PljCjYQTC

— Laura Smith (@LauraSmithCrewe) January 12, 2020

Thread-When I was an MP I had working relations and friendships with people who perhaps disagreed with me on some political areas-i felt that they respected me and I respected them.

— Laura Smith (@LauraSmithCrewe) January 12, 2020

Barring a handful of exceptions is there even a difference between this soft/centre left and the right of the PLP? I just see them as one awful bloc - what is the meaningful difference here? There is a whole section of PLP who might do different styles of lip service but they are just as unreliable when you want them to vote correctly.

"One of the reasons trigger ballots didn't really take off is because constituency parties weren't at odds with their MPs as much as expected, certainly less than on the Tory benches. "

Trigger ballots was a fudge solution. There was a report on the trigger ballots for Neil Could and it totally looked like a fudge.

The vote for RLB is more like a package. Keeping quiet on deselections might be the best course rn but were she to get the leader's chair that will be something she will need to address. There will not be loyalty and that's one thing that Johnson did well was to choose a side and be ruthless with the side he didn't choose when he had the chance.

There will almost certainly need to be something like that. Civil war is a necessity to me.

*Neil Coyle

It's relatively easy to shift the dial on cultural issues, much harder on economic ones.

Trigger ballots likely wouldn't have been an effective way of changing the makeup of the PLP, even if there hadn't been two snap elections. A policy of open selection, in which sitting MPs have to win the confidence of their CLP to continue, rather than having to be actively turfed out, would be more effective. A big part of whatever happens next is increasing member participation in CLPs, though. Stephen Bush is probably correct that the Starmer picture from Tottenham looks like more or less every Labour meeting across the country.

Tbh the best time to do the messy work of deselections, if it needs doing, is when the party is about as far from a GE as it’s likely to be.

Khan gets a lot of racism but hopefully that's not going to insulate him from criticism of his Mayorship. He has done nothing for the working class here!

xxp
yeah but Starmer is pitching to be the leader, having a meeting in a predominantly black area. It seems Bush has missed the whole point of what is bad about that picture

I’m not sure Tottenham as a whole is predominantly black anymore, maybe some wards are, but it surely doesn’t look as white as any random meeting in my part of Ireland!

Khan gets a lot of racism but hopefully that's not going to insulate him from criticism of his Mayorship. He has done nothing for the working class here!

xp

could post that pic to the Context Free Cork account!

If this happened in any other country we would call it what it is corruption. The press would be absolutely annihilating a left-ish candidate for doing this. https://t.co/wNZcGeli1h

— Sinan Kose (@TheSinanKose) January 13, 2020

at least Jess the jester is bringing the voting corruption lolz!

idk what that is!

xp I’m not convinced by this? There’s loads of people called Richard Parker (and tigers too)

sorry I meant Out Of Context Cork account

Still if there was a whiff of that around RLB there would be a feeding frenzy and she'd be gone already.

How the fuck do both of ye know about this account before I do? Disgusting.

fuck the double standards and I do believe Jess is bent as a nine pound note, even if Loki hasn't quite hit the motherlode there!

Sorry nm I thought it was comrade alphabet replying the first time, it’s the centrist brain worms trying their best

Lol
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EOO3JAhW4AAt2rM?format=jpg&name=large

It’s incoherent to have campaigned for a second referendum on Brexit but to be completely closed to a second referendum on Scottish independence.

— Stephen Bush (@stephenkb) January 13, 2020

I hope she gets more pelters than Boris did

I'm more worried that growing numbers of the membership aren't as at odds with the PLP as previously. Hence the irresistible rise of the great white melt.

My anecdotal experience is leading me to think the same, tbh - membership got majorly shook by the last defeat and are v likely to vote in a Competent Manager type like Starmer.

RLB needs to come out strong, it's a marathon not a sprint and I hope to god she is using her time well right now and preparing an absolutely storming campaign. I'm not that hopeful though tbh. Bleak times :(

I get the Stoya reference with prize pillock Mason now, but what is the Spice reference about?

paul 'atreides' mason

One of the good things is that RLB appears to have refused to let Milne and Murphy have any involvement in her campaign. That's pissed some people off but it's a smart move, she needs to be her own person and involving those two would have been suicidal.

"My anecdotal experience is leading me to think the same, tbh - membership got majorly shook by the last defeat and are v likely to vote in a Competent Manager type like Starmer."

Mine too but it's a good thing this is going on till March and hopefully most people will vote till they see the debates. A lot on RLB though.

xxp

the sleeper has awakened... now somebody slap his stupid fucking with a wet kipper!

face!

So the challenge for RLB is to establish herself as a competent pair of hands and undermine Starmer as one. And it's not just being competent yourself, it's knowing how to surround yourself with a competent team and not just bringing in yes men like Richard Burgon.

Things like the Green Industrial Revolution are fantastic but they aren't going to win her the leadership. {People know the left can do future-thinking big picture stuff, it needs to reassure people it can get the day-to-day basics right as well.

Meanwhile it's worth considering that Starmer, assuming he's so inclined, doesn't need to spend ages undermining Corbyn and the left because the likes of Jess Phillips will be in the race doing that for him. Barring a weird Nandy surge or a Starmer implosion it's going to come down to RLB and Starmer and who can gather the most second preferences.

The importance of the team is being underplayed rn. The Blair cabinet was almost as important as him, despite all the then-wailing about Presidential politics. Brown in particular.

I think we're about to find out that the membership of the Labour Party is nowhere near as left as has been assumed - and that includes a lot of former Corbyn supporters.

Her campaign needs to be good but from the one meeting I went to she is never going to be the competence candidate among the managers who will vote Starmer. They probably went for Owen Smith.

It's probably more to do with winning over the people who voted Corbyn twice, would've never looked at Starmer and are shattered by the defeat. So in a sense it's for her to say that competence isn't enough.