You would think that by now, unless they are genuinely, totally deluded or blinded to reality due to pre-conceived prejudices, that those MPs on the right of Labour who flirted with joining the Tinge racists/said it was a clear sign we needed to change, must now be relieved they didn’t jump? Watching the BBC’s ‘This Week’, where ‘balance’ to them is getting a Labour MP who only mildly despises Corbyn, to almost agree with an ex Labour MP who despises Corbyn, it would appear some of these MPs seem hell-bent on ending their careers.
Those MPs for whom the media is a drug they have long since been addicted to, unfortunately, do genuinely need saving from themselves. It’s like watching supposedly intelligent people trying to hang a picture & repeatedly hammering a nail into their own hands. Then blaming the picture.
OR, and here’s a radical thought, the right of the party should learn from their past mistakes-SDP & Tinge/TIG/Change and see that it is only ever them that split Labour and allow in the Tories. How about that? How about doing what Corbyn et al did-stay and fight for what they believe in, rather than spit the dummy and ignore democracy? They are like moths returning to a light that burns them, then thinking “Oh, it won’t burn me again this time”…
It is beyond disgraceful, with the Tories as they are, for any Labour MP to want to split. All that says to me is “F**k 4 millions kids in poverty, I am THAT idealistic that I’ll act in an entirely dismissive & hypocritical way”.
You know, trying to be the adult in the room, as Corbyn is, will see the kids lashing out. Literally no one else is trying to bring everyone together. No one. Only Labour under Corbyn.
Everything from (twice) electing the leader, to policies, to the Conference Motion Corbyn is sticking to etc is decided democratically. You cannot pick and choose re democracy. The only time I think you can, is when it involves death. Literal, human death. That, to me, is the exception.
Where Labour is at now on the political compass is Centre Left. It’s basic Social Democracy. In no way is it ‘extreme’ or even close to ‘far left’. So, the ‘right’ (of Labour) see Attlee as theirs-his policies were MORE left wing than Corbyn, EXCEPT when it came to racism and imperialism, where Corbyn wins hands-down. It’s just as Chomsky says-since Thatcher/Reagan, the political parameters have moved so far to the right, that major elements of what Labour offer now could be in a CONSERVATIVE manifesto prior to the 1970s. Modest Socialism/basic Social Democracy is now labelled as ‘Marxist/Communist’. That is not a criticism of either, TBC, but it is patently not true!
The political compass has not moved, the world and politics have. The majority of Labour’s current policies have been massively majority-popular with the voting public for decades. It’s just they have never been presented in a Manifesto before. To give a snap picture, here is Giles Brandreth proving the point:
Adam Samuels
