Jeremy Corbyn's time is up

[HoratioCuthbert]

I was using the image of Chomsky storming into Downing Street figuratively, honest.

Will look at that when I get back from walking the dog - ta

Haha yeah i didn't think you quite meant storming, more the structure you were describing seemed at odds. It's a nice image though

 

[nino_savatte]

I've also defended his motives from what I've seen of him. You have no idea what my 'aims' beyond this are.

Are you working for his campaign? If you are, you're doing a shit job.

 

[Pickman's model]

My only aim from posting was to point out that Smith isn't being dishonest to say he's a 'valley boy'. I've also defended his motives from what I've seen of him. You have no idea what my 'aims' beyond this are.

i hope winning our respect isn't one of them.

 

[Cwmflame]

i hope winning our respect isn't one of them.

Oh no, what will I do without the respect of the big boys on the forum?

 

[nino_savatte]

I don't see much appetite for a bloody revolution.

Interestingly, the only people who are permitted to use the word 'revolution' in the public domain are the Tories. They and their allies in the media will always wax lyrically about the so-called 'Thatcher revolution'. There was no 'Thatcher revolution' and if anything, it was very much a counter-revolution. Yet, if anyone on the left uses the word, it's immediately associated with the spilling of blood and reigns of terror. The raising of consciousness in the masses is itself a form of revolution.

 

[Cwmflame]

Are you working for his campaign? If you are, you're doing a shit job.

No, I don't like the fact there is a campaign in the first place. I just know the guy and will defend against any untruths said about him....and the only one i corrected is about where he's from

 

[nino_savatte]

No, I don't like the fact there is a campaign in the first place. I just know the guy and will defend against any untruths said about him....and the only one i corrected is about where he's from

Yeah, sure.

 

[Pickman's model]

Oh no, what will I do without the respect of the big boys on the forum?

piss off with any luck. but it's not just the big boys, it's the middling and indeed small boys, the small medium and big girls, and teuchter.

 

[YouSir]

I too am tired of it, and Corbyn and the new movement represent the views I would guess of most of the membership. What we don't want to do is lose the marginals for good. If the party splits, which it could, that will happen. I believe Smith is sincere in his motives (I think he'll lose), but I think it's a result of exasperation. We have to find a way of winning the argument nationwide, and this lust for denouncing all bar the fervent acolytes is doing nothing to help this.

We need to find a way to unite in a collegiate way. And I know the right of the party are not the people to put on a pedestal in this regard. Then we might have one clear voice.

Weren't that many denunciations prior to the coup though were there? Most new members either didn't know enough about the landscape or were conciliatory to all wings - so not forcing splits.

You want to encourage unity? Take it up with your boy Smith and his 'acolytes', they seem to be the ones fixated on causing strife.

 

[Sirena]

Corbyn is stuck in the last century says Billy Bragg
Pity it's behind the Times paywall.

Not quite what it seems...

 

[Ranbay]

Oh no, what will I do without the respect of the big boys on the forum?

Carry on like I do?

 

[existentialist]

Oh no, what will I do without the respect of the big boys on the forum?

Sounds like a "no", then.

I suspect that your agenda is more one of confirming the prevailing view that anyone who doesn't think that Owen Smith is some kind of Second Coming is therefore a nwasty bully who is howwible to Genuine Socialists Everywhere.

A Labour "Progress" supporter, earlier.

 

[two sheds]

Why should any but the most narrowly parochial care if he's a "valley boy" or not?

Be fair, we were the ones who brought that up .

If it's a Corbyn thread we ought to bow to his wishes this one thread and moderate language towards the challenger a tad? (not aimed at you andy but generally)

 

[DrRingDing]

So, chances Cwmflame is Owen's mum?

 

[Cwmflame]

Sounds like a "no", then.

I suspect that your agenda is more one of confirming the prevailing view that anyone who doesn't think that Owen Smith is some kind of Second Coming is therefore a nwasty bully who is howwible to Genuine Socialists Everywhere.

A Labour "Progress" supporter, earlier.

You really think that.... Calling me parochial is closer to my intentions. I'm sincere in what I say though, and I didn't think I was saying too much that's controversial.... I was obviously wrong. It is entertaining to debate something though.

 

[existentialist]

Be fair, we were the ones who brought that up .

If it's a Corbyn thread we ought to bow to his wishes this one thread and moderate language towards the challenger a tad? (not aimed at you andy but generally)

I think, though, that our Progress chum has fostered a rather convenient misunderstanding - namely, that it's all about where Smith was born, rather than whether his attitudes mirror the general position of those communities now.

Judging by the "hoffi frothi coffi" misstep and its friends, there's fairly good reason to doubt those attitudes (quite apart from Smith's record as a not-exactly-core-Labour-demographic type in terms of his career and political stance on the most pivotal events in the last 30 years of UK labour relations.

 

[ViolentPanda]

If you say so. I'd caution though that if you think the rank and file membership who pound the streets talking to non members will do so for Corbyn, you're being similarly naive. This can be extended to thinking that the new members will fill that void.

Maybe not in your constituency.

I'd caution though, against thinking that your own experience in Pontypridd can be extrapolated to apply across the UK, regarding new members. At least in my own constituency, many of the "new members" are returners, veteran Labour activists who left at the height of Blairism, and regard Corbyn's promises to re-democratise the party as a step toward democratic socialism.

Your Smith hasn't said much about re-empowering the membership yet.

 

[existentialist]

You really think that.... Calling me parochial is closer to my intentions. I'm sincere in what I say though, and I didn't think I was saying too much that's controversial.... I was obviously wrong. It is entertaining to debate something though.

No, there was nothing controversial in what you said. We've seen it all, ad nauseam, from Owen Smith, Angela Eagle, and the rest of the vapidly flustering non-Socialist Labour crew.

 

[Pickman's model]

It is entertaining to debate something though.

go on then.

 

[two sheds]

I think, though, that our Progress chum has fostered a rather convenient misunderstanding - namely, that it's all about where Smith was born, rather than whether his attitudes mirror the general position of those communities now.

Judging by the "hoffi frothi coffi" misstep and its friends, there's fairly good reason to doubt those attitudes (quite apart from Smith's record as a not-exactly-core-Labour-demographic type in terms of his career and political stance on the most pivotal events in the last 30 years of UK labour relations.

Fair play. It does look like Owen is just picking Corbyn's policies as convenient and if he gets in he'll dilute it all suddenly because otherwise he won't get the backing of the PLP. Or he'll be in exactly the same position as Corbyn is now and we'll have a split with the rest of the PLP again.

Thoughts cwm - that his past statements and actions don't align with the image he's trying to put across, and he'll ditch them if voted in? That's one thing Corbyn has built his campaign on - honesty and lack of PR spin so that if he gets in he'll at least try to do what he's promised.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Joined the Labour Party, got elected MP, served in two shadow cabinets, caused the government u-turn on disability benefits

I'm sorry, but that last claim is myth-making. He caused nothing. In fact his supine abstaining on the Health and Welfare Reform Bill made the reforms a reality. Claiming credit for engineering a "u-turn on disability benefits" misses the point that the u-turn was mostly driven by a combination of pragmatism, and the effects of Iain Dunked-in Shit resigning. Smith's work iced the cake, that's all.

 

[ViolentPanda]

So what specific hoops must you jump through to be defined as a socialist in your views, just so I can be clear for the future?

Practising socialism generally works.

 

[DotCommunist]

didn't the papers try to make out Miliband was a raving socialist as well? lol! When they weren't engaged in dog whistle anti semitism and digging his father up to trash his memory. Classy press we have eh

 

[ViolentPanda]

serious question, assuming you're right and this 'pragmatism' is an electoral necessity - that there can never be a realistic political alternative to centre-rightism of one form or another, other than tinkering a little round the edges. if this consensus becomes normalised to the extent that you can't concieve of any other way, what are the long term implications for example, for ordinary people like me (a van driver on a zero hours contract)? is the limit of your thinking, a perpetual electoral cycle between tory/labour right? is that it? sorry, but i for one am fucking tired of that shite and so are plenty of members of your own party afaics. (note - not that anyone here is uncritically claiming jc is the messiah, obvs.)

Last week, at a community meeting, I heard some well-reasoned arguments for Smith over Corbyn, but they all relied on faulty reasoning: That Corbyn, due to hard-leftism/age/misogyny/dithering/lack of leadership qualities, could never be Prime Minister. I argued back that if you removed the media narrative from the equation, and based an analysis on fact, then Corbyn is soft-left, younger than many previous Prime Ministers, on-side with sexual equality, decisive and has displayed many leadership qualities in the past 9 months, including probably the most important one - patience. The Smith-ites couldn't answer that.

There's also a fairly decent argument to be made that Corbyn doesn't intend to lead Labour into the next General Election, but instead wants to put the party on a footing where the membership once more have a say, where Conference isn't a meaningless series of photo-ops and glad-handing for the front bench to meet "big business", but a forum for the membership to contribute to policy. Of course, that sort of re-democratisation is precisely what the right of Labour is afraid of.

 

[ViolentPanda]

didn't the papers try to make out Miliband was a raving socialist as well? lol! When they weren't engaged in dog whistle anti semitism and digging his father up to trash his memory. Classy press we have eh

Yep.
The fact that what E.M. was offering was a slightly soc-dem gloss on neoliberalism seemed to escape most of our privately-educated, Oxbridge alumni media.

 

[Cwmflame]

Fair play. It does look like Owen is just picking Corbyn's policies as convenient and if he gets in he'll dilute it all suddenly because otherwise he won't get the backing of the PLP. Or he'll be in exactly the same position as Corbyn is now and we'll have a split with the rest of the PLP again.

Thoughts cwm - that his past statements and actions don't align with the image he's trying to put across, and he'll ditch them if voted in? That's one thing Corbyn has built his campaign on - honesty and lack of PR spin so that if he gets in he'll at least try to do what he's promised.

I don't think there's much controversial in his past aside from a couple of years working for Pfizer, which if I were him i'd regret. In his past be started on a different career path.... I don't think that bars him from being a socialist, and if we can only be led by people who've been active socialist campaigners their whole lives, we'll not have enough worldly experience for universal appeal. I've heard him talk at clp meetings before he decided to stand, when he decided to stand and since he's decided to stand, and from what he says I don't believe he'd renege on any of what he's said.... That being said, I don't think he'll win. He doesn't have the support of the majority of the membership. I do believe he wants to do one of two things. Most likely, and what I hope is to ensure the party doesn't split, something he's been very passionate about. Less likely (at least I hope) is that he's trying to position himself to lead a breakaway faction of the plp to create that as the de facto opposition..... I am painfully aware that this is a possibility, but I hope it's not true.

And I'm not Progress, not part of any campaign, not part of the party machine at all. I am just a concerned member of the party, anxious about the prospect of twenty years rule from the right.

 

[Whagwan]

For fans of Corbyn and turn of the century metalcore;

 

[nino_savatte]

I am just a concerned member of the party, anxious about the prospect of twenty years rule from the right.

In other words, you've internalised the narratives that have been constantly spouted by the Labour right, the Tories and their allies in media and have accepted defeat as inevitable. That's the same defeatism I've seen from Labour for the last 35 years. "If we don't do what the papers say, we'll be out of power for generations" is their mantra, but it's predicated on falsehoods. You and those who adopt this line are actively colluding in your own oppression to the extent that you actually welcome 20 years of Tory rule because it vindicates your mistaken beliefs.

 

[killer b]

I think it's possible to have this debate without telling your opponents they're brainwashed dupes of capital.

 

[DotCommunist]

note also: socialists don't live in the real world. That ones pernicious