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Jeremy Corbyn's time is up

Just found Labour has about 515,000 individual members, plus affiliates and supporters (£25 quidders). On average, that's over 750 individual members per constituency, more than half of which joined up since 2015 - and mostly pro-Corbyn. And whilst nothing like that number are ever going to 'do' something, or will do something at the same time, it's still a fucking load of people who were apparently enthused enough to join up in the last 18 months. For a lot of them it looks to have been not much more than 'clicktivism plus the odd meeting' but fucking hell, there should have been enough there to launch/build something.
 
Wilf said:
Just found Labour has about 515,000 individual members, plus affiliates and supporters (£25 quidders). On average, that's over 750 per constituency, more than half of which joined up since 2015 - and mostly pro-Corbyn. And whilst nothing like that number are ever going to 'do' something, or will do something at the same time, it's still a fucking load of people who were apparently enthused enough to join up in the last 18 months. For a lot of them it looks to have been not much more than 'clicktivism plus the odd meeting' but fucking hell, there should have been enough there to launch/build something.
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There is. A failure on a scale never previously seen.
 
Wilf said:
Just found Labour has about 515,000 individual members, plus affiliates and supporters (£25 quidders). On average, that's over 750 individual members per constituency, more than half of which joined up since 2015 - and mostly pro-Corbyn. And whilst nothing like that number are ever going to 'do' something, or will do something at the same time, it's still a fucking load of people who were apparently enthused enough to join up in the last 18 months. For a lot of them it looks to have been not much more than 'clicktivism plus the odd meeting' but fucking hell, there should have been enough there to launch/build something.
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Enthusiasm mostly poured into a vast black hole of scorn, cynicism and political manoeuvring. And if/when it collapses and the membership walks away that'll be that. Best to be hoped for is that some good people met some good people and go on to do something good in the future. That said I'm still a member, so what do I know.
 
One mild positive from all those members though, from the LP's point of view, is that a fair few of them could be encouraged to do some by-election foot slogging. It's not much, but that could work better than when membership levels were declining to rock bottom a few years ago.
 
William of Walworth said:
One mild positive from all those members though, from the LP's point of view, is that a fair few of them could be encouraged to do some by-election foot slogging. It's not much, but that could work better than when membership levels were declining to rock bottom a few years ago.
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All the indications are that this is exactly what they haven't done. They've done the internet socialism bit and that's it
 
butchersapron said:
All the indications is that this is exactly what they haven't done.
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Labour or the members? My experience locally is that those who've held the reigns of power (if you can call local ward positions power) have actively sought to cut new members off from involvement in campaigning. While new members who're active have more or less gone off to organise amongst themselves. Like I said, a black hole for enthusiasm.
 
YouSir said:
Labour or the members? My experience locally is that those who've held the reigns of power (if you can call local ward positions power) have actively sought to cut new members off from involvement in campaigning. While new members who're active have more or less gone off to organise amongst themselves. Like I said, a black hole for enthusiasm.
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Members. What have the new members been up to? Is it organising to change labour at all? Other than holding membership what's the labour party component to this?
 
William of Walworth said:
One mild positive from all those members though, from the LP's point of view, is that a fair few of them could be encouraged to do some by-election foot slogging. It's not much, but that could work better than when membership levels were declining to rock bottom a few years ago.
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Yeah, though I don't see it going well for Labour in Copeland or Stoke. But yes, Labour should be able to flood the area with canvassers and get large numbers into communities and town centres. Trouble is, even if they do, what will they say to ex Labour voting (and Brexit minded) working class voters in those areas?
 
butchersapron said:
Members. What have the new members been up to? Is it organising to change labour at all other than holding membership?
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Talking locally? There were organised attempts to shift the balance of ward and CLP power with the hope that it would reflect upwards too. Also attempts to raise and push issues that weren't being addressed. They failed, at least they have so far. Generally through a mix of bullying, inertia, selective ignorance and exploitation of various positions. A lot of people who were fired up were driven off by that, for reasons you'll probably understand given your focus on more immediate self-organisation. It's one thing to fight an enemy you can actively appoint to, another to just be crippled by a structure which seems immovable and is dominated by a careerist/hobbyist handful.
 
Wilf said:
Yeah, though I don't see it going well for Labour in Copeland or Stoke. But yes, Labour should be able to flood the area with canvassers and get large numbers into communities and town centres. Trouble is, even if they do, what will they say to ex Labour voting (and Brexit minded) working class voters in those areas?
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Either whatever they want to be true of the party once their centrist narrative reasserts control or, ime, I know Labour has a lot of bastards, but we're trying to change it. Neither is a massive winner.
 
YouSir said:
Either whatever they want to be true of the party once their centrist narrative reasserts control or, ime, I know Labour has a lot of bastards, but we're trying to change it. Neither is a massive winner.
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That said there are good people involved who do have the ability to change peoples minds, they might just have to do it at the doors of the 'broad church' rather than inside it.
 
YouSir said:
Talking locally? There were organised attempts to shift the balance of ward and CLP power with the hope that it would reflect upwards too. Also attempts to raise and push issues that weren't being addressed. They failed, at least they have so far. Generally through a mix of bullying, inertia, selective ignorance and exploitation of various positions. A lot of people who were fired up were driven off by that, for reasons you'll probably understand given your focus on more immediate self-organisation. It's one thing to fight an enemy you can actively appoint to, another to just be crippled by a structure which seems immovable and is dominated by a careerist/hobbyist handful.
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When i was member those structures were asserted as the history of the labour movement - don't you understand what you're challenging? And so on. And so must exist in the future. It suited variously, blairites and bevanites - but it made sure all internal opposition was doomed from the start. So we went off and did our own thing.
 
William of Walworth said:
One mild positive from all those members though, from the LP's point of view, is that a fair few of them could be encouraged to do some by-election foot slogging. It's not much, but that could work better than when membership levels were declining to rock bottom a few years ago.
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i'm not sure thats true - i don't know about CLP's well away from where i am, but no one i know is reporting more than a tiny trickle, and i mean single figures, and half the time fingers on one hand single figures, of people coming into the foot-slogging, knocking on doors, putting leaflets through letterboxes on a wet thursday evening glamour of local politics.

theres a larger group happy to turn up to the odd meeting and have a shouting match with longer standing members, but even that group isn't large, and certainly isn't interested in doing any of the tedious stuff like doing the accounts, writing the minutes, booking function rooms and doing catering, or, indeed anything.

there were several wards that didn't get a single leaflet drop at the last local elections, in a city of about 100,000 there were less than 20 who were prepared to walk around for an hour putting leaflets in letterboxes - the post-Corbyn surge should have given upwards of 500+ 'energetic and keen to be involved' members, not least from the student population, but neither hide nor hair...
 
butchersapron said:
When i was member those structures were asserted as the history of the labour movement - don't you understand what you're challenging? And so on. And so must exist in the future. It suited variously, blairites and bevanites - but it made sure all internal opposition was doomed from the start. So we went off and did our own thing.
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Yep, sounds right. New crop of people learning that lesson now though, some are going off and doing things themselves, others are just switching off. That's an ongoing process either way, I don't know what, if anything, major will come out of it in the long run although I can see some people I know setting a good pace.
 
In some ways I'm being naïve asking the 'what the fuck are they doing' question. I was part of the labour left in the 80s and you found yourself fighting bureaucratic politics with yet more resolutionary bureaucratic politics. It's not something any little group of social democrats and/or leftists can easily solve at any particular ward level (but at the constituency level, hmm... maybe). It's bureaucracy as barrier, both as a mindset and also a set of structures you have to change the party through. Same time, it really is a legitimate question to ask. This was it, this was the surge, the numbers, the victory in the party. There should have been momentum to work round the careerists and actually do something. I'd be interested to know if there have been initiatives that have succeeded where members just got on and did it, just ignored the need to go through several stages of resolutions and votes?
 
ViolentPanda said:
That's nice for you, dear.

Having had direct experience of the poor quality of the British army's officers, and of the "mad dog on a leash" posturing of members of the Parachute Regt (so big, so tough, when there's a dozen of them and four of you, not so tough when the odds are evens), I feel qualified to comment. :) Warrior Dan will be steeped in the mythology of his regt, and it will and does inform his politics.
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Yep, I think the readers do understand you are still working through personal issues in relation to your experiences with military types.
 
mikey mikey said:
Yes, of those 229, would he, or you, prefer?
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This is infantile; you get someone to say a name then you .. well, we know that game from school.

You have already been told; there is an eligibility pool of 230 - unless Corbyn starts to sound like a leader, and then a leader with a clear vision, next year it will be time to move on. Let's see then who is up for it.
 
kebabking said:
there were several wards that didn't get a single leaflet drop at the last local elections, in a city of about 100,000 there were less than 20 who were prepared to walk around for an hour putting leaflets in letterboxes - the post-Corbyn surge should have given upwards of 500+ 'energetic and keen to be involved' members, not least from the student population, but neither hide nor hair...
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Several wards? I've lived in my area for years in two different wards/constituencies through general/council/Mayoral/London Assembly elections (and a couple of council by elections) and I've never received a leaflet from Labour that's been delivered by a party activist. The only leaflet I've ever received from them was delivered by Royal Mail at the last mayoral election.

Safe Labour seat, Labour run council, they obviously can't be arsed even trying to look like they can be arsed.
 
The successful party for the last few decades has been the one that can most effectively identify the few thousand swing voters in key marginals who actually decide elections, identify the issues that concern them, then pour all available resources into targetting them to the exclusion of everyone else.

This specialised form of market research costs a lot of money, so you can't really do it without a bunch of dodgy millionaires onside.
 
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kebabking said:
i know thay you're a complete cretin who can't read, but i'll give you another opportunity...

there are 231 Labour MP's. 230 of them could do a better job of being Leader of the Opposition than Corbyn, and 229 of them could present a more (to whatever degree) electable, potentially competant face to the electorate as a potential PM.

hope this helps.
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Dream team: Ian Austen as leader, Mike Gapes as shadow chancellor, Jess Phillips foreign sec, John Rentoul press sec
 
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