by Rob Marchant
The week before last, numerous MPs went to campaign for a racist sympathiser. I am sure most thought they were doing the right thing, dutifully answering the campaign call, as politicians do. Quite possibly some didn’t even know the story, or did not dare pull out at the last minute. Either way, they supported Lisa Forbes, surely one of the worst candidates we could have ever chosen for a by-election.
Thanks to the scrutiny a by-election suffers, all parties generally try hard to get the right candidate, one who will not suddenly find themselves at the centre of a media storm.
This time Labour failed dismally, presumably because those leading the party and its machine – not, you understand, the regular staffers, decent folk who have to live with the constant shame and embarrassment about their superiors – couldn’t care less about a bit of anti-Semitic dabbling.
Rather, they see it as a badge of honour: of being “sound” on Palestine, unafraid to speak truth to power (“power”, in this case, meaning simply “Jews”).
On the day, Labour showed it still had a tight machine, which the Brexit Party did not, and beat them by a whisker. But it still won on a simple principle, which seems to be a novel, new party strategy: winning by having their vote decimated a little less than the Tories.
In other words, although both main parties’ votes were slashed, the votes Labour lost to the Greens and Lib Dems outweighed that which the Tories lost to the Brexit party and UKIP.
Corbyn and his coterie are still, like Vladimir and Estragon waiting for a Godot who never arrives, yearning for a general election. It is the only way they believe they might come out of the whole mess and retain the opportunity to blame everything on the Tories. Such an election will not come any time soon, because it is not in the Tories’ interests to allow one, certainly while Brexit is not delivered (which, of course, it may never be).
Further, it is really anyone’s guess who would win anyway, because you cannot extrapolate the result from either the Euros or Peterborough, unrepresentative polls both. And the habitual model of translating vote-shares into seats in a two-party system has suddenly been turned on its head with a five- or six-party system. Meaningful predictions are on temporary hiatus in this looking-glass world.
Meanwhile, the leading lights of the Tory party are in the process of competing with each other as to how many unicorns they can promise to the members and MPs in their stump campaigns. Those who want to deliver a Brexit deal by the impossibly short deadline of Hallowe’en are fantasists; but they can do no other, their party obsessed by a macho race to favour the Brexitier-than-thou.
Among the hopefuls, only brave Rory Stewart has had the guts to say the emperor has no clothes. Although he polled better than expected in the first round of MP voting – these are secret ballots and there are still some Tories who espouse the “love that dare not speak its name” of supporting membership of the EU, albeit privately – he obviously cannot win.
But if those looking to get a workable deal are fantasists, those who go a step further and seriously advocate a No Deal are dangerous fools. No serious country has ever opted deliberately to live by punitive, WTO trade rules; rules designed to deter countries from going it alone. It is an extraordinary failing for an adult politician not to recognise that they were never intended to be actually used in anger. They are designed to hurt.
Neither has any serious country ever purposely advocated a strategy, such as ours over the Irish border, which so risks dismembering it into its constituent parts, not to mention rekindling sectarian tensions and violence.
Thus Brexit Britain rushes hurtling towards the autumn deadline: rudderless, leaderless, hopeless. Waiting for some political lightweight, one probably called Boris Johnson, to become Prime Minister, who will be committed to the hardest and most damaging of Brexits. The Leader of the Opposition supporting them while pretending not to, his party flailing in a mire of racism.
And our one hope on the horizon? The “kindness of strangers”: an EU which might look kindly on a request from Britain’s weak and slightly deranged Blanche, coyly requesting a further delay.
What a time to be alive.
Rob Marchant is an activist and former Labour party manager who blogs at The Centre Left
Tags: anti-semitism, Boris Johnson, Brexit, Jeremy Corbyn, Lisa Forbes, No Deal, Peterborough, Rob Marchant
Seem to Recall UKIP didn’t stand there in 2017
Which may have seen brexit voted go to labour
It was a low turnout
The libdems vote did go up because they were damaged good in 1017
That general election was a protest vote against a Tory landslide
And labour only lost
the seat in 2005 Due to Helen Brittans personal problems
If anything as it was thought a labour versus Brexit party by election labour may have got green votes to stop TBP winning.
The equivalent Of a country opting for WTO all be it , temporality would have been the USA in 1776
Labour need to have a serious question on Israel in its defence its a democracy that respects women and Gays but its got away with too much and ignoring what its done caused the nutters to infiltrate labour with victim identity politics on behalf of those who dint fit the lefts agenda .
In Fairness to Jez pretending to be against No deal,if he admits hex for if momentum will stop following just him and then if a remoaner takes over they may stop his dream of No deal,
The retweeting racist stuff on the internet , view is bandwagon jumping and not knowing the full detail , in the days before people could get our old newspaper clippings to say what a politician may have said when they thought it was a acceptable view and pew hate crimes people could agree to disagree
There’s still be cases of the National front and the workers revolutionary party being charge with inciting racist violence, and Sinn Fein/IRA were banned from talking on TV
Or the public order act saw unsavoury views banned from protests. which also saw protests against Saudi Arabia Arm Trades fair banned at the Excel exhibition
And the equality act saw prosecutions for Some real women accused of hate being arrested for misgendering and this includes women Like Linda Bellos
Good gracious me! I believe you’ve missed one in this piece, Rob.
You claim Boris Johnson is “committed to the hardest and most damaging of Brexits”. But could it be that this off-the-mark pronouncement is really intentional – intended to terrify wavering Blairites into feverish support for another referendum?
Well, ‘communication consultants’ must have their day, I suppose.
But, my money is on Johnson eventually offering a deal identical to May’s – bar one or two cosmetic adjustments that’ll allow him to claim ‘new Brexit deal’ status.
Anyway, might I suggest that you deploy your supreme ‘communication consultant’ talent in the service of Great Leader In Waiting, Chuka Umunna? Now that Chuka has joined the LibDems, just in time to participate in the their leadership election, he will most certainly be in need of a personage of your accomplishment.
Just imagine, if, as he surely must, Chuka succeeds to the leadership of the LibDems it will only be a matter of time before he ascends to No 10. And you would be his Right Hand Man. Think about it for a while, Rob. But don’t wait too long. After all, there could be quite a lot of money in it!
I ..can see a French style wipe out of both Labour and Tories if not at the next GE but sometime in the next decade. Both parties are captive to extremists which will ultimately devour them unless a sane leader emerges in both which is unlikely as both parties’ grassroots are run by Corbyn and Johnsonian cults.
Are you still in this party Rob ? Thought you might have gone to change UK or whatever they call themselves now . Or just maybe you might join the lib Dems. Labour has never been your spiritual home , let’s be honest about that .
Your umpteenth article full of the usual embittered bile, shows yet again how you’ve got nothing to add to the debate other than hatred and loathing.
I don’t know much about Lisa but I’m sure she’ll do a better job than one of those terrifying Blairite cyborgs who used to get forced onto candidate lists from the centre. The voters must think so too because she did increase the Labour majority.
Some good stuff especially the grevious self harm the extreme Brexiteers are set to hit our economy with. But as several have said of late including Nick Cohen and William Keegan (Observer 16/06) the Remainders have been far too soft on Boris. Boris having deeply divided our nation is ironically set to win it and take us forward for 2 or more yrs as PM.
Corbyn is an absolute failure as the opposition leader because his grasp of business, economics and Brexit impacts are feeble. As an opposition leader he is shocking and the successful party which was Labour is more or less over. You cannot win on these election figures including 2017 and all elections since. His image is appalling & worst now than ever. He will not win in traditional seats or Remain seats.
He is seen as an extremist, an apologist for nasty regimes and pensioners and over 50s will not swing to him as they worry over pension pots, nationalisation and his cuts to UK national defence. That a once competent winning party can have this man as its leader at this awful time in history shows the Hard Left grip the Stalinists, Trots and McCluskey types have. like so many I look to the LibDems for salvation not JC, Abbot or McDonald who the media will slaughter. Boris is in for yrs helped by the Lab party.
@Alf, she certainly seems, on her track record, to hate Jews, so I guess she’s bang on the Labour Zeitrgeist, with her enormous, thumping majority and everything.
Leslie48 I’ve AGREED WITH YOU IN THE PAST
I cannot fault the Libdems are dong well at a mixture of Labour and tory Expesnce in the Polls, whether the Ex Tories voting libdems are ones who would have said they Only Voted Tory for the first Time in the last 10 years, or were Once nation Tories who went over too the Libdems in the last 6 months, is a mixture, but
Nick Cohens saying that labour should be a remainer party to get Libdem votes back, May I remind you that those who quit labour to vote Libdems didn’t all do it on September the 13th 2015,
Many quit after Iraq being the straw that broke the camels back
and won’t come back if Labour decides to be, Jolly Hockey sticks Neil Kinnock tribute band leads By Thornberry Yvette Cooper or Starmer and Watson
and yes those who quit labour recently for the libdems still think that it doesn’t matter if Corbyn was ousted by a (moderate)whatever they are as unless the party deselected those who voted for article 50 including Yvette cooper the type of party they want will never be the sort that the CHuk group quit for
regarding traditional seats for Corbyn to try to win, there’s seat that have been labour in the past that would still vote labour as we know that even winning with a small majority they won’t see the rest of the UK cause Labour to form a government I canvassed for Labour in Dagenham as A kid in 1983 and was told that we didn’t really want Labour to win the election, but we couldn’t let the Tories win that seats as if they did, it would take even more years for Labour to form a government if we had to concentrate on more seats to win
regarding remain seats the country is divided the London remain seats labour weighs the vote
Not sure who these
The country is certainly in a mess.
How on earth have this great country of our – with all the talents – ended up with these two – Johnson and Corbyn.
Johnson will compound the problem of Brexit causing economic mayhem while Corbyn is simply not up to the job – he promised a new form of politics but appears to be suffering from a large dose of paranoia- instead of addressing the problems of today and the dreadful state the country is in caused by the Tories he goes back to attacking members of his own party – the Blair years. If Corbyn is too continue as leader he has got to reach out to the more moderate wing of the party – something he should have done from the beginning.
John Reid. Labour only ever wins as a ‘broad church’ & Tony’s victories smashed the Tories for what 17 yrs and rightly so as incomes, pensions and CB were increased and with tax credits family/child poverty was massively reduced. Health care, schooling, higher education, 6th forms, local, infrastructure, and regional as In Wales and Scot spending increased. Tax on low incomes was reduced to 10%, exam results for working class kids went up, more went to uni. as equality of opportunity went up. VAT on heating was reduced, pensioners were brought up to level of Europe. Cancer appointment queues went down , more medics were appointed from specialists to nurses and more police and community officers were appointed.
Labour now under a Corbyn or Long Bailey whoever will not win back Watford, Stevenage, Corby, Harlow, Swindon, Milton Keynes, – no way. As for Scotland forget it. Scotland was lost in 2015 when we started having leaders by Leftist ideology like Ed and JC. No Scotland Lab loses power. Its all over.
Unemployment went down, inflation was stable, the economic ave trend growth went up
Leslie this is My twitter profile
As a Kinnockite my childhood hero was right to not back scargill, I didnt have a candidate in the 2016 leadership,3 of my labour Brexit friends have been posting how great Blair was for lifting them out of poverty,voted for JC in the 2nd leadership,& have just note My transition from Kinnockite 2 @blue_labour it wasn’t easy for me, as a group formed as a backlash 2 Nu_Labour,but Nu labour had served its purpose &we need blue collar votes
———————————————
My point was excluding the idea London Middle class remain area , the Northern Working class leave area
Blair rightly thought he needed private sector middle class non unionised workers who were Tories ,just as Kinnock in 1992 got from the public sector pension Unionised white collar workers from the SDP(teachers doctors etc)
And they thought the working class had nowhere else to go Well it worked for a bit till the WC, due to working class flight class cleansing saw demographics but enough housing and changes of their community , see them either abstain or Vote Tory or UKIP Labour keeps getting middle class votes( there no difference between Momentum and blairites(except blairites won elections)
Labour won’t win back Scotland with Corbyn labour won’t win back Libdem votes by going Remain But labour is collapsing due to losing working class votes An objection to Austeirty , those who don’t vote and demographic changes are making Tory seats into labour marginals and there people who ignore labour being extreme who have had pay freezes who object to what’s going in will ignore labour extremism and come back if labours a anti austeirty pro brexit party
Latest Polling
BXP – 23%
LDem – 21%
Con – 20%
Lab – 20%
Oth/DK/WNV – 17%
SNP obviousluy think there will be a General Election before the year is out and are ramping up the ante. Their demand even for a Confidence and Supply is full fiscal autonomy in the first Queens Speech along with the immediate devolvement of the Section Order (the legislation that allows an IndyRef).
What a load of bollocks. Yes the country is in a mess, and the Tories are falling apart, but Labour under Corbyn goes from strength to strength, despite your constant unfounded allegations of racism and antisemitism which are frankly wearing a bit thin.
Landless what happens, if the EHRC decide labour is anti semitic Will you say labour should just ignore the finding?
And a new one from Survation (figures in brackets shows change from their last one over a month ago):-
LAB: 26% (-7)
CON: 24% (-4)
BREX: 20% (+8)
LDEM: 18% (+5)
GRN: 6% (+3)
CHUK: 1% (-1)
UKIP: 1% (-2)
Oth: 4% (-2)
And a new one from Opinium (again figures in brackets since their last on some weeks ago)
LAB: 26% (+4)
BREX: 23% (-3)
CON: 20% (+3)
LDEM: 16% (-)
Oth: 15% (-4)
Cble shot Corbyn down this morning good style.
Lib Dem policy is now that they WILL NOT prop up a future Labour government if it’s led by Jeremy Corbyn. He also claimed that some Labour and Tory MPs were in negotiations to become Lib Dems. Cable stated this this morning.
The SNP are sticking to their guns that they will not prop up a Labour government unless it immediately revokes Article 50, immediate devolution of the Section Order and immediate devolution of full fiscal autonomy.
Farage states BXP will prop up a future Tory government or a Labour government provided they deliver Brexit immediately.
So come October, you could be looking at a General Election result that delivers a Lib Dem-SNP Coalition, or a coalition involving either Labour or the Tories with BXP.
And there is absolutely no way on this Gods earth that the Tories or Labour can win a majority government.
@ John P Reid
Yes , because there is undoubtedly a world of difference between antisemitism and being critical of the often illegal actions and aggression of the Israeli State.
Some serious in depth analysis of how voters have shifted their allegiances since GE2017 reveals:-
Con
As can be seen, support from 2017 Con voters has dropped sharply. While a small amount of voters have gone to the Lib Dems, the major shift is straight to the Brexit Party (June 18 to June 19 33% of 2017 Con voters). Don’t Knows have remained steady.
Lab
Support from 2017 Labour voters has gone from 69% in June 18 to 37% in June 19. After a year 13% of 2017 Labour voters have gone Lib Dem however a substantial minority of these were Lib Dem voters pre-GE2017 who ‘lent’ their vote to Labour for that election and are merely ‘returning home’, and 10% have gone Green. Not all Labour switchers have left for pro remain parties – a quarter of thiose who have left have gone to the Brexit Party, predominantly in Labour heartlands. So Labour have lost three times the support to remain parties rather than leave parties. However the alienation of either group (Remainer or Leaver) means certain electoral defeat unless they can be replaced by attracting voters from other parties in the same cnstituencies AND over 2M swing voters who voted Tory last time out.
Lib Dem
They have clawed back 2017 Lib Dem supporters from Labour and the Conservatives, and lost small numbers to Greens (7%) and the Brexit Party (5%).
Landless you said the allegations of anti semitism
Which are wearing a bit thin
But now you’re saying there’s a world of difference between anti semitism and criticising the Israel gov’t
The police are investigating anti semitism
If the criticism of labour was the views members have in rje Israel gov’t I’d agree but they’re not just doing that
Tafia , i agree it shows lexiters like me are clinging in too labour with gritted teeth
The Libdem momemtum Trots have ruined the party then cleared off back to the Libdems
Latest YouGov for The Times ( a remain-backing paper) :-
On Westminster Voting Intentions
BXP – 22%
Tory – 22%
Lab – 20%
LDem – 29%
Oth/DK/WNV – 17%
On Brexit
No Deal – 28%
Soft Deal – 16%
Mays Deal – 13% 9viwed as ‘softer’ than a soft deal).
Remain – 43%
This splits as Leave 57%, Remain 43%
(Virtually everyone supporting Soft/May, would switch to No Deal if it were a straight No Deal/Remain choice, the clear majority believing it is more important to leave than how to leave.)
That should be LDem 19% not 29%
Now with Brexit delayed, a re-emerged Nigel Farage mainly taking Brexit party Votes and A forgiven Libdems taking remain metropolitan votes from Labour(those voters ALA Chuka Amunna conveniently forgetting they’ve spent years dissing the Libdems.
Now Labour MPs like Liz Kendall and Jess Phillips are rationalising, in 2017 we needed Brexit votes in our seat to win as it was A 40%/40% BATTLE between us and the Tories, Now If the Brexit party split the Brexit vote with the Tories we need Libdem votes to win our seat a and can win our seats with 26% of the vote.
This may have a short term strategy for them to win locally, but it relies on the fact that even Brexit party voters won’t come back to the Tories on a not much better than mays deal update, by new Year’s day.
And that voters in Jess and Liz’s eat who currently vote libdem who would come back if Labour backed remain would vote for those 2 as, they know they’re no fans of Corbyn.
But in other Northern Working class Labour seats, where labour can say ,yes the seat voted Leave, but the Brexit vote there didn’t vote for us in 2017 and won’t come to Labour anyway, then if the Labour MP isn’t a critic of Corbyn the current libdem voters aren’t going to vote for labour if they feel they’ll be putting a pro Corbyn MP in the chamber.
The short term strategy of thinking labour can win by default of getting Liberal votes in marginals and hoping a un popular Tory leader will see his votes go elsewhere, and winning on 27% of the vote, while ignoring the fact the working class are going away to other parties in labour strongholds , was the sort of strategy that gave labour short gain, success in the 1974 election, but all it took was the Tories to sort themselves out, and labour in sacrificing it’s own core vote for short term gain, saw Labour out of power for a generation.
It’s time to deselect all the Blairite neoliberal MPs masquerading as ‘Centrists’
https://voxpoliticalonline.com/2019/06/29/craig-murray-explains-why-every-labour-member-with-a-neoliberal-blairite-mp-needs-to-have-them-de-selected/
Landless, Peasant,
You know Tom Watson was the one who brought Blair down,anyone not 100% loyal to Corbyn is a Blairites too you, even when Diane Abbott disagrees with acorbyn in Brexit, or Jonathan Ashworth disagrees in the lack of dealing with anti semitism
Corbyn will be lucky to save his seat at this rate.
Labour will lose seats in Scotland, Wales, London, the South, the South East.
There seems to be some misconception (it’s closer to a delusion)
that voters will return to Labour in their droves come a general election,
it won’t happen.
Even Lazarus only came back from the dead once, Corbyn is finished.
October snap general election looks to be where we are rapidly heading
I agree with you Gavin. Corbyn and Momentum peaked 2 years ago. Charity shops are now full of Corbyn T Shirts left by students and old school socialists who had one last fight in them. They got drunk on the power and of what might have been. Their faux outrage with society, along with those in organisations like Momentum usually disipates whilst reading The Guardian in their local Starbucks.before returning to their £500k home that is far away from any social ills.
The Left under Corbyn have been shown up for their hypocrisy and this has damaged the credibility. The Country needs not just a credible opposition but an incredible one that does more than just oppose.
I don’t necessarily believe that a snap election will happen though. I think the majority of Left and Right now want Brexit to be done and will back Johnson to deliver this. Only Tory infighting will stop this from happening and Corbyn deliberately hindering the process.
Gavin
Many people have come back from defeat 3 times in politics , me included
Tom Watson is a disloyal shit stirrer and it’s time he went.
Hi John, Corbyn made a seismic strategic error in not advocating
a Remain position – now before anyone throws a Remoaner tag,
I can remain an EU citizen due to my parent’s nationality,
for many younger people without that choice it has much greater resonance.
Spoke with one of John McDonnell’s aides last year and outlined
what I thought would happen (also sent it in an e-mail).
I made the following points – Peter Kellner’s analysis looked compelling
in terms of a remain position and Labour winning power.
That ardent leavers would vote Tory or UKIP overwhelmingly (now Brexit party)
but the remain vote would significantly defect to the LibDems, the Green Party
and the nationalist parties. Finally, Labour was heading for a nasty surprise
in this year’s local elections (was unsure if the EU elections would take place)
and TM would ultimately be replaced by an enthusiastic Brexiteer.
No gift of prescience was required for any of the above, this has been obvious
as snow.
The deep irony of all this is the press and media could not touch Corbyn,
if anything the attacks strengthened him. His rigid inflexibility and longstanding
personal Euroscepticism have been his undoing. I’ve heard famous Seamus and the
leadership clique think voters will come flocking back come the next GE,
think again. Late October my best guess as the likely date.
CON: 24% (+2)
BREX: 23% (+1)
LDEM: 20% (+1)
LAB: 18% (-2)
GRN: 9% (-1)
OTH/DK/WNV : 6% (-1)
via @YouGov, 02 – 03 Jul
Chgs. w/ 25 Jun
With regards that latest YouGov poll. This is a highly-regarded pollster and one of their regular polls on Westminster voting intention.
It will cause Labour supporters some concern to see their party’s support continuing it’s downward trend despite seemingly edging to a more ‘Remainy’ position. Labour now have a massive problem with their Leave vote. Two thirds of Labour-Leavers (a third of their GE2017 vote) are now opting for the Brexit Party or the Tories. Should Labour shift position to being an out-and-out Second Vote, pro-Remain party then not only will they not got these back, but they will lose a chunk of those that they still have. It’s also interesting that should they opt to change tac to Second Vote and somehow manage to reduce the Lib Dems and the Greens back to their GE2017 level, they still have no chance of winning a general election and cannot come anywhere close to Tory/BXP combined. In addition, analysis shows that the Labour Remain vote is disproportianatly concentrated either in seats they already hold, or seats they have no chance of winning, and mostly in metropolitan areas and the south and again disproportianately among the better off (C1 upwards). It’s blue collar working class vote remains pro-Leave and is decamping in droves. In short, Labour has alienated the working class, who in turn are openly scathing of any politician that tries to tell them they know better. (amongst the Blue Collar working class vote, MPs such as John Mann are more hioghly regarded than Watson and Corbyn combined, both of who are very poorly regarded)
Conservative supporters will feel pleased that their party seems to be moving up again. BXP will also be pleased. Both parties are also now avowedly ‘Hard Brexit’ – and in the Tories case, must mean that the overwhelming bulk of their support are happy with that position (should they fail to deliver however….). For the Tories the route to the next election is totally clear – BXP and the remaining Labour Leavers. They know exactly where they have to mine votes and can disregard anywhere else.
Likewise, the Lib Dems cannot look to anywhere else but Labour or Green to increase their vote further.
Once Brexit is done and dusted of course, BXP will disband and the entire nation will be Leavers – so Brexit will cease to be of any relevance and have no further impact and ‘normal’ politics will probably resume.
Well Anne. It now looks as though the Labour Party have flip flopped again on Brexit and are now backing remain and ignoring its own mandates and policy.
Whatever you think of Brexit and regardless of how people voted Labour’s positioning on it has been a bloody embarassment.
The party as was, is in its final throes. It is now the party of large multi nationals, the EU and those that care not for our workforce.
can’t fault the “labour has lost more votes too Libdems than it would lose leave votes to either independent parties or TBP argument”,
but that justs shows lexiters are more loyal and the idea that ex labour voters who will vote Libdems now would vote for a Corbyn labour remain party, unless they’re voting for Someone who’s so far removed form Corbyn like Wes Streeting or Ben Bradshaw they know they’d never prop up a Corbyn government shows why they’ll stick too the Libdems
fact is the Non Corbyn Brexit vote won’t be split between TBP and the tories as even if we don’t leave maybe 8-16% of the TBP will go back to the tories
and if labour backed remain labour would lose Brexit votes in the marginals plus a with a decent Brexit leader labour could get back many Brexit party voters
Just for clarification, I mentioned an October snap general election,
that should have read November.
Looks like you made the correct call about Boris Johnson as PM. It looks very much like it will not be a tweak to the May deal, if there is a deal at all.
No posts for more than two months. Has this site died?