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Post by MrBenn on Sept 8, 2024 22:57:37 GMT
Re Momentum.
Internally, by 2019 and 2020, momentum was becoming a discredited force in the party even on the left. The right always opposed it of course, but the left began to see it as an unaccountable personal vehicle for it's founder with little democratic accountability. And when it's leadership showed a willingness to bend into the prevailing wind and join in with the weaponization of the antisemitism issue, it became suspect in the eyes of many on the left. There was a belief that it was going native in an attempt to preserve it's own position. Many on the left were beginning to organise alternative vehicles to momentum which would be democratically accountable, and I myself attended several meetings where this was discussed. So moves were already afoot to supplant momentum with alternative, more democratic, vehicles for the left.
So internally this weakened it as a force, and unlike your assertion it never gained total control of the party anyway. Centrists remained in key party positions which they used to further their own cause and undermine factions they did not approve of. Remember the furore over the leaked documents that laid this bare? It was never made public but most party members got to see it and I myself read it in full. And it was clear that neither momentum even at it's height nor the left more widely were ever in full control of the party.
But whether through force or choice, most of us left the party before any such moves to supplant momentum could become effective. Most of us came to believe that the party was lost to us forever and that we could best support our cause by supporting alternative progressive candidates out side the party. And it is starting to bear fruit in what under our system is guaranteed to be a slow process. Jeremy Corbyn and four other left leaning Independents have formed a grouping in Parliament, added to which can be included a quadrupling of Green MPs from 1 to 4.
On the other wing of politics the right are doing the same via Reform. The centre cannot hold forever without reaching out either to the left in Labour's case or the right in the Tories, whilst till in both cases being a broad enough church to hold the centre as well
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Post by MrBenn on Sept 8, 2024 23:09:53 GMT
I understand you are sad and maybe bitter that those advocating the policies you wish have lost control of the Labour Party perhaps for ever. I don’t think your analysis is defendable. I as a non-party member knew that Starmer was more centrist. In the party election he got more than twice the number of votes that Long-Bailey got. It beggars belief that so many people interested enough in politics to become party members allegedly didn’t know his broad political standing. FWIW I think there is a strong chance that had Long Bailey won, the Tories would have been less prepared to risk killing off Johnson and the electorate less willing to vote out the Tories. Just as Corbyn facilitated Brexit with all the harm that has done to our country, I suspect that Long Bailey would have facilitated more self harm by keeping Johnson in power. By the way do you not take some pleasure that the currently decent albeit so far untested Fred Thomas is now your MP rather than the loathsome Mercer? Sad is not how I feel. My analysis is very defendable. I just defended it, having witnessed it all close up from the inside. Yes I knew Starmer was a centrist as well but he pretended to be a socialist when this was expedient. And I know personally of some members who fell for it. That is how he was sold to the membership. And there is the fact that many desperately wanted to believe in him. I have communicated with Fred Thomas a number of times and he seems decent enough though I do not know him personally, so time will tell as to how truly decent he is. I do not rate Mercer at all and am glad he is gone. I however voted Green though knew it was a wasted vote in my constituency. I take pleasure in Tories losing everywhere but take little pleasure in Labour winning. What do you know of Fred Thomas? Are you local to the area?
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Polling
Sept 8, 2024 23:22:42 GMT
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Post by dappy on Sept 8, 2024 23:22:42 GMT
With respect I don’t think your argument stands up to scrutiny for the reasons I have said. Does feel like a sizable element of wishful thinking.
I do hope the Greens don’t get taken over by refugees from Corbyn’s Labour. Climate Change is too important an issue and really they need to be a little more cross spectrum promoting that cause rather than becoming Momentum (or whatever you want to call that point of view now). No problem with those people forming a party of their own -in a functioning democracy all views should have a voice - but please don’t hijack such an important cause.
FWIW I work in Estover although live on the moor. I have met Thomas a couple of times. Decent enough although still not convinced he is not secretly 14 on work experience….. Not looking forward to the George - Tesco roadworks starting this week!!
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Post by Zany on Sept 9, 2024 7:27:15 GMT
I would put the Corbyn comment under pragmatism, no point in being objectionable if it achieves nothing and does harm. You might call it expediency, but truth is most of us feigning we like someone to save trouble and hostility. The rest of your post is opinion, it may be right but its based on your personal history of not getting what you desired. No, it is about me knowing he was lying to me, knowing what he really intended to do, and then seeing him doing it. Tends to confirm the accuracy of my belief that he was lying to me in the first place. That is my personal history of being lied to, nothing more. After all, if his lie about liking Corbyn, and Corbyn making a great prime minister was motivated by a desire not to be objectionable, curious that this desire not to be objectionable disappeared when Corbyn was no longer his leader isn't it, and when he no longer needed the votes of members? Is it a sign of moral integrity to only avoid being objectionable to those with power over you? Not in my book it isn't. That is just self serving dishonesty, or what you might call pragmatism. Yet in your naivete you are making such silly excuses for him. Still I suppose as long as you get what you desire, in the continuation of zero hours contracts and suchlike, and a preparedness to vote Tory if someone threatens it, maybe it doesnt matter if someone is honest or not. Which I guess makes you the ultimate pragmatist. Starmer is just another typical politician, who has told the necessary lies, and toed the necessary party lines to get where he wants to be, just like most others. Don't put a halo on his head. It doesn't fit very well. Well its a bit more complicated than just Starmer and Corbyn. Its about not harming the party. He might not like his leader and think him unelectable, but for the party you say the right thing. Same as you might not like your sisters new man, but for the sake of the family you play nicely. And yes for me its all about keeping zero hours contracts and hopefully the reintroduction of slavery.
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Post by MrBenn on Sept 9, 2024 7:42:16 GMT
No, it is about me knowing he was lying to me, knowing what he really intended to do, and then seeing him doing it. Tends to confirm the accuracy of my belief that he was lying to me in the first place. That is my personal history of being lied to, nothing more. After all, if his lie about liking Corbyn, and Corbyn making a great prime minister was motivated by a desire not to be objectionable, curious that this desire not to be objectionable disappeared when Corbyn was no longer his leader isn't it, and when he no longer needed the votes of members? Is it a sign of moral integrity to only avoid being objectionable to those with power over you? Not in my book it isn't. That is just self serving dishonesty, or what you might call pragmatism. Yet in your naivete you are making such silly excuses for him. Still I suppose as long as you get what you desire, in the continuation of zero hours contracts and suchlike, and a preparedness to vote Tory if someone threatens it, maybe it doesnt matter if someone is honest or not. Which I guess makes you the ultimate pragmatist. Starmer is just another typical politician, who has told the necessary lies, and toed the necessary party lines to get where he wants to be, just like most others. Don't put a halo on his head. It doesn't fit very well. Well its a bit more complicated than just Starmer and Corbyn. Its about not harming the party. He might not like his leader and think him unelectable, but for the party you say the right thing.Same as you might not like your sisters new man, but for the sake of the family you play nicely. And yes for me its all about keeping zero hours contracts and hopefully the reintroduction of slavery. In other words you lie like a typical politician. I note with a smile the sarcastic humour in your last sentence which made me chuckle. But also realise that this is not something worth us falling out over because what's done is done whatever the motives. I think you are guilty of naivete re Starmer because you like his politics so are reluctant to see him as just another typical politician. I know plenty on the left who are exactly the same re Corbyn. To some extent I might once have been one of them. It took me a while to fully acknowledge his numerous faults and failings mostly because I agreed with the policy agenda that emerged under him. Giving a free pass to the ones we agree with is human nature. And we are all prone to it. So let us leave it there for now and simply agree that time will tell in the end which of us is right about Starmer.
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Post by MrBenn on Sept 9, 2024 8:13:22 GMT
With respect I don’t think your argument stands up to scrutiny for the reasons I have said. Does feel like a sizable element of wishful thinking. I do hope the Greens don’t get taken over by refugees from Corbyn’s Labour. Climate Change is too important an issue and really they need to be a little more cross spectrum promoting that cause rather than becoming Momentum (or whatever you want to call that point of view now). No problem with those people forming a party of their own -in a functioning democracy all views should have a voice - but please don’t hijack such an important cause. FWIW I work in Estover although live on the moor. I have met Thomas a couple of times. Decent enough although still not convinced he is not secretly 14 on work experience….. Not looking forward to the George - Tesco roadworks starting this week!! Oh you are a local then. I live in Southway and am seriously not looking forward to the Tavistock Road works either, since the Tesco at Woolwell is one that I visit frequently for shopping purposes. Will probably end up going to Asda instead, lol. I don't like the Tesco at Transit Way. And where is the wishful thinking in anything that I said? The election of 4 Greens and 4 anti-Labour independents being a sign of something happening? Perhaps. Time will tell. As for their policy agenda, on economic matters the Greens have always been at least as radical and left leaning as Corbyn's Labour albeit with a greater emphasis on green issues. They make natural political allies. Some of us in the party at the time favoured a deal with the Greens to strengthen the left against the centrists. I myself chose to vote Green this year. And we on the left of Labour took green issues seriously which is why we came up with the Green New Deal and wanted to accelerate the speed with which we reached net zero. But if that constitutes hijacking the Green agenda, at least we meant it rather more that Starmer's watered down version of it. We and the Greens were and are natural allies, mostly on the same page socially and economically as well as in terms of a green agenda. The main criticism of us from the Greens tended to be along the lines of even us not wishing to go far enough, fast enough. The Greens by the way are highly unlikely to get taken over by left wing refugees from Labour. They are bigger than that. But significant numbers of the latter are likely to make their way there politically simply because in most policy areas the Greens are also a radical left party. Political refugees from any party where they are no longer welcome will tend to rock up on the shores of any others that better reflect their values. Which the Greens do in many ways. I do think my arguments stack up by the way, because I have seen it for myself from within the party. I know of quite a few who voted for Starmer because they wanted a more electable version of 2017 rather than a 1997 tribute act. The promise inside the party was of the former. Wishful thinking abounded, so Starmer's dishonesty was kicking at the open door of people eager to believe him. Many of these on party supporting forums expressed their regrets as soon as he began rowing back on it all and some who voted for him subsequently resigned from the party because of this. Enough people were fooled because they wanted to be, a naivete also demonstrated in spades by his supporters in this thread.
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Post by MrBenn on Sept 9, 2024 8:31:11 GMT
Further to my last post re the Greens, whilst broadly a radical left party in terms of their policy agenda, not all their party members will necessarily be radical left wingers.
Indeed some of the local Greens here in Plymouth have a reputation - as some of my left leaning friends and relatives put it - of being "Tories on bicycles". The Greens have achieved success for example by getting a councillor elected in Plympton, an affluent true blue area and hardly likely to be a hotbed of socialism. Though I know of at least one Green candidate in another part of the city - George Wheeler if I recall correctly - who was a former Labour councillor on the soft left of the party.
So at local level here in Plymouth the Greens do show signs of facing both ways in order for broad spectrum appeal, something that the Lib Dems have long been known for, which is why Lib Dem candidates often take a left of Labour position when they are challenging Labour but a more right of centre moderately Tory position where they are challenging the Tories.
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Post by Zany on Sept 9, 2024 9:03:17 GMT
Further to my last post re the Greens, whilst broadly a radical left party in terms of their policy agenda, not all their party members will necessarily be radical left wingers. Indeed some of the local Greens here in Plymouth have a reputation - as some of my left leaning friends and relatives put it - of being "Tories on bicycles". The Greens have achieved success for example by getting a councillor elected in Plympton, an affluent true blue area and hardly likely to be a hotbed of socialism. Though I know of at least one Green candidate in another part of the city - George Wheeler if I recall correctly - who was a former Labour councillor on the soft left of the party. So at local level here in Plymouth the Greens do show signs of facing both ways in order for broad spectrum appeal, something that the Lib Dems have long been known for, which is why Lib Dem candidates often take a left of Labour position when they are challenging Labour but a more right of centre moderately Tory position where they are challenging the Tories. I would hope the greens aren't left wing. Climate change is just as important to the rich as it is the poor.
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Polling
Sept 9, 2024 9:08:09 GMT
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Post by dappy on Sept 9, 2024 9:08:09 GMT
I just don’t think it is realistic to argue that Long Bailey could have won if Starmer had not perhaps overemphasized his socialist credentials. The gap was too big. I don’t think Labour would be in power now if she had. By the way very much a “wait and see” feeling about Starmer as PM from me. He has massive challenges to deal with as the country falls apart. We’ll see if he can address at least some of them.
As far as the Greens are concerned they are currently a “safe place” to vote for those concerned about the environment across the political environment. I have voted for them on occasion. It would be a shame if they lost that by being seen as “the new Corbyn’s momentum” just as they are starting to gain traction with four MPs (even if the reality is many if their existing policies are basically there already)
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Post by MrBenn on Sept 9, 2024 9:48:54 GMT
Further to my last post re the Greens, whilst broadly a radical left party in terms of their policy agenda, not all their party members will necessarily be radical left wingers. Indeed some of the local Greens here in Plymouth have a reputation - as some of my left leaning friends and relatives put it - of being "Tories on bicycles". The Greens have achieved success for example by getting a councillor elected in Plympton, an affluent true blue area and hardly likely to be a hotbed of socialism. Though I know of at least one Green candidate in another part of the city - George Wheeler if I recall correctly - who was a former Labour councillor on the soft left of the party. So at local level here in Plymouth the Greens do show signs of facing both ways in order for broad spectrum appeal, something that the Lib Dems have long been known for, which is why Lib Dem candidates often take a left of Labour position when they are challenging Labour but a more right of centre moderately Tory position where they are challenging the Tories. I would hope the greens aren't left wing. Climate change is just as important to the rich as it is the poor. Their policy agenda at the national level outside of Green areas is pretty left wing. Check out any Green manifesto and you will immediately see what I mean. Here is an analysis of some of their last one..... www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/czddq40z2znoI also distinctly remember that they wanted a ban on zero hours contracts, abolition of the bedroom tax, and numerous other things likely to appeal to left wing hearts but terrify Tory supporters. There was a very large degree of overlap between Labour's 2017 and 2019 manifestoes and the Green ones. I am afraid that the Greens are rather left wing at the national level. And this is partly the result of several interlocking factors. Firstly, as the Overton Window has been shifted rightwards, more political space has opened up to an insurgent party on the left to be filled. Secondly, doing something to address climate change necessarily requires a large degree of government intervention, which left wingers are more likely to see as positive and right wingers as negative. Thirdly, quite a lot of wealthy people are far more averse to believing in the full reality of climate change in the first place, in part because many of them derive their wealth from activities that have been damaging the climate and in part because to accept the need for government intervention on a large scale is more difficult for some of them for ideological reasons. For some it is just far easier to convince themselves that anthropogenic climate change isn't actually happening at all. This is why most climate change sceptics are on the political right. And fourthly as new political thinking, younger generations tend to embrace it more readily than older ones, and are more ideologically likely to lean left, in an economy that gives relatively few of them good reasons to vote for the right unless they are prone to having their hate buttons pressed. For all these reasons the Greens are naturally a left wing party by and large. This might change if the right comes on board much more. But too many on the right have for too long been averse to it temperamentally. David Cameron for example actually referred to modest green levies as "green crap" that needed to be got rid of. If the route to a greener society turned out to be low taxes for the rich, a spot of union bashing, abolition of most welfare, governments doing as little as possible, and suchlike shite, the political right would come on board very quickly, and the left would be more likely to adopt climate scepticism.
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Post by MrBenn on Sept 9, 2024 10:35:44 GMT
I just don’t think it is realistic to argue that Long Bailey could have won if Starmer had not perhaps overemphasized his socialist credentials. The gap was too big. I don’t think Labour would be in power now if she had. By the way very much a “wait and see” feeling about Starmer as PM from me. He has massive challenges to deal with as the country falls apart. We’ll see if he can address at least some of them. As far as the Greens are concerned they are currently a “safe place” to vote for those concerned about the environment across the political environment. I have voted for them on occasion. It would be a shame if they lost that by being seen as “the new Corbyn’s momentum” just as they are starting to gain traction with four MPs (even if the reality is many if their existing policies are basically there already) I doubt that the Greens will be mistaken for momentum or suchlike. And whatever might have occurred in some alternate past where Long Bailey was leader is in reality both unknowable and irrelevant because it isnt real, didn't happen, and crucially is unlikely to in the future. So debates about what might have happened are perhaps an interesting diversion but otherwise pointless, with no way for anyone to be able to prove or disprove their position. But for now I will play that game anyway. I still think that Tory popularity would have collapsed. You seem to think that with Long Bailey in charge of Labour, Johnson would have remained Tory leader and that this would have resulted in him winning another election. I think such a scenario lacks credibility too, because it presupposes Johnson remaining a vote winner when it was clear that he was ceasing to be as more people woke up to his true character. It is worth remembering that it was the Tories themselves who got rid of him because they saw he was damaging them. Had he remained this is likely to have worsened to the point where they would have ditched him in the end. And the Liz Truss premiership, had it happened would have not been any less damaging were Labour under another leader. Whatever way you look at it, support for the Tories is still likely to have collapsed. What is more open to doubt is what would have happened to Labour support, which could have been vulnerable to so many variables that it is much harder to ascertain with any real probability. How readily would the weaponization of antisemitism be transferred from Corbyn onto Long Bailey? Would she have been able to counter this more robustly or effectively or not? How competent would she have been as leader? What would her policy agenda have been? How credible would it have been to how many people and which groups would it have appealed to and which groups it repelled? How would she have reacted to the Covid crisis, the small boats issue, Ukraine? How much would she have been willing to compromise in pursuit of consensus? How effective a speaker and debater would she have been as leader, both in the Commons and in the studio? How gaffe prone would she have been? What skeletons might there have been in her closet to be uncovered? With so many unknowables, either of us would be foolish to claim to know how it would have panned out. Every possibility is conceivable from Labour's vote holding up better and their majority being even larger (which I think pretty unlikely) to the Labour vote collapsing even more than the Tories leading to even bigger gains for the Lib Dems, Greens, Independents and Reform. And in this latter scenario it is possible to imagine anything from a very hung parliament, to a much smaller Labour majority to the Lib Dems becoming the largest party, to total Labour meltdown. There is also the likelihood - in a situation where Long Bailey was demonstrably performing very poorly as leader - that she would have been replaced by someone else before the election anyway. Which in turn opens up a whole load of other potential alternate realities as to who that leader might have been. Would it still have been Starmer anyway? Or someone else? And if so, who? My own suspicion is that Long Bailey would have been a flawed leader on the left a bit similar to Corbyn but with less in her past that could be weaponized against her and a greater willingness to compromise in the face of opposition than Corbyn showed. I have doubts about how effective she would have been in parliament and on TV but think she is likely to have retained a policy agenda likely to have garnered support from quite a few of those who voted Labour in 2017. The collapse in Tory support which I believe would mostly still have happened would have made a Labour victory possible, though whether likely I cannot say with certainty. I think it most likely that either there would have been a smaller Labour majority with an even lower turnout and vote share, or a hung parliament - probably the more likely of the two - with Labour needing the help of others to govern. But if Long Daily was proving so hopeless as to be a disaster she is unlikely to have still been leader in 2024 anyway.
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Post by MrBenn on Sept 9, 2024 10:54:43 GMT
To address another point since my previous post was long enough already, whether Long Bailey could have won the leadership had Starmer not pretended to be a more electable and competent version of Corbyn, is impossible to know. But it is worth remembering that some 6 in 10 members voted for Corbyn when his position was challenged by the centrists. I don't find it credible that enough of these would have supported Starmer to make a difference were it not for him selling himself as a more electable version of what they had voted for before.
The Corbyn supporters in the membership fell into two camps. Those who believed in Starmer's pitch as being a more electable version of Corbyn, in part perhaps because they wanted to believe in it. And those who didn't and thought it was all bullshit. The latter mostly backed Long Bailey. But there were enough of the former uniting with the centrists to win it for Starmer. It would have been impossible for Starmer to have defeated Long Bailey - the obvious preferred choice of Corbyn himself - without winning the support of a substantial chunk of those who had previously backed Corbyn. And he is unlikely to have done that without pitching himself as a more electable version of the latter.
Understand this, and his entire conduct, and the inherent dishonesty involved becomes immediately obvious and explicable.
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Sept 9, 2024 11:19:23 GMT
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Post by dappy on Sept 9, 2024 11:19:23 GMT
I believe the voting electorate was just over 400,000. LB got 135k. To bring her level with Starmer, her vote would have had to increase by 70,000 - over 50%. 70,000 politically active people who apparently didn’t know that Starmer was more of a centrist. Sorry I think you are indulging in wishful thinking. We may just have to disagree on this point. As for what would have happened if LB had won - of course we will (thank goodness) never know. My view is that the public and then the Tory party collapse in support for Johnson was conditional on having a credible alternative party to vote for. LB would have been seen as continuity Corbyn without the charisma and I think the fall off in support would have been much less pronounced. I suspect Johnson would still be PM now (and the dreadful Mercer still your MP). It seems wishful thinking to believe that LB could have won the last election. Again we may have to disagree on this point too.
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Post by MrBenn on Sept 9, 2024 12:04:28 GMT
I believe the voting electorate was just over 400,000. LB got 135k. To bring her level with Starmer, her vote would have had to increase by 70,000 - over 50%. 70,000 politically active people who apparently didn’t know that Starmer was more of a centrist. Sorry I think you are indulging in wishful thinking. We may just have to disagree on this point. As for what would have happened if LB had won - of course we will (thank goodness) never know. My view is that the public and then the Tory party collapse in support for Johnson was conditional on having a credible alternative party to vote for. LB would have been seen as continuity Corbyn without the charisma and I think the fall off in support would have been much less pronounced. I suspect Johnson would still be PM now (and the dreadful Mercer still your MP). It seems wishful thinking to believe that LB could have won the last election. Again we may have to disagree on this point too. I have personally spoken or interacted with people in the party whose existence you find not credible. The people I conversed with on party forums who allowed themselves to be fooled by Starmer are seriously not figments of my imagination. Or do you think I am lying? What lacks credibility to me completely in your argument is the notion that many tens of thousands - at least - of Corbyn supporters supported Starmer knowing he was the antithesis of that. They are far more likely to have done so believing him to be a more electable version of it. And that was Starmers' and his supporters' entire pitch to us at the time. Why would that have even been necessary if none of us were going to believe it? And many in the party were newcomers to party politics, full of both idealism and naivete. Well over half had not even been in the party at the time of the 2015 election. Many were attracted by the policy agenda being set out. Quite a lot had never been members of any political party before. One in my own locale had never even voted before. Quite a lot like him were naïve idealists, untutored in the ways of internal party political skulduggery What you have utterly failed to explain logically is why you find it more credible that a bunch of naïve Corbyn supporting socialists would have suddenly switched to supporting the complete antithesis of that more credible than that they believed in someone dishonestly pretending to be what they wanted him to be. Why would people who had solidly backed Corbyn and his policy agenda have voted for Starmer over Long Bailey unless they thought he was a more competent and electable version of the same thing? The notion that thousands of naive idealists who flocked into the party under the banner of Corbyn would suddenly have become centrists is far less credible than what actually happened. I also have the advantage of having seen what was happening on the inside, which I don't believe you or anyone else here does. The dishonest pitch of the Starmer camp was obvious to many of us, you could tell just by the ones backing him, and yet there were those around us falling for it. I have seen it happening. That you seem to believe I imagined it all and find it more credible that a bunch of naive idealists backing Corbyn suddenly became centrists might be more comforting to you but it totally lacks credibility.
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Post by MrBenn on Sept 9, 2024 12:14:38 GMT
I have as usual been excessively verbose.
So I will be succinct.
Why do you find it credible that staunch supporters of Corbyn backed Starmer knowing he was a centrist? Rather than being hoodwinked?
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