Because most Labour members feel strongly about welfare cuts and austerity in general, yet the "moderate" Labour MPs have been spending the last 6 years telling us it's "self-indulgent" for the party to take strong stands on those issues, and that "electability" matters more than principles. Yet suddenly that logic goes out the window when it comes to one of their priorities, such as the EU.

How many Labour MPs think welfare cuts will be disastrous for the economy? They are very bad indeed for many of the individuals involved, but it is hard to argue that they will damage the economy severely for many years to come.

Sky News now saying Corbyn may be waiting to stand down until after Chilcott is published. Get on and do it now man!

The problem with this argument is it's completely contradictory of the "moderates"' criticism of Corbyn on non-EU matters. If Corbyn had been more outspoken in favour of the EU, might the "Remain" campaign have won? Possibly yes, it might well have scraped a win. However, it would've undoubtedly meant Labour would've been hugely damaged -- hardened Leave voters would've concluded that if Labour's main raison d'etre was being pro-EU, then Labour couldn't possibly be the party for them, as happened in Scotland when pro-unionism became seen as Scottish Labour's main raison d'etre (whereas Corbyn's "we don't really care about the EU" stance has, judging by the polls this week, has meant there have been mercifully few Labour->UKIP defections).

 

The point is that the Labour "moderates" can't be outraged when left-wingers want Labour to stand firm against welfare cuts and nuclear weapons even at the expense of electoral success, yet at the same time demand Corbyn go on a kamikaze mission to advocate the EU even when it's patently obvious that such a stance would've hugely damaged the party's electoral chances. Either "electability" matters more than purity all the time, or vice versa - but moderates seem to think that purity should matter more on the issues they feel particularly strongly about (the EU), and that it shouldn't matter on the things that actually affect the people they're supposed to represent.

Let's set aside the fact for a second that many Labour members (including a lot of Corbyn's supporters) feel passionately that we should be a part of the EU and would actually have been prepared to endure a medium-term hit to the party's election prospects if it meant Remain won. There's less of a case for this in Scotland, but even then there's an argument that our collapse in Scotland following the referendum was potentially a lesser evil than breaking up the United Kingdom provided that Scotland remained in broadly progressive hands.

 

But all of that is besides the point. I don't believe for a second that, had Corbyn campaigned properly for Remain and we'd won, our support would have collapsed anywhere near as much as it did after the referendum. Like I said before, only 24% of our voters voted for Leave despite the fact that a lot of people had no idea what our stance was. Even if all of those Leave voters abandoned us - a similar proportion of our 2015 voters have said they probably wouldn't vote for us under Corbyn anyway. What on earth did he have to lose?

I don't think Corbyn campaigning properly for remain would have helped very much - he just isn't very good at getting his point across to the general public.

 

Although Number 10 were begging him to share a platform with Cameron... and even thought about getting Barack Obama to call Corbyn and get him to do it (though they were obviously told that was never going to work), I do have some admiration for his integrity in not standing with them. He felt that the Stronger In campaign masterminded by Lynton Crosby was predicated on fear and negativity just as much as the Vote Leave campaign - he didn't want to align himself (understandably) with Cameron who said that ISIS would be celebrating if we voted leave, and Osborne with his threat of spending cuts and tax rises in a punitive emergency budget which as it turns out was about as credible as his bid for a surplus by 2020.

Let's set aside the fact for a second that many Labour members (including a lot of Corbyn's supporters) feel passionately that we should be a part of the EU and would actually have been prepared to endure a medium-term hit to the party's election prospects if it meant Remain won. There's less of a case for this in Scotland, but even then there's an argument that our collapse in Scotland following the referendum was potentially a lesser evil than breaking up the United Kingdom provided that Scotland remained in broadly progressive hands.

 

But all of that is besides the point. I don't believe for a second that, had Corbyn campaigned properly for Remain and we'd won, our support would have collapsed anywhere near as much as it did after the referendum. Like I said before, only 24% of our voters voted for Leave despite the fact that a lot of people had no idea what our stance was. Even if all of those Leave voters abandoned us - a similar proportion of our 2015 voters have said they probably wouldn't vote for us under Corbyn anyway. What on earth did he have to lose?

 

It was much more than 24% of Labour voters -- the Ashcroft on-the-day poll put it at around 35-40% of Labour voters, and frankly, looking at the breakdown of how the votes stacked up in the Labour heartlands, I suspect even that is an underestimate.

 

When you compare Labour's results in many of their northern seats in the May local elections (unspectacular, but still comfortable first places well ahead of UKIP), to the utter Leave landslides that there were in those same places last week, the idea that Labour wouldn't have had much to lose in those places doesn't bear much scrutiny. And even that doesn't take into account that the current Labour vote is not enough on its own to win a general election, and that the swing seats that decide elections overwhelmingly went Leave too.

Edited July 2, 20169 yr by Danny

g'won jeremy corbyn :cheer:, defy those odds once again, win that 2nd leadership election *.*

Corbyn, is a man of principle, even if those principles f*** up the country. Very admirable.

 

So, if I read the logic right, better for the UK to be whacked economically, hitting the very poorest people as well as everyone else, than Labour risk losing more of it's ground-root supporters who had already voted UKIP anyway. Another scenario would be that having had a democratic election the Leavers would instead concentrate on the UK parties who have done nothing much to help those communities. The irony is the EU was doing more for them than our own government, who could have set up training courses, encouraged industry (if immigrants are taking jobs in these areas then surely it's the employers who are choosing to hire them that should be criticised).

 

Re: Cameron's counter-productive comments on Remain, like ISIS, Putin - these are not incorrect statements, just stupid ones. Would Putin and ISIS love to see chaos in Europe, or are they caring, sharing and cheering on the Remain side to win? It's a no-brainer. Much like Cameron for having the referendum.

 

As for tax rises and cuts, well, cuts have been ruled out because the economy is now so dire and Osbourne is on his last legs. That will leave only tax rises as things get worse. OK, not right away, but as borrowing gets more expensive our debt will rise, there's very little left to cut anyway now, bar the NHS and schools, so that means rising prices from the weakened pound, investment drying up from abroad until it's clear what the UK has arranged, and multi-nationals gradually moving to the EU over the next 2 to 3 years. Following that, if we believe the EU, the UK THEN starts to discuss trade terms so it'll be WTO terms for some years after that all round. So sometime around 2022 there MIGHT be some optimistic improvement after years of misery.

 

Until then, all the immigrants won't go home. They can still come until 2019-ish. Non-EU immigrants can already come if they get a job of over 35k, circa 190,000 every year right now, bung in EU and it'll be about 220,000 annually. Low-paid jobs will start to disappear. Why do non-EU's get jobs in the UK? Employers choose to get skills from abroad that they can't get in the UK.

 

So, logically, the working class are still going to be pissed off once they realise that the vote will do nothing to improve their lot, and lose all interest in politics, or go to extremes. Jezza is hoping that means him. Sadly, everyone else (even if it were true) is not likely to hold that view of him.

 

As I said, better to have him as a policy man.

It was much more than 24% of Labour voters -- the Ashcroft on-the-day poll put it at around 35-40% of Labour voters, and frankly, looking at the breakdown of how the votes stacked up in the Labour heartlands, I suspect even that is an underestimate.

 

When you compare Labour's results in many of their northern seats in the May local elections (unspectacular, but still comfortable first places well ahead of UKIP), to the utter Leave landslides that there were in those same places last week, the idea that Labour wouldn't have had much to lose in those places doesn't bear much scrutiny. And even that doesn't take into account that the current Labour vote is not enough on its own to win a general election, and that the swing seats that decide elections overwhelmingly went Leave too.

 

And confirmation that this translates into utter annihilation under first-past-the-post: only 82 current Labour constituencies voted Remain (half of them in London), with 150 Labour seats voting to Leave. A real election-winning strategy that is....

 

https://www.buzzfeed.com/chrisapplegate/why...MPOW#.qp4GPg4v9

 

By way of comparison, almost as many Tory seats (72) went for Remain as Labour seats. SNP seats also provided a substantial chunk of the Remain bloc.

Edited July 3, 20169 yr by Danny

The problem with this argument is it's completely contradictory of the "moderates"' criticism of Corbyn on non-EU matters. If Corbyn had been more outspoken in favour of the EU, might the "Remain" campaign have won? Possibly yes, it might well have scraped a win. However, it would've undoubtedly meant Labour would've been hugely damaged -- hardened Leave voters would've concluded that if Labour's main raison d'etre was being pro-EU, then Labour couldn't possibly be the party for them, as happened in Scotland when pro-unionism became seen as Scottish Labour's main raison d'etre (whereas Corbyn's "we don't really care about the EU" stance has, judging by the polls this week, has meant there have been mercifully few Labour->UKIP defections).

 

The point is that the Labour "moderates" can't be outraged when left-wingers want Labour to stand firm against welfare cuts and nuclear weapons even at the expense of electoral success, yet at the same time demand Corbyn go on a kamikaze mission to advocate the EU even when it's patently obvious that such a stance would've hugely damaged the party's electoral chances. Either "electability" matters more than purity all the time, or vice versa - but moderates seem to think that purity should matter more on the issues they feel particularly strongly about (the EU), and that it shouldn't matter on the things that actually affect the people they're supposed to represent.

The difference is that there's rarely ever a referendum deciding the nation's permanent position on welfare. A little different here. You can take one position in opposition and work to shift public opinion once in government for a given policy area. It's going to be infinitely more difficult to do that when rejoining the EU requires the agreement of 27 nations who could well think 'do we want to risk the hassle again if this reconversion isn't total?'

Yeah, that method is a load of balls because it assumes that every constituency in a local authority area voted the same way. You would think it'd even out, but there are more areas like Sheffield and Birmingham, where the authority narrowly voted leave but a few constituencies will have voted Remain, than there are like Leeds, which is the opposite.

The difference is that there's rarely ever a referendum deciding the nation's permanent position on welfare. A little different here. You can take one position in opposition and work to shift public opinion once in government for a given policy area. It's going to be infinitely more difficult to do that when rejoining the EU requires the agreement of 27 nations who could well think 'do we want to risk the hassle again if this reconversion isn't total?'

 

This all may or may not be true, but it doesn't really address the argument we were having.

 

You are simply stating that you personally think the EU is more important and has more long-term effects than welfare cuts do, and that Labour should therefore die on the altar of defending the EU. That's a perfectly legitimate opinion, but you (and the "moderate" MPs who have similar opinions) can't then turn around and dish out lectures on "the importance of winning elections" when you're advocating that Labour write off two-thirds of their current seats and the vast majority of target seats in order to keep full "purity" on the EU and freedom of movement. You prioritise ideology over electability just as much as the hard left, you just have a different ideology (and in my view, an ideology which happens to be less electable than an economic left-wing message, based on recent evidence).

Edited July 3, 20169 yr by Danny

It's hardly writing off those seats though, is it?

This all may or may not be true, but it doesn't really address the argument we were having.

 

You are simply stating that you personally think the EU is more important and has more long-term effects than welfare cuts do, and that Labour should therefore die on the altar of defending the EU. That's a perfectly legitimate opinion, but you (and the "moderate" MPs who have similar opinions) can't then turn around and dish out lectures on "the importance of winning elections" when you're advocating that Labour write off two-thirds of their current seats and the vast majority of target seats in order to keep full "purity" on the EU and freedom of movement. You prioritise ideology over electability just as much as the hard left, you just have a different ideology (and in my view, an ideology which happens to be less electable than an economic left-wing message, based on recent evidence).

No, my point was that there's more argument for going all out for something that causes you short to medium term damage that is also a *permanent* decision. If there were a referendum on whether welfare cuts were to be permanent forever and never above whatever amount, I'd say that would require a more all-out opposition causing us damage rather than in the lead-up to a general election.

It's hardly writing off those seats though, is it?

 

I think it would be. If Labour were to make their HEADLINE POLICY that they were pro-EU, that is hardly likely to endear them to the vast chunks of current Labour voters and majority of target voters who take the opposite view on that issue. Yet that is exactly what the Labour "moderates" wanted to do these last few months with their demands that Labour spend all their time banging on about it, saying that being pro-EU was their main raison d'etre.

 

That's not to say that they should've taken an anti-EU position ahead of the referendum, but it's surely a statement of the obvious that you don't put it front and centre as your defining cause when it's a stance that is so opposed by so many of the voters Labour needs - you make your main defining cause something which has broad appeal among most of the voters you need, even if you have more contentious policies further down the "pecking order".

Edited July 4, 20169 yr by Danny

I think it would be. If Labour were to make their HEADLINE POLICY that they were pro-EU, that is hardly likely to endear them to the vast chunks of current Labour voters and majority of target voters who take the opposite view on that issue. Yet that is exactly what the Labour "moderates" wanted to do these last few months with their demands that Labour spend all their time banging on about it, saying that being pro-EU was their main raison d'etre.

Where did this idea that it would be the HEADLINE POLICY?

 

The reason they were "banging on about it" was because there happened to be a referendum, you might have missed it.

Where did this idea that it would be the HEADLINE POLICY?

 

From all the "moderate" MPs who said that they considered the EU referendum to be the biggest issue of a generation, saying Labour should be much more vocal about it, that they should put more focus on it than any other issue. All the 3 "mainstream" candidates in last year's leadership election were horrified at Corbyn being nuanced on the EU, spouting stuff about how "if Labour isn't internationalist then it isn't anything", and Liz Kendall saying Labour should be "pro-Europe first, last and always". If it's not fair to say that that all represents a desire for the EU to be their headline policy and their main defining cause, then what would represent it?

 

And in fact it's still going on now, even after the referendum -- Polly Toynbee is saying today that Corbyn should've been at that EU rally in London this weekend and that they should fight the next election with their headline commitment being "talks to either stay in or have as close a relationship as possible", and you don't have to go very far into the Labour Twittersphere to find people saying Labour should pitch themselves as "the party of the 48%".

Edited July 4, 20169 yr by Danny

And here is a Times article talking about how Labour "moderates" want to create a breakaway party which is "pro-business, socially liberal party in favour of the EU" -- a platform which was just utterly smashed in the referendum despite having all the institutional advantages in the world behind it:

 

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/ffe485e2...5d-8299bb50a973

Aside from that fairly well known institutional advantage of having the media on-side for 25 years, which the Outers did.

 

Not that I think being the Lib Dems on steroids would necessarily work. A lot depends on how it'd be sold really. Tacking on immigration and law and order as an afterthought to 'sate the plebs' like it seems to have been in that article would go down appallingly.

Quite - so Qassandra, after reading that article, are these really the people you trust to know how to win an election, any more than Corbyn knows how to??

 

I'm genuinely struggling to see who would vote for the party outlined in that article in the current political climate, apart from a handful of socially liberal City workers.

Edited July 4, 20169 yr by Danny

And here is a Times article talking about how Labour "moderates" want to create a breakaway party which is "pro-business, socially liberal party in favour of the EU" -- a platform which was just utterly smashed in the referendum despite having all the institutional advantages in the world behind it:

 

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/ffe485e2...5d-8299bb50a973

That would be supported by a grand total of about three MPs. Sorry to get you excited.

 

And they're quite welcome to piss off and join the Lib Dems, by the way.