The Corbynite coalition’s gaping hole, an opportunity for Scottish Labour and an NHS crisis in Copeland – Richard Angell has this week’s Last Word
Principle and power are harder to reconcile for some over others. Jeremy Corbyn led his Labour troops through the lobby to trigger Article 50 – and Britain’s exit of the European Union – this week.
This week – and that vote – has shown the gaping hole in the Corbynite coalition. Seumas Milne and Andrew Fisher – who almost definitely voted ‘Leave’ – will be proud of their boss this week. So will the rag bag of far-left groups who circle Momentum, Corbyn and John McDonnell. However, what Owen Jones calls the ‘movementists’ are horrified. The penny is dropping with the non-Trot Corbynistas, and this week was further evidence that they elected not a latter-day Charles Kennedy, but a slightly more affable George Galloway. Corbyn is not the leader of their pro-European liberal hearts, but a reheated anti-EU Bennite who wants to lead little other than the Stop the War coalition. Richard Carr, Greg Rosen and Grace Skelton explore this in the latest edition of Progress – arriving with people this week. It is well worth a read.
But if Corbyn is not interested in leading, others certainly are. Clive Lewis found loyalty to both his leader and his constituents incompatible on this issue. Jones – Lewis’ unofficial campaign manager in the forthcoming leadership election – tweeted crowning the member of parliament for Norwich South as the new holder of the purist, principled flame in Labour. But this has infuriated Corbyn’s increasingly small inner circle. McDonnell – who still fancies a stab at the leadership – is keen to deflect and is actively pushing Rebecca Long-Bailey. Corbyn is clearly on board, given he replaced Lewis with Long-Bailey in the shadow cabinet. Either way, none of these jokers get on the ballot unless the ‘McDonnell amendment’ passes at Labour party conference this September. My team and I, in partnership with Labour First, are working day-in day-out to stop this attempt to reduce the nominations threshold for standing as Labour leader from 15 per cent to just five. This is the hard-left’s last hurrah. Get yourself selected as a conference delegate so you can vote it down and save the party we love.
The true social democratic force in Caledonia
The Scottish Labour leader Kezia Duglade is holding a progressive mirror up to the disaster that has been the Scottish National party government. After 10 years in government with total control of Scotland’s education system, Dugdale says Nicola Sturgeon’s party has ‘managed to both leave the poorest children behind [and] hold the brightest children back.’ That really is ‘quite an achievement’.
This is rich territory for the Scottish Labour leader and her colleagues. With Sturgeon close to promising a second independence referendum that they could well lose, the bubble of the SNP could pop sooner that we otherwise think. This must be an opportunity for Labour. Although it can feel like Scottish Labour is talking to a brick wall at the moment, using this time to set out what the party stands for and why is not bad thing. Dugdale ran an election on tax rises to stop education cuts and evidence that she was right will improve her standing in the Scottish electorate and show, once again, that Labour are the true social democratic force in Caledonia. Labour’s historic mission is to reduce inequality and enhance social mobility. A plan to sort Scotland’s education system for the poorest and the brightest is not a bad place to start.
Saving Cumbria, not Labour’s leader
‘Cumbrian ambulance boss warns maternity transfer plans are “not clinically safe”‘ is the headline in Copeland’s local paper, the News & Star. This highlights why the Tory treatment of the National Health Service is dominating the conversation on the doorstep in James Reed’s former seat. Theresa May’s government is closing the major trauma and maternity wards at the West Cumbrian hospital. Sending the Tories a message that these cuts are wrong is clearly more important than telling Labour it has the wrong leader. They may believe the latter – as anyone who has been out on the doorstep in Copeland will tell you they do – but it seems more important to these voters that they save the hospital rather than Labour’s leader. I can understand that.
The Progress team were in Copeland and Stoke-on-Trent Central last weekend. Conor Pope believes we will win both. As do I. But not without putting everything into it. So if you have any time off in the next two weeks, please, please get up their and lend a hand. Your party needs you.
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Richard Angell is director of Progress. He tweets at @RichardAngell
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Owen Jones is your problem now. Good luck to you with him.
“My team and I, in partnership with Labour First, are working day-in day-out to stop this attempt to reduce the nominations threshold for standing as Labour leader from 15 per cent to just five.”
What a sad bunch of Tory-lites you are. Get out more!
“You are blocked from following @OwenJones84 and viewing @OwenJones84’s Tweets.” I have arrived, Comrades. I have arrived. You are not a proper left-winger until Little Owen has blocked you on Twitter. And now, he has done. So I am. He and I started this month as friends on Facebook. I have a signed copy of Chavs in which he wrote “To David” without having asked my name, saying only, “Of course I know who you are.” Bless.
Goodness Richard that is a big bottle of vitriol you have and all of it for Corbyn. Not a single sliver of generosity. What about his performance at PMQ exposing the sweetheart deal with Surrey?
And to call him a reheated anti EU Bennite who only wants to lead the StW Coalition. If only you were as harsh on the Tories.
And so Generous to Clive. Some might think him a bit hard left given his views on a range of other issues than the EU. However, it would seem your desire to get rid of our elected leader is so great that you will seek to build up anyone who might oppose him – and since the Right of the party cannot find anyone to beat him then a less hard leftist will do.
You should stop the preterition of poison about Corbyn and try to be more objective.
You really are a divisive, poisonous force in the Labour Party. You caused us o drop dramatically in the polls with your last little – failed – coup.
It is time you put the people of Britain ahead of your own selfish ambitions. We need to fight the Tories, not our own people. Please!
I don’t exist. I am one of the 48% who is clearly not what May calls ‘the British people’. I am also one of the 16 million who voted for Labour, but not one of the Momentum members who control the Party. Do I want to be further marginalised? No of course not. Do I want a voice? Yes I do.
I am sick of the vitriol coming from the Left. They talk of democracy and representation but theirs is a narrow church. They tolerate only one opinion and redefine things they don’t like. These attack dogs, out to silence and belittle, need to see that they are part of the problem. They need to realise that they do not represent the majority of the Country, and worse still they are a small minority of Labour voters. Actually, not everything is everyone else’s fault! You need some evidence before you decide on the cause of a problem. Aggressive, inaccurate and subjective trolling is not regarded by the (silent) majority as appropriate for a Government in waiting. If you cannot say something positive, truthful and objective it’s probably best to keep quiet.
I spent Monday in Copeland.
Yes the NHS is an issue however how to provide secondary care services for an isolated population of 100,000 or so in West Cumbria is not straightforward. This population is really insufficient to enable many specialist skills to be sustained and therefore to be safe. Making the labour case as we will save the hospital could eventually come back and bite us as if we win the by election and then the hospital is still downgraded we are left in the position that the Labour MP couldnt save the hospital.
Sellafield is also a big issue and being pushed by the Tories. JC is regarded by the voters as anti nuclear. Not good news when the prosperity of so many in the area is dependent. My guess is that Copeland is very close.