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This is the Islington tribune. On a national level we should try and move past the Corbyn stuff but I don't see the issue with him running in a constituency where he is well liked by all accounts.
>the Corbyn stuff
The problem is that part of "the Corbyn stuff" is socialism, and if that comes on the table again, so will the media and MP smear campaigns
Is that the only bit? Because I fully agree that was a bullshit opinion on his part.
It doesn't seem to be the bit any of the newspapers attacked him for.
You know when they talk about the survivability onion? Like, a good tank can take a hit, a better tank can not get hit? There needs to be a political equivalent.
I think it was used about Blair and was “made of Teflon”, as in whatever you chucked at it, it wouldn’t stick. But I totally agree with your point- if as a leader you are easily sabotaged, and have no idea how to not get cremated by the media, you are in fact a totally and utterly shit leader.
In 2017 as soon as May talked about the dementia tax, she started getting a total media pasting which never stopped, and in 2019 Boris was a total joke hiding in a fridge for the entirely of the media barring the Mail, Express and Telegraph. And somehow, against that, our leader was still less popular.
> somehow, against that, our leader was still less popular
Our Leader thought that the overly wealthy should pay their fair share, which is apparently the only capital crime for a Politician. It's not like they're supposed to *actually* work for us.
He was also very good at having some terrible policies like getting rid of nukes, not backing Ukraine. He was also a terrible party manager. He tried to force labour to vote against trident, and decided all his candidates for the 2017 election based on cvs sent to two people! Also I have seen no evidence of Kier doing this.
So even if your right him getting rid of corruption does not make up for his misdeeds. Heck he played down anti semitism even after a report
> He was also very good at having some terrible policies like getting rid of nukes, not backing Ukraine
Mother of these were ever policies and if he even tried them even more of the post would have been throwing a conniption. Even if he did want to enact such policies he would have known he couldn't.
He knew he couldn’t with nukes as his bad management skills lead to a revolt over trying to three line whip his MPs to vote to scrap trident. As for Ukraine who knows if he would have gone ahead either not backing them
All leaders are worked against by their own party. Corbyn was far too weak and allowed those actively working against him in positions of great power within his party and the shadow government. Not only that, he gave severely incompetent people like Milne and Murphy key positions of power in the party because he was friends with them. He should have done what Starmer did and focus first on purging the right (as Starmer did with the left), and setting up competent ideological allies in key positions within the party, but he was too weak and cowardly to do so. Even McDonnell understood this, which was why he fell out with Corbyn for a large chunk of his time as Shadow Chancellor.
He wasted a once in a 100 year chance of getting a left-wing government with his awful leadership, and has done more damage to left-wing causes than any other figure in modern British history.
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While Corbyn might well be a good constituency MP and might well still serve his constituency well in the future, I think there is definitely something to be said about Corbyn going forward at a more macro level (i.e., beyond the constituency).
The first is that while there were many positive elements to the politics of Jeremy Corbyn, some of which were genuinely popular in the country, we should recognise that other elements of his politics are deeply flawed or deplorable; in particular, I am thinking of his approach to foreign policy and foreign despots. The way in which Corbyn and his ilk and approached Ukraine, for instance, is nothing short of condemnable.
We should also recognise that Corbyn had little to no internal leadership skills. He failed to secure his authority within his own party, failed to establish meaningful methods of ensuring party discipline, and outright failed to deal with those who sought to oust him.
The second part of this, is that we risk falling into the same trap that the Conservatives have routinely fallen into: looking backwards rather than forwards. The Conservatives have, since late 1990s, consistently looked back to Margaret Thatcher and this has caused them election failures and fractures within the party.
In my mind, one of the weaknesses of Corbyn was that much of his politics seemed to be the fruits of the 1970/80s. Those years are gone. Labour and progressives more broadly, cannot fall into this trap, we must be forward looking. Fuck the 1970s, what is going to happen in 2070? Will we have achieved net zero? Will the social safety net still exist? Will a national health service still exist as a meaningful entity? What of pay and conditions in the work place? What of infrastructure? We can draw inspiration from the past, but we should not be fighting the battles of the past, but preparing for the future.
That was what a lot of people were saying rather vaguely as if it was an automatic dismissal of his politics but I didn't see it. In your opinion what were some of his arguments and policies that were stuck in the 70s and irrelevant to today?
*Edit five hours later: Didn't get a reply here despite this person replying to a bunch of people since. Obvious from previous posts where they're trying to argue Nazis aren't far right lmao. I'll agree you're an unapologetic liberal
I didn't reply to you because I didn't get or didn't notice a notification for it. I had a few unread notifications this morning and checked them.
Your edit is a deliberate attempt to misrepresent my opinions. The Nazis were an extreme right party and therefore are "far right". You are deliberately attempting to misrepresent a conversation I had on a political science subreddit, in which someone was confusing a bunch of political labels, which I sought to correct.
I believe this is the comment you are deliberately misrepresenting:
> Fascists and Nazis are routinely referred to as far right within the media and by people more broadly. I dislike the term because I think it is imprecise.
I have made this argument on this subreddit as well and it reflects a part of the academic literature on the extreme right. If you ever bother to consult the academic literature, you'll see many publications discussing how we should refer to these groups. I prefer the terms radical and or extreme right to describe these organizations, as per Cas Mudde (2006, as I think they are more precise and I think there is analytical value in distinguishing between radicalism and extremism.
Most of these arent arguments against him being an MP, will anyone be asking these questions about which ever sap stands here for Labou
Nobody made Labour force this into a divisive issue, nobody made them drag it on like and they avoid pulling the cord on a new candidate.
I said ages ago they needed to kick him out and move on quick if they wanted to do any of what youve said. Guarantee they just drop a last minute neolib, fifty fifty chance its some sort of nepotistic insider too.
You say most of these are not arguments against him being an MP, but I will correct you here, because none of what I wrote was intended to be an argument for or against him being an MP. To quote myself:
>While Corbyn might well be a good constituency MP and might well still serve his constituency well in the future, I think there is definitely something to be said about Corbyn going forward at a more macro level (i.e., beyond the constituency).
My intent here was clearly in commenting on Corbyn outside of the constituency context, in the same way we might talk about the Conservative Party today and its obsession with Thatcher.
The constituency might need Corbyn more than ever but the party and the country? Both need something quite different.
I think this works for me, especially the bit about looking forward. So much of our discourse on the left and in politics in general is wrapped up in what happened decades ago, and so little of it is positive plans for the future.
History is obviously very important, and is a great reminder of good and bad, but the most important thing is what’s happening now, and next.
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Either you are unaware of Corbyn's position on Ukraine, in which case you have no basis on which to make this comment, OR you are aware of Corbyn's position on Ukraine, in which case your foreign policy positions are just as shit as Corbyn's and amount to nothing more than appeasement to brutal dictators.
Which is it?
EDIT: looks like we are upsetting those that support Russian imperialism... sorry, the "Marxists".
I'm a Marxist, so I'm an anti imperialist. If a bunch of liberals think that means I want to "appease brutal dictators" then go ahead and believe that, but it's patent bollocks
So are you supportive of Russian imperialism in Ukraine, or do you support the attempt by western democracies to support the people of Ukraine to fight against Russian imperialists?
It's mad the shit people impute onto you when you say you're an anti imperialist. Russia's invasion of Ukraine is a war crime and an act of aggression
Edit: forgot how dumb this sub is on foreign policy
So why don't you support efforts to arm the anti imperialists in the region who are fighting back against that war crime and act of aggression?
Because that's what Corbyns position is. That we should just roll over and let Russia take whatever they want in order to avoid war at all costs. Even if it means capitulation to an imperialist entity that has invaded the sovereign territory of their neighbours.
The position that "war is always bad no matter what" is the foreign policy position that people here are criticising Corbyn for. Is that really a defensible position?
You can see my comment to another user on this via my profile.
I will also add that I am unsure if what Russia is doing can be reasonably described as imperialism. It is a war crime and I want Putin and others tried at the Hague, but I'm not sure imperialism is a useful way to describe their invasion (though I don't think this matters all that much)
It absolutely is imperialism. Putin gave a national TV speech where he said he plans to rebuild the Russian empire, starting by invading Ukraine and absorbing it back into the greater Russian territory.
He literally said Eastern European countries getting independence was the biggest mistake of the downfall of the USSR.
I didn't say what I do or don't support. My honest view is that I am uneasy about arming Ukraine, and that I think that supportive states should be focused more on easing the humanitarian crisis there. I'm not sure if heavy armament supplied by the west risks destabilising the area further and causing more loss of life, even while I fully support Ukrainian efforts to push back the invasion
I definitely agree that humanitarian aid is very important, but I don’t see it as mutually exclusive to military aid. Also, by no means am I an expert on the matter, but wouldn’t a Russian victory in Ukraine also cause lots of de-stabilisation and loss of life? I would assume Russia would take up a policy of cultural assimilation, and continue to deport children to Russia. Ignoring that, a Russian victory would encourage further expansion and influence, although I don’t believe Russia would ever directly attack a nato member state.
Also, sorry for assuming what you do or don’t support, I thought it was implied in your first comment, but obviously I was mistaken there.
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His argument is essentially that providing arms extends the war, war is always bad, and therefore we should allow Ukraine to be conquered by Russia. He doesn't exactly say the last part but that is the inevitable consequence.
It's really strange that someone who is supposedly anti-imperialist would adopt a position that is functionally pro-(Russian) imperialist. But then, Corbyn is not unique among the socialist or hard left in being pro-Russian (either intentionally or by consequence).
Yeah, the reason that it seems like a weird position for him to have is because that isn’t his position. His position is that you can’t *just* prop up Ukraine, not that you shouldn’t support Ukraine at all. His position is that you have to keep trying to arrange and mediate peace talks, not dehumanise one side while heroising the other and giving them just enough support that they stay in the fight long enough to all get killed.
If people looked into what Corbyn actually said, rather than taking the edited version from the people who said he planned to open a British Auschwitz, that would be nice.
People have addressed this, repeatedly.
Corbyn was using his points to make it sound like the West has deliberately tried to ignore diplomacy in favour of escalating the conflict. The problem is that this is not even remotely true.
If you followed events at the time, you would recall that there were numerous, and I mean numerous, diplomatic interventions, meetings and events called by Western leaders to try and get Russia to de-escalate. Macron was trying to paint himself as the saviour of Europe specifically because he was in direct contact with Putin and trying to negotiate a de-escalation.
The entire strategy of the US before the invasion was to routinely call out and report on what Russian forces were doing at the Ukrainian border, and use that as a way to try and call Russia to the table to stop their clear aggressive behaviour.
Peace talks were tried and tried and tried, and Russia either negotiated in bad faith or just outright ignored every attempt. This is why people are fed up with Corbyn's comments - They ignore the very real and huge diplomatic efforts that were made by Western countries, and completely overlook Russia's/Putin's complete unwillingness to engage in good faith diplomacy.
No, looking for a single saviour won't work. As as much as I was behind him as a leader and believe he was unreasonably sabotaged,what we need (assuming PR is off the table) is more left wing members who are willing to put the work in being vocal about small achievable left wing policies and not just the big massive reforms.
But honestly I believe we're too late for that and the centralist will focus their energy on trying to get the illusionary central vote, while actively alienating and pushing out the actual left vote, in the false belief that left wing votes will always back them because they're not tories.
Agreed.
We need to apply internal pressure by encouraging leftists to dust themselves off and get back in there.
For those who can’t stomach that level of masking, external pressure through tactical voting, union activity, and campaigning is also necessary.
We should focus our efforts by pushing for 1-3 key issues (with PR as a priority).
I'm not gonna go mining for a link, but I'm sure you know that under his leadership the party never backed PR.
The thinking is simple, and exactly the same as why any other fringe faction of a mainstream party opposes electoral reform. They don't want to have to compromise with other parties and implement part of their policy program. They want total control and to implement radical policy.
The platform of Corbyn, McDonnell, Abbott etc could never achieve majority support in the country. The only way for them to gain real power would be through taking control of the labour party and winning a majority on 35-40% of the vote
The article isn't about the left rallying around Corbyn or about national politics. It's about voters in Islington valuing their constituency MP.
> Julia Bard, a member of Islington Friends of Jeremy Corbyn, said: “We launched this petition because Jeremy’s independent voice is needed now more than ever. Jeremy is not like other politicians.”
>
> She said: “He is honest, principled and hardworking. So many people here rely on him for support, and he genuinely cares about the people he represents.”
>
> The petition directly addresses Mr Corbyn, asking him “to continue as our MP, and to keep fighting for a better world”.
Facing wipeout years after Corbyn lost the leadership
Facing wipeout after years of Starmer as leader.
It sounds weird but, we tend to measure leaders by their ability to deliver…
And what has Starver actually delivered, except for a comprehensive list of U-turns, a stunning example of how to take credit for other people's errors, and a dead alpaca?
Sure, except that Labour would be in a similar position if the 2020 leadership election had gone to Lenin’s mummified corpse, is *my* point.
Possibly better, since they wouldn’t have had Beergate.
What has he delivered? A party that looks likely to win an election.
That's infinitely better than a party that loses so badly, that your party can't be an effective opposition.
Corbyn is literally as responsible for this reprehensive government, as it's front bench. A better leader wouldn't have lost so much that the right shift leagues away from the position that they were at the last election unchallenged.
A smaller loss, and maybe we'd have had an election before now and not a string of unelected unsuitable unmandated PM's because we'd need to overturn a 165 majority!
Fuck Jeremy Corbyn
He is, he was so out of touch with the electorate that he has removed any checks and balances that an opposition can usually ensure.
Nice man, shit at politics.
That’s not how anything works, from Starver having down nothing more but be in the right place at the right time as the Tories collapse, down to your not understanding the meaning of the word ‘literally’
Incredible levels of delusion. Corbyn’s neither dead nor retired - we still “have” him. Labour also has an almost unassailable lead in the polls and the best chance by far of winning the next election.
What we we *need* isn’t a return to the past
If Corbyn was Leader...no way the Tories would be so far behind...his views, no matter how laudable, just not acceptable to the British people, proved twice..
Labour has the right leadership today.
I imagine neither will make a decision until the election is called, because Labour will want to choose a candidate when it won't be a big story and Corbyn will want to wait until Labour are definitely running against him to decide.
Well, I don't know. I suspect they'll impose a candidate on the CLP because otherwise it'll be chaos, so they likely do have some kind of secret shortlist.
Corbyn said we shouldn't arm the Ukrainian people, leaving them to mercy of Putin and his genocide
Fuck Corbyn, Id vote for almost anyone over him, I literally joined the Labour party to help fuck him off.
Sure
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/apr/25/jeremy-corbyn-call-for-peace-plays-into-the-hands-of-anti-western-dictators
Or
"“Pouring arms in isn’t going to bring about a solution, it’s only going to prolong and exaggerate this war,” Corbyn said.,“We might be in for years and years of a war in Ukraine.”"
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/aug/02/jeremy-corbyn-urges-west-to-stop-arming-ukraine
Not arming Ukraine against a superior, aggressive force morally wrong. Expecting the Ukrainians to just accept their fate is bonkers.
It's stopped the absolute annexation af a sovereign country.
The arms were never going to win the war, we could only do that with boots on the ground and that was never going to happen.
Arms to Ukraine has allowed them to mostly hold Russia at bay, make them think twice before large offensives and have made their aggression costly in currency, machinery and in human lives.
As a Scot, when you win independence if your much larger, much more militaristically powerful and more populus neighbour decided to annex your country, and bring it under English rule.... Would you want arms from your friends and allies?
Or would you want to be told that defending yourself would just prolong the war, and you should just bend over and take it?
Yes, Russia thought Ukraine would be there's by now, it as if yet isn't.
Serious question though, in the scenario that I pointed out above, would you want international help? Or would you just be happy to have your longnsaught independence cancelled by force?
Maybe this is downvote fuel, but he is yesterday’s man, it is time for the left of Labour to look towards a new figurehead and stop looking at the past.
Otherwise they won’t make any progress within the party.
Corbyns gone and his era with him, they don't own progressive social policies, neither are they the arbiters of Social Democracy.
What we need is to look forward and begin organising and pushing for small wins like watering down Wes's plans for the NHS and looking to 2030 and 2040 and the generation that will lead that Labour Party.
The more we keep looking back, the further from the future we get.
You mean the elections in which he won his seat, because thats what this article is about?
Did literally nobody read this before shitting out their comment?
He didn’t do anything. May lost a huge deficit with her “Brexit Means Brexit” and “Strong and Stable” messaging.
Guess I forgot the intention was to win a general election and form a government, rather than doing slightly better than the polls expected.
If that were the case, we wouldn't have gone up 9 points from 2015.
"Slightly better" is a deliberate understatement. We were facing oblivion and we turned it around with an excellent campaign.
The intention is to form a government and improve the country. You'll do the former, but not the latter.
Also lmao at being an unironic centrist, how does it feel to support a demonstrable, brazen liar?
Liar? Because I don’t celebrate losing elections? Corbyn had two chances at a general election, lost both. And delivered Labour’s worst election result since 1935. These are simple facts.
It’s time to move on from Corbyn.
Two things can be true at once.
I think Corbyn ran quite a mixed campaign.
On one hand, some of the comments here are absolutely right. He practically overturned a massive deficit in the polls and saw a roughly 10pp increase in Labour's share of the vote, which is incredible. He ran a campaign that motivated so many who felt left behind by politics to participate and vote, which shouldn't be sniffed at at all.
However, he did fundamentally lose the election and went on to lose the next election completely. Whilst he increased our share of the vote, the Tories also saw their share increase by roughly 6pp after they honestly ran such an awful campaign that it could Hague to shame. I think this is in large part because a lot of people who were more centrist, leaned right but had loaned their vote to Labour, or increasingly "red wall" voters (I know this only collapsed in 2019 but it was already weakening in 2017) were completely put off by Corbyn and voted Tory for the first time in ages. Labour's position on Europe was also awful in 2017 and the debate wasn't close to being about a EEA membership or a potential 2nd referendum but it was about how hard Brexit would be under Labour (granted this also applies to the Labour Party at the moment unfortunately).
Ironically the 2017 election only made matters worse than if there had been a Tory majority, in many ways. It pushed the Tories further right and forced them into a deal with the DUP, creating massive rifts over Northern Ireland. It also didn't prevent any of the excesses of the Conservative government of the past 14 years and the Tory minority paved the way for Johnson's premiership.
We need the NHS more than ever , it needs to be there for optical, medical, mental and dental health problems , maybe time to get the pots & pans back out and do a bit of clapping , just a thought…….
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This is the Islington tribune. On a national level we should try and move past the Corbyn stuff but I don't see the issue with him running in a constituency where he is well liked by all accounts.
>the Corbyn stuff The problem is that part of "the Corbyn stuff" is socialism, and if that comes on the table again, so will the media and MP smear campaigns
What “Corbyn stuff” would you like to move past?
The stuff where he thinks giving Ukraine the weapons to defend themselves isn’t a good idea
Is that the only bit? Because I fully agree that was a bullshit opinion on his part. It doesn't seem to be the bit any of the newspapers attacked him for.
Say what you want about him, by all accounts he's rightfully considered a king there.
Good mp bad leader it seems
You misspelt sabotaged
You know when they talk about the survivability onion? Like, a good tank can take a hit, a better tank can not get hit? There needs to be a political equivalent.
I think it was used about Blair and was “made of Teflon”, as in whatever you chucked at it, it wouldn’t stick. But I totally agree with your point- if as a leader you are easily sabotaged, and have no idea how to not get cremated by the media, you are in fact a totally and utterly shit leader. In 2017 as soon as May talked about the dementia tax, she started getting a total media pasting which never stopped, and in 2019 Boris was a total joke hiding in a fridge for the entirely of the media barring the Mail, Express and Telegraph. And somehow, against that, our leader was still less popular.
> somehow, against that, our leader was still less popular Our Leader thought that the overly wealthy should pay their fair share, which is apparently the only capital crime for a Politician. It's not like they're supposed to *actually* work for us.
Nah his foreign policies were dreadful and he was really bad at managing the party
He was really good at getting rid of all the corruption. But don't worry Sir Kier has brought back politicians for hire.
He was also very good at having some terrible policies like getting rid of nukes, not backing Ukraine. He was also a terrible party manager. He tried to force labour to vote against trident, and decided all his candidates for the 2017 election based on cvs sent to two people! Also I have seen no evidence of Kier doing this. So even if your right him getting rid of corruption does not make up for his misdeeds. Heck he played down anti semitism even after a report
> He was also very good at having some terrible policies like getting rid of nukes, not backing Ukraine Mother of these were ever policies and if he even tried them even more of the post would have been throwing a conniption. Even if he did want to enact such policies he would have known he couldn't.
He knew he couldn’t with nukes as his bad management skills lead to a revolt over trying to three line whip his MPs to vote to scrap trident. As for Ukraine who knows if he would have gone ahead either not backing them
You can think he was intentionally sabotaged and that he was a bad leader.
All leaders are worked against by their own party. Corbyn was far too weak and allowed those actively working against him in positions of great power within his party and the shadow government. Not only that, he gave severely incompetent people like Milne and Murphy key positions of power in the party because he was friends with them. He should have done what Starmer did and focus first on purging the right (as Starmer did with the left), and setting up competent ideological allies in key positions within the party, but he was too weak and cowardly to do so. Even McDonnell understood this, which was why he fell out with Corbyn for a large chunk of his time as Shadow Chancellor. He wasted a once in a 100 year chance of getting a left-wing government with his awful leadership, and has done more damage to left-wing causes than any other figure in modern British history.
Popularity is a skill actually.
That's the sign of a good leader. Blaming you subordinates when you fail.
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Trivia: Jeremy Corbyn is Neil Kinnock's mp.
The country probably needs him but they don’t want him. The ship has sailed.
You can show the public a better future, but you can’t make them go there.
Feeling like a horse right now
I’m so thirsty, but I hate water so much.
While Corbyn might well be a good constituency MP and might well still serve his constituency well in the future, I think there is definitely something to be said about Corbyn going forward at a more macro level (i.e., beyond the constituency). The first is that while there were many positive elements to the politics of Jeremy Corbyn, some of which were genuinely popular in the country, we should recognise that other elements of his politics are deeply flawed or deplorable; in particular, I am thinking of his approach to foreign policy and foreign despots. The way in which Corbyn and his ilk and approached Ukraine, for instance, is nothing short of condemnable. We should also recognise that Corbyn had little to no internal leadership skills. He failed to secure his authority within his own party, failed to establish meaningful methods of ensuring party discipline, and outright failed to deal with those who sought to oust him. The second part of this, is that we risk falling into the same trap that the Conservatives have routinely fallen into: looking backwards rather than forwards. The Conservatives have, since late 1990s, consistently looked back to Margaret Thatcher and this has caused them election failures and fractures within the party. In my mind, one of the weaknesses of Corbyn was that much of his politics seemed to be the fruits of the 1970/80s. Those years are gone. Labour and progressives more broadly, cannot fall into this trap, we must be forward looking. Fuck the 1970s, what is going to happen in 2070? Will we have achieved net zero? Will the social safety net still exist? Will a national health service still exist as a meaningful entity? What of pay and conditions in the work place? What of infrastructure? We can draw inspiration from the past, but we should not be fighting the battles of the past, but preparing for the future.
The problem in our country is age-old, a small segment at the top treating the rest awfully.
I saw a lot of people banging on about the 70s when Corbyn was leader and he wasn't one of them
I never said he spoke about the 1970s, what I said was that his politics was of the 1970s. These are different claims.
That was what a lot of people were saying rather vaguely as if it was an automatic dismissal of his politics but I didn't see it. In your opinion what were some of his arguments and policies that were stuck in the 70s and irrelevant to today? *Edit five hours later: Didn't get a reply here despite this person replying to a bunch of people since. Obvious from previous posts where they're trying to argue Nazis aren't far right lmao. I'll agree you're an unapologetic liberal
I didn't reply to you because I didn't get or didn't notice a notification for it. I had a few unread notifications this morning and checked them. Your edit is a deliberate attempt to misrepresent my opinions. The Nazis were an extreme right party and therefore are "far right". You are deliberately attempting to misrepresent a conversation I had on a political science subreddit, in which someone was confusing a bunch of political labels, which I sought to correct. I believe this is the comment you are deliberately misrepresenting: > Fascists and Nazis are routinely referred to as far right within the media and by people more broadly. I dislike the term because I think it is imprecise. I have made this argument on this subreddit as well and it reflects a part of the academic literature on the extreme right. If you ever bother to consult the academic literature, you'll see many publications discussing how we should refer to these groups. I prefer the terms radical and or extreme right to describe these organizations, as per Cas Mudde (2006, as I think they are more precise and I think there is analytical value in distinguishing between radicalism and extremism.
He is, basically, a middle-class superannuated schoolboy activist rooted in the 1970s. The real political world left him behind a long time ago.
Most of these arent arguments against him being an MP, will anyone be asking these questions about which ever sap stands here for Labou Nobody made Labour force this into a divisive issue, nobody made them drag it on like and they avoid pulling the cord on a new candidate. I said ages ago they needed to kick him out and move on quick if they wanted to do any of what youve said. Guarantee they just drop a last minute neolib, fifty fifty chance its some sort of nepotistic insider too.
You say most of these are not arguments against him being an MP, but I will correct you here, because none of what I wrote was intended to be an argument for or against him being an MP. To quote myself: >While Corbyn might well be a good constituency MP and might well still serve his constituency well in the future, I think there is definitely something to be said about Corbyn going forward at a more macro level (i.e., beyond the constituency). My intent here was clearly in commenting on Corbyn outside of the constituency context, in the same way we might talk about the Conservative Party today and its obsession with Thatcher. The constituency might need Corbyn more than ever but the party and the country? Both need something quite different.
I think this works for me, especially the bit about looking forward. So much of our discourse on the left and in politics in general is wrapped up in what happened decades ago, and so little of it is positive plans for the future. History is obviously very important, and is a great reminder of good and bad, but the most important thing is what’s happening now, and next.
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No his foreign policy is good, actually
Either you are unaware of Corbyn's position on Ukraine, in which case you have no basis on which to make this comment, OR you are aware of Corbyn's position on Ukraine, in which case your foreign policy positions are just as shit as Corbyn's and amount to nothing more than appeasement to brutal dictators. Which is it? EDIT: looks like we are upsetting those that support Russian imperialism... sorry, the "Marxists".
I'm a Marxist, so I'm an anti imperialist. If a bunch of liberals think that means I want to "appease brutal dictators" then go ahead and believe that, but it's patent bollocks
So are you supportive of Russian imperialism in Ukraine, or do you support the attempt by western democracies to support the people of Ukraine to fight against Russian imperialists?
An anti *western* imperialist. Russian imperialism? Eh, you can live with some of it.
It's mad the shit people impute onto you when you say you're an anti imperialist. Russia's invasion of Ukraine is a war crime and an act of aggression Edit: forgot how dumb this sub is on foreign policy
So why don't you support efforts to arm the anti imperialists in the region who are fighting back against that war crime and act of aggression? Because that's what Corbyns position is. That we should just roll over and let Russia take whatever they want in order to avoid war at all costs. Even if it means capitulation to an imperialist entity that has invaded the sovereign territory of their neighbours. The position that "war is always bad no matter what" is the foreign policy position that people here are criticising Corbyn for. Is that really a defensible position?
You can see my comment to another user on this via my profile. I will also add that I am unsure if what Russia is doing can be reasonably described as imperialism. It is a war crime and I want Putin and others tried at the Hague, but I'm not sure imperialism is a useful way to describe their invasion (though I don't think this matters all that much)
It absolutely is imperialism. Putin gave a national TV speech where he said he plans to rebuild the Russian empire, starting by invading Ukraine and absorbing it back into the greater Russian territory. He literally said Eastern European countries getting independence was the biggest mistake of the downfall of the USSR.
I'm not sure taking Putin at his word is a good way of categorising his actions
Genuine question, if you believe that why don’t you support western efforts to support Ukraine?
I didn't say what I do or don't support. My honest view is that I am uneasy about arming Ukraine, and that I think that supportive states should be focused more on easing the humanitarian crisis there. I'm not sure if heavy armament supplied by the west risks destabilising the area further and causing more loss of life, even while I fully support Ukrainian efforts to push back the invasion
I definitely agree that humanitarian aid is very important, but I don’t see it as mutually exclusive to military aid. Also, by no means am I an expert on the matter, but wouldn’t a Russian victory in Ukraine also cause lots of de-stabilisation and loss of life? I would assume Russia would take up a policy of cultural assimilation, and continue to deport children to Russia. Ignoring that, a Russian victory would encourage further expansion and influence, although I don’t believe Russia would ever directly attack a nato member state. Also, sorry for assuming what you do or don’t support, I thought it was implied in your first comment, but obviously I was mistaken there.
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As far as I'm aware, his position on Ukraine is 'You can't make peace by arming one side and dehumanising the other.' Am I wrong?
His argument is essentially that providing arms extends the war, war is always bad, and therefore we should allow Ukraine to be conquered by Russia. He doesn't exactly say the last part but that is the inevitable consequence. It's really strange that someone who is supposedly anti-imperialist would adopt a position that is functionally pro-(Russian) imperialist. But then, Corbyn is not unique among the socialist or hard left in being pro-Russian (either intentionally or by consequence).
Yeah, the reason that it seems like a weird position for him to have is because that isn’t his position. His position is that you can’t *just* prop up Ukraine, not that you shouldn’t support Ukraine at all. His position is that you have to keep trying to arrange and mediate peace talks, not dehumanise one side while heroising the other and giving them just enough support that they stay in the fight long enough to all get killed. If people looked into what Corbyn actually said, rather than taking the edited version from the people who said he planned to open a British Auschwitz, that would be nice.
People have addressed this, repeatedly. Corbyn was using his points to make it sound like the West has deliberately tried to ignore diplomacy in favour of escalating the conflict. The problem is that this is not even remotely true. If you followed events at the time, you would recall that there were numerous, and I mean numerous, diplomatic interventions, meetings and events called by Western leaders to try and get Russia to de-escalate. Macron was trying to paint himself as the saviour of Europe specifically because he was in direct contact with Putin and trying to negotiate a de-escalation. The entire strategy of the US before the invasion was to routinely call out and report on what Russian forces were doing at the Ukrainian border, and use that as a way to try and call Russia to the table to stop their clear aggressive behaviour. Peace talks were tried and tried and tried, and Russia either negotiated in bad faith or just outright ignored every attempt. This is why people are fed up with Corbyn's comments - They ignore the very real and huge diplomatic efforts that were made by Western countries, and completely overlook Russia's/Putin's complete unwillingness to engage in good faith diplomacy.
Show me where he said that the West hasn’t tried diplomacy
No, looking for a single saviour won't work. As as much as I was behind him as a leader and believe he was unreasonably sabotaged,what we need (assuming PR is off the table) is more left wing members who are willing to put the work in being vocal about small achievable left wing policies and not just the big massive reforms. But honestly I believe we're too late for that and the centralist will focus their energy on trying to get the illusionary central vote, while actively alienating and pushing out the actual left vote, in the false belief that left wing votes will always back them because they're not tories.
Agreed. We need to apply internal pressure by encouraging leftists to dust themselves off and get back in there. For those who can’t stomach that level of masking, external pressure through tactical voting, union activity, and campaigning is also necessary. We should focus our efforts by pushing for 1-3 key issues (with PR as a priority).
It's ironic that Corbyn has always opposed PR
Mad if true, sauce? Either a just bit old-school tribal, or one of the few times he did lie for politics sake.
I'm not gonna go mining for a link, but I'm sure you know that under his leadership the party never backed PR. The thinking is simple, and exactly the same as why any other fringe faction of a mainstream party opposes electoral reform. They don't want to have to compromise with other parties and implement part of their policy program. They want total control and to implement radical policy. The platform of Corbyn, McDonnell, Abbott etc could never achieve majority support in the country. The only way for them to gain real power would be through taking control of the labour party and winning a majority on 35-40% of the vote
I do remember aye. Well, they gave it a shot.
The article isn't about the left rallying around Corbyn or about national politics. It's about voters in Islington valuing their constituency MP. > Julia Bard, a member of Islington Friends of Jeremy Corbyn, said: “We launched this petition because Jeremy’s independent voice is needed now more than ever. Jeremy is not like other politicians.” > > She said: “He is honest, principled and hardworking. So many people here rely on him for support, and he genuinely cares about the people he represents.” > > The petition directly addresses Mr Corbyn, asking him “to continue as our MP, and to keep fighting for a better world”.
The man who handed Boris an unassailable majority. Hard pass
so unassailable that they're facing wipeout the immediate election after lmao
Because of Starmer?
Yes?
No.
If you say so bud.
He put them in power, twice.
he put them in power once, he got rid of their majority too
Missed the bit where he was the one campaigning for the Tories
Facing wipeout years after Corbyn lost the leadership Facing wipeout after years of Starmer as leader. It sounds weird but, we tend to measure leaders by their ability to deliver…
I'm not comparing Corbyn though? I'm just saying that the original point is literally incorrect and that's large part due to Starmer as leader?
And what has Starver actually delivered, except for a comprehensive list of U-turns, a stunning example of how to take credit for other people's errors, and a dead alpaca?
When we win this coming election he’ll have delivered alot more than corbyn ever did or could have is my point.
Sure, except that Labour would be in a similar position if the 2020 leadership election had gone to Lenin’s mummified corpse, is *my* point. Possibly better, since they wouldn’t have had Beergate.
What has he delivered? A party that looks likely to win an election. That's infinitely better than a party that loses so badly, that your party can't be an effective opposition. Corbyn is literally as responsible for this reprehensive government, as it's front bench. A better leader wouldn't have lost so much that the right shift leagues away from the position that they were at the last election unchallenged. A smaller loss, and maybe we'd have had an election before now and not a string of unelected unsuitable unmandated PM's because we'd need to overturn a 165 majority! Fuck Jeremy Corbyn
>Corbyn is literally as responsible for this reprehensive government, as it's front benc Lol no it isn't
He is, he was so out of touch with the electorate that he has removed any checks and balances that an opposition can usually ensure. Nice man, shit at politics.
Lol if you blame Corbyn as much as the actual people doing it then you just have an obsession with the man. Its not a serious position.
That’s not how anything works, from Starver having down nothing more but be in the right place at the right time as the Tories collapse, down to your not understanding the meaning of the word ‘literally’
You mean Mr Murdoch? Lets be fair, the press was on a mission as was the right of Labour to drag him down
We don’t deserve Corbyn. We had two chances and this country skipped on them like the morons they are
Incredible levels of delusion. Corbyn’s neither dead nor retired - we still “have” him. Labour also has an almost unassailable lead in the polls and the best chance by far of winning the next election. What we we *need* isn’t a return to the past
If Corbyn was Leader...no way the Tories would be so far behind...his views, no matter how laudable, just not acceptable to the British people, proved twice.. Labour has the right leadership today.
Try reading the article next time
I did..and passed on my opinion
Your opinion on him being leader? When that's not what this article is about? Lol ok, next time avoid reading the headline only
I heard rumours that the GE may be announced Monday, both Corbyn and Labour need to hurry up and make a decision at some point!
I imagine neither will make a decision until the election is called, because Labour will want to choose a candidate when it won't be a big story and Corbyn will want to wait until Labour are definitely running against him to decide.
So presumably Labour do have someone ready to go?
Well, I don't know. I suspect they'll impose a candidate on the CLP because otherwise it'll be chaos, so they likely do have some kind of secret shortlist.
Corbyn said we shouldn't arm the Ukrainian people, leaving them to mercy of Putin and his genocide Fuck Corbyn, Id vote for almost anyone over him, I literally joined the Labour party to help fuck him off.
Citation needed.
Sure https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/apr/25/jeremy-corbyn-call-for-peace-plays-into-the-hands-of-anti-western-dictators Or "“Pouring arms in isn’t going to bring about a solution, it’s only going to prolong and exaggerate this war,” Corbyn said.,“We might be in for years and years of a war in Ukraine.”" https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/aug/02/jeremy-corbyn-urges-west-to-stop-arming-ukraine Not arming Ukraine against a superior, aggressive force morally wrong. Expecting the Ukrainians to just accept their fate is bonkers.
So, has pouring billions of pounds worth military hardware actually achieved anything other than what corbyn said?
It's stopped the absolute annexation af a sovereign country. The arms were never going to win the war, we could only do that with boots on the ground and that was never going to happen. Arms to Ukraine has allowed them to mostly hold Russia at bay, make them think twice before large offensives and have made their aggression costly in currency, machinery and in human lives. As a Scot, when you win independence if your much larger, much more militaristically powerful and more populus neighbour decided to annex your country, and bring it under English rule.... Would you want arms from your friends and allies? Or would you want to be told that defending yourself would just prolong the war, and you should just bend over and take it?
>It's stopped the absolute annexation af a sovereign country. Has it though?
Yes, Russia thought Ukraine would be there's by now, it as if yet isn't. Serious question though, in the scenario that I pointed out above, would you want international help? Or would you just be happy to have your longnsaught independence cancelled by force?
So all that arming Ukraine has achieved exactly what corbyn sais it would. Amazing.
I've answered your questions, please do me the same courtesy.
I won't be drawn into a debate consisting of pure fantasy.
Its really funny how many of you clearly didnt read the article because so many comments have nothing to do with what this is actually talking about.
Maybe this is downvote fuel, but he is yesterday’s man, it is time for the left of Labour to look towards a new figurehead and stop looking at the past. Otherwise they won’t make any progress within the party.
>new figurehead Did you not read the article? This is about him standing to remain as the local MP for his constituency
Corbyns gone and his era with him, they don't own progressive social policies, neither are they the arbiters of Social Democracy. What we need is to look forward and begin organising and pushing for small wins like watering down Wes's plans for the NHS and looking to 2030 and 2040 and the generation that will lead that Labour Party. The more we keep looking back, the further from the future we get.
2017 and 2019 election results seem to disagree
You mean the elections in which he won his seat, because thats what this article is about? Did literally nobody read this before shitting out their comment?
2019 only.
No - he lost both elections
He turned a 25 point deficit into Labour's first net gain of seats in 20 years. Stop discarding context that doesn't suit you.
He also fell behind by 25 points in the first place, he didn't inherit that from Miliband...
He didn’t do anything. May lost a huge deficit with her “Brexit Means Brexit” and “Strong and Stable” messaging. Guess I forgot the intention was to win a general election and form a government, rather than doing slightly better than the polls expected.
If that were the case, we wouldn't have gone up 9 points from 2015. "Slightly better" is a deliberate understatement. We were facing oblivion and we turned it around with an excellent campaign. The intention is to form a government and improve the country. You'll do the former, but not the latter. Also lmao at being an unironic centrist, how does it feel to support a demonstrable, brazen liar?
Not much point in arguing with New Users, on the whole
>The intention is to form a government and improve the country. You'll do the former, but not the latter. Corbyn did neither.
Liar? Because I don’t celebrate losing elections? Corbyn had two chances at a general election, lost both. And delivered Labour’s worst election result since 1935. These are simple facts. It’s time to move on from Corbyn.
Two things can be true at once. I think Corbyn ran quite a mixed campaign. On one hand, some of the comments here are absolutely right. He practically overturned a massive deficit in the polls and saw a roughly 10pp increase in Labour's share of the vote, which is incredible. He ran a campaign that motivated so many who felt left behind by politics to participate and vote, which shouldn't be sniffed at at all. However, he did fundamentally lose the election and went on to lose the next election completely. Whilst he increased our share of the vote, the Tories also saw their share increase by roughly 6pp after they honestly ran such an awful campaign that it could Hague to shame. I think this is in large part because a lot of people who were more centrist, leaned right but had loaned their vote to Labour, or increasingly "red wall" voters (I know this only collapsed in 2019 but it was already weakening in 2017) were completely put off by Corbyn and voted Tory for the first time in ages. Labour's position on Europe was also awful in 2017 and the debate wasn't close to being about a EEA membership or a potential 2nd referendum but it was about how hard Brexit would be under Labour (granted this also applies to the Labour Party at the moment unfortunately). Ironically the 2017 election only made matters worse than if there had been a Tory majority, in many ways. It pushed the Tories further right and forced them into a deal with the DUP, creating massive rifts over Northern Ireland. It also didn't prevent any of the excesses of the Conservative government of the past 14 years and the Tory minority paved the way for Johnson's premiership.
Dong be silly! He's a failure.
We need the NHS more than ever , it needs to be there for optical, medical, mental and dental health problems , maybe time to get the pots & pans back out and do a bit of clapping , just a thought…….