Setting aside the political aspects (as this situation was not a debate in the houses of parliament), is this Labour PLP event effectively advocating brutal individual bullying, instead of other means of deposal?

…Monday’s parliamentary Labour party (PLP) meeting. MP after MP got up to attack Jeremy Corbyn…. pausing only to text their abuse to journalists waiting outside.

A non-Corbynista MP told me afterwards that he had never seen anything so horrible and he had felt himself reduced to tears. Nobody talked about Jeremy Corbyn’s politics. There was only one intention: to break him as a man.

There is no legitimate reason for this bulling to take place as far as I can see – the whole leadership change process could have been done with 50 or so signatures on a bit of paper and a name to run against Corbyn. That would have been it, discreet, sorted, less damaging to the UK.

Agreeing or disagreeing with Corbyns politics seems irrelevant and this event seems wider than politics. What worries me is that vicious personal bullying rather than appropriate political maneuvering seems to be considered an acceptable alternative to a simple almost painless signature based alternative.

I find it very scary that any MPs think it is OK to act like a pack of wolves hounding any individual into broken submission – aside from the Corbyn situation this sets a very worrying precedent on the behavior standards of elected representatives and an alarmingly willful ignoring of an easily accessible democratic process.

More steps towards dictatorship? If this behavior becomes acceptable for Labour MPs why not for all other parties, why not make personal bullying and breaking an acceptable part of UK social behavior on all levels and in all circumstances?
Scary times.
[www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jun/29/labour-mps-vs-corbyn-war-party-members-tories-brexit] https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jun/29/labour-mps-vs-corbyn-war-party-members-tories-brexit%5B/url%5D

Meanwhile the petition supporting Corbyn is ticking up to 233,000 signatures and George Galloway has put out a video about the Labour party splitting in 2 and Chilcot.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dg6NmHZoCTM]www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dg6NmHZoCTM]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dg6NmHZoCTM

I wounder how much of the pubic legitimizing of vicious bullying is really about the shallowness of who gets to own the brand name ‘Labour’.
Sad times.

Could it be that the Blairites want to take over before the Chilcot Report is published? No, silly me, it couldn’t possibly be about that.

They could have taken over without any public bullying.
Without legitimizing personal bullying as an acceptable and desirable tactic.

My best guess is that there’s a lot of anger from the more career-minded Labour MP’s that someone less inclined to brown-nose their way up the greasy pole has been elected as leader.

The adversarial make-up of the commons has always been somewhat embarrassing. At the moment it is showing the very worst of the system, and leading by example for large sections of the country to follow.

My best guess is that there’s a lot of anger from the more career-minded[b]realistic[/b] Labour MP’s that someone less inclined to brown-nose their way up the greasy pole[b]completely unelectable in a general election[/b] has been elected as leader and a general election is probably imminent.

the longer that the majority of labour MP’s carry on like this, the less electable they get.

i’m *this* close to joining the Labour party, but why bother? – they clearly don’t give **** what their members want.

the longer that the majority of labour MP’s carry on like this, the less electable they get.

i’m *this* close to joining the Labour party, but why bother? – they clearly don’t give **** what their members want.
^^^ I’m in this boat.

That’s exactly the problem; to win an election it’s not about appealing to the people who are going to vote for you anyway, it’s about appealing to the people who might otherwise vote for the other party.

It’s no surprise that Labour members probably want a more Left-ist leader, as people who are ‘active’ in Labour politics are probably intrinsically more left-leaning than the general population.

However, in a general election it’s the general population who have to be won over. Elections are won in the centre ground, they always have been.

IHN – Member
That’s exactly the problem; to win an election it’s not about appealing to the people who are going to vote for you anyway, it’s about appealing to the people who might otherwise vote for the other party.

in my case ‘the other party’ is the greens.

(your argument only really stands up in a 2party system, what have we got? 6?)

He won’t walk so they’re pushing more and more, seems fair enough but not a world I want to be part of.

There can’t be another election anytime soon can there?

IMO their drift to the right (‘Labour left me’) cost them Scotland. The Greens need to get working in England.

What IHN said.

We are a centrist middle of the road country. We don’t like extremes in either direction. So with the Tory party about to veer sharply to the right, the Parliamentary Labour Party sees that it probably has its best electoral hope since 1997.

The only problem is that their last leader, as a parting joke, reformed the system so that someone absolutely unelectable ended up as party leader. And now, supported by a load of frankly loopy, leftie cult members, trots, and commies, he won’t step down

So they have to now unseat him before he gifts the Tory’s a permanent electoral hegemony, all so that him and his mates can pretend its 1978. I’d say that its probably not intentional bullying. More shear desperation. Lets be honest… he’s absolutely ****ing hopeless!!! And he hasn’t got a snowball in hells chance of winning a general election. Labour MPs know this.

(your argument only really stands up in a 2party system)

Again, realistically, in a general election it is a two-party system.

Well, it was, but like SlowOldGit says the SNP has split the ‘left’ vote. If anything, that means Labour maybe need to go more centre left to nab reluctant English/welsh Tories.

Whoooooah there, Binners and I agree on politics. I’m going for a lie down.

Bring back the (old) Lib-Dems. They were always the sensible party.

There’s an interesting new article at ‘Wings over Scotland’, you know, with numbers and quotations and that.

Mudshark – it might suit the Tories to announce one in November, catching Labour in disarray.

Well I see it is doable:

The Fixed-term Parliaments Act 2011 provides for general elections to be held on the first Thursday in May every five years.

However, there are two provisions that trigger an election other than at five year intervals:

– a motion of no confidence is passed in Her Majesty’s Government by a simple majority and 14 days elapses without the House passing a confidence motion in any new Government formed
– a motion for a general election is agreed by two thirds of the total number of seats in the Commons including vacant seats (currently 434 out of 650)

Is it not now starting to look like the early 1980s? Thatcher pursuing a right wing agenda; Michael Foot in opposition and shored up by Militant. Led to the formation of the SDP from moderate labour. Might we see the emergence of a new centrist party?

Politics is a very dirty game… whether we like to admit it or not, there is an element of animal instinct in it all; just look at a crow’s parliament, or ‘the pecking order’; when the group mentality kicks in, things can get very dark and primitive.

When there’s an established order, anyone seen to challenge that order is likely to become a target for a co-ordinated attack, as the hive mind takes over.

The problem is, given the current global situation, where we’re approaching the 1% having more wealth (and thus power over lobbying, global investment, industry, arms trade, media etc) than the other 99%, the system needs a bloody great hoof up the arse before we’re all screwed…

The centre ground is never going to have the sheer bollocks neccesary for that to happen.

If they pitch out Corbyn I see the majority of Labour Party voters who voted him in, young voters with a conscience who care about the environment, poverty etc etc, will just pitch off to the Greens or Lib Dems. I think even if they get a real big hitter in to replace him then the replacement will also be totally unelectable because of this.

Certainly I’m wondering where my vote will go if they carry on like this.

Their problem is that if they got the 50 signatures and force a leadership challenge, it’s Party Members who decide, and they decided not long ago that the almost unknown quietly spoken socialist Corbin was their man.

However, if he resigns then it’s up MPs to put forward candidates.

I admire his principles and his resolve, but his colleagues have abandoned him, he shouldn’t have sacked Benn – he came across like some old school Communist Dictator, I suppose he did well to fall short of demanding he be executed by anti-aircraft fire.

It seems to be a running theme of the fallout from Brexit – there are those who think about what’s fair, and what’s right, and those who accept the position we’re in and look for something that’s achievable – Jeremy Corbin doesn’t think it’s fair for him to go because it will be abandoning the people who gave him the job, the members and thinks if they need a new leader they should let the members decide – however the professional politicians who make up the rest of the Labour MPs know that he’s not electable and was flaky on Europe as most leftist members of the Labour party are – they know that globalisation was one of the key factors in the demise of industry in the UK and that if we leave and our currency crashes – city jobs will go and industry jobs will return – but you need to be a very principled person to accept the 30 year transition and even if most of the electoraite know that, they won’t accept it – we’re in a panic state and we want return to normal yesterday.

We are a centrist middle of the road country. We don’t like extremes in either direction. So with the Tory party about to veer sharply to the right, the Parliamentary Labour Party sees that it probably has its best electoral hope since 1997.

Binners you’re always asking what the labour party is for? It seems to me that the Corbyn experiment was an attempt to change the purpose of the labour party from one that was purely interested in winning elections at any cost, to one that was more democratic and represented the views of the lower half of society, and somewhere the two aims would cross in the middle. I’m still of the view that the latter is the right direction, but that doesn’t mean giving up on power. it’s a little hyperbolic to describe it as a bunch of 1970s trots with their fists in the air, but you’re right in that the man who led this transformation is more of that ilk than what the party needs for the future. The hope among many was that he’d reform the party and re-align it’s central purpose, then step aside for a younger more dynamic, and more forward looking candidate. That’s not going to happen now though, and I suspect if they are successful in getting rid of Corbyn, that no lessons will be learned and the PLP will slip back into it’s blairite habits (if it ever lost them), and in a couple of years time, we’ll be back to asking what the labour party is for?

And I’ll ask again, is it worth destroying the party for Angela Eagle or Tom Watson?

If they pitch out Corbyn I see the majority of Labour Party voters who voted him in, young voters with a conscience who care about the environment, poverty etc etc, will just pitch off to the Greens or Lib Dems. I think even if they get a real big hitter in to replace him then the replacement will also be totally unelectable because of this.

However – theres a big difference in numbers between ‘Labour party voters’ who elect leaders within the party and much larger volume of ‘Labour voters’ who put actual parliamentary bums on seats. Thats where the discord has arisen – the party leader and the elected members have two different mandates. If the party has intentions/views/values that are at odds with the elected members then the party has been selecting the wrong candidates.

he shouldn’t have sacked Benn –

Pretty standard if you find a member of the Shadow Cabinet organising a coup against you. He was right to sack him.

However – theres a big difference in numbers between ‘Labour party voters’ who elect leaders within the party and much larger volume of ‘Labour voters’ who put actual parliamentary bums on seats.

In the old days, the Core Labour vote were all union members (and members of Labour through their Union). Now the Unions are much smaller and most of the old supports aren’t members and just vote UKIP.

The new membership is now mainly idealistic middle class lefties from the SE (like myself).

If they pitch out Corbyn I see the majority of Labour Party voters who voted him in, young voters with a conscience who care about the environment, poverty etc etc,

It was the majority of these young voters who he sold down the river when he made no effort to get Labour heartlands to vote to stay in the EU. The young members need to look around at the world a bit more and realise quickly Corbyn isn’t who they think he is and doesn’t share their values.

I did pay to be in the Labour leadership vote, but I’d not consider most of the people who paid to be members. I’m a floating left wing voter, I’ll vote Labour if I have to, and the majority of people I know who voted Corbyn are like that. They signed up to get a credible left wing representative in a big previously left wing party. So in reality the party is at odds not with the party but with a lot of people who would vote Labour if Labour gave them the right candidate. Labour weren’t providing the right candidate so one was voted in when the opportunity arose, and now they want to boot him out. It’s like they’re determined not to win an election.

Edit: footflaps, I’m from the North and almost all my school mates paid to vote in Corbyn too, so that support is nationwide not just in the SE.

Again, would vote for Corbyn happily but when the rest are the same folk with the same lines what’s the point? I never even bothered in the Scottish elections as I couldn’t bring myself to vote for any of them.

Labour have a chance to actually be a (percieved) mainstream party that appeals to the ideals of younger voters (which most of you seem to be quite ignorant of). Or would have if they hadn’t been out to destroy Corbyn from the get go.

As said, what exactly was he supposed to do? He’s had nothing but back stabbing since he got into office, he gave positions to those opposed to him to appease them and that is the thanks he gets. Now he’s a dictator for quite rightly sacking someone that, in a normal job, would probably be up for misconduct? If he goes then frankly Labour will be unelectable, people won’t forget the one chance they had was blown by selfish ambition over respect for party members. And you’ll probably have a generation of disenfranchised voters into the bargain, bravo.

As said before, if you want Libs just vote for the damn Libs. It’s not difficult.

dragon – Member
…he made no effort to get Labour heartlands to vote to stay in the EU.

This, isn’t true.

for example: a multi-stop tour of south yorkshire, speeches all over the place, including our workshop, to about 200 staff, with camera crews and everything – national TV – live, just in time for the midday news.

(good speech as well btw)

This, isn’t true.
for example: a multi-stop tour of south yorkshire, speeches all over the place, including our workshop, to about 200 staff, with camera crews and everything – naional TV – live, just in time for the midday news.
(good speech as well btw)

Peter Mandleson made this point on R4. Corbyn *did* put the effort in. The problem is for whatever reason his message fails to get out. A leader who doesn’t get his message out isn’t a leader.

So according to PM it wasn’t lack of effort, and that’s even more damning.

And I’ll ask again, is it worth destroying the party for Angela Eagle or Tom Watson?

No, hence the current conundrum.

But they way things are going some form of fundamental spilt is becoming more likely by the resignation minute