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A new dawn has broken
I’m 42 – and I’m a lifelong Labour voter.
And I’ve also never known a leadership election like this.
At his victory speech at the Labour election-night party, Royal Festival Hall, London, 2 May 1997, Tony Blair uttered the now famous words, “A new dawn has broken, has it not?”
However, the way in which this particular #LabourLeadership election was run was dreadful.
As Dr Éoin Clarke had tweeted,
Weighing up all available evidence I’ve spent months gathering, about 250,000 who wanted to vote for Labour Leader were unable to do so pic.twitter.com/Wo59L3wXzs
— Éoin (@LabourEoin) September 23, 2016
I’ve known Liam Young, who supports Jeremy Corbyn, for a long time. His recent piece in the Independent details in full gory detail how, despite his best efforts otherwise, he ended up not voting. I can vouch for Liam’s commitment, having known him for years.
“I have been a member of the Labour for the last six years, and involved with the party for as long as I can remember. I remember heading to party conference in 2010 at the tender age of 15, and my grandparents often fondly remind me of the times they used to take me out canvassing in my pushchair – my grandfather was the leader of the local city council and mayor at one point. I had countless unrelated “aunties” who I grew up with, assimilated into my extended family by virtue of the Labour work they did with my relatives.
So this month, I was surprised when I didn’t receive my ballot in the normal timeframe for this leadership contest.”
The comments to this article make for desperate reading. Most authors, especially ones for The Guardian newspaper, never read the submitted comments, but I strongly suggest Liam has a look.
Here is a typical comment.
The whole Owen Smith campaign was a fiasco.
Buzzfeed charted the entire car crash of the anti-Corbyn camp brilliantly.
In fact, what happened from the time at which Hilary Benn threw his early morning temper tantrum was a full blown disaster.
Believe it or not, I had not intended to blog much about this #LabourLeadership election, though I’ve doing some sort of Labour political blog for about 7 years now.
Looking back on it now, the entire anti-Corbyn campaign imploded from the very beginning. The ‘challenger’ was implausible, the policies half-baked, the campaign sodden with gaffes, and, put simply, an insult to the wider Labour Party membership “electorate”.
I charted some of this mess in various blogposts including “Saving Owen Smith“, “The inevitability of death, taxes and Jeremy Corbyn’s re-election as leader of Labour“, and “Owen Smith MP must surely have been aware that the NHS is being rapidly privatised?“.
Some of my time had been taken up the desperate moves of the NEC to thwart people voting in the law courts, and that was before the #LabourPurge2 had gathered full momentum (pardon the pun).
The mainstream media were reluctant to cover the bare essence of the illiberality of the legal manoeuvring, astounding given the overwhelming ‘liberal’ press.
Such blogposts included “The Court of Appeal judgment was profoundly illiberal, and the issues need scrutiny notwithstanding“, “Nobody is above the law not even in the Labour NEC“, and “Tom Watson MP says he doesn’t believe in conspiracy theories, and nor do I“.
Ed Miliband MP, like other failed leadership contenders Liz Kendall MP, Lord Neil Kinnock and Gordon Brown (2010), stuck the boot in, possibly even adding to Jeremy Corbyn’s credibility, viz. “The overall incompetence of Ed Miliband’s opposition should still raise alarm bells“.
But there was no doubt at all, that if Owen Smith MP was the answer, the question was not even worth thinking about.
The Owen Smith MP candidate was the talk of the town – for all of the wrong reasons.
It never gained any credibility.
For example, I wrote on “Why has Owen Smith MP lost all momentum in his leadership campaign?“, “Owen Jones’ interview reveals Owen Smith MP is dangerous for the nation’s health“, “The Parliamentary Labour Party cannot cope with the decline and yet further decline of New Labour“, “Owen Smith’s campaign blowing up on lift-off is not a good look“, “Owen Smith is ‘reconstituted Labour’, but still a disastrous recipe“, and “Owen Smith MP is swimming in the deep end with armbands. We can’t go like this.”.
And it seems now that Angela Eagle MP’s leadership was merely now a ‘bad dream’.
This is where it all started: e.g. ““Saving Labour” or “Crushing Corbyn” – that is the question?“, “Why the level of vitriol against Jeremy Corbyn?“, “Angela Eagle’s “Contrived Leadership” was overbranded and under authentic“, “The emphasis of Hilary Benn on “winning” ironically explains a lot Labour’s failure“, “For me, Angela Eagle is part of the problem for Labour’s electability, not the solution“, and “If Labour can’t unite behind a democratically elected leader, it doesn’t deserve to be in government“.
I feel hugely excited about this morning. I have had enough of trolls suddenly popping up on Twitter, and lying to me – I don’t have to waste hours trying to work out why they are shilling on behalf of a certain lobby any more.
I don’t have to think about reasons why Corbyn would be a ‘disaster for Britain’, or why Jeremy Corbyn ‘does not believe in winning’, or how Labour ‘has become the party of permanent protest’, or how Labour is now full of far left Trotskyist individuals allegedly, and so on.
Lies.
Lies.
Lies.
For me, it feels as if a noose has been finally removed from my neck. There’s about 10 or so Labour MPs I think their local constituencies should examine as to their suitability for parliamentary election. I don’t think any candidate should be renominated under duress if (s) he disagrees strongly with party policy. Democratic re-selection is very healthy for the party. As in all good teamwork, it’s a question of give and take. I don’t see a case for the parliamentary Labour Party having bullied their way into this all-consuming leadership election, detracting attention from the split and division within the Conservative Party, to call any shots. Most scandalous of all, the entire NHS is collapsing, grammar schools are on the way back, the foreign policy with Libya for example has been utterly discredited, and Owen Smith MP is obsessed about talking about he (not the House of Commons or Lords) ‘won the PIP debate’.
Too many people in the Labour parliamentary party love themselves, especially the ones who are now acting like spoilt brats having been to one of the big 4 accountancy firms.
I don’t mean him…
Or Andy – who has been utterly brilliant throughout.
The other bunch of loudmouth talentless Labour MPs, the “deplorables”, rather need to step up to the plate, contribute policy – or else get out of the party.
They should stop fanning their own egos in TV studios with vitriolic bile against Corbyn.
They need to do some actual work in making Labour look like a serious political party. The membership are overwhelming sick of their narcissistic putrid selfish self-centred behaviour, rotten to the core.
Some journalists, especially at the Guardian, should stop preening their feathers, and stop spewing incessant negative junk in their low circulation papers.
Basically – anyone who is not up to the job of helping Jeremy Corbyn has overstayed his or her welcome -…
and should get out now.
And what have we learnt from all of this?
We now know that this man
doesn’t want Seumas Milne’s job now, nor in the future, here or in any other parallel universe.
As was in the statement to the press on arriving at Hillsborough Castle for the Northern Ireland talks, 7 April 1998, Tony Blair said, “A day like today is not a day for, sort of, soundbites, really – we can leave those at home – but I feel the hand of history upon our shoulders, I really do.”
Wherever Labour goes from this point onwards, today is a very special day.
We need to talk about Sadiq
This isn’t about me – nor about Jeremy Corbyn…
nor my followers, including
or @georgeeaton
or @LabourEoin
or @tom_watson
I happen to agree with Jeremy Corbyn’s policies. I was pretty appalled about the way the 172 Labour MPs disrespected democracy by trying to bully Corbyn into resigning outside of the rule book, and various antidemocratic moves were then subsequently tried – like keeping Corbyn off the ballot paper, then trying to stop 230,000 members from voting.
But we have to talk about my follower Sadiq.
I’ve been in the same room while Sadiq was giving a talk – and seen his manner and behaviour with people. He is very polite, and certainly not an ‘élitist’. I suppose he will wish to ‘side with’ the current Labour MPs who believe that Jeremy Corbyn will not win the 2020 election – but they can no more predict this than I can. I am though fairly confident that Jeremy Corbyn MP will win the current Labour leadership contest – and it is pretty unlikely that Sadiq’s comment will alter this outcome.
I’m not a Corbynista.
But the situation is clearly more nuanced than that.
There’ll be some traditional Labour voters who feel disenfranchised by the EU – such as the undercutting of wages by multinational corporates, or local collieries being shut down due to application of EU ‘state aid’ rules.
I think Sadiq is pretty Fabian in outlook, though. I had to remind myself of Tony Blair’s aspirations for the Labour Party from a speech he gave to Progress last July. He believes that the socialist left wing errs when it does not project a positive vision about the future but is reactionary. Indeed the sole aim of the Labour government should not be to ‘fix’ the mistakes, but it happens that there are plenty of mistakes (e.g. tax loopholes, unconscionable profits in privatised utilities, market failure in social housing, rip off PFI deals crippling the NHS). It is of course essential Labour is vaguely attractive to all business, big and small, but I think Tony Blair fundamentally misses the point of how it’s also possible to have a vision about the future from Corbyn’s perspective, for example judicious use of investment in the North of England through an investment bank. Also, Blair’s caricature of socialists always being stuck in 1983 is clearly not true when aggressive tax avoidance and PFI are devices of today.
And the problems with Sadiq’s position politicially of doing ‘austerity lite’ is graphically represented by the closure of thousands of law centres in England on his watch as shadow minister for justice – not once did he pledge the timely return of these law centres, which like CABs were the lifeline of people like me who’d lost disability living allowance for no reason.
We were never a happy family in Labour. When I looked at this picture of me and Charlie Whelan, I thought of the time Nick Cohen was trapped in a pub with Charlie Whelan talking about the limitations of Alistair Darling during the global financial crash. As Nick knows, I defended Brown to the hilt, often irrationally, even when Brown claimed to be ‘saving the world’, during his 10p fiasco, when he was called Mr Bean by Sir Vince Cable, when he turned up late for the signing of a EU treaty, and so on. But Brown’s biggest mistake was probably the underregulation of the City – as the Americans pointed out, nobody forced the Brits to buy their dodgy securitised mortgage products.
In happier times maybe…? But remember how Brown tried desperately hard to get rid of Blair, and ultimately succeeded – then there was the fiasco of the election that never was.
I don’t feel in any way betrayed by Sadiq suddenly decided to endorse Owen Smith MP. I suppose Sadiq as Mayor of London feels also obligated to represent those members who robustly oppose #Brexit, such as corporate lawyers.
Everyone knows Jeremy Corbyn will win in this current leadership contest by a landslide – the question is whether the shadow cabinet is up to the job of writing coherent policy not in a cliquey club, and taking this policy to the doorstep. Owen Smith MP is worse than really dire as a contender.
Kinnock thought he’d win in 1987 and 1992, and look what happened to him. Blair won in 2005, despite a disastrous share of the vote – it is said that even he was so depressed by his own performance he turned the TV off for an hour of the election coverage.
We’ve been here before…
Jeremy Corbyn might even win in 2020, so get over it.
And so, as Mahatma Gandhi said once, “First they ignore you, then they laugh at you, then they fight you, then you win.”
I remember watching the BBC Newsnight Labour leadership hustings when they first happened, quite some time ago. I recall Jeremy Corbyn MP being introduced derisively as the old candidate who’d only just managed to make it onto the ballot sheet. And yet as I listened to Jeremy’s responses it became clear to me that his answers were addressing that significant electorate; those people who felt totally disenfranchised by Labour in the last ten years.
The odd thing about ‘choice’, so exuberantly espoused by both the Conservatives and Labour Party, in recent years is that you come in for rather heavy abuse, some of it of a rather personal nature, if your choice disagrees with someone else. I really can’t rationalise how Tony Blair came to think it was acceptable to state that if your heart is with Jeremy Corbyn you need a heart transplant. But as the campaign has progressed, things have been increasingly desperate. Every man and his dog from New Labour, including Alastair Campbell and David Blunkett, have been wheeled out to deride Corbyn. I am particularly puzzled how David Blunkett came to think he could produce the deal maker for the Blair era, when he has been happy being paid as an advisor on corporate social responsibility for the Murdoch operations.
That the main Union leaders wish to support Corbyn does not surprise me. That Keynesian heavyweight Lord Skidelsky has produced a coherent argument to explain why ‘Corbynomics‘ is not as extreme as some present does not surprise me either. That serious heavyweights in economics wish to lend their support to Corbynomics is not a shock, in addition. This was to be expected with the huge social movement which accompanied the work of Prof Kate Pickett and Prof Richard Wilkinson, for example “The Spirit Level”.
What I was seriously caught out by is how wise leading commentators, particularly at the Guardian, were so keen to sneer at Corbyn. I can understand the thing about not wanting to jump on the bandwagon, but their position was totally untenable. There was little attempt to engage with the actual policies, or to query why so many members of the general public had engaged in what was patently more than a mass hysteria ‘Corbynmania’. This does disappoint me, as some of the commentariat included bright people, sympathetic to the aims of New Labour and the Blair governments, who really could not meet half way with Corbyn.
If it happens that Jeremy Corbyn wins, and let’s face it the polls have been wrong before, I am hoping that members of Labour will pull ranks to help Corbyn. I as it happens have voted in this election, as I was entitled to as a Labour member. Not being offensive, but it might have helped that I haven’t left tweets and Facebook posts banging on about how wonderful the Greens are.
Rupert Murdoch commented in a tweet that Murdoch seems to be the only one who seems to be very clear about what he stands for. Corbyn has had plenty of time to rehearse the arguments in the front of the bathroom mirror, but I dare say he has thought exactly why he felt unable to support tuition fees, Iraq, or the private finance initiative, even having been elected on the same ‘disastrous’ Michael Foot manifesto which first saw him elected together with Tony Blair.
The arguments are very well worn. If there is money for war, why is there no money for social care? The criticism should not be why Corbyn is able to go over the same territory as the 1980s politically, but why these arguments have particular traction now. It is simply the case that the opposition from Labour has been unacceptably weak on the destruction of social care, which is a calamity in itself, but also disastrous from the perspective of how the National Health Service functions.
Repeated apologies for misdemeanours and misfeasance from the past have their place, but only if correct and authentic. The candidates for the Labour leadership have clearly been unable to settle with united voice on the actual reason Labour should be criticised; despite ambitious spending on public services (such as Sure Start or the infrastructure of hospitals), it was unable to regulate the City of London stringently enough. It happens that the Conservatives agreed with this light-touch regulation, and levels of public spending too, but that is not really the point as they were neither in office nor in government at the time.
Labour has never ‘apologised’ for the Iraq War, despite the sequelae, presumably on the basis that it feels it has nothing to apologise for. But there were screw ups in decisions from Labour. Many in the general public find it inconceivable that the Labour leadership, apart from Jeremy Corbyn, aren’t making more of a noise about the destruction of the Independent Living Fund; and abstaining on the welfare reform bill is testament to how some feel there is no alternative to austerity.
Currently a large proportion of NHS Foundation Trusts are in deficit. Many feel that some Trusts, in chasing targets and wanting to become Foundation Trusts, became extremely dangerous from a patient safety perspective, and this legacy from New Labour must not go unchallenged either. Whether or not Jeremy Corbyn can actually win in 2020 is in a way irrelevant to the huge strides forward in re-establishing socialist principles back on the political map. It could indeed be the case that Sir Keir Starmer QC MP is parachuted in just before the 2020 general election, but the ‘political left’ should not by this stage feel disappointed about their progress here. This progress might not have been what Progress wanted, but giving disenfranchised people a voice is a meritorious goal too.
And he might even win with the clarity of his arguments, even if you disagree with them. So get over it.
My new Labour blog
Readers of this blog may be interested to know that I write with a small team of people in a fresh Labour blog. Please do contact me on Facebook if you would like to be a contributor – particularly if you’re not a Labour voter, nor a member of Labour, but you would like to explain where Labour is going wrong.
The blog is called “LabourView”, and is here: LabourView blog
