I repeat : this man is dangerous. Seriously frickin' dangerous.
Jeremy Corbyn has said wealthy elites are trying to "hijack" Brexit as he formally launched Labour's campaign. Speaking in Manchester, the Labour leader promised a reckoning for "tax cheats, rip-off bosses and greedy bankers" if Labour wins the election. But in a BBC interview, he declined to say categorically whether he would take Britain out of the EU if elected. Asked by Laura Kuenssberg if he would go through with Brexit if there was a bad deal on the table, he wouldn't say.
In the run-up to Tuesday's speech, Mr Corbyn insisted he would stay on as Labour leader even if the party loses at the general election. He told BuzzFeed: "I was elected leader of this party and I'll stay leader of this party."
http://www.bbc.com/news/election-2017-39852719
Rhys Taylor If he is that dangerous, shouldn't he be arrested???
ReplyDeleteThis whole elite thing is puzzling me. First of all it was the liberal elites that stood against brexit and now he's using it to refer to the oligarchs who paid for brexit. It's already been hijacked, a long time ago and this man helped them.
ReplyDeleteGordon McIntosh I think that's because he's actually pro-Brexit, since he thinks it's some pro-capitalist monster or some other wacky thing. "Elite" is becoming a meaningless word.
ReplyDeleteMark Ruhland It's a subtler kind of danger. The most likely outcome - I'd say as certain as anything can be in politics - is that Labour will split after the general election. This means an extremely one-sided political system for many elections to come, which is dangerous because the ruling party will have far more power and less checks and balances than it normally gets. Britain would effectively be a one-party state.
ReplyDeleteWorse though (and I'm in the minority here) would be if somehow Labour did get elected. Then we have a leader who repeatedly refuses to give up power even when in opposition, when he has no real power at all. If that prospect doesn't scare people, I don't know what will.
What's dangerous about Corbyn?
ReplyDeleteI'm unsure get how you've reached this conclusion, Rhys Taylor. When there was a vote of no confidence from the PLP, Corbyn did exactly what the Labour party constitution required him to do - nothing. Because the PLP doesn't elect the party leader, nor can they remove him. If the party membership had a vote of no confidence then I'm sure there would have been a contest - which Corbyn would have won anyway as he has huge support from the membership.
I'm not a huge fan of the guy for a number of reasons, but on the issue of staying in his job he's only ever played by the rules that his party created.
As far as I can tell the only danger Corbyn represents is the near-certain Tory victory next month. But that's not really his fault per se, Labour have been broken for a long time already. They should have swept 2015 but they couldn't even manage that.
Rhys TaylorI live in a "one party state", and it sucks, big-time. The governorship has been held by the democrats for the last 32yrs. One party rule (of either) party in the US sucks. There needs to be a give and take... a balance of power. Term limits would be a good thing, here, in the States.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure that Corbyn is behaving any differently from other leaders who were likely to lose by denying that he would stand down if he lost. It's just one of those things that no politician will admit to, and doesn't really give any information as to whether he actually will stand down or not.
ReplyDeleteFirstly, it's true that there's no legal requirement for a leader to step down if they lose the election or if they lose a vote of no confidence from the MPs. However, it's conventional to do so, the former especially so for the two major parties. For the smaller ones which have never been in power, staying on makes good sense if they seem to be making headway. For the larger parties, when they lose this is conventionally held to be because the leader took them in a wrong direction or was unable to persuade voters of their abilities/policies/ideologies etc. Since both of these are well-established political forces whose fundamental ideologies are already well known, the leadership and cabinet are disproportionately responsible for the electoral success of the party. In essence, if they can't persuade people of their cause, then they probably shouldn't be leading the party.
ReplyDeleteSecondly, the job of the main opposition is both to hold the ruling government to account and present a credible alternative. If the leader does not have the support of their MPs, they cannot do that. It's that simple. Thus losing a vote of no confidence and refusing to leave has nothing to do with legal requirements, and everything to do with common sense (there isn't a requirement for a leader to leave because - it's thought - no-one in their right mind would stay after losing such a vote). Staying on sends a message : "I don't care about all the other MPs that everyone else voted for, I'm more important than the party". And unlike other leaders, Corbyn has not only promised to stay but actually done so. So I take his threat to stay much more seriously than, say, Cameron's statement before the referendum.
To my mind, nothing screams "unprincipled despot" as loudly as someone who categorically and repeatedly refuses to leave despite overwhelming opposition. It only feels different because Corbyn is a seemingly affable fellow who likes growing vegetables in his allotment. But this does not mean he's not a villain, it only makes him a very British sort of villain. And certain members of his shadow cabinet seem far closer to a conventional sort of villainy, in my opinion.
Rhys Taylor Where is this overwhelming opposition ? He's been elected by the party, twice, with an overwhelming majority.
ReplyDeleteWhat annoys me about Corbyn is not so much him, it's the inability of the party machinery to get control of the media. It doesn't matter if Corbyn is good or bad, if the media don't report anything they do, or when they do it's only about the in-fighting within the labour party or about how "unelectable" they are.
There's an irony about the PLP expelling people for wanting to promote tactical voting. When 2/3 of the party apparently want the party to lose in order to expel the left and preserve the Blair vision of a a red Tory party.
And don't get me started on "Labour Heartlands" and what they may or may not want. The big, BIG problem is the gap between what the new, young pro-Europe members want and what the old, left, anti-Europe voters want.
There are many things I could call Corbyn but I think "unprincipled despot" would never make the list.
ReplyDeleteThe legal situation regarding votes of no confidence wasn't the law of the land, it's the constitution of the Labour party. If the party isn't going to operate by it's own rules, isn't that more worrying than a leader who follows those rules? The reason those rules exist is so everyone knows how things are done and we don't have to worry about what's conventional or not. Corbyn not having the support of the PLP isn't his fault, it's the PLP's fault for not supporting their own leader. He was democratically elected not once but twice, with overwhelming support both times.
Say what you like about the guy, he has the most support from Labour party members of any Labour leader ever. And Labour is nothing if not a party of its members (unlike the Tories who don't require a membership vote to choose a leader, and whose parliamentary party can vote their leader out).
Also Corbyn can hardly say "I'll stand down if I lose" a month before an election even if he intends to do so. That would mean people who don't like him may not vote Labour just to get rid of him. Which would be silly from both Corbyn's perspective and those voter's.
I don't buy this "holding the government to account" thing. The Opposition is meaningless and powerless and can (and does) do nothing effective and never has done. The Opposition hasn't suddenly stopped being effective since Jezza took his job (how many years did Milliband get nothing done?), it's always been the case. Our ludicrous parliamentary system means that a party with a majority doesn't have to care about what anyone not on their benches thinks nor does it need to act on anything but their own desires.
For what it's worth I've always said Corbyn will either kill or cure Labour and I've never cared which. It's just a shame that the "kill" means we have five more years of Tory rule to endure while they sort themselves out. I was hoping they could do the tearing apart of the party over the next few years and then 2020 could be a reasonable run for whatever came next.
Julian Bond As I said, virtually all his MPs don't want him. It doesn't even matter why they don't want him, when you lose a vote of no confidence that badly, you automatically lose any status as a credible opposition. Ergo you cannot form a credible government and are unelectable.
ReplyDeleteThere's also extremely strong opposition from the general public if the polls are to be believed. Which I tend to do, because it ties in with my anecdotal experience of lifeline Labour supporters pretty much unanimously opposed to Corbyn. Winning an election from the party members in not necessarily a good indicator of wider popularity because there's a massive selection effect at work here.
Honestly, I don't get it. Leader is hated by his own MPs => leader cannot form opposition => leader cannot form government. That is an inescapable truth, like it or not. And to my mind, a leader who refuses to acknowledge that truth but decides to cling on to "power" anyway shows extremely strong signs of despotism (and his other behaviour doesn't fill me with confidence either, such as threats of deselection and insisting that only his rebellions were principled; not to mention doing precisely bugger all until the election campaign; EDIT : oh yes, and making the Trumpian statement of calling the election rigged but promising to win it anyway). I really don't think there's much more to be said; as far as I'm concerned this is very simple and obvious. People who seem to be nice and fluffy are not always so.
ReplyDeleteI'm aware that my opinion is in the minority here, but I stand by it because I honestly don't understand why other people can't see this.
You need an anti-brexit candidate, someone who can shine a light on how he's out of touch with the membership.
ReplyDeleteForget the truth. Tell people that Brexit is being managed by the Lizard Illuminati.
ReplyDelete