Could Labour 'split'. Tom Watson calls off talks.

As well as paid up annual membership fee Ed Milliband brought in the new membership fee of just over £3 a month, one can join, pay, vote then stop further payments. I did check with Party HQ in this and it is accurate trisher. It was this that caused momentum to spring up and encourage people to join. My grandson who is a Labour Party member was very involved with his university labour group. He too supports Corbyn , he now lives and works in Cardiff and London, and recently told me there are many younger people joining for the fun of it , they see it as a joke to cause turmoil

Sorry forgot to say, my granddaughter who is at university has heard in the bars since the Iraq report students want to join the Labour Party to vote for Corbyn in the hope he will bring Blair to account , no interest in the homeless , those in poverty, zero hours contracts, lack of housing , future governments etc ,they are attending momentum meetings

Excellent dd, thank you. Do you know where 'Compass' has come from and what exactly they are for? The Post-Brexit alliance event had some very interesting speakers but again, I wonder how it came about. I need a bit of educating

I am sorry but this insistence on the fact that only `weirdo`£3 supporters are backing Corbyn is a myth perpetuated by the PLP and the media . They are mostly the younger end of the electorate who have joined to support JC . I hope JC is able to stand as he will just be re elected , the PLP will then have to decide whether they want to split if they refuse to work with him.
Duncan Smith is on Peston saying the Conservatives are in disarray too , too many egos battling for supremacy on both sides !

Corbyn doesn't look or sound as if he could bring a dog to heel let alone bring Blair to account,
Incidentally, I very much suspect old Telflon Tony will walk away. The yanks see all this as retrospective and he can afford slick lawyers.

f77, I did not say only weirdo £3 supporters are backing Corbyn, there are some but weirdo is a term I have no wish to use. Do you really believe all who have joined to vote for Corbyn are concerned with poverty, homelessness etc ?

To change things for the vulnerable labour has to form a government , to form a government we need to win votes across the country . Again I ask, who campaigned in the 1983 election and remember the hammering we had because Foot was of the left? Do we want that again?

I am not sure personal remarks - never very useful - are the point Beammeupscottie. I have a feeling it is more about democracy and the feeling many have that there is none for them.

All the people who voted for Corbyn are being over-ridden by the PLP who 'know better'. Rather than supporting him and making it work they have set up a coup. What do the votes of all the members matter after all.

Grscesgran, do you believe a far left Labour Party can win an election?

Bean, Corbyn is a man with strong principles and cares deeply for the vulnerable ,

Many of the £3 supporters were people like me, ex Labour voters disillusioned with Blair, who have now become full members again. If this 'coup' gets away with it, I will cancel my membership. And I don't think I will be alone. These MPs are mostly those who were elected under Blair, and Angela Eagle's own constituency is supporting Corbyn!

I believe we have a crisis of democracy AB. That worries me more than anything.

@gracesgran

In the beginning

Compass started out like many good organisations do - with a letter in the Guardian.

We were founded as a Labour Party pressure group that was democratically run by our members. Compass members had to be Labour Party members (or not be members of any other party). We were founded as a Labour Party focused pressure group we felt that New Labour was failing to make the most of a historic opportunity to fundamentally transform the UK into a much more equal, democratic and sustainable society.

In the first 5 years of Compass we created a vision of a good society and acted as a hub for the democratic left within the Labour Party, agitating for it to become more egalitarian, democratic and pluralist. We won some concrete battles; stopping the Counter-Terrorism Bill, halting the privatisation of Royal Mail and persuading the Government to levy a windfall tax on banker’s bonuses.
A choice

Despite these successes we came to realise that a reformed Labour Party was still necessary but not sufficient to deliver a Good Society. We needed to work with people from other parties and from different organisations to change our world. Why let in people on the right of Labour and keep out those from other parties that we agreed with? Values felt more important than a party card! After many deliberations, debates and consultations Compass members voted to open up full membership to members of other political parties.

This decision was a big part of our history and has shaped who we are today; we strongly believe that while Labour remains fundamentally important no single issue or party can usher in a Good Society alone.

www.compassonline.org.uk/about/our-story/

TriciaF, there are no coal mines left in County Durham. A bit of opencast, and another opencast has been given permission at Druridge in Northumberland, but they are not mining companies, more builders. They would go to the Ashington gala.

The MP for Sedgefield was at the Durham miners gala. Blair never went all the time he represented Sedgefield.

Foot went to the miners gala. Blair didn't .

Foot lost an election. Blair won three .

I see no point in bringing Blair into this discussion, he was PM, is no longer a MP .

What I am deeply concerned about is can a Labour Party who has turned to the left win an election? This is the only way we can bring justice back , to win

I mentioned Blair because he was MP FOR Sedgefield, in Durham, and was invited every year, but never went.
Sorry, will not mention Durham or Blair again.

I agree with you, ab. I'm beginning to switch off when I see history lessons about what Blairites did or didn't do (apart from Iraq).

Blair won back middle England and achieved an election win. He actually achieved much, especially in the beginning. I never voted for him and definitely didn't like what he ended up doing and Brown was handed a poisoned chalice, but Labour will need to play a big part in any anti-Conservative government. The danger is that these votes will go to Ukip and we're going to end up with a very dark and small-minded country.

Please, please Labour Party, get your act together! This government is doing untold damage to the country and must not be allowed to win the 2020 election, because people are still arguing abou Blair's legacy. All main political parties are pluralist.

Thanks dd

Housewife's Register, now Women's Register was my saving grace when I had small children and many of my oldest friends came from those days so I totally agree that good organisations often start with a letter in the Guardian

My daughter says that, as a teacher her job was much better during the Blair years; having tried to leave teaching because of Gove she's now back doing the job that she loves, but the school have had a £600,000 cut for next year .

Daphne, thank heaven someone understands what I am saying . The Iraq report is going to cost us votes, UKIP is going to cost us votes, we cannot win back Scotland , we will lose the majority of the forty seats being axed by this government . If Blair and Brown had stood for the leadership I would have voted for and campaigned for Brown, John Smith saw Brown as a future leader. Brown stood back from a leadership contest for the good of the party . For me it's the party that comes first and a party that can win an election . I fear the end of the Labour Party now and I blame the MP's who refused to work with Corbyn when he was elected leader and I blame Corbyn for the mess now , if he cared for the party he would stand down, he isn't stupid, he has been a member for about the same length of time as me. How can he ignore the past , I cannot

Teaching was better in the Blair years, because there was more money around. Unfortunately, with Balls as Education Secretary, the government became obsessed with managerialism with emphasis on micro-management, targets, league tables and endless tinkering. We hadn't experienced Gove then!

Good luck to your daughter, Tegan! I no longer teach in mainstream schools, but I fear that Gove hasn't gone away. More teachers than ever seem to be leaving.

Make your minds up. I thought you didn't want history or Blair mentioning.

The reason Blair keeps being mentioned is that many of the MPs who are plotting against Corbyn are in sympathy with the sort of neo-liberal approach that Blair increasingly pushed forward - and also supported him regarding the invasion of Iraq. A significant number of these MPs have never wanted Corbyn as a leader and have been using every opportunity to undermine him. Blair and Campbell are still on the sidelines rubbishing everything that Corbyn and his supporters stand for.

Does Labour want to win power again at any cost? At the cost of continuing with an austerity programme that has already caused untold damage to communities across the country and that has seen us exchanging short term gain for long term loss in the selling off of valuable assets and the privatisation of essential services?

I watched the whole of the Compass meeting that daphnedill provided a link for (thanks daphne). I agree with Clive Lewis that there is a crisis in the relationship between the Labour Party and its voters but we have to accept that attempts to move the political axis to the right or left will always alienate someone and cause them to vote for other parties. What is really needed is a coherent, positive and sincere "vision" - this is what makes people give up their time to work for a party and support it. That is why I totally disagree with the approach that we must dance to the tune of the powerful and those who basically wish to continue the "New Labour" project (which includes many of the Labour MPs who are plotting against Corbyn) in order to keep onside with the media and other powerful forces. What is the point of the Labour Party winning an election if it has no real vision for a different future that will address the needs of everyone, including those who felt that Westminster and Brussels all represent an elite group of people who have no real concern for their well being?

I was replying to Tegan's post, not whether such-and-such an MP or policy is Blairite. I don't care if they have a history of Blairism. What I want is for the Labour Party to win votes and I don't believe it's going to win enough votes to win an election with a focus on waffly aspirations. If it's goingto form a government, it will almost certainly have to have an alliance with other parties and appeal to people who don't share Corbyn's and Momentum's views. No political party in the UK has ever been totally united, despite sharing core values.

Corbyn just isn't getting his message across to people who don't vote Labour or are considering Ukip? It's all very well telling people that it's wrong to be racist/xenophobic (of course it is), but that's not going to persuade people who 'believe' that their jobs are being stolen, their culture is being undermined and their kids can't get school places. I know it's nonsense, but people believe it.

I want my broad Labour Party back. I do not want a Labour Party where the leader is seen as the most important aspect. He/she is a human being, not a god descended from on high. Momentum are very good at turning up to rallies with their placards, some of them quite threatening. One, a friend saw on the way to a recent rally said something along the lines, "If Corbyn is deposed there will be blood in the streets." That is not the Labour way. Where are these new members when it is a cold, wet November evening and canvassing needs to be carried out? I can tell you. They are nowhere to be seen. It is the long term members who pace the streets getting the vote out. I didn't pay my membership to Corbyn and Momentum. I paid it to the Labour Party, a broad party, inclusive of everyone and I want a Leader of the Opposition who opposes the Tory Government and delivers a resounding win at the next election. Will the Labour Party split over this? I hope not. I hope common sense will prevail and JC will spell out how he intends to win the others back into his fold with real solutions and real discussion and real partnership. For me he has always been a factional MP but that needed to stop when he decided to take up the result of the election and take on the mantle of leader. If he cannot do that and if we split then so be it. If the hard left under Corbyn and Momentum think they can swing the electorate their way they should do it with their own party and own Members' money. I find it very offensive that this group of people are prepared to pack meetings to deselect sitting MPs for no other reason than they don't support Corbyn. So much for all their hard work in their constituencies. Anniebach is quite right when she says many of these people cancelled their subscriptions once he was elected and I know that for a fact. Saddened to read the post that said many are joining just for the hell of causing a political storm. I hope they like what they deliver when yet more cuts come. Not really surprised though. They have been raised on voting people in or out of shows like 'Big Brother', 'I'm a Celebrity, get me out of here' etc.