Hope for the Labour Party?

I doubt it nightowl, I don't agree that the left is now being heard again, it has never been silent, the far left a different matter, I have always been to the left but cannot accept the far left , they have caused much damage over the years but always been able to grab control, now sadly they have and will speak from the oposition benches for a very long time.

Annie, I fear you are wrong in believing that traditional Labour voters will not vote UKIP. In my area, so many will. Our excellent Labour MP said 4 years ago, he feared Ukip more than the tories and I believe he was right. Our town voted Brexit, we're a traditional working class, Labour area where it was always said "put a donkey up with a Labour rosette, it'll win". Not any more it won't.

I think you are right, Iam64. The country will have a choice between the Nasty Party and the Even Nastier Party. So much for democracy, huh!

The only way this can be be averted is if the Labour Party stops being tribal and beating itself up trying to prove which kind of socialism is right and gets a clear message out in the public domain. UKIP's new leader has declared that he wants to privatise the NHS (whose problems he blames on immigrants - of course!) and is a thoroughly nasty piece of work, but he's not stupid and he'll say what traditional Labour voters and traditionalists want to hear.

Iam,i was speaking for myself whrn I said this voter will not vote UKIP, I fear thrm, they have been working away in South Wales , an area which has always been labour , they are the Welsh Assembly and now want a general election quite confident they will gain seats from labour. This is why I said come the next election I should be supporting our Welsh labour MP's . They are preying on the poorest areas .

Even a choice between two is a democracy

, and no they will not say what traditional labour voters want to hear, they will say what some fear , big difference

How can the Labour Party get a clear message to the voters with that idiot as leader

Get over it Annie! Or you'll have May and her idiots in power for an awful long time.

No, it isn't democracy, because most people's views won't be represented. That isn't democracy in any meaningful sense.

People are going to have to hold their noses and grow up when they vote.

Do not tell me to - get over it - Daphne, you really believe labour can win an election with this leader? You need to get real . Middle England is going to vote for a trot ?

Daphne, how have you managed to - get over - a leader you consider to be a wally?

Yes, people of all political persuasions are probably going to have to do that daphne.

(although most are probably already grown up...)

I would like to vote for Labour and they have some very good MPs, women especially, but there is no way that I will while they have Jeremy Corbyn as leader.

I resigned from the LP last week so won't be able to vote in the next leadership election or attend local meetings. Ive discussed the reasons with our MP and told him I'll vote for him in the next election, providing he hasn't been replaced by one of Jeremy's gang who are wanting him deselected for being one of the 170 MPs who voted no confidence in JC. I may have no option but to vote Green/Independent if our MP is replaced by a JC lookalike.

I agree with Lecicia, Labour have some good young MP's. I was impressed by Rebecca Long Bailey on Any Questions last week. It seems the other parties, labour, lib dem, green, can't agree to put only one candidate up against Zak Goldsmith in the forthcoming local election. It's a proper mess isn't it, we lack an effective opposition despite having some good MPs. Leadership is lacking.

The Tories have a 10% lead over labour in the north of England , their lead has increased across the country higher than its highest lead in the late 1980's

Over half our LP members have left , I will stay because of the council elections next spring and we need to keep our labour town and county councillors , if we can

McDonald didn't even try to deny they were going to deselect Hilary Benn , just said the leadership cannot interfere in LP . Liar, red labour and momentum party has crept in many local parties

Annie. Try and hang on in there. At the next general election it will go so bad for the Labour Party that they will be forced to ditch Corbyn. I know that it's a long time ahead but in the big picture it's not long.
I know UKIP are very popular in some areas but that doesn't always follow through when they're in the ballot booth.

Petra, I have accepted Labour will not win the next election , memories of the long fight back after 1983 haunt me still , but we did it then and we will do it again .

I think a lot will happen before the next election. And I refuse to feel that it will all be negative. People are fed up with being managed, they are fed up of austerity, and they are fed up of political parties that are indistinguishable from one another. For goodness sake, let's embrace the fact that things are getting a good old shake up. Have the last 20 years really been so fantastic that we're all terrified of change?

And change is always for the better? There has been good done in the last twenty years , seems this is dismissed

This is so hard. I never like Tony Blair's brand of politics, and I can't like the Corbyn/McDonnell brand either.

Yes, I agree a shake up was needed, but not to the extent it's made, IMO, the party unelectable. Only by being elected into power will any future Labour Party ever be able to put its agenda into action. I'm convinced that what happened in Scotland, when the Labour Party was virtually wiped out, will happen here after the next election, though hopefully not to the same degree. And these voters will not turn to the Tories or the Lib Dems but to UKIP.

It was unimaginable a few years ago that Labour would lose nearly all it's Scottish seats. It only did so because the SNP offered an acceptable alternative to the Scottish voter.

But we've recently had, what I considered to be, an unacceptable President-Elect in the USA, and a swing to the far right across Europe. While Jeremy Corbyn doubtless appeals to some, he is not going to carry the popular vote.

The Labour Party still has a couple of years to reassert itself and find a leader who will bring back traditional Labour voters, and I'm not talking about the traditional voter being far-left, as I don't believe they are any more.

Unless Corbyn and McDonald stand down we cannot have an electable leader, it's in the power of momentum now and this group want far left politics

I don't agree that political parties were indistinguishable from each other.

The Labour Party has always been a sort of coalition between the 'traditional working class' (however you define that) and left-of-centre liberals. What seems to have happened is that the latter group has had the upper hand. Their concerns are more about equality and what 'traditional' voters would brand PC (a concept embedded by the right-wing media).

Unless the infighting stops, the Conservatives and their UKIP buddies have a free rein for years to come.

It's McDonnell, annie.

They're not going to stand down. Corbyn has been elected twice. What exactly do you mean by 'far left politics' anyway? Neither of them has proved to very radical so far.

Corbyn has been elected twice so is sure to win votes across the country, mmmmm

"Unless the infighting stops, the Conservatives and their UKIP buddies have a free rein for years to come."

Agree DD

"Neither of them [Corbyn and Whatsisname(!)] has proved to be very radical so far."

They've done SFA so far!!