Sensible discussion on Labour Leadership hopefuls

PS. I can't bear to read the Express because I care too much about my blood pressure, even though I have to admit I once worked for Express Newspapers and I currently receive a small pension from them.

Yes growstuff which is why I say the Labour Party cannot go
back , it has to go forward

growstuff, the old heavy industrial industries are sadly now gone. The Unite Union also has a diminishing membership in the vehicle production industry and that industry may well transfer out of the United Kingdom altogether over the next few years.

However, where the Unite Union has had great success in recruitment and representation has been with persons working in various industries on Zero Hours Contracts and Gig Economy terms of employment. The success that Unite and the GMB have had through the courts has brought in new membership and given new confidence to the whole trade union movement.

I do not follow what you mean or the point you are trying to make when you state in your above post that as a member of Unison you felt you had little in common with Unite members?

They are two different organisations with a link by way of the TUC.

Grandad - have I understood your post to suggest there is discussion amongst the Union leadership about leading a group to break away from the LP and form its own political party?
I understand why POGS and others question how Keir S can unite the party when he's attempting to straddle the divide between the Corbyn/Momentum group and the moderates. I'd have preferred him to talk about reclaiming the party in the way Alan Johnson did. However, Alan Johnson isn't running for leadership and can afford to be as clear as he was in expressing his own beliefs. Keir S may be attempting diplomacy or he may not have the courage of his own convictions. That should become clearer as the leadership election gets under way.

An electable centrist party would attract donors and could attract Liberal party members who are somewhat lost at the moment.

Liberal Democrats are also about to elect a new leader because Jo Swinson lost her seat, but why should members feel lost after the party gained a bigger increase in votes than any other party, ?

Very good article in the Observer yesterday by David Milliband.

A centre left party is so needed

Apparently a panel is being set up, including MPs and representatives from unions, local parties and community groups, to enquire into the 2019 election defeat.

www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/dec/23/labour-mps-from-all-wings-of-party-launch-inquiry-into-election-defeat

Varian. The Lib Dems secured now votes due to the intense tactical voting that had been highly publicised

More votes that should be

I am not sure whether the Libdems gained or lost votes because of tactical voting. I think that question will need to be researched.

Because of FPTP the LibDems have always lost votes because voters who wanted to support them did not think they could win. Under a fair PR voting system everyone could vots positively for the party they wanted rather than negatively against the party they hated the most.

The lib dems are never going to achieve pr on their own. Absolutely no progress has been made in that direction since the inception of the SDP despite it being the big thing them.

We could do with a new SDP arising from the centre ground of all parties.

Exactly! I'm not sure whether the LibDems lost or gained votes as a result of tactical voting either. The fact is that they've consistently polled just above 10% of votes in surveys which didn't take into account constituency boundaries. PR would give them about 60 MPs. Maybe more people would think they were worth voting for, if they felt their vote would count. Maybe not ... I honestly don't know.

kittylester Nothing is set in stone. There have been attempts at forming various centrist groups which have failed, but if it's the other way round and Momentum and/or some of the unions break away from Labour, who knows?

Rather than trying to appease those on the left, the Labour Party might decide to jettison them. It now has five years to get its act together. There will undoubtedly by vocal opposition whatever it decides to do, but it seriously needs to find a niche which would have the support of enough people to vote it into power. Compromises will be needed and people will have to commit to working together.

The lib dems are not a centre left party they are a liberal party. This is very different. I am centre left,voted labour all my life except this election but could never vote for the lib dems due to their policies on prostitution and porn. A party with no understanding of how to protect the most vulnerable.

At this election PR would have given the Libdems 75 seats and their sister party, the Alliance Party of NI, 4 seats, making a total of 79 instead of 12.

Having said that, if we had PR and everyone knew their vote would count some non-voters might vote and other voters may vote differently.

In the EU parliament election earlier this year the LibDems gained 20% of the vote. That was under PR.

I agree that electoral reform is unlikely while a party with 43.6% of the vote gets so many seats it can do what it likes.

Caroline Flint

‘Next Labour leader can’t be Corbyn without a beard ‘

I agree with you Galaxy. I'm not totally comfortable with LibDem policies at a national level. However, at a local level many councils, they are the only consistent progressive alternative to the Conservatives. I actually don't have a clue what the local LibDem councillors' stance on porn and prostitution is. However, I do know they support the building of more social housing, maintaining the provision of community services (including social care, libraries, drop in centres for the young, etc) and improving the environment and infrastructure, which is why I vote for them. The Conservatives' priority is to keep council tax low.

growstuff, in regard to your post @09:41 today, Jeremy Corbyn was overwhelmingly elected as leader by the whole Labour movement, but that was never accepted by those with right-wing views within the Parliamentary Labour Party. Those persons have spent the last four years in a concerted campaign to undermine Corbyn, and that proven fact has done much to damage the Parliamentary Party in the eyes of the electorate.

Therefore, judging from the extraordinary trade union branch meeting I attended last Thursday evening there is now a large-scale grassroots activist movement begun to bring about the ending of the present financial support and all other links with the existing Parliamentary Labour party and its Constituency Parties and set up an entirely new political wing from within the TUC.

If then the present Labour Party can then survive and attract sufficient funding and support, "so be it", but I feel it may well go the way of Change UK or the Independence Party, or whatever those " lost MPs" called their party before it was wound up last week.

Corbyn was voted leader with the support of momentum and the unions,
this following a vote of no confidence by the majority of
Labour MP’s

Grandad Unite has about a million members, so only represents about a sixth of trade union members, even if they do all support Labour (which I doubt). The Labour Party needs about 15 or 16 million voters, if it's going to win a general election. It needs to do more to reach out to all the people who aren't union members.

Quite frankly, if some of the unions and Momentum were to break away and Labour adopted a less partisan, more forward looking agenda, which acknowledged the reasons people voted Conservative, it would probably win back more voters than it lost.

Therefore, judging from the extraordinary trade union branch meeting I attended last Thursday evening there is now a large-scale grassroots activist movement begun to bring about the ending of the present financial support and all other links with the existing Parliamentary Labour party and its Constituency Parties and set up an entirely new political wing from within the TUC.

What would the point of that be, Grandad? To entirely kill the Labour Party as a viable force in politics?

In my fairly limited experience of union politics branch officials and shop stewards are not always representative of the views of their members, most of whom tend to be a bit apathetic about their union except when they need it to defend them on an individual basis. So I'd suggest that the views you heard at your meeting are more extreme than those of the general membership.

And it's a bonkers idea... (see my first point...)

Anniebach, Corbyn was democratically elected as the Leader of the Labour Party Leader on two occasions by all who were entitled to vote under the democratically voted through rules of the Labour movement.

However, there were many such as yourself who never accepted that democracy or seemingly never accept any democracy except when it matches their own views.