Sensible discussion on Labour Leadership hopefuls

I see that the smearing of Rebecca Long -Bailey has started already. Implying that because she is a Catholic she will want to change the legislation on abortion. Any left wing candidate is going to face an uphill struggle.
I'm leaning towards Keir Starmer at the moment, but want to listen to the hustings before making a decision.

The next general election is "in all probability" at least four to five years away. Therefore I firmly believe whether such factions as those that represent minority religious and racial groups within our society also support the Labour Party at this point in time is insignificant.

What the Labour movement need to carry out would-be to produce a Parliamentary Labour Party that is unified behind a core group of socialist policies that will hold appeal to those in Britain who are employed and earning average salaries or wages.

In the above, those core policies must include bringing to an end zero-hour employment contracts, an end to Gig Economy terms of employment and an unqualified commitment to repeal much of the current anti-trade union legislation. In my view, all who sit on the Labour benches in the House of Commons should have no problem whatsoever in committing themselves to the above policies, for if they cannot then in no way can they consider themselves as socialist and therefore should not be sitting on those benches.

However, I fear that there are a number of Labour Party MPs who would have "a problem" signing up to the above as "core policies", and in that whoever becomes the new parliamentary Labour Party leader will have (and must have) as first task bringing about a unified parliamentary party around those policies.

Whether the above can be achieved by Persuasion or other methods will have to be adopted is yet to be witnessed. For never again can it be that those who are members of the broader Labour movement observe the complete undermining of a parliamentary Leader by a faction of Labour MPs as was sustained towards Jeremy Corbyn.

No one, I feel, can confidently predict the state of the UK economy two or three years down the line from Brexit, and through that, how the electorate thinking may have changed or not as the case may be. What the Labour movement must provide at that point in time is a political party unified and clear in a core socialist stance.

All the candidates in the Labour leadership Ballot have spoken on the need for unity in the Labour Party with various degrees of conviction to my mind. However, if media reports are correct in that Lisa Nandy has convinced a hard-left socialist such as Len McCluskey that she could and would achieve that unity in the Parliamentary Labour party, then that may well place her in the driving seat in this election in the coming weeks.

I need to find out more about Lisa Nandy I had not considered her so far, believing her to be too right wing or my taste, but I will investigate further!

I am still impressed with Lisa Nandy and especially in regard to her outlook on the future for Britain's towns. Nandy believes that far less emphasis should be placed on cities in regard to business and industry location and far more placed on encouraging those organisations to locate in the UK's towns.

The above will certainly catch the ear of many, i believe, who engage in the daily trudging commute from town to city for their employment. Typical would be the North Somerset to Bristol or Severnside commute. The towns of North Somerset just act as dormitories for the mass employment that is to be found in Bristol and Severnside. The foregoing places huge pressure on the roads, Motorways, trains and buses during peak periods, with a journey of fewer than ten miles on the M5 normally taking well over an hour at those times

Lisa Nandy for me strikes the right note in stating that encouraging many of those industries and businesses to locate in the towns would provide far better access for the staff of companies while at the same time would be a huge benefit to the environment by way of far less carbon being placed in the atmosphere from vehicle exhausts.

However, I am still not sure whether to place Lisa Nandy or Rebecca Long-Bailey as my first preference as Long-Bailey has committed to taking a very strong hand in bringing "unity" to the Parliamentary Labour Party, and that very much requires carrying out as first priority by any new leader.

I agree with much thatLN says but I feel that at this stage in her career, she will be more suited to a major role in the shadow cabinet

Watched the LN interview with Andrew Neil and she was quietly impressive. Not saying I agreed with everything she said but she didn’t stand any of his bullying tactics and put him quite firmly in his place when he cut across her answers,

Not sure though if she’d be a march for Boris as he is such a slippery character. I do believe Jess Phillips would cut him down to size. Wish she had opted to run as Deputy Leader instead.

After watching the leadership hustings I was somewhat reluctantly impressed by Emily Thornberry. I also agree with Lisa Nandy's ideas about towns but have to get over the idea that she looks too young to be a leader, even though I realise that is my problem, not hers.

@DerbyChrisW
The way to beat the selfish billionaire class is through a politicised grassroots movement to cut through the bullshit and empower a new generation of working class leaders.

Let's be honest, meaningful resistance to this govt won't come from parliament.

twitter.com/DerbyChrisW/status/1219034541362491397?s=20

Speaking a lot of truth I reckon

Grany Not that I am an expert but I would have thought the 'selfish, billionaire class' was a rather small group to be aiming at. 'Cutting through the bullshit' might be a good start.

Meanwhile, the odds, for what it is worth, have shifted more firmly in favour of Starmer. To win, though, judging by what has been said about the voting system and the momentum behind a woman candidate, he may need to secure by a convincing margin on the first vote.

Jess Phillips has quit the leadership race.

It would have been a struggle for Jess Philips to get any further with no union backing now that USDAW has given its backing to Keir Starmer. She also admitted that she didn't do very well at the hustings last week, so she has probably made the right decision.

I don't know if anyone watched the deputy leadership hustings but they were rather more lively than the leadership ones. After watching I am so far going to vote for Dawn Butler first and Richard Burgon second.

What is the opinion on here of Lisa Nandy's statement that Scottish nationalists should be subject to the same treatment as Catalonians received from Spain...or rather that WM should look towards Spain on how to treat nationalists? Do you believe that just because our politcal aspirations and ideal are't those held by the WM government we should be beaten into submission and our leaders imprisoned?

I thought she might have supported LN but she hadn’t mentioned anyone - however she might still say something, there’s plenty of time?. As for the DL, I’d still vote AR but have warmed to RB after he refused to endorse these BofD demands. That was brave and will result in his being monstered by some. DB is a big no from me because of her position on self ID - it’s too important imo

Paddy I thought LN’s comments on Catalonia were crass and incredibly ill informed.

Jess Phillips Gone.

The GMB Union has given Lisa Nandy it's backing.

Unite will no doubt go for Long Bailey.

Interesting times.

Surely Starmer will win? I hope so anyway.

So in Labourland, Jess Phillips has announced she is pulling out of the leadership race after judging she cannot “unite all parts of our movement” (translation: the unions were not backing her).

After an early scrape in which she unwittingly suggested that Labour under her watch would campaign post-Brexit to rejoin the EU, Ms Phillips’s campaign never really took off, although the hordes of new members who joined in the hope of voting for someone like her will undoubtedly be looking for the most Jess-ish figure to back instead.

One can imagine Sir Keir Starmer and Lisa Nandy rushing to woo her with plum jobs in their shadow cabinet as they race to win her endorsement.
?

I feel that GMB Union endorsing Lisa Nandy is another large boost to her campaign. I also believe that the Unite Union General Executives endorsement of Long-Bailey may not now be a "done deal".

It would seem the Unite Gen Exec meeting to has been put back to enable the committee members to consult further with leading Regional and trade group committees in regard to candidate nomination.

No doubt the Unite Gen Exec will meet to endorse one of the remaining candidates in the next few days. However, who that will be is now wide open with the exception of Keir Starmer, who I feel Unite will never endorse. I also think that he has come across as a "waffler" at this stage of the campaign.

Very interesting times indeed for the whole Labour movement, but gradually the leadership campaign is flowing in Nandy's direction it would seem, but it may all come down to how many affiliated members have registered to vote.

Thanks for the link Grany. My gut reaction to hearing that some of the same team who got Scott Morrison into power were working for Johnson was much along the lines of the tweets. There is a protectionist group for the excessively wealthy as we can see in Davos.

Keir Starmer has just made his most important campaign announcement yet

In among the laudable, though fundamentally vague, commitments to increase accessibility for disabled members and to maximise cooperation between the party and trade unions, he has hidden some specific announcements that will set alarm bells ringing for those on the left of the party.

Of the eight policies, three seek to undermine the influence of Labour’s National Executive Committee (NEC) — on which the party’s left currently has a majority. Firstly, Starmer has proposed ending the ability of the NEC to impose its preferred parliamentary candidates on CLPs; secondly, he wants to force the NEC to publish details of its decisions on the Labour Party website; and thirdly, Starmer will appoint independent bodies to investigate complaints rather than allowing an NEC committee to decide.

Read together, these announcements come across as a critique of the Corbyn leadership. They are proposed solutions to the most damning questions Labour has had to face over the past few years. Broadly speaking, these questions are: why were the leadership’s preferred candidates parachuted into safe constituencies? Why was decision-making so opaque? Why did it take so long to expel anti-Semites from the party?

Oops. Probably should have said that was from the New Statesman.

But surely the leadership parachuted preferred candidates into safe seats during the New Labour years, it is not a recent thing that began with Jeremy Corbyn.
I think what Keir Starmer is suggesting is a good idea, CLPs have to canvass for their candidate so should have a say in who that candidate is.

Grandad1943 I have to agree with you that Starmer is appearing to be a bit if a waffler at the moment.I think it’s all down to him trying to please all in the LP ( impossible) so being vague about some things and maybe pretending to like other things that he really doesn’t.That aspect may vanish once (if) he is appointed to the job.Lisa Nandy on the other hand comes over as more sincere and not afraid of committing herself regarding policies, ideas.

GG MK3

"Firstly, Starmer has proposed ending the ability of the NEC to impose its preferred parliamentary candidates on CLPs; secondly, he wants to force the NEC to publish details of its decisions on the Labour Party website; and thirdly, Starmer will appoint independent bodies to investigate complaints rather than allowing an NEC committee to decide.

Read together, these announcements come across as a critique of the Corbyn leadership. They are proposed solutions to the most damning questions Labour has had to face over the past few years. Broadly speaking, these questions are: why were the leadership’s preferred candidates parachuted into safe constituencies? Why was decision-making so opaque? Why did it take so long to expel anti-Semites from the party?"
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It is a critique of Corbyn's Leadership but it also cements what some posters have been saying about the Labour Party whilst under the control of the Momentum / Labour Party to which Keir Starmer did not have the courage to speak out against over the past 3 years.

Those Labour MP's who did have the courage to speak about anti - Semitism or the ' take over', ' party within a party' by Momentum and the far left which eventually took over the nuts and bolts of how Labour was being run by Corbyn and John McDonnell, Momentum must be wondering where the hell has he, Starmer, been over the last few years.

I find it so disingenuous to hear/read the flip flop of those who for years refused to admit ' deselection' was the aim of Momentum practically from it's inception, no matter how much information was put before them.

Likewise refusing to accept anti-semitism was rife in Labour, they even abused their own Labour MP's verbally and in written form on a regular basis.

Nothing like a Leadership Contest to find out what a candidate really thinks I suppose , or does it?