New Labour LEADER

I believe that there are those on this forum who would feel they could create an argument in an empty room. ?

I believe there is someone on this forum who cannot admit
they made an error ,

Grandad1943 Thu 09-Apr-20 19:00:31

Sorry but I did not say anything other than mention ' the gang of 4' SDP so I can't respond to your question.

From 2015 I have been battling with the same posters as I do in 2020 with regard to calling the Jeremy For Leader/Momentum a ' party within a party ' and I have never waivered from that opinion, in fact it grew stronger as the point was made when Momentum became entrenched at the top of the Labour Machine.

I do wonder if Starmer does not follow what they and the Unions want from him, he does not toe their line, if that could be the fruition of the split we have debated for 6 years.

Starmer has a Shadow Cabinet that includes MP's that were at one time being held up for deselection and make no bones about called ' traitors' ( we know what John McDonnell called them) for resigning from the Shadow Cabinet at one time or voting ' No Confidence' in Corbyn. I think there will be some who will not be prepared to give those MP's much time to prove themselves and will be upset they are now back at the front of Labour's top team full stop.

So could the Unions/Momentum now decide there is no other way to keep control of their power other than by ' splitting' the Labour Party?

For 6 years they have formed an extremely strong network both inside and outside of Westminster/Party Membership, so much so I think the other parties would like to have help behind them that has been so constructive so I will give them that deserved compliment. There would have to be some serious ' sucking up' for control to be handed over/shifted in another direction easily of that I have no doubt.

It must be so frustrating not to have Corbyn as leader any longer to such an extent that the arguments keep being replayed over and over. Ad nauseum

We are moving on.

Some of us are trying to move on

POGS if you remove Momentum members and unions from the Labour Party what will remain? The problem is that there are MPs in Westminster who persist in believing it is their party and not the party of the members. Until they accept that it is run democratically and they need to behave and vote the way their members ask them to some may face deselection. Why shouldn't they if the local party membership no longer supports them? Don't you beliieve in democracy?

If I wanted to know about Labour Party history, I think I’d buy a book. It must be such a disappointment to so many that RLB was not elected - think how frothy they could have been. And some other people are so firmly glued in the past they are apparently incapable of or don’t want to look forward. Never mind, onward and upward. At least the left don’t have PP.?

trisher don’t confuse momentum with the Labour Party membership. They aren’t the same

What’s a PP ?

You may well ask annie because I’m blowed if I know what the point of a PP is. ?

trisher I always had this obviously naïve view that MPs represented the people who voted for them, most of whom aren't members of the Labour Party or any formal group.

Whitewavemark2 I don't but they are the activists and take them and the union membership away and what remains?

POG's you so well demonstrate the decade long factionalism of the Parliamentary Labour Party in your above post. That has been in stark contrast to the unity of the trade union movement over four decades when over fifteen anti-trade union bills have been brought forward against them.

The above is, I feel, the reason why a growing underline debate has gradually emerged in the wider Labour movement in regard to the future relationship between that sector and the Parliamentary Labour Party.

There are undoubtedly many senior lay activists in the trade unions who are prepared to give Starmer a fair chance in trying to create at least some unity in a parliamentary party that in the last decade has in all fairness not been fit for purpose.

However, I believe that many feel that the relationship between the broader movement and the Labour Party has perhaps "now run its course", and to that view, I would add myself

While Starmer tries to rectify his squabbling MPs the debate elsewhere may well be in regard to what can be brought forward and funded to replace the current Parliamentary Labour Party.

But that is an entirely different debate POGs, and there are a number of views on the matter.

Interesting appointments on the NEC.

Grandad

Thank you for answering .

' the debate elsewhere may well be in regard to what can be brought forward and funded to replace the current Parliamentary Labour Party'.

Very interesting, as you say another debate, another day when the dust is more settled and if and when there is any sort of sizeable movement in that direction to do so, or it becomes spoken of in the media, they pick up on it as another example.

I do wish that Keir Starmer had not promoted Rachel Reeves to a prominent position at this time.
She is reported as saying that labour would be tougher than the Tories on benefit payments and that Labour was not the party for the unemployed.

Those sort of statements may have been acceptable six or seven years ago in the last New Labour era but at this time they sound totally out of place.

Many people are going to lose their jobs due to the current pandemic, and businesses will have to close down. Some of those affected will have been Labour voters or supporters or even members.
Is it not bad enough that people lose their livelihood without being told that the party that they supported, or voted for or even campaigned for, does not want them.

I know that she made these comments a good few years ago, but they are even less acceptable now than they were at the time.

Statements such as those do tend to follow people around, it is hard to believe that she has suddenly changed her mind about people that have to claim social security.

She should be constrained by her position and Labour policy, but we will see as time goes on.