May has called a snap General Election on June 8th.
The reasons for doing so are not quite clear, there was some murmuring about “traitor sabotage trying to stop Brexit” (as if Brexit Britain needs a GE at the most crucial point of the negotiations) but there’s also a couple of other very good reasons. First 30 Conservative MPs are facing charges for falsified election funding accounting and that would lose the majority and means 30 by-elections, and secondly, rumour has it Corbyn was close to resigning, and Corbyn is the key to absolute Tory power and complete domination of Westminster as Labour is dead as a political force with him and his cronies running things. As of today, Corbyn is polling 15% as “would want as PM” to Mays 52% and Don’t Know’s 22%. Don’t Know has been consistently beating Corbyn in polls for the last year or so.
Even though I’m a Labour Party member I won’t be voting for them as Corbyn’s Labour are hand in hand with the Tories pushing through Ultra Hard Brexit, and I’m far more passionate about the EU than I am Corbyn. Also, and significantly, Corbyn’s Labour has completely lost control of its anti-Semitism issues. Anti-Semitism is open, rife, systematic and institutionalised, as evidenced by the latest Livingstone kerfuffle, and the ongoing issues with Momentum and Jackie Walkers faction. On Labours Facebook page you will find Corbyn supporters openly sharing Neonazi holocaust denial website IHR (no, its not about Israel), and quick google will evidence the weekly stories about Labour anti-Semitism.
I’m remaining a member on the hope the next leadership will be pro-EU, and will purge Corbyns supporters and send them back to SWP/StWC and the other hard left breakaway parties but even the hope a massive Labour wipeout would force a Corbyn resignation isnt certain, he wants the life of backbench placard waving and befriending terrorists, and he can’t achieve that if he’s not leading a tiny party.
It’s incredibly bleak, Labour is so poor at the moment, many of its membership are even refusing to vote for it, the Tories no doubt will gain many seats. The only hope is that the LibDems, the sole pro-EU party, will gain enough seats to make Tory life difficult but its likely we will be seeing a super strong Tory govt running rampant enriching the 1%, destroying human/worker rights and regulations via the Brexit bill, a weak Labour run as an amateur protest group by a bunch of anti-Semites and the split of the UK as Scotland goes independent and perhaps the Irish unifying.
They seem pretty clear to me. They’ll go from a small majority to a likely triple-digit majority, wiping out half the PLP in the process. The alternative was going to the polls precisely when the enormity of the Brexit clusterfuck was being felt the strongest, and just maybe Labour had pulled its head out of its arse.
As of a few minutes ago, 12 Labour MPs have given up on the party/politics and won’t be contesting their seats in this election. I’m not surprised. Corbyn has filled his leadership/PR/admin team his old cronies and children of friends and its a shambolic, amateurish mess, i dont envy anyone having to fight an election with a bunch of world class idiots running things.
Yeah. But it’s not clear to me how much of it is the actual party versus just random people in the Facebook group. There’s certainly a problem; I’m just not clear as to the extent of it.
Over 30 stood down from both Labour and Conservative in 2015. I think that’s normal. We should expect about 15ish, I guess, from Labour, if they stand down at a constant rate.
The party/institutionalised bit is more subtle. Compliance removes the blatantly open anti-semite members, but if you are part of Corbyns dinner party circuit you’ll be suspended at the most. Livingstone isn’t even suspended. Corbyns support structure sits outside Labour compliance remit. His people are spread across the infrastructure now too, thoroughly embedded. His people are the problem.
It’s a bit like the police. They might not be a racist organisation, have anti-racist policies, regulations, etc but they have a problem with racism that’s embedded at all levels.
Fair enough; my grasp of the nuances of British politics is quite limited. Certainly here we have the same problems with hangers-on tainting the majority.
I’m not an expert on British politics but after watching a series of interviews and speeches when he became leader I was a big fan of Corbyn. He sounds like Sanders but with more anger.
It sounds like (again not an expert) that to get the leadership he had to fight against alot of people with which he shares mutual loathing. They haven’t helped him at all since he became leader, to the detriment of the party, but he probably wouldn’t have let them anyway. Civil wars are damaging, and even if the right side wins everyone would have been better off if a compromise candidate became leader instead.
Corbyn is far from excellent but for the first time since I was too small to know anything, the Labour party actually represents my views. I have an excellent local MP in Clive Lewis (future leader, I hope). I know Labour are going to get hammered here but I hope the party splinters at some point after the election, because the Labour right have destroyed the party, totally refusing to even allow Corbyn to try something new after the failure of tedious centrism.
First past the post is a god awful system. I know it saved us from a huge UKIP presence in 2015 but oh boy. It’s going to doom us to years and years of Tory dominance.
If we’re going to hammer Labour for their disasterous handling of anti-semitism, then also fuck the lib dems and their homophobic leader.
Posting sixth form students politics bullshit like that isn’t very statesman-like or allows broad appeal across the spectrum, and may alienate floating voters who voted last Tory time. I like Lewis, but its more amateurish nonsense from a weak party.
Religion and religious people have no place in front bench politics and Farron is a prime example. Even though his LGBT voting record is a million times better than May (whose gone out of her way to vote no to everything basically) it’s still a huge talking point and distracting from the only thing that matters with the LibDems, that they are the only pro EU party in an election that is all about Brexit.
That’s a hugely clickbaity article title that doesn’t match the tone of the article. The second half of it is basically just a list of positive things Farron has done.
This reply from the Lib Dem’s LGBT+ head is pretty convincing to me too. Whatever Farron’s religious views are, his actions aren’t those of a homophobe.
It’s not as if I dont enjoy a good rant against the Tory scum, but Im not a leading opposition MP and former front bencher who needs to appeal to a broad selection of the electorate
