BlindBoyGrunt
Well-known member
You tell me (though five will get you ten you'll be wrong).
Would Labour have won this election with Jeremy Corbyn as leader?
- Thread starter The Card Cheat
- Start date
Dirtyderekbracken
Well-known member
BlindBoyGrunt
Well-known member
You seem to be an intellectual giant, you tell me.
Dirtyderekbracken
Well-known member
It’s all in the link I posted .. have you read it ? What do you think ?
Cosmonaut
Well-known member
As much as I hate to say it, absolutely no chance
Can only imagine the state the media would have got themselves in to increase Corbyn's boogeyman 'terrorist-sympathiser' image in the mind of the average voter
I'd have guessed if JC was still Labour leader then the likes of Reform would have gained far more seats and some form of Cons/Reform coalition would have formed and Labour would have lost or certainly not been able to form a majority
I'm no expert clearly but I am glad he kept his seat as an Independent
Can only imagine the state the media would have got themselves in to increase Corbyn's boogeyman 'terrorist-sympathiser' image in the mind of the average voter
I'd have guessed if JC was still Labour leader then the likes of Reform would have gained far more seats and some form of Cons/Reform coalition would have formed and Labour would have lost or certainly not been able to form a majority
I'm no expert clearly but I am glad he kept his seat as an Independent
Loop
Well-known member
Nothing great to offer then.
r00fie1
Well-known member
He didn't get "asked to leave".
Starmer tabled a motion to the Labour Party National Executive Committee [28th March 2023 - see below] to disbar Jeremy Corbyn from standing as a Labour Party Candidate at the next General Election.
Having already withdrawn the Labour whip from him in Parliament, he was an Indipendent MP.
Jeremy Corbyn considered his options and decided to stand as an Independent MP in Islington North, the constituency he had represented for 40 years.
In doing so, he relinquished his membership of the Party he had served for 59 years [he joined the part at the age of 16 in 1965].
gregorgregorovich
Well-known member
Just like busses, one ridiculous statement can follow another.
Andy_W
Well-known member
I don't want to get into a big argument about this again, we've been there a million times.
But equally you've took a lot of time to reply there, so will reply briefly, as I'm also tight on time.
A lot of this is down to interpretation, and conformation bias, like with the report you mention, you've just took out/ paid attention to the bits you like and ignored the bits you don't.
Party over people, this is why I voted Corbyn (it's not just about Corbyn or Starmer anyway, there's 100's of MP's, and any red one's will be better than blue ones imo), and why anyone working for Labour would still have winning the election as priority number 1, well they should have at least.
The "secret office" was more like people working together to try and win votes from areas which the other side are not, these votes are needed to win an election. Unfortunately to win, you're going to need to water some things down, or actually recruit some voters who may actually be against some of the "far left" policies. You might need some voter who supports 3/5 of your policies but doesn't agree with 2/5 etc, there isn't enough people who want the 5/5 to win, needs balance.
Starmer's managed it ok in 5 years, and got them all on the same page, sort of. Anyone who didn't want to be on that page has either left or been removed, this is one of the main reasons they won, it was all pulling in a direction which could win. Sure that direction is not perfect, it's far from perfect, but perfect has never won, or been close to winning, ever. That might change in the future, but we're not there yet.
To win Tory seats doesn't necessarily need fund diversion, it needs policy change. You could spend £1m per tory seat, but if you're walking around with a Corbyn poster in a place like Yarm or whatever, then you're not getting them votes, it's a waste of money.
Brexit red wall wasn't lost due to Corbyn, of course it wasn't, I've never said it was, but he's partially to blame as he was terrible imo at supporting the pro EU argument. It's not people lie you or even me who needed convincing, it was people in the centre, and they didn't buy it for voting labour, or voting remain, or not enough of them did.
You're right about farage and his fairytails, that was over 75% of the reason I think, but a lot of these people he conned are not the sharpest tools in the shed. The easiest way to get someone who is thick to vote for you, is to tell them they're smart and their ideas are right, and they'll join you of their own accord. He plays on irrational fear, an unfortunately he's good at it. Education levels are probably worse in red wall areas (a guess), and a lot of the brighter minds move away from these places for better job prospects/ higher earnings etc (another guess), so it's a bit like a feedback loop where people in the red wall can be more susceptible I think. You've got a lot of the red wall voters being taken advantage of, and the blue wall voters taking advantage, they vote for the same thing, but for very different reasons.
May had the most votes and the most seats and they locked in power for 5 years, they achieved 90% of what they wanted. Paying off the DUP for votes didn't bother them, it wasn't their money.
A 2019 election wasn't really forced, they used that so they could force a crap brexit version through, it was far easier for them to get what they want with an election, than a public vote on which brexit deal to go for (which would have been single market and customs union). They knew they would walk an election with BJ the clown, as the gullible buy his lies and bluster. I think he would still have been in power now, and getting a second term had we not had covid and the war, as they probably would have had less **** ups under more normal circumstances. Of course those things happening have been terrible, but it did one thing, highlighted tory flaws so it's enabled them to be kicked out. The cost of this is massive though, in may ways.
That didn't end up "brief" haha!
gregorgregorovich
Well-known member
Your comment, "so will reply briefly", brought a smile to my face. Just what I've needed after a difficult few weeks.:)
Andy_W
Well-known member
Scrote
Well-known member
Whilst some is down to interpretation, a lot is a matter of historical record.
The "secret office" was a room in a building away from Labour HQ where people were actively working to move funding from marginal seats, that the leadership were trying to win, into safe seats that were held by the Labour right. There is no other interpretation. It was a deliberate act of sabotage to prevent Labour from winning in marginals. Exactly what you keep saying Labour needed to do - and Starmer is lauded as a genius for.
And how many marginals shifting away from the Tories would have prevented it? It's impossible to determine how much of an effect the sabotage had but the past five years could have been very different without it.
Of course it was forced. The SNP saw a opportunity and went for it. The Lib Dems had a massive brain-fart and decided they could win the election so joined in. That left Corbyn with nowhere to go so the election was called. The Tories did not want an election.
Andy_W
Well-known member
Of course there's record, but there's record of things from the other point of view also, from what I remember. I'm not reading it again, the first time was bad enough.
"Leadership" had their tactics, policies and targets wrong, sometimes the upper leadership don't have a clue what's good for them and their aims, I've seen this in every single job I've been in so I'm sure it's the same there also. Actually from my experience, this is actually worse in the public sector or things related to that. It was similar in the forces, the upper management didn't have a clue what the hell was going on and how to do things efficiently. If the middle management and supervisors didn't just do their own thing it would all fall apart. You might see that as sabotage, someone else might see that as just trying to win with a better method.
I don't believe there is a labour "right", there's a "less left", and a lot of those are those who basically just want to appear as less left to win, as they understand the people in their area. Most want the same or very similar things, but there's different tactics to get that.
You seem to be saying that the "labour right (less left)" seats were safe, but maybe think about why they were safe? Was being more "pro left" really going to help in seats which labour were losing? They were losing those as they were losing the centre in the election. But like with brexit, they were also letting those who were actually 80% left be conned by Farage and far right Tories through fear of immigrants and other crap which influenced 20% of their "brain". they let their heart rule their head etc, so you end up with Turkeys voting for Christmas, it's nuts.
It may even be a case that campaigning in some areas or spending more money might actually have had a negative effect, Corbyn really riled some people up, had he been less visible they might have not got annoyed by him so much etc. I appreciate this might sound odd, but it was certainly the case with a few I know, they just got conned into not liking Corbyn, Labour were not a problem for them, it was Corbyn (mostly through the press hit job).
It may have been forced on May etc, undermine her, get her out, get the Tory far right in etc, they got what they wanted out of it anyway.
Scrote
Well-known member
What other point of view? There was either an office set up away from Labour HQ or there wasn't. There was.
The tactics proposed by the leadership were the same ones that Starmer used. How were they wrong?
I don't have a definitive list of the targets, but again, they were targeting seats they didn't hold whilst gambling on holding the one's they did - exactly as Starmer did. How was that wrong?
Policy was decided by the party at the NEC. Anyone not on board could and should have made it clear they weren't prepared to work towards the party's aims. Sabotaging the election was wrong. The policy should have been allowed to speak for itself.
As it is we're in this position where we'll never know what might have been. People from the Labour right used 2017 as a stick to beat Corbyn with, knowing that their actions undermined his chances. If they were so sure he'd fail they just had to let it play out.
If they genuinely believed they knew better and wanted to win more seats, they wouldn't have shifted funds into the safe seats of Labour-right MPs.
That's just semantics. Corbyn was on the left of the party. The saboteurs were on the right of the party. If you want to rebrand slightly then maybe use "left" vs "centrist"?
Labour lost six seats and gained 36 - a net increase of 30. The Tories lost 33 and gained 20 (mainly from SNP) - a net loss of 13. I'm not sure why you're presenting that as Labour losing seats?
That may have been the case but we'll never know. I'd guess, based on the state of the UK at the time, that if the same energy went into promoting Labour as went into the sabotage, we wouldn't have had the past five years of Tory catastrophe.
May had already gone by 2019. Boris Johnson couldn't get an election on his terms (Brexit no deal) earlier in his leadership and then shied away from an election until it was forced on him. The Labour right got what they wanted at the expense of a Tory majority and five more years.
Andy_W
Well-known member
The other point of view was the existing office didn't want to deal with anyone other than the Corbyn lot, which is true. Just because one office is set up, it doesn't mean they're doign the right things.
If the leader is wrong, I've got no real problem with him being removed, if done the right way, the Americans should be doing the same now with Biden. They tried to do it the right way, they had a no confidence vote on him in 2016 after the brexi vote, he lost that 172-40, the writing was on the wall then. He should have walked like Cameron.
Different tactics for different times, Cobyn isn't Starmer, tactically having him in place was not and election winner.
They were working towards the parties aims, the aim was to win the election. The party failed at that, the party is ran by the leader, if people aren't on board he can throw them out, it's his job to. If he's lost control or doesn't know it's going on, it's because the party is broken/ factional, it's his job to ensure this does not happen. This is why Labour are working now, they're pulling int he direction which has just won them the election, anyone who wanted to risk rocking that boat too much has been moved aside. It's not like these people are being swapped for far right nut jobs, they're swapped for people who want to deliver what the left want, not just talk about it.
You need some of the centre to win, this has always been the case, why do you pretend you can win without that? We don't have a unified centre as we have Labour and Lib dem taking up various aspects of that on a seat by seat basis, but labour need to win the centre in a lot of seats.
That's the point, labour only retained some centrist votes as they had nowhere to go, loads of us "less left" on here still voted for Corbyn (tons of us have mentioned it, but you don't seem to acknowledge it). We did this even though we know he wouldn't win, as there were loads in our social circles who labour had lost. I'm closer to the centre than you, not by much I imagine, but I've got a pretty good idea what they're thinking. They just want things to be a bit more realistic I think, and some balance. Loads of these would have jumped ship to lib dem, had lib dem not done them over back in 2010.
May went in July 2019, I imagine the 2019 election was called as soon as the Tories though they had their ducks in row, it was less than 5 months later. To think BJ wanted an election earlier (they were talking about September) but then didn't want that in December is a bit hard to believe, he knew he was going to walk it no matter when it was.
Scrote
Well-known member
The "Corbyn lot" were in charge. They had every right to deal with whoever they wanted, however they wanted. Between 2015 and 2017 Corbyn was open to all sides and went out of his way to be inclusive across the "broad church".
Again, a factional vote from the PLP that went against the wishes of the membership and threw the Labour party into disarray at the worst possible moment. When they put their plans forward the membership re-installed Corbyn. At that point the PLP should have accepted defeat and got behind the leader and worked for the best interests of the party. They chose to sabotage an election that they'd already decided they'd "be annihilated in" the next election - a year later and they weren't annihilated at all. Didn't come close to it. They wrecked the party for nothing. And then enabled the Tories to go on a wrecking spree of their own across the country.
The same tactics. And we don't know if they'd have been an election winner because they were deliberately undermined.
They were actively trying to make sure the election was lost. That wasn't the party's aim.
Andy_W
Well-known member
They were in charge of a load of MP's who didn't even think they should be in charge, that's why the no confidence vote against him was 4:1.
The nationally elected Labour MP's (by 10m voters) had probably seen enough in a year to realise he couldn't do it, and they were right. These people are not daft, and were JC's peers on the same red side, they were all voted in as MP's in 2015 when Labour got beat, they're not Tories trying to get him out, they're the Labour MP's who want to be in government on the bench which matters, who won seats at the same time as JC.
Like I keep saying though, it was nothing personal, it was just business. The MP's who voted no confidence probably liked him as a person and probably liked most of his policies, but that doesn't mean his policies are realistic to the electorate, which is by far the most important thing. He was saying daft crap like cancelling trident and coming out of NATO, that is just not going to fly in the UK. Imagine if we had done that, where could we be now? Putin would have been laughing his nuts off and probably been in full control of Ukraine I think, and eying up others.
At the end of the day it actually is a popularity contest. Had his public persona been better he would probably have done a lot better, but the press had a field day with him and the likes of Abbott etc. We can't change the press, they're knob heads, so you sort of have to beat them at their own game, or give them NOTHING to go at.
Had the confidence vote been the other way around and they were doing that then yeah, but when 40 MP's are not working with 160, then they may be in charge but they're not in control. It was plain to see the direction was wrong, standing up to that is the right thing to do, otherwise you just fail over and over again. Sometimes the boss needs to be told he's not doing a great job, and most of the time a good boss will listen, the boots on the ground know what's going on in the real world.
The daft thing was, they lost the brexit vote in the red wall and the 2017 election (by 60 seats) and then tried to use that as some sort of mandate for why he should stay. Fairly close is not good enough, not when there's no second place prize and the first place winner is going to do the exact opposite of what you want, like happened on brexit and the elections. He must have being told by his 40 yes men that it was working, but it wasn't, as was later proven in 2019.
The Labour membership means close to zero unfortunately (500k rarely does against 10m labour voters, and also importantly the 12m which don't want to vote labour), and I say that as a member myself. It was full of bandwagon jumpers paying £3, in the same kind of denial and false hope. They always wanted 10/10 (which is fine) but did not realise that it wasn't possible (not fine), has never happened, or been close to happening ever, the game is only possible with 8/10 at best. This is better than -8/10 though. The membership finally grasped this by 2019 when they voted Starmer in with 42% in the first stage (v 5 others) and 56% second stage (v 2 others), that's despite momentum pushing for RLB (Corbyn's ally).
They were undermining themselves, and didn't even know it, that's the problem.
I disagree in trying to lose, they either knew they were losing so did not want to get battered or wanted a new leader in who could win, or were just trying to win (as you would expect).