Alan Clark once famously remarked:
“There are no friends in politics – we are all sharks circling”
Labour’s careerist Red Tories are not sharks – more a confused shoal of herring. Watching them chase their tails in pursuit of Jeremy Corbyn has become an amusing comedy drama.
Only Andy Burnham seems capable of understanding that in politics as in nature – tides ebb and flow. Stranded on the beach, flopping around like dying fish, his colleagues at Westminster strain all the muscles except the brain – bellowing furiously at the sea and its annoying habit of not responding to press releases.
For when the tide rushed towards the sandcastles of the Blair era – Andy Burnham alone used his noodle. A quiet statement of loyalty to Jeremy Corbyn and the nomination to be Mayor of Manchester now looks a much better bet than the membership of the #chickencoup against Corbyn.
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Oh what a lovely war!
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Let’s consider how the #chickencoup plotters have ‘managed’ things in recent months.
Along came Jeremy Corbyn to energise a disenfranchised and apathetic section of the electorate. The unions are united and emboldened, the tide is high.
Now the New Labour plotters imagined that some media briefings and electoral fiddles would solve all their problems….
…but it hasn’t worked out that way.
First they briefed the media endlessly to set up attack lines against Corbyn. Did it not occur to them how that would look to a membership that had chosen Corbyn by a landslide?
Far from undermining Corbyn’s position, it has helped him greatly. The embattled hero is never out of the news. The drip feed of toxic stories has served only to illuminate the cosy relationship between some Labour MP’s and the corporate media – supplying daily ammunition to every left wing blog and Facebook page in the kingdom.
Next up we had the staged resignations from the shadow cabinet just as Britain was reeling from the Brexit referendum. From every angle, the timing was dipshit stupid.
It looked opportunistic and crass to be fighting internal party feuds at such a moment. The subsequent vote of no confidence and leadership challenge looked like the feeble excuses for an assassination attempt that they were. From that point forward any drop in the polls would be blamed on the plotters and not Corbyn – a development a primary school child could have foreseen.
Just to make sure that the membership were completely incensed and united behind Corbyn, the plotters decided to start smearing and bullying their own membership!
Thus we had the office of Angela Eagle that was never vandalised, the abuse she endured at a meeting she wasn’t at, the anti-Semitism that never happened, the thugs of Momentum that don’t exist, the trots, the dogs, the entryists, the hard left extremists and dozens of other smears all fed to the corporate media with the names of kamikaze Labour MP’s attached.
Regardless of the repugnant nature of such verbal sewage – what kind of a strategy is it that these people were following? Did they really imagine that people would respond to being insulted with a meek compliance and gratitude? Did it not occur to them that people would get angry, organise and fight back?
Unable to bully Corbyn into resigning, unable to bully the membership into changing their minds – the plotters had a new brain wave and tried to rig the leadership election nobody but them wanted. If I had to conjure up a metaphor for how politically stupid this is I would frame it thus…
…having dug their own grave, then climbed into it – they decided to seal the deal by hitting themselves on the head with the shovels.
So they grabbed a millionaire’s money and headed to the courts to force Corbyn off the ballot paper…and failed. That looked good – a wealthy faction of the Labour Party taking its own governing body to court so that it could deny its own members the right to vote. If the plotters could win with own goals, any World Cup would be theirs.
Then they hiked the cost of an affiliated membership vote to £25 – a move so nakedly an attempt to exclude Corbyn supporters that one is gobsmacked that it was ever considered. 180,000 people paid up just to give them the finger! How do they imagine those people are now going to vote?
Then they decided to block an entire chunk of the new membership from voting in the leadership election – an obvious breach of contract law. Now the plotters are heading to the high court, using members money to try and overturn a crowd funded victory won by those self same members against the voting ‘freeze’.
… And so it rolls on. Today we have Tom Watson merrily hanging himself as he insists that the young supporters of Corbyn are having their arms twisted by evil Trotskyite henchmen. How patronising and stupid is that?
The #chickencoup seems all over and what an unmitigated shambles it has been. Looking at how the Red Tories have ran their ‘campaign’, it’s no wonder Labour are behind in the polls.
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Winners and losers
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Corbyn is the massive winner. He can now point to another huge surge in membership directly attributable to him. He has enjoyed many happy away days on the campaign trail playing to packed houses of adulation.
He is about to win a second leadership election in ten months with an even bigger mandate, making his position unassailable. He has consolidated his standing within the constituency labour parties (CLP’s) and the trade unions. His enemies within the PLP are now marked for de-selection. He seems to be energised and enjoying the fight.
The Tories are big winners – all Brexit issues nicely obscured by Labour infighting and Theresa May enjoying a huge poll boost as a result.
Owen Smith will surely never recover from his embarrassing campaign. His “I agree with Jeremy” spin has turned him into a laughing stock. All we will remember with amusement are the empty venues, the certainty of defeat and his horribly obvious PR training.
We suspect Owen Jones’ place atop the top table of activism is pretty much stuffed – although his pay checks from The Guardian look assured enough.
The Blairite faction are the huge losers. Having helpfully identified themselves as plotters, it’s hard to see how any of them have a long term future within the Labour Party. Corbyn’s credibility is now stratospheric and nobody in the sullen ranks of New Labour even approaches having a brand strong enough to challenge him.
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Going forwards
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In the short term Labour is in a sorry state but it’s the long term that counts.
A show down between the membership and New Labour was long overdue. We can look forward to having some actual opposition to the Tories now and an end to the mauve frosted blair-bots of the past.
New Labour is steadily being consigned to the dustbin of history. I intend to read all the latest wails and insults from them and laugh: these are simply the death throes of a dying ideology and a defunct political group.
Soon it will be time for the Red Tories to get a proper job, though Lord knows what as. Hopefully they can all get a role helping the Blue Tories with their anti-Corbyn strategy.
If Tom Watson et al would only help the Tories, then a Labour 2020 election victory would be in the bag. Let’s hope they see the light…
See also: follow Sodium Haze on Facebook
Brilliant….just the right amount of humorous disdain.
You have hit the nail on the head there. They won’t have a job after all this. Who would hire some one that has back stabbed their boss in the past? Oh well On wards and upwards .
More smears from Tom Watson, who every time he opens his big fat gob demonstrates he is an ignorant oaf.
And of course given a soap box by The Guardian, in-house rag of Labour Establishment.
The smears are never ending.
Angela Eagle lying about a brick through her window, lying about being abused at a meeting, lying about cancellation of a meeting.
Lies told about a break-in, a break-in that never was.
Owen Smith accusing Jeremy Corbyn of Antisemitism.
Well deserved criticism of Israel is not Antisemitism. .
And of course Tom Watson is not new to this game.
He was at the forefront of smearing Jeremy Corbyn for elevating to the House of Lords a very able Human Rights lawyer. Someone who could be key., should Tories try to abolish the Human Rights Act.
And as for bullying.
Nothing as bad as the bullying of Jeremy Corbyn by coup plotters.
Then we have Owen Smith bullying a young female member for telling the truth of what he said at a meeting.
Attacks on a female supporter and colleague and associate of John McDonnell by drunk Blairites whilst waiting for a train at a pub, following a pro-Corbyn rally in Brighton.
People do not have to be bullied to support Jeremy Corbyn, they seem him as a breath of fresh air, a pleasant change to the Labour Establishment. A once in a generation opportunity for real political change.
Hence the many young people who have attended his rallies, the young people who have helped organise his rallies. The young people who have helped develop strategies on social media.
It is not only Jeremy Corbyn.
Yanis Varoufakis is able to pack meetings with queues down the street.
People desire change.
Tom Watson is so out of touch. But hopefully he and his ilk are soon out on their ear.
But it is standard fair, Trots, entryists, thugs, and a whole load of other insults. This is how they welcome new members. Welcome to the Labour Establish that luckily is on its way out.
Paul Mason has repeatedly rubbished this nonsense from the likes of Tom Watson.
https://keithpp.wordpress.com/2016/07/31/its-hard-to-report-the-peasants-revolt-from-inside-the-castle/
The guardian takes the opportunity of “The Corbyn Camp’s” rebuttal to reiterate and keep all Watson’s sly guff on the front page for another day.
Watson should save his gob for eating, though being overweight does not make you a heavyweight.
I am actually glad all this is happening, if we lost everyone of the trappist traitors, we’d still be ahead.
I agree with your analysis and premise. However, I do not intend to laugh. Instead, I am dismayed to see the Labour party once again fighting amongst itself instead of fighting the Tories, though I think it may well have been inevitable given the sway that Blair still holds over the PLP. I am also dismayed at the insults on both sides. Just because one is insulted, there is no need to return it. Corbyn’s supporters should be showing a better way. Ignore the insults and make the argument. Otherwise, there is a danger that the argument will be ignored in favour of the behaviour. In the end, most of those who support Smith and the “coup” (for want of a better word) probably won’t go away and we will have to find a way to work together. We need to emphasise the need to support the duly elected leader, whoever that is, in word and deed – no more private briefings against him! There may continue to be disagreements over policy but that is of a different order to casting aspersions on the character and ability of the leader of the Party. Policy arguments can be won. Showing disdain for one’s elected leader just makes the party unelectable, something the majority of the PLP don’t seem to have grasped.
I think that is precisely what they wish, and they will continue after corbyn’s re-election.
They don’t get it because they can’t get it.
We’ve seen it here north of the border.
They are physiologically incapable of accepting change (though they delight in imposing it on others).
Surprisingly, and I hope hearteningly, the media and establishment have yet to give an inch to the SNP, but they still succeeded in displacing the party of dead eyed deadbeats that scottish (blairite/brownite) labour had become.
Jim Murphy could hardly fill a telephone box with supporters at the last election,yet he was supported all by the main media all the way.
It continues to this day and it doesn’t matter anymore.
You can do it without donors and the media .
Cut out the middle men.
Just add people.