Earlier today a pledge written by Labour members was published as a call for all parts of the parliamentary party to unite around the common cause of carrying the party into government.
Eleven Labour MPs have already signed it in the few hours since it was issued, with their own comments of support for the pledge and the unity it represents:
- Dawn Butler
- Rebecca Long-Bailey
- Emma Dent Coad
- Karen Lee
- Laura Smith
- Kate Osamor
- Ian Lavery
- Dan Carden
- John Trickett
- Richard Burgon
- Neil Findlay
- Clive Lewis
- Ian Mearns
- Chris Williamson
More are expected to follow – and ordinary members are also spontaneously responding with their own signatures. Who will be the first MPs and MSPs from the ‘moderate’ wing of the party to demonstrate true moderation by pledging to represent the members and the needs of the people first and foremost?
The SKWAWKBOX needs your support. This blog is provided free of charge but depends on the generosity of its readers to be viable. If you can afford to, please click here to arrange a one-off or modest monthly donation via PayPal or here for a monthly donation via GoCardless. Thanks for your solidarity so this blog can keep bringing you information the Establishment would prefer you not to know about.
If you wish to reblog this post for non-commercial use, you are welcome to do so – see here for more.
I can’t see the point of this, even if all the ‘usual suspects’ sign this, what difference will it make. They have already demonstrated that they are not to be trusted.
Their word means nothing and if a CLP trusts their MP so little that they feel the need to ask them to sign this ‘pledge’ then it is arguable that any mutual trust has long gone and it’s time they both parted company. What is the point of papering over the cracks with meaningless gestures, This is wide open to being spun against the party it all looks rather silly and childish.
I think you’ll find that the ‘usual suspects’ won’t be able to bring themselves to sign it. And THAT’S probably it’s purpose – ie to expose them for what they are to ALL and sundry.
Allan Howard 16/02/2019 at 9:50 pm
I understand what the objective is, I just think it’s misguided.
Ask yourself, if this was a post about the Conservatives scurrying round trying to get their MPs to sign a pledge of loyalty to the PM would you be taking the piss out of them. I would.
This minority Centrist cult will want to set the the narrative over the next few weeks it can’t go unchallenged. They have MSM at their disposal we have Social Media so yeah, this might just be one of the many options open to challenge it.
Interesting question steve. I’ll have to give it some thought, but I think it kinda brings up the fundamental differences between JC’s LP and the Tories. I mean, for example – and I didn’t know this until YOU posted something about it – that Tory Party members are not accountable to the party. I’d never given it a first thought, but once I learnt that THAT was the case, it made perfect sense. It’s difficult to put in to words, but I guess it boils down to the fact that one party is for the Few, and JC’s LP is for the Many.
Perhaps we need to make this pledge part of rules when you are chosen as a councillor or MP.
Christopher Fox 16/02/2019 at 8:37 pm
Perhaps we need to introduce mandatory reselection so that MPs will be accountable to their PLC.
Ooops – Obviously PLC should read CLP.
Keep this one going, Skwawky. It’s important to keep this focus within sight of the Blairites. Labour is about the MEMBERS. Not the MPs. They MUST be shown this.
I don’t think I have come across anything this imaginative since ‘The great loyalty oath crusade’ in ‘Catch 22’.
What next Skwawky? ‘Are you now or have you ever been a Blairite?’
This will make a complete laughing stock of us all, and you just haven’t got the insight to see it.
The so-called centrists/moderates will easily sign this pledge because they consider themselves to be the only membership that counts. The pledge they need to sign is the one stating that they are no longer going to be in the pocket and control of the right-wing Israeli lobby which is responsible for manufacturing all the fake anti-semitism smears – aided and abetted by the MSM – which equates criticism of the actions of the right-wing Israeli government against the Palestinian people with anti-semitism, so much that they forced us to adopt the controversial IHRA definition of the term.
What we should all be prepared for is the MSM onslaught produced and directed from Tel Aviv when – not if – Corbyn-led Labour comes to power.
I can’t go along with this. It may have been made with the best of intentions but it is this kind of wooly thinking that gave us Blairism and lost us clause 4.