Corbyn’s offer to block disastrous Johnson Brexit can succeed – but centrists unlikely to set aside egos for one vote
Jeremy Corbyn’s letter to opposing MPs offering to stop Boris Johnson’s no-deal Brexit with their support offers the UK its most realistic opportunity to avoid a no-deal scenario – and offers hard-remainers the additional incentive of a Labour general election campaign offering a new public vote – including a remain option.
Centrist remainers who genuinely prioritise stopping a no-deal Brexit and who want to remain in the EU should be cheering – and could even try to make political capital by claiming that their activities have brought this about.
Instead, with exceptions such as Dominic Grieve, they have rushed to the media to say they won’t support it ‘because Corbyn’.
Corbyn’s letter and timing have offered the country a real chance to avoid a no-deal exit – but he has also painted centrists into a corner where the vast majority of them are exposed as hypocrites. Now that they have a chance to have what they’ve been shouting for, suddenly the fact is exposed that it was always about blocking Corbyn, not about blocking Brexit.
LibDem leader Jo Swinson told cameras minutes ago:
I want to be very clear this morning. I’m determined to do whatever it takes to stop Brexit.
But, self-evidently and self-servingly, that is clearly untrue – as the rest of her speech put beyond doubt.
Tom Watson’s manoeuvring is also exposed. If he fails to get behind Corbyn now, his recent support for a new referendum – a u-turn from his track record – will be exposed for the undermining left-wingers have always considered it.
There has been a concerted centrist and media push to try to position Corbyn as to blame for the hard Brexit Boris Johnson is working toward – but that campaign is now also exposed and defunct.
Because if Johnson gets his Halloween Hard Brexit present because so-called ‘centrists’ fail to back Corbyn, it will be unmistakable whose fault it is.
Centrist egos and dishonesty have enabled hard-Brexiteers to move closer to their goal all along until now. If Corbyn is unable to stop them now, centrist egos and dishonesty – and their desperation to stop Corbyn – will be the reason.
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Libtards , words fail … pathetic ,, liars ,, , nope that won’t do , help guys I am struggling here … perhaps just plain sad !!
They’ll eff it up and enable a Tory hard deal just like they propped up the worst Tory Govt ever
Those from ‘within’.
Those who allowed watson to go his merry way unfettered; yet howled loudest about everything else…
It’s THEM need routing out. They know we know who they are. The ones on here squirm and deflect and evade when challenged but they’re guilty as sin. We know they know it, too.
Hate brexit love Corbyn MY ARSE. They’re no more than centrist apologists trying pathetically to palm us off that they’re ‘really really socialist.’ They’re NOTHING OF THE SORT.
And they should NEVER be allowed a minute.
Indeed, The Toffee. I also notice most of the Tory Press today pushing the line of “a Corbyn Coup against the elected government of Boris Johnson”. At first sight completely daft – but in fact a powerful pre-snap General Election narrative which will cast Boris Johnson and his shady hedge-fund backed government of sociopathic Ayn Randist neoliberal chancers as the “champions of the 2016 democratic vote majority against the establishment elite fronted up by its Corbyn puppet temporary PM”
Whilst ludicrous in so many ways, nevertheless this attack line, when added to all the uncosted bogus promises on vast extra spending on the NHS, Police, Education, etc, from Boris Johnson – and no doubt a pre Election series of promises to “radically cut immigration” too, will have vast electoral traction with millions of voters, including millions of working class voters in our key heartlands. Jeremy is falling into a carefully set trap here to play the role of pro Remain establishment stooge – with Labour , in its public (slippery obfuscation aside ) pronouncements on its Brexit position, ever more being seen as a Remain and Second Referendum Party. Make no mistake , the Labour Party’s internal divisions, and the dire Left Liberal politics of the majority of “Corbynistas” in particular , are leading our Party ever deeper into a ever more likely political oblivion, on a PASOK or French Socialist Party scale.
JP While I agree with you on most things, I reckon it’s Corbyn who’s setting the trap here, as Skwawk suggested. I’m not convinced the Centrists are smart enough to be thinking that many moves ahead. Deluded as ever, they’ll fatally expose their hypocrisy if they continue to shun co-operation with Corbyn and it can’t come soon enough!
One notes Ha’penny’s desperate (and contradictory) attempts to resist anything that might undermine the Tory Brexit and put the question back to the electorate – in case they have actually learned something from the Brexit/Lexit turd-polishing exercise.
‘Our’ Party. 🙂 Is that the one where about 80% want to stay in the EU?
Better a ‘pro-Remain stooge’ than an entryist of the Johnson/ERG fringe, I reckon.
So Richard Hayward is happy to be a “Remainer stooge”. Let us say no more on Hayward’s political bankruptcy. It is unfortunately the case that the majority of our Party’s , Left Liberal, membership are just so minded. Sadly, this will lose us both our vital 50 plus Labour working class heartland seats, plus the chance of winning the vital , Leave Supporting, Tory marginals. So the claimed Corbyn tactical “wizard wheeze” of splitting the other parties around a Stop Brexit caretaker government plan (which apparently includes allying with arch neoliberals like that long term neoliberal ideologue, Oliver Letwin), is , I’m afraid, a tactical miss-step of catastrophic proportions for the entire “Left Corbyn Labour Party project”
Jeremy and Labour have fallen into a political trap – of endless Parliamentary manoeuvring and compromise – when in reality confronted by a “Bonapartist” political figure like Boris Johnson, who is ideologically flexible enough to outmanoeuvre this chicanery and pose , with the help of the MSM as a figure “above the political trickery of the elite, defender of the democracy of the 2016 Referendum – and disburser of limitless post Austerity goodies” , to win a snap Election, on a ” Boris the Democrat versus the self-serving Political Elite” ticket, it will founder badly. Those of you who haven’t read Marx’s famous “The 18th Brumaire of Louis Napoleon” – the analysis of the rise to power in the late 19th century in France of another extra-Parliamentary opportunist in a French society also deadlocked by internal social class and political elite conflict, should do so. Boris Johnson is potentially another “Bonapartist opportunist ” for our current times – as is DonaldTrump of course.
“Sadly, this will lose us both our vital 50 plus Labour working class heartland seats”
Pure self-serving fiction, not electoral analysis.
The Labour vote in those seats was solidly ‘Remain’. The much-vaunted ‘working class’ ‘Leave’ vote has been conservative for a long time.
No contest.
(Don’t get sentimental – working class votes have been crucial to the Tory hegemony for a long time)
Not that anyone cares , but more on Marx’s still relevant “18th Brumaire…” article:
The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Napoleon (German: Der 18te Brumaire des Louis Napoleon) is an essay written by Karl Marx between December 1851 and March 1852, and originally published in 1852 in Die Revolution, a German monthly magazine published in New York City and established by Joseph Weydemeyer. Later English editions, such as an 1869 Hamburg edition, were entitled The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte.
The essay discusses the French coup of 1851 in which Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte assumed dictatorial powers. It shows Marx in his form as a social and political historian, treating actual historical events from the viewpoint of his materialist conception of history.
In the preface to the second edition of The Eighteenth Brumaire, Marx stated that the purpose of this essay was to “demonstrate how the class struggle in France created circumstances and relationships that made it possible for a grotesque mediocrity to play a hero’s part.”[1] AS with Louis Napoleon-Bonaparte in 1851, so with the opportunists, Trump and Boris Johnson today.
looking good as SNP just announce support for Corbyn , far more significant than Yellow Tories . I await the greens , the Tinge Party unsurprisingly reject Corbyns offer , further proof of their utter hypocrisy
I watched BBC Breakfast this morning, with Rebecca Long-Bailey being interviewed. The presenters were horrific, talking over her, not letting her answer questions, and trying really hard to get her to agree to Anyone But Corbyn leading!
They then tried the line that they don’t understand Labour’s policy, and trying to make out that a ridiculously simple policy was complicated!!!
Trying to frame things before they’ve happened that if Jo Swinson refuses to support a VONC then it’s Corbyn’s fault that No Deal happens.
It was utterly farcical, a total disgrace… AGAIN from the BBC!
Why the f do my comments never get published on this site??? I have never said anything even remotely offensive or inflammatory!
Watched Swinson’s pathetic, robotic attempts at inspiring an audience with her anyone-but-Corbyn speech earlier.
There was a time when Libs were to the left of (new) Labour.
Earlier some woman pundit complained that Corbyn hadn’t been specific about how temporary his temporary premiership would be or how long an A50 extension he’d seek.
As if those were decisions for today instead of for parliament at the time – and as if anyone of Corbyn’s stature and beliefs would expect parliament to give an open-ended approval on either count.
One might ask how such dummies rise to prominence if we didn’t live in the time of ‘reality’ TV, soundbites, Trumps and comedy prime ministers.
We need to at least quadruple what we spend on education to get an electorate deserving of the franchise.
DMcN …and Politics must be on the curriculum. That should be as compulsory as English & Maths. We have to revive political consciousness from it’s consumerist slumber…
We need to at least quadruple what we spend on education to get an electorate deserving of the franchise.
Yep I’ll echo that David
Educated? That’s when you learn to do as you are told without complaining,
Very true. It is called indoctrination. And when the State does it, it ensures that its interests and those of the class it protects come first.
There is definitely a case to be made for political education, by socialists, just as there is a case for a socialist daily newspaper, based on Labour Party members’ subscriptions.
Expecting the state to teach kids to question its own class foundations is as daft as hoping that The Guardian will give Jeremy Corbyn fair play.
Depends on who’s in government, who’s setting the curriculum, who runs the LEA, who’s doing the teaching and who’s doing the parenting.
Hence the quadrupling of funding.
At least.
The reason the Toxics keep getting elected when they’re the worst possible choice for >90% of voters is because education was deliberately designed to teach the masses enough to be good little productive units but not enough to understand how the world works or how they’re being reamed.
Even public school brainwashes the brats of the 1% into playing their roles, confident as those two blow-up doll girls that it’s the only system possible and that that justifies their privilege – like we older children of empire were taught about the largesse England spread like cream on a scone across the lucky Commonwealth.
Some medium-smart plebs get enough gold stars to make them feel privileged despite half-knowing they’ll always be at one remove from the top echelon.
They’re the ‘centrists’ who vote Toxic for fear of losing their little portion of success.
Not many see through the bullshit and we have to change that.
Burning down the MSM would be quicker but we’re Socialists and we don’t do that.
Education is the only way to make change stick.
Perhaps after so long some of you secretly doubt that another kind of education can exist?
But good education like higher education usually encourages critical thinking and someone once said “Education is a contested zone.” I liked a saying I recently saw from Gramsci who said all men (and women) are intellectuals, it is just that only a few get the chance to put their ideas into practice in the political sphere. Labour should also not forget it is a political party and it should try to politicise the masses!
Good to see the promotion of a strategy that makes coherent sense.
It is pretty unequivocal (at last) and puts the LibDems and allies on the spot. If they turn aside from this one, then their credibility is blown.
That said, I have no overwhelming optimism – the issue of a knowledgeable electorate isn’t going to be resolved easily; without get too teary-eyed nostalgic, the ‘X-factor’ mentality highlighted by David runs pretty deep in its shallowness, and is aided by a media that is a long,long way from having an investigative, inquiring instinct – and even over time, education in the formal sense can’t re-balance the odds on its own.
We know, after a significant period of time, that Brexit arguments have melted into the thin air from whence they came. But a significant part of the electorate is still enamoured by the same old polished turd.
It would take a long time to reach critical mass socialism through education alone if it were a case of waiting for children to grow up – but it may not be.
Greta Thunberg is one example of a ‘random’ (possible) step change, anti-Vietnam war demonstrations were another, PollTax riots another.
In the other direction neoliberalism was an almost random effect of deregulation’s big bang boom bubble – the speed and extent of it certainly wasn’t predicted at the time. Even Toxics coining it in hand over fist were scared of it for a while.
Don’t rely on it but don’t discount the random.
The caution that I would make is about the way in which education works. There is a natural tendency when ignorance or imperfect knowledge exists to say “we need to teach it in schools” (I’m sure everyone can come up with a list of such cases).
In some cases, this may be valid – but students aren’t blotting paper who soak up everything directed at them, and perceived relevance is particularly important.
The curriculum is much more directive than it used to be, but that has solved little. Quite the reverse.
Social/Civic education has actually been around in various disguises for a long time – but is now more squeezed to the margins, and the issue of *what* to include has never been solved. The best examples are those that engage students with underlying concepts – but that still begs the question of *what* beyond a trip around principles and institutions.
Thinking back to the paleolithic days of my own education, I reckon real political education was mainly a ‘do it yourself’ affair in the sceptical 50s and 60s; the hegemony of establishment concepts certainly didn’t rule the roost, even in a traditional grammar school, and I remember mock elections being engaged in with enthusiasm. I seem to recall that our ‘National Preservative Party’ succeeded in one such election (1964?) solely on the basis of taking the piss out of the Tories. I can’t see that a more structured, official approach would have produced greater awareness.
Perhaps more important is a wider approach to critical thinking – analysing and debating to develop awareness of the biases inherent in everyday media.
I think the big problem for many of the so called Centrist MPs is Jeremy’s pledge that he will be to be a caretaker PM only and will call a general election as soon as he can.
Most centrists don’t want a general election because they know it will herald the end of their careers – the spiteful members of the PLP who have worked ceaselessly to undermine our leadership team and others who squatted in either Tory or Labour seats after resigning their respective parties .
As I said in a previous post about Jess Phillips, turkeys don’t vote for Christmas. This is why the Centrists won’t want to support Jeremy’s plan.
They will have to of course if they want to remain Labour Mps. They really are between a rock and a hard place and if the whole issue was not so deadly serious I would enjoy watching them squirm.
Which is why Corbyn’s “chess move” was such a genius one!
Agreed!
I don’t reckon ‘genius’ is the right adjective – it’s just a good political move. It’s always frustrated me (and a lot of others) that the PLP dissemblers who travel under the Labour flag have been gifted credibility by a lack of clarity and coherence on Brexit.
This does what it should have done a while back – cuts them off at the knees. The fact that Lexiteers are whinging about it is a good sign of a common sense strategy.
The power over a timetable is taken away from Mr Toad and his operative.
Meanwhile, Swinson is pushed into the frame of being a Tory-associated sour-puss. OK – let’s not get over-excited – and counting on current potential temporary ‘allies’ is a dodgy business – but I can’t think of a better move at this point.
The underlying point is that – despite the whingers in the PLP and LibDems – Labour *is* the official opposition, and therefore appropriate to the unusual role that Corbyn proposes.
Internal opposition within the Party (such as heard from Kinnock Jnr.) is going to undermine itself in terms of any future in the Party if they try to trash the initiative. If you want a deselection list, what better focus for identifying the members? Meanwhile policy aligns with the wider Party.
Even with some tentativeness about success – what’s not to like?
One further point, who really believes the country will vote remain v Labour brino and manifesto commitments
Will be a lot higher than 52/48 which explains 2hy remains wanted referendum first on a Pure Brexit v No Brexit which they think gives them a better chance of revoking article 50,
I’m not that sure about that either, methinks it would be too close for comfort, I’m sure Sadiq would find a way to fuck up the remain campaign again,
Still lets celebrate JC and party playing a complete blinder
Wasn’t sure about this when I first saw it but on reflection it is possible JC has out thought his opponents.
His Extend A50 by a bit, GE, hopefully Labour Victory then put Labour’s Better Brexit Deal to the public with a Remain option; so everyone apart from No Dealers gets a chance to support their favoured option.
Leavers in general and Labour Leavers (like me, ex Reluctant Remainer) and those Remainers who respect the original result (plus Remainers who will put Labour’s humanity above their view on the EC) could back Labour’s Better Brexit Deal and Rock Hard Remainers could back the chance to stay in a Neo-Liberal EC superstructure which puts Neo-Liberal economics first ahead of democracy!.
But after 3 plus years of Tory Dithering and Tory Time Wasting, Jeremy Corbyn offers a resolution to this issue which is perhaps what people are crying out for.
There will be winners and losers (especially No Dealers) but that’s democracy.
We need to stand behind JC.
Whistling optimistically in the dark there comrade, but sadly, Bazza , Labour’s “Better deal Brexit” ambition is actually just a cynical, useless, BRINO result , ie, so integrated and compliant with the Single Market rules that many of the key re-nationalisation promises in our 2017 Manifesto would be impossible , and therefore a lie to the electorate. Labour would also be committed to Freedom of Movement , ie, continued unlimited Labour Supply, which has crucified the wages and conditions and job opportunities for millions of our “blue collar” Labour voters. The continued compliance with the “Four Freedoms” of the Single Market would also rule out capital controls , and state aids to protect key industries like steel.
The likes of our man from the Deep State, Kier Starmer, (and the totally uncritical pro EU pressure of our mostly Left Liberal, not socialist, activist membership), have stitched Labour up policy-wise like a turkey with the deliberately impossible , ” the UK out of the EU must have exactly the same benefits as inside it” requirement. Labour’s current BRINO or a (more likely now) “let’s just stay inside the neoliberal EU , with no change” emerging real policy position, has NOTHING to offer the working class voters in our Labour heartlands to change the intolerable life situations neoliberalism has forced them into . They will therefore either abstain , or vote Brexit Party as a protest vote, in their millions in a forthcoming General Election. So Labour is already most likely kaput as a mass Party of social democracy, or even a return to being a party of Blairite careerist corrupt neoliberalism now – it will just take that snap General Election to prove that this is so. Historians will eventually see “Corbynism” not as the new radical beginning we all hoped it represented in 2015, but actually as the misleadingly lively death spasms of a Party that had already died years ago of its endemic internal corruption and ideological bankruptcy during the toxic years of Blairite neoliberalism.
Congratulations for this disaster are due to the toxic contributory mix of constant PLP Right Wing careerist sabotage, combined with the Left Liberal middle class naivety of most of our supposed “radical Left Corbynist” membership, for putting us on the very cusp of a long term electoral wipeout of PASOK, French Socialist Party, or SPD, historic proportions.