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As results come in, PLP remainers are to blame but instead point fingers. How the left must respond

Centrists and a handful of left-wingers put remaining in the EU above respecting Labour’s working-class base. They must own the consequences instead of trying to exploit the rotten fruit of their actions
A map published by SKWAWKBOX in 2017 warning of the danger if Labour abandoned its Brexit commitment

As results unfold, the Labour right has achieved what it has been working for since 2015 – huge damage to the party in a general election.

Engineered disaster

The crocodile tears being shed for the millions of lives that will be destroyed and even lost under a renewed Tory government cannot hide the right’s glee that it thinks it has a new opportunity to dislodge the real Labour movement and regain its control of the party.

Because make no mistake: the Labour right pushed Labour toward a new referendum specifically in order to engineer the kind of damage the party is seeing tonight.

Warnings ignored

The SKWAWKBOX, along with many others of the working-class left, have warned for years that the centrists’ desperation for Labour to ‘go full remain’ or commit to a referendum was not because of some sentimental attachment to the EU. Instead it was exactly because they knew that such disrespect for the working-class leave vote that dominated in two thirds of Labour’s seats would seriously damage the party in its working-class heartlands.

And the fruition of that plan is being seen in the results in many working-class towns tonight.

Misery for millions a centrist price worth paying

The terrible consequences for ordinary people of the centrist plan have been embraced all along as a small price to pay for the laughably-termed ‘moderates’ to ‘get their party back’ – as a message sent by one of them to the SKWAWKBOX just before the general election was confirmed demonstrates:

‘It’s all gonna be worth it.’

Tell that to the millions of children in desperate poverty tonight.

Tell it to the disabled people who have said they are so desperate tonight that they think their lives are coming to an end.

Tell that to the millions who will continue to be forced to turn to foodbanks to be able to eat and who will lose their homes because the Tories’ Universal Credit horror will not be scrapped by a Labour government but continued under a Tory one.

Shameless dishonesty

But typically of the right-wingers, the very instant that their push toward remain has borne its rotten fruit, they are washing their hands of responsibility for the consequences they have created – and are blaming those same consequences on the left, even though they engineered them.

It is absolutely clear to anyone who looks with honesty at the results developing tonight that it is the party’s move away from its 2017 commitment to honour the referendum result that has led to them.

But even though Sky News and the BBC have spent the whole election campaign calling it ‘the Brexit election’, they are now helping the centrists to claim that the results are about Corbyn – and not about Brexit after all.

The dishonesty among the right-wingers and their media friends is vast – but entirely unsurprising.

A bigger goal

But their real goal is bigger than toppling Corbyn. Their attack moved instantly onto Labour’s policies – ‘hard left’, according to them, even though they are merely normal centre-left policies in Scandinavia and Labour’s spending would have been on a par with countries like Germany.

The centrists don’t just want Corbyn gone. They want ‘their’ party back – and the Establishment wants the end of the threat to its interests that a real Labour Party represents.

So, according to the unholy alliance of ‘Labour’ right and Establishment media, after saying for six weeks that the election was all about Brexit, suddenly the result is a rejection by the public of Labour’s plans to invest and renationalise – policies that we know, because they have repeatedly told us – that the public loves.

So the claim is that Labour’s leader and its policies have been to blame for tonight’s results.

It’s bullshit. Of course it is.

The same leader and broadly the same policies in 2017 saw Labour gain its biggest increase in votes since 1945.

The difference between 2017 and now boils down to a single issue: in 2017 Labour pledged to honour the 2016 referendum result – and in 2019 it did not.

Centrist guilt – mostly

And that change is – almost entirely – because of the so-called ‘moderates’.

Keir Starmer, Emily Thornberry, Tom Watson and others in the parliamentary Labour Party – together with ‘left’ commentators like Paul Mason – theirs and others like them are the heads that should hang in shame tonight. John McDonnell must also shoulder his share of the blame.

They were the vectors for the right-wing push to drive a wedge between Labour and the working-class ‘Labour leave’ towns – and they were warned of the consequences.

By the SKWAWKBOX, by a host of working-class Labour activists. By MPs like Ian Lavery, Laura Smith, Grahame Morris, by union leaders like Len McCluskey – and by Corbyn aides like Karie Murphy and others.

An unforgivable crime

Instead of being heard as they tried to stand up for working-class communities, these people whose finger we now know was on the pulse of the working class were attacked – dismissed as ‘cranks’, with calls for their sacking and machinations to sideline them.

By ignoring those authentic working-class voices, the remain-pushers committed the unforgivable sin of opening a door for liars like Johnson to claim he was on the side of working-class people – and of democracy.

It is a lie, of course – Johnson despises the working class – but if the parliamentary remainers and those supporting them had not pushed Labour away from its base, the lie would never have been believed.

That is the issue – and that is the crime.

Not Corbyn and not the policies – 2017 proves that. The fact that the damage is overwhelmingly in what were ‘Labour leave’ seats proves it – again, exactly as the centrists were warned that it would.

Any blame Corbyn bears for tonight’s results lies in his allowing the Starmers, Thornberrys and Watsons to influence party policy against the interests of the working class and to separate him from his closest and most trustworthy aides who were trying to defend those interests.

The task ahead

The Labour right has already started its long-prepared plan to regain control of the Labour Party by blaming the left for tonight’s losses. They engineered those losses, but they have no shame about ignoring that for their planned and entirely dishonest narrative.

For the sake of the party and for the sake of the country, the left must do five things:

  • refuse to concede a millimetre to that narrative
  • make absolutely sure that those who engineered disaster in order to exploit it are never allowed within a mile of power or influence within the party again
  • refuse to allow the right to dishearten them into leaving the party – because that is essential to ensure that the right cannot seize back the party in which they do not belong
  • regroup and reorganise to make sure that the party returns to its authentic working-class roots – Momentum is not the vehicle for that task
  • ensure that the membership organises its candidates – and its votes for those candidates – to maintain control of the National Executive Committee and that left leaders are elected to all positions

It will be a long, tough and bloody fight. There is no room – there never has been – for the ‘nicer, kinder politics’ that has allowed the right to use every dirty trick without facing the consequences.

But every member of the party who knows that this country needs a real Labour Party must roll up their sleeves, grit their teeth and get it done.

To fail will be to allow the Blairites to do to Labour outside London what they did to it in Scotland.

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158 comments

  1. I would argue that any shift in policy had very little to do with the ‘centrists’ and everything to do with the leaderships knowledge that the majority of Labour’s membership support remain and a second referendum. We’re a members led party, apparently.

    1. A members-led Movement you say SteveH, really, are you having that much of a laugh at our expense, by ‘our’ I mean the working class, much of which reeled abandoned by Labour, not more so than by its Conference decision to abandon its 2017 Brexit stance.

      Of course, in a members-led Party we’d have Open Selection’s, we’d have real discussions, we’d also be highly representative of our actual electorate, which neither the Labour party or the PLP is, its predominately middle class, which is a disaster for persons like me who desired as wide a membership as possible, and real, honest debate, not factionalism of a crass kind.

      So SteveH, about the only representative policy of the membership, if we are discussing 63-70% of said membership, is that it was pro-Brussel’s, whilst the core voting constituency was not pro-Brussels, rather they wanted less Brussel’s.

      Thankfully Iain McNicol kicked me out of the Party in 2016 for the crime of calling the Centrists out, so, do take ownership of this result, do take ownership of ignoring your voting base that did not share your liberal progressive views and do all look in the mirror and ask yourselves why the working class in droves abandoned its natural Party, a Party founded for them, by them and not the bloody Fabians and Progress mob.

      As an individual I’m gutted, gutted that the Party was driven into a Remain stance by those ignorant of electoral strategy, which is to win. This election was lost at the September 2019 Conference and subsequent whinging by the Remainiacs, among them John mcDonnell, who could not even accept the convoluted Conference compromise – Emily Thornberry made a mockery of the Party, as did Starmer and the rest of the London mob.

      So, hope you are happy with the neoliberalism lite Party that our Rightist PLP will now gift us, that those gifting us are the same buggers who lost us this election is pure irony, alas, that’s the PLP for you, a group that did not understand 4-5 million of its voter base that voted Brexit, better instead to go for the Tory Remain vote, and supposed youth vote that again failed to materialise.

      1. christopher rogers at 5:51 am

        The membership have overwhelmingly supported mandatory reselection using OMOV. It was the trade unions that opposed it because they were fearful of losing influence.

        My reference to a members led party was made tongue in cheek because regardless of the memberships views nothing happens in the Labour Party without Union approval.

      2. SteveH,

        Many on the actual Left, from working class backgrounds and communities that are still working class, warned and warned that you ignore the Brexit result at your peril – I, and others were derided by you and your cookie crew on this Website – if you don’t understand electoral strategy and tactics you should not be in politics. And, lets be blunt, the bloody centrists knew what they were doing and could not give a toss about the working class, which, on the whole they usually detest – or, do you think as a man being married to a non-European being called pig ignorant and a racist endears me to respect these anti-democratic forces, these uber liberal Progressives who should not be allowed within a million miles of the Labour Party, nevermind the PLP.

        So, the Party was warned, the membership was warned by the minority of the members who actually did vote Brexit, but not many would listen. Again, at least Chris Williamson did, and for his crimes, like me he was kicked out of the Party, and we then wonder why we lost – I don’t wonder as I expected this result, as my other posts on other Leftists Blogs clearly demonstrated. And i stayed off here as did not desire to undermine Labour’s electoral chances, given my own reservations.

      3. christopher rogers 13/12/2019 at 6:19 am

        Whatever the personal attributes you may assign to Chris Williamson his lack of a personal support base within his ex-constituency (both now and in the past) were born out by this and previous GE results.

      4. Pure fantasy, Christopher, based on illusions about ‘the working class’ and the Labour Party, and class allegiance to it.

        The ‘working class’ hasn’t been the core of the Labour Party for quite a while.

      5. RH, which is why the party keeps losing, it lost touch with its working class base under Blair/Brown and the Brexit Two Fingers by the Remainiacs was the final straw. But hey RH, funny, my folks and me are working class, that’s actual working class by bith and community, and we voted Labour, as we have done all our adults life – not all are as committed as me and many hated the Middle Class sell out of their Brexit Vote, the results in Wales prove this point, or will you dispute this too?

      6. Christopher Rogers

        “The ‘working class’ hasn’t been the core of the Labour Party for quite a while.”

        “RH, which is why the party keeps losing.”

        Exactly. And the reason the working class hasn’t been the core of the Labour Party for quite a while is because of people like this, who refer to the Brexit working class as “fictional”. Hard to put the working class at the core of the Labour Party when there are people in it who regard them as “fictional”.

        The man’s an arse.

    2. Skwawky i agree with every single word. So i’m cutting and pasting them here. REPEAT REPEAT REPEAT:

      “For the sake of the party and for the sake of the country, the left must do five things:

      refuse to concede a millimetre to that narrative

      make absolutely sure that those who engineered disaster in order to exploit it are never allowed within a mile of power or influence within the party again

      refuse to allow the right to dishearten them into leaving the party – because that is essential to ensure that the right cannot seize back the party in which they do not belong.

      regroup and reorganise to make sure that the party returns to its authentic working-class roots – Momentum is not the vehicle for that task

      ensure that the membership organises its candidates – and its votes for those candidates – to maintain control of the National Executive Committee and that left leaders are elected to all positions🌹🌹🌹

      1. His analysis of the antisemitism scam is spot-on. But, of course, it’s not the whole story of yesterday’s result.

      2. Well worth a read if you seriously imagine that it was the slur of antisemitism which lost Labour the election, rather than its betrayal of the referendum result, in which case the manifesto of the Flat Earth Society is also well worth a read.

    3. Why haven’t the all day – ever day, paid trolls , Steve H and RH, and Jack T, buggered off – job done- Labour’s adoption of Remain and 2nd Ref having destroyed us electorally ? Presumably because their paymasters are keeping the tiresome trollsters employed a bit longer to keep the pot boiling as Labour enters a new civil war over the Leadership succession ?

      Good article/analysis of our historic defeat in today’s Morning Star online https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/e/making-sense-shattering-defeat

      Unfortunately I fear that , contrary to the Morning Star’s hopes, rather than this all-too-predictable electoral catastrophe just being ‘a major historic setback’, the loss of our poorer working class heartland voters is probable permanent , a la the earlier 2015 collapse of Labour in Scotland . In each case fed by decades of corrupt, claque-ridden austerity-enforcing Labour Councils, who have totally destroyed the belief of locals in their areas that Labour is anything but another form of Tory-lite political insider double-dealing elite – no different to any other capitalist party. This disaster is quite likely our ‘PASOK Moment’, with the Labour Party eventually falling back under the control of the neo-Blairite neoliberals as the ‘Corbyn Insurgency’ hundreds of thousands drift away to the likes of the Greens or political inactivity. Such a return to centrism (as of course advocated by that awful smug fanatically pro EU , and NATO, faux Leftie ,Paul Mason, in the New Statesman today – alongside denouncing our now departed core Labour heartland working class voters as a bunch of ancient racists), will of course doom Labour to the electoral death already experienced by PASOK and the French Socialist Party.

      The Labour Party simply cannot be reformed and won for the socialist Left. The now utter defeat of our Left Labour ‘offer’ electorally , and ‘Corbynism’ more generally, over the last three years of open warfare in the Party surely proves this conclusively for the umpteenth time !

  2. Absolutely superb, skwawkbox. Spot on. This is what we must do to maintain and grow Corbyn’s legacy. The position of our grass roots membership is reflected in victory for Composite 14 over Composite 13 at last Conference, as u reported re Karie Murphy working flat out for that great victory. This is a sign that Corbyn’s legacy should b safe and that the right wingers must face the music of LP Conference. Have saved this webpage 4 ur 5-point plan.

    1. and “There is no room – there never has been – for the ‘nicer, kinder politics’ that has allowed the right to use every dirty trick without facing the consequences.”

  3. along with your analysis re centrists I believe that Nigel Farrage, a tory if ever there was one, was again brought in to reinvent ukip and rebrand it the Brexit Party. By doing so the establishment used this tool to split the labour vote. I noticed they pulled their candidates out of Conservitave seats but let their reps compete in Labour held ones. A tactic which obviously paid of to some extent. It pulled votes from labour and dispersed then among the tories and others. I also believe the move of a large group of conservatives to the Lib dems also contributed to the vote splitting. I wonder how long it will take some of them to move back into the tory party. So appears to me it was a strategic move by the establishment, along with the tory lights in the labour party to weaken Labour.

    Brexit will be a Brexit without the exit. They have already signed over all our armed forces to the EU. We are no long a soverign nation with the ability to defend ourselves but that fact was never discussed by our politicians or the media, appeared to be a D notice in place.
    What will be next, Military unification along with all the military industrial complex which feeds it. How long before they bring in conscription for both males and females? It is already being discussed in the EU I am lead to believe. Cannon fodder for the new cold war they are pushing for. Its all big business and big bucks for the already obscenely rich elits and corporations.

    Im feeling pretty devistated. This was my thread of hope. My son is living on the streets through no fault of his own. I never know if he is dead or alive from one week to the next. Im 60 years old and in despair.

    I want hope for my son, and for all our sons who are now living in a world which does not seem to value or care about them. They have no prospects, they live with broken dreams in a society which has lost its heart, compassion and decency. Not everyone I know, but those of us who are poor have no real power in our world today. We also live in fear of whats around the corner. My son will not claim Universal Credit as he was demonised by the system when he lost his job a couple of years ago, a job which he had worked full time and then some for many years. The DWP treated him with dispassion and cruelty and he gave up to live in the forest. Nowadays he barely survives and has no hope or a way out. The experience has affected his mental health and he struggles holding down a job in this hire and fire, zero hours regime, where ordinary workers are treated harshly, rather like the regime in China.

    Despair is such a lonley place…………….

    1. Looby.
      We live in desperate times. I hope things turn out ok for your son.

  4. For the first time ever a SKWAWKBOX post has made me so angry I couldn’t read it all.
    To blame remain for this failure is complete nonsense. The blame is entirely the Tories’ and their propagandists’.

    Brexit was a wet dream of the racist, immigration-obsessed UKIP right – the political organisation that gave Tommy Robinson’s far right followers a flimsy political credibility.
    It’s no coincidence that “Labour Heartlands” are also the UKIP heartlands.

    By blaming remainers for leavers voting Tory you give cover not only to that anti-immigration kippertard belief system, but also to the Tory claim of being “the new party of the working class.”
    I’m out of here until you get your head right.

    1. “To blame remain for this failure is complete nonsense.”

      If you can’t work out that a party which abandoned its commitment to honouring the referendum result lost to a party that promised to deliver it precisely because it compromised its position then nonsense is your metier, and there’s no help for you. The drive to support remain lost labour any chance of government – and it had a chance. God help those who really need Labour under Johnson. I strongly suspect you’re not one of them.

      “I’m out of here until you get your head right.”

      What arrogance, attempting to blackmail Skwakbox with the Holy Grail of your presence. Go.

      1. ps re a poster here a long time ago, as Skwawky reminds above – “Misery for millions a centrist price worth paying”. Tell that Chukka UMUNA! The most centre and shiniest of “centrists” lost his brand new seat. To which out of touch ship will the centrists jump next?

        “Misery for millions a centrist price worth paying” – Tell that to Swinson, Soubery et al.

        And if Jeremy is AS, are the 30,000 + who reelected him racist? Which reminds me, not once did I hear ANY MP or Labour spokesperson even mention the Jewish Rabbis and distinguished individuals, who expressed defence of him. Not once. Bewildering in the extreme. Over three years, nothing prompted them to show basic gratitude appreciation and public acknowledgement.

        I’v seen the same attitude in my central London CLP in that and other areas. Somehow writing HUNDREDS of policies about everything seems more important than turning up to vote for delegates to help implement the same policies. … Excitement about ever sophisticated talk and book reading and EVERY protest, yet never devoting the detailed analysis as to how we build membership, enthuse new members, focus on what people across the WHOLE country consider important.

        Thus we had excitement about every topic rather than concentrate as i posted here on not more than 7 areas in the campaign. Jeremy has been failed by his team. Basic things were ignored: eg are you audible in media interviews? Are you speaking as if you care in interviews? Is it convoluted? Does it have reiteration? Emphasis? Is it on the front foot? Some will scoff, but no matter the content if people are not drawn to listen to it then what’s the point???

        The idea of changing the leader without changing the psychology of the team and the attitude of CLPS would lead us in the same position. We win by constituencies not by the appealing to the out of touch preoccupations of the metropolitan lot. They would prioritise that a lifeboat be made out of sustainable materials and painted with Farrow & Ball, rather than be saved.

    2. Something I realised when campaigning in poorer areas of the country is that Brexiters don’t do politics. What they do is grab at straws and then cling like hell to them, any unforeseen consequences are not even considered. If you even dare to suggest they could be mistaken and that they were sold a pup by Farage, which could result in job losses and the sale of the NHS, the purple mist descends and you instantly become their enemy.

      1. Brexiters don’t do politics, eh? Is that why Johnson is now in Downing Street with a thumping majority? Because Brexiters don’t do politics? Is that why we now have a proto fascist running the country? Because Brexiters don’t do politics? Do we now face the prospect of Johnson’s Brexit rather than Corbyn’s Brexit because Brexiters don’t do politics?

        You deluded fool.

      2. I think you are right. Emotion is often more powerful than reason.

  5. Why is it that my previous comment dissappeared when I posted it?
    Seems to me there may be angorithmic filters labelling some of my comments as spam and banning them. I say this as this happens frequently with my comments on wordpress blogs. Probably cause I say things that they would deem ……. mention homelessness, DWP Despair and they get discarded every time…???

    1. Looby, there’s usually a delay between clicking “post comment” and it appearing on the page. The delay varies so I’d guess posts are moderated when the moderator has time.
      The delay is a relatively recent innovation 🙂

    2. looby
      Best advice is find nearest homeless charity and nearest Citizens Advice, your son needs two sets of specialists on his side, one for homelessness and the other for benefits,
      The system has been corrupted and is designed to damage you,
      With specialists behind you, appeals are successful and benefits backdated
      As you mentioned its how you survive in a hostile environment
      Specialists will organise one off grants to keep you afloat
      If your son cant work then look at volunteering to get him going, get him to use his experience helping others in a similar situation,
      It pulled me back from the edge over 20 years ago, havnt got a pot to piss in but I’m a relatively happy lad,
      After 3 years of volunteering I got a paid position, its precarious and I’m back to square one claiming UC,
      Only difference now is I know who to turn to if I need them,
      Never give in, things do change given time and the right support
      Regards to you and yours

    1. Theres none of that under UC. The law no longer states that you must have £12 a day to live. System now is charity picks up the pieces.

  6. You say “a handful of Left-wingers” contributed to the disaster, but it seems to me that there was scant “Left” resistance to the flip to the suicidal Second Referendum policy once Corbyn announced that he had switched sides.

    Here is a very good analysis of why Labour lost by Dr Lee Jones.

    https://www.thefullbrexit.com/why-labour-lost

    1. Take a bow Danny you and penny showed the way and we gave way like jeremy gave way for party unity… A bitter victory for ignoring the democratic vote … Your guess proved correct ,and now we need to be united in socialism

      1. Dear Mr Joseph OKEEFE,
        Danny and penny did not “guess”. It was obvious. The NEC loved appeasement of the same old same old liars like Hodge, Watson, Streeting Ashworth, Coyle to openly undermine, yet threw Chris Williamson under a bus. Then we had the myth of “bring the country back together” with “constructive ambiguity”. Is it back together now❓ Oh and plant how many trees, when there are homeless people NOW sleeping in woods, even in Surrey, Wiltshire, Gloustershire, Hampshire and more. 4.1 – 4.6 million children homeless. Thousands who have died within weeks of being deemed fit for work by a foreign owned company.
        Social Care. These things were mentioned now and again, but neither with the regularity, emphasis nor PASSION they deserve EVERY HOUR.

        That is human nature. If we cannot even understand basic human nature, then we better deal with that first. And if we feel people who take a different view and feel ignored and show their anger are stupid, then have a good long think.

      2. Sadly the prediction of a huge defeat for Labour arising directly from our Party’s huge smug middle class contempt for the pro Brexit beliefs of our Labour Heartlands, constantly explained by Danny, myself, and The Full Brexit site, was no ‘guess’ , Joseph , – but a statement of the bleeding obvious for anyone with a socialist analysis of the EU and the impact of its neoliberal straightjacket (and particularly its unlimited labour supply) on our poorer Labour heartland voters.

        The ‘Corbynite Left’ in our Party bears as much blame as the constantly divisive Right wing saboteurs for this historic defeat. As we have stated many times, the majority of the ‘Corbynite Left’ are not any kind of socialists – but just middle class, virtue signalling Left Liberals – utterly divorced from our former heartland working class support base, in personal privilege, and capitalism-accepting, theoretically barren, outlook.

        Tragically, there will be no rebuilding of the Corbynist dream as Skwawkbox hopes now. Jeremy will be gone in a week or so, and some Owen Smith style faker will be elected as a new Leader (Emily Thornberry ?) , who will take Labour back to its status quo-supporting centrist politics. But there will be no recovery from this defeat in our now lost forever heartlands. this is Labour’s terminal ‘PASOK moment’ of decline into long term irrelevance . The Labour Party is simply too internally corrupt, at both Parliamentary and local government levels , and lacking in a membership with serious socialist politics ever to be a successful vehicle for transformational Leftward societal change . Ralph Miliband was correct all those years ago . The now catastrophically failed ‘Corbyn insurgency’ must surely make this clear to anyone willing to face reality this morning.

        But then facing reality has been something the naive Left Liberals of Corbynism, particularly in the public schoolboy and girl run Momentum undemocratic shambles under its owner, Jon Lansman, have been signally incapable of doing , particularly with the membership’s overwhelming support at Conference for the suicidal , only thinly veiled, Remain and a Second Referendum policy adoption !

  7. Who convinced Corbyn to drop the stance of 2017. We need to stay strong and stay true to the working class roots of the Labour Party , continue to fight, sing the red flag and forget Momentum and left liberals. Where was John McDonnell? .We have lost a leader but we have been inspired

    Stand up and fight. remain forever true ye workers of today Together as one against the few .With clear heads
    go marching, our banners held high for no fools will take away are class desires. Stand together with all who are oppressed for their freedom is our freedom. Our fight will never cease our cause is right our cause is just. Stand up ye workers of today.

    1. mike mitchell 13/12/2019 at 5:47 am
      Who convinced Corbyn to drop the stance of 2017.

      The majority of the Labour Party’s membership.

      1. Yes, and combined with the shithousery of watson & starmer YOU allowed them to act like cunts and NEVER ONCE complained about the undemocratic way they got your 2nd ref remain option.

        Mind you, you thought 52>48. You told us that it was remainder types that fave us the NHS.

        Well that’s bollocks but I’ll tell you and your fucking I’m ecilic clique what’s NOT -And that is you remainder types can kiss goodbye to the NHS.

        Hope you’re all proud of yourselves.

    1. Yep, the PLP Labour Centrists have been sharpening the knives ever since September’s coup, the one that effectively removed JC’s control over the Party and direction it follows.

      And none of the buggers will take the blame for this disaster, quite the reverse, its all Corbyn’s fault, its always Corbyn’s fault, apart from the 2017 result, which they claim was down to their personal standings with the electorate.

      Expect a broad anti-Left Witchhunt, with many more expulsions and the PLP to demand that it, and it alone choses who leads the Party. The Centrists are very happy, the rest of us are weeping.

    2. You see the snap of Corbyn leaving HQ? He has a great wife, and she was there when he needed him.

      But its over. And it’s unfair to expect this man to continue, especially considering the onslaught he has faced. We, the people who believed in him owe him a gratitude for this.

      He has achieved a lot. He has mobilised the youth. But more importantly he has proven that the Labour experiment is dead. It’s the party of the new middle class (think America), unions and undesired lobbyists. The corruption is endemic and the canny Scots saw it sometime ago.

      We need a new party. A party that puts you and me, all of us, before corporations and personal opportunity. We can do it.

      But not under the Labour banner.

      (I voted out. Held my nose thinking of the NHS. Should have stayed home. Because now I’m guilty of helping Labour become US Democrats. Think Blairism on fast forward…)

  8. Skwawkbox talking nonsense again. We lost for one reason only – total lack of leadership on Brexit and A/S.

    1. Lack of leadership on AS but way out on brexit .We the leavers capitulated like jeremy for party unity and lost .Ignoring 17!million people proved suicidal.Some learn nothing?

    2. Fof absolute fuck’s sake, change the fucking record, you monumental ballache.

    3. Toffee, you don’t give a damn how many people will now lose their jobs. All you care about is getting your precious Brexit. Maybe it will now curtail your tantrums but I doubt it. When the British economy starts to tank because of Brexit and the Union splits, we’ll soon see who was right.

      1. ”We’ll soon see who was right” he’s got the brass neck to be claiming, FFS.

        Idiot refused to listen last time around so what happens from now on, is on YOU. For it was YOU did FUCK_ALL about watson & starmer’s shithousery to prevent the party respecting the ref result and drove the votes away as we’ve just witnessed.

        Oh, you cried loud & long enough about watson’s shithousery over antisemitism but that didn’t lose anywhere near as many votes as the exact same shithousery you let him commit to get you what you wanted.

        Duplicitous, spoilt little gobshite now wants to blame everyone else for his own failures.

        Not gonna work, knobhead. Everyone bar you & your crowd know who’s responsible for this shitshow.

      2. Jack T tell that to the people suffering now. Tell that to th millions who lost their work in industries since 1975. Tell that to the mother in the story below. PEOPLE ARE SUFFERING NOW – FACT. While you are SPECULATING that they will be worse if we leave the EU. S P E C U L A T I O N. Can you not see that? Very odd.
        How would you feel if you were ignored??? Try thinking of it that way.

        https://inews.co.uk/news/real-life/couple-penniless-baby-boy-potentially-fatal-illness-hospital-parking-food-1339922

      3. Toffee, touched a raw nerve there 🙂 resulting in another of your tirades of obnoxiousness.

      4. In fact, everyone, INCLUDING you & your crowd know who’s responsible, jack.

        You’re just too much of a band of disingenuous shithouses to own it.

        But,hey! 70% of 500,000 STILL can’t be wrong eh? Nevermind there’s an electorate of 45 MILLION or so… Menas piss-all.

        No, 16 million is STILL MORE THAN 17 million, isn’t it, div?

        48>52 isn’t it, jack?

        What next, you complete moron? 203 gives labour the inalienable right to govern?

        Jesus wept. As do many of the vulnerable in this country today.

      5. Signpost, none of what you describe is because of the EU but that was the message Farage promoted to demonise the EU and convince the less well informed to swallow it. He turned the focus away from successive right wing governments. Lexiters and the right wing media were complicit it reinforcing the lie.

      6. By Christ you’ve touched a raw nerve there, jack.

        Complaining of ‘foulmouthed obnoxiousness’…what a shitbag you are…

        What do you want me to do? Dance a merry fucking jig, you utter thundercunt?

        Away and top yerself. You’re already the cause of a future plethora of suicides in this country. But then again you’ve no shame and no scruples, so they’ll just be more statistics.

      7. Toffee and tantrums go together, hope it helps with your anger management problem.

      8. “Toffee, you don’t give a damn how many people will now lose their jobs. All you care about is getting your precious Brexit.”

        Let me fix this for you – all you and your ilk cared about was getting a second referendum, and betraying the first. Remain was more important to you than honouring a working class vote, despite the fact that you have the lack of self awareness to call yourself a member of a party that is meant to represent the working class above all. What we got, as a result, was Boris Johnson and Brexit. This one is on you, and history will record that. I’m amazed you have the gall to turn up here after this, let alone chide others for their supposed lack of concern for the misery you and your ilk have done so much to bring down on us. Go join the LIbDems, where you belong.

      9. And that’s the best you’ve got to offer jack?

        A beyond risible: ‘Ner-ner-ne-ner-ner, toffee’s wound uuuuup’?

        Answer this then, bright spark, ad if you can’t then you simpy must go away – never to return..

        If this 2nd ref with remain remain was the vote-winner you insisted it’d be, WHY is Corbyn further away from #10 than he EVER was – with even LESS seats than Foot’s ’83 campaign?

        Ok, let’s hear it, Einstein…

      10. Jack I ran a successful PLC and Like many others we do not actually know what will happen but the Torys with their agenda will make life unbearable for the working class A Labour negotiation would have been a winner.unfortunately the voters did not fall for the fence sitting to keep the party together.I a! guilty of this the same as our leader and for the same reasons.Party unity has took preference over democracy and we are guilty as charged.Now lie to your self,but that route only leads to self destruction and I have found that learning from mistakes can be very good for the long term.well being and your self esteem.Now regarding the union that split is enevitable and the right of any country be it Ireland or Scotland and good luck to them.!

      11. Oh! Tony Greenstein wrote about, it so it MUST be the Gospel truth. He’s ‘your type of jew’ though, isn’t, he jack?

        Fuck me, you’re as desperate as the other colossal gobshite known as rh.

        Go and tell it to every single one of those people who you were warned would vote against labour if they went with the 2nd ref remain option, and see how far you get.

        Some might be polite or kind enough as just to laugh at you.

        As for others…Well, if I WAS concerned about you, I’d fear for your health & safety.

        I suggest you get some sort of therapy for your unhealthy obsession to go against known facts and insisting on your pipe dreams as reality.

      12. “As for others…Well, if I WAS concerned about you, I’d fear for your health & safety”. Ah Toffee, that’s the nicest thing you’ve ever said to me. Yes, I know I’ve set the bar very low but I have to make allowances for your condition, Merry Christmas you old softy.

  9. The moment I heard Emily Thornberry declare Labour a ‘Remain’ party, I knew we’d lose. Refusing to honour the result of a referendum, having committed to honouring it, was an unmitigated disaster. Corbyn knew it, and resisted, but he was outgunned. Had the party followed his advice, this would have been a much closer call.

    I pity those who will suffer under Johnson, as the poorest and the most vulnerable amongst us – and they are legion – will need defending more than ever, and sadly, that faction of the PLP that never intended to defend them, and never has, has won. Calling all Brexiters racists will do as much for the left as Hillary Clinton’s demonisation of the working class as “a basket of deplorables” is currently accomplishing for the Democratic Party in the US. Trump will walk the next election, just as Remainers handed this one to Johnson. Attempting to deny this is pathetic. Johnson just won a majority on the back of Brexit. Go figure.

    1. Thornberry is another example of ALL that isxwrong with our party. An infestation of ARROGANT out of touch spinners = lawyers, who SAY – i heard her and Barry Gardner – “IT’s JUST A GAME”. Gardner said it on Question Time. Thornberry on LBC. On FARARARA’s prog she was her usual out of touch MSM chummy clown love me self. GUESS WHEN‼️ WHEN SHE WAS TALKING ABOUT TRIDENT‼️‼️‼️
      Thornberry must never, Never NEVER be even made deputy leader or given ANY front of house position.

      She scorns the working classes. He dad was a dep UN Sec General. Trust me another place PACKED with out of touch people. “Educated” but like the CHARITY SECTOR, they have COMPLETELY lost sight of for what they are paid TAX FREE SALARIES & BENEFITS. In their arrogant minds, they morph into believing they ate superior and worth the vast renumeration. Typical of that was David Miliband who was campaigning with Coyle in my constituency. I HEARD MILLIBAND say he is WORTH the £700,000+ salary for his New York “CHARITY” post. And it is only one of the gigs he’s paid for AND can find time to pause helping the poor to campaign for an admitted abusive MP.

      1. Thornberrys comments on the theft of Venezuelan gold by the BoE confirmed her as someone unfit to represent us

      2. i missed that re Venezuelan gold! Maybe my bandwidth is stretched. Would not normally forget something like that. Please post when u can. Thanks🌹🌹🌹

      3. THANKS Maria, my post are always meant to be short, but so much needs saying. Your link however makes my point EXACTLY‼️ Please spread it EVERYWHERE. repeat repeat repeat. It is one of True Labour failings. We leave a vacuum. Nature abhors a vacuum. Physical AND PSYCHOLOGICAL. Hence people phone the radio and say Jeremy is this or that. Even right wing presenters ask why. Callers reply with the lies they have heard repeatedly. It is naive and unprofessional for us to expect the busy electorate to absorb in a six week campaign, that which took many months to compile in a manifesto. Then say “read our manifesto”.

        When we leave a space, alternative DESTRUCTIVE people harming weeds, take root. Speaking of which, i mentioned the “PLANTING of TREES” policy. Jeremy unveiled, that one of NUMEROUS policies around the last week of the campaign in Southhampton, if memory serves me. Tree planting is great. My family LOVES trees and plants. Every visitor to my brother’s hone in the USA has to plant one as i did. He disappears for hours in his forest, then dashes away to the University where he is a senior professor, leaving a trail of equipment etc. So i love trees and have a little bit of knowledge from another brother and his wife who work in all international development re agriculture and yes TREES – Rwanda, Mozambique, Nepal etc. Mentioning this as one of the well staffed Jeckyl & Hyde bots who, claim that they don’t read my long posts, then extract every minute detail… even worrying about who is liking my posts… which they don’t read… go figure.

        So prioritising “trees” is indicative, emblematic, SYMBOLIC of EXACTLY what your post re THORNBERRY illustrates:

        ALOF, OUT of TOUCH, not giving a THORN about OUR TRADITIONAL LABOUR HEARTLANDS. NOTE well here how the well funded handlers / controllers of a certain few are ENRAGED at the mention of the obvious. They lose their crushed nuts and get so confused that they forgot their primary school lessons re symbols, metaphors, etc They have so many staff that they can carefully monitor everyone’s posts including the ones they can’t bother to read like mine. So many of them, they can’t remember what the last one said. An OUTSOURCED propaganda outfit. Think if it. Which other posters anywhere could monitor EVERY poster and react when anyone “steps out of line” even those whose “posts are not read”. Hay! BOT CONTROLLERS ! Leave your bots alone !!!

      4. Happened in January. Will take me a while to track down where I read it. Will post a link as soon as I find it.

      5. thanks NVLA, as it defines the central problem of the Starmer / Thornberry AMBITIOUS TICKS. They r all willing to sacrifice Jeremy and the party all for their base SELFISH same old same old AMBITION. What is incredible is that over so many years, Jeremy and the NEC failed to recognise that and deal with then. In my CLP it has taken one day, ONE day after the result, to the same members saying we should ignore the saboteurs. BLIND to the FAILED policy to calm an already hostile media. QUESTION: How has that worked❓

  10. Steve: thanks for your clarity. Absolutely correct. Keep Skwawkbox going!

  11. Brilliant post and summary of why we lost.
    Well done Steve / Skwawky .
    It was a worry to me when Corbyn was bullied and undermined by the PLP to put the remain option on the ballot .
    I hope the next leader will be far more ruthless with the PLP Torylite MPs , I hope we get at Conf this yr the mandatory reselection we desperately need, to begin the process of cleaning up this party once and for all.
    JC must stay on for a good period to help with this transition and that twat Paul Mason is even now on his blog agitating for a quick succession and no thought through process to get this right . He also is STILL unable and unwilling to acknowledge his part in the chorus of voices that pressured a good man ,JC , into making the fatal mistake of the remain option
    The killer simple analysis is so clear between the incredible result in 2017 and now 2019 and the ONLY thing that changed was JC was not permitted by the rightwing PLP to follow his correct judgement and forced to put the remain option on the ballot.
    Over the next few years will be the time to actively de-select those anti Labour MPs hiding in our ranks , the voters have to some extent already begun this process with Smeeth Flint Snell gone .
    We have so little power with the few MPs we have left that actually there is no reason to fear the loss more of those traitorous MPs , better to get the “pain ” over now .

  12. Labour voters dislike ‘Remain’. Many don’t like Jeremy. Policies weren’t that believable. We need to think about our NHS policy, if unquestioned ‘throw money at it and increase taxes’ is a vote winner why have we been thrashed at the ballot box? I know I’m questioning an article of faith like Galileo suggesting the sun may not go round the earth but we need a root and branch review.
    We need to be brave not retreat into the comforting sloganeering of the wine bar socialists.
    We cant be treating this as a minor setback caused by the Daily Telegraph etc having too much power.

    1. What NHS policy? There will be NO NHS in the very near future. Its gone, finished. Forget it. Remain sold that one out.

  13. Very good analysis. My main concern is media. All medias have been orchestrating to the one direction for the victory of Boris. Very sophisticated technic. From the top to the bottom, they all followed to destroy Corbyn. It was interesting that many people did not notice the media tactics some certain things which was so subtle and disguise many layers of lies and somehow made people blind. I am so sorry for Corbyn and people who supported him and myself. How much Corbyn endure the pressure from all nasty unfair people. They bombarded him. After all, Corbyn was right in many ways. Brixti is BrixitI. Simple is best. That is the democracy. If the media could follow what really Corbyn was saying about the Brexit, Jeremy might have won. But the media simply said that Corbyn was remain at the end of the campaign. I do not think Boris would ever invest anything to North. Boris has already sold NHS to US, so on. The person who leads the nation become the nation’s character. People follow because they think that the way the things work. Shame!!!! It was time that the things could change and should have changed.

    1. And just one more thing, just watch and see claims of labour anti-Semitism disappear overnight. Like magic! Suddenly theres no problem! All the papers will forget about it! Just like magic!

      1. It won’t disappear overnight; not while Corbyn’s still leader…But it will at a very steep gradient, (not) coincidental with Corbyn’s departure.

      2. Sorry but there is zero chance of vexatious claims of AS going away, like MSM and toilet papers
        You have 2 choices fight or flight
        We chose flight

  14. Like so many others here I am shocked, stunned and gutted at the GE result. Ahead of us lies years of privation, pain and suffering under Johnson. The Nightmare Before Christmas indeed.

    As I stated in an earlier post on “Skwawkbox”, I was DREADING the exit polls. My great fear was that the ‘Red Wall’ would collapse. I hoped and prayed that this fear would prove groundless. I am sad beyond measure to say that my apprehensions were amply justified. Labour have been routed and Corbyn destroyed, and with this we face the ruination of our hopes of a better, fairer and more secure future for millions.

    There is little doubt that, although the causes of Labour’s catastrophic defeat are multiple, the principal of these is the abandonment of the commitment to honour the 2016 referendum result to leave the EU. To his (and our) great detriment Corbyn allowed himself to be diverted from this to a fudge-and-mudge pledge to hold a second referendum. His inital commitment to honour 2016 was his key to 10 Downing Street, which the Torylites prevailed on him to throw away. Johnson, being the supreme opportunist that he is then picked it up, saying, “Thanks, a million, Mr. Corbyn, I’ll make good use of this!”

    I really liked Corbyn and his policies, and still do, but this was his fatal mistake. If Labour had continued to uphold the referendum result and said “Yes, and Labour in government will negotiate a superior deal that will safeguard the rights of workers, protect the environment and the NHS and ensure that trade with the EU continues much as before to protect the jobs of workers in both Britain and Europe”, then Corbyn would be Prime Minister this morning and we could look forward to a joyous Christmas instead of one full of grief and foreboding of the year and the decade to come.

    1. It wasn’t Corbyn’s fault, the remain MP’s in labour forced him to change his stance under threat of a vote of no confidence. Lose – lose situation. Now of course those same MP’s put all the blame on him, when it was their fault.
      Still, not all is lost. They will still get paid their MP’s salary and keep themselves in luxury.

  15. “REMAINERS ARE TO BLAME”

    … and so Sqwawkbox returns to its role as the irrelevant knitting circle for the Toytown left in a flurry of arse-covering self-justification.

    Grow up.

    The reasons behind this defeat are more than your pet delusions about the Brexit vote and the nature of the working class vote. Those voting for the Tories and those voting for Brexit are held together not by a class identity (the working class has been split, 50% voting Tory for some time).

    What links the impulses of Tory and Brexit voting is a lack of knowledge, a susceptibility to prejudice and propaganda – and age. The imminence of my mortality is softened by the knowledge of the number of Tory-voting gammons that will go at around the same time. No aware person (apart from those with a self-interest) would vote Tory on the basis of ‘getting Brexit done’; it’s a con for the gullible and unthinking.

    But beyond that pointless issue that Skwawkbox sucks like a comforter, and which is actually contradicted by polling evidence, there are a lot of factors behind the defeat.

    The foremost of these was the unpopularity of Corbyn. Sad, but true – and not essentially his fault. The campaign of the media and its lackeys worked – hardly surprising, given its intensity and massive resources. There is a link, of course – those voting Brexit will have got information from those sources that have rubbished Corbyn, and are gullible enough to believe it.

    Of course, the propaganda has been helped tremendously by its outriders in the PLP and the JLM and the general legacy of Blairism. But equating that to the Brexit issue is just f.ing dim.

    As an addendum – we actually kept Sheffield Hallam against the odds after the Jared O’Mara debacle. That was done by solid campaigning by overwhelmingly ‘Remain’ loyalists.

    Where the Party goes now is the question. Corbyn is right not to jump immediately, but there is a lot of thinking to be done about countering populism aimed at the gullible. A country that can support a serial liar, incompetent and philanderer as PM is in deep shit.

    Whether Skwawkbox is relevant or just an irrelevant fantasy lefty whinge-fest is an open question.

    1. Same question to jack goes to you…

      Answer this then, bright spark, ad if you can’t then you simply must go away – never to return. (And YOU really REALLY should, anyway)

      If this 2nd ref with remain remain was the vote-winner you insisted it’d be, WHY is Corbyn further away from #10 than he EVER was – with even LESS seats than Foot’s ’83 campaign?

      Ok, let’s hear it, Einstein…

      1. With LexiTory supporters like yourself confirming the MSM Tory propaganda message, it’s hardly surprising that it didn’t counteract the Corbyn rubbishing that went on. To be fair, I doubt that anything would have done.

        The hard fact is that damage was done early on when Labour policy initially just shadowed the Tories. But in the end, the dominant factor was the campaign against Corbyn specifically and Labour in general.

    2. Oh and RH turns up, forgetting in his whinge fest the fact that under Corbyn in 2017, and facing the same internal and external crap, Labour gained the largest increase in its vote share since the 1940’s. But hey, let’s forget the crap about Brexit, I mean no one was interested in it, which is why in my Constituency of Torfaen, the Brexit Party/Tory combined vote is far larger than the Labour vote, and this is repeated in multiple Labour Heartland seats, so, welcome to the London Centric. pro-EU, liberal progressive party that RH an his ilk aspire too – he forgets history, he forgets the Remainiacs betrayal of the working class – my peers voted and many voted not for Labour for the first time ever, most of whom voted Leave in 2016. But hey, lets just throw them all under a bus as they are racists and not concerned, thinking citizens who actually believe in upholding democratic outcomes, even this fucker.

      1. “my peers voted and many voted not for Labour”

        … out of the mouths of babes and sucklings. Let’s point the finger in the right direction – at the gullible saps (to put it at its kindest).

        As to throwing ‘under a bus’, I think the facts are that the dimwits did it all by themselves at the command of Boris.

        Obviously *not* a ‘Labour Heartland’ seat! Tory working class voters are simply Tories when push comes to shove.

    3. “… and so Sqwawkbox returns to its role as the irrelevant knitting circle for the Toytown left in a flurry of arse-covering self-justification.

      Grow up.”

      You miserable little creep. Firstly, if you have that much disdain for the site whose politics you choose to oppose every time you comment on it, why don’t you leave it? If it’s a knitting circle, you can fuck off, can’t you? Why would you want to join a knitting circle? What exactly are you doing here?

      Secondly, the only arse covering going on here is by you. A party committed to upholding the referendum won a big majority in an election all about Brexit. The party that succumbed to the utterly dishonourable drive to betray that referendum had its biggest defeat in decades. Those behind that drive are as thick as once, because what they got was Johnson’s Brexit, rather than Corbyn’s. How fucking stupid is that? So now all you’re left with is a pathetic and completely implausible attempt to convince us that betraying the Brexit vote didn’t lose us the election. It is perfectly obvious that you are either too stupid, or too dishonest to admit what is glaringly obvious to anyone assessing this result in good faith. I reckon it’s both.

      You’re a fool, and a supercilious one, regularly expressing a condescension that is entirely unwarranted. You can’t even work out that opposing Brexit was a loser, even after Johnson walked this election supporting it. That fucking thick.

      1. “Hi Dominic”

        Is that your best shot? I reckon it is.

  16. ‘As an addendum – we actually kept Sheffield Hallam against the odds after the Jared O’Mara debacle. That was done by solid campaigning by overwhelmingly ‘Remain’ loyalists.’

    Christ, but that’s piss-poor desperation Are we meat to all give that one a big Whoo-fucking-hoo, or summit?

    That’s like Hitler claiming to have won WWII after a meaningless initial success at the Battle of the Bulge.

    https://i.imgur.com/dX2lc6g.jpg

    1. You always were a bit slow, Toffee Knows. I was simply pointing out the bollocks of the Brexit Brigade’s ramblings about their fictional Brexit ‘working class’.

      1. Well I’ll be jiggered.

        A single seat held onto – all by the work of those loyal remainers. Nothing said about the 59 or however many LOST because of the likes of rh insisting on selling the electorate down the river with the genisl 2nd ref remain option.

        That did the world of good didn’t it, dicky?

        If I’m ‘slow’ you’re in fucking reverse, you gobshite.

        You got what you wanted, now fuck off and fill that ditch that the other imbecile left vacant for you.

      2. RH,

        Do you read actual voting results – would you care to comment on wales, where Labour lost 6 of its 28 seats due Remainiacs insisting the Brexit vote in Wales was null and void and all the electorate who voted leave, a clear majority by the way, were either stupid, racist, or NAZIS’s. Your love of Brussel’s gifted us the Clown, take ownership and stop whinging and blaming Leave Labour voters sticking two fingers up to Thornberry, Starmer and John McDonnell – all Labour Traitors in my book.

      3. I must say Toffee, you don’t half have a way with words. Well done Sir.

      4. “Your love of Brussel’s gifted us the Clown”

        No, Christopher. I voted for Labour.

        It was those who didn’t who endorsed the right – and Brexit : aka the Tory voters who you fawn over.

      5. “Well I’ll be jiggered”

        Wrong tense, Toffee. You are jiggered.

        Frantically defending Tory voters who dissed Corbyn isn’t a good look.

      6. Except I haven’t and do not defend them, bellend.

        You don’t even accept – most likely because you’re too fucking dense to get it – that you’re as responsible for their toerag votes as the voters themselves.

        You more or less forced them into making the choice by your watsonist shithousery.

        Although even he had the decency to get the fuck out of it. Why are you still here?

  17. Just an afterthought – previous elections took most or at least half of the next day to count up, and there were always a few hiccups along the way. Suddenly they seemed to know the outcome in the early hours of this morning. Doesn’t anybody else find that the least bit strange?

    1. It is also strange that the Tories apparently won by such a large margin.

      I have already written about the collapse of the ‘Red Wall’, however there were other countervailing forces such as the influx of many newly registered voters, most of them under 40, and therefore more likely to vote Labour than Tory, and the much-vaunted tactical voting. My feeling was that Johnson would head the largest party (although I was desperately hoping for a Labour dominated hung Parliament), and that he might have a small or modest majority. I was completely gobsmacked at 10.00 p.m. when the polls closed to hear that exit polls suggested a veritable landslide for Johnson.

      Many people, including Craig Murray, thought that the result would be close as reports were coming in to say that polls were predicting a reduced Tory lead. Additionally the London “Evening Standard”, edited by no less than George Osborne proclaimed on its front page on December 11th that Johnson had stated that the election “could not be tighter”.

      Somehow I smell the less than faint odour of a rat. Am I indulging in conspiratorial ravings to wonder about the reach of the transatlantic deep-state and its efforts to prevent a Corbyn-led Labour government in the UK?

      1. Oh for fucks sake SteveH, here we go with the bollocks again that Labour did not lose, that the anti-Tory vote is a clear majority, despite the fact that Swinson’s LibDems are fucking Tories in all but name, and a plethora of other excuses to deny the obvious that this was a Brexit Election and that Labour’s Brexit stance was suicidal in its heartlands – I have given links to the results in Wales and the vote tallies with how a constituency voted in 2016 and by what margin.

        Now, after Trump won the US Presidential election in late 2016 we had the Pink Pussy Demo’s and crap that Hilary won and that the Russian’s stole it. my God we’ve had the Russia crap here for the Brexit outcome, despite a clear majority in England and Wales electing to Leave the EU in 2016. And you know what, old fuckers who voted Leave did not die off in the numbers the Remianics dream’t of, whilst the Brexit Voting Working Class, a good percentage of which Voted Labour in 2019 punished the Party for effectively telling them again that it voted wrong in 2016.

        Until Remainiacs can accept facts within the Labour Party, its doomed to be just a fringe, protest Party that many of the poor will ignore given the Party ignores them and their less than popular social conservative streak, namely, we live by a ‘live and let live’ approach and don’t take kindly to being lectured to by those who think they know better – most of the time this is a turn off.

        I’ll leave it there chaps as it seems Remainiacs/centrists don’t learn electoral lessons, which regrettably will doom the Labour Party to that followed by its peers in most of Europe, namely electoral oblivion.

      2. christopher rogers – It is unlikely that our electoral system will ever change for the better is we don’t highlight the anomalies that FPTP produces.

  18. Looks like normal service has resumed, I
    I’ve learned a lot from this site and in last 3 weeks campaigning,
    Low light was ‘labour all my life but cant vote Corbyn’ asked who she voted for in 2017 answer was ‘Labour’
    Bottom line Brexit has divided the country, but now cheap and nasties have ownership of it, REJOICE
    I voted leave but have nothing in common with the shithouses who voted Tory yesterday, the first generation to pass who wont be missed,
    Neither do I have time for snowflake remainiac neverenders who knew exactly what they were doing at conference
    Finish with a practical challenge
    ‘Your a fucking anti semite and a racist ‘ ‘I’m sorry you feel that way’
    Hodge is still in the party
    Discuss

  19. ‘Ere rh, jack and the other one…

    Still reckon there’s appetite for remain? You know? Like you said you’d piss it if given another vote?

    Well then, why not go the whole fucking hog, add insult to injury and demand your 2nd referendum as labour party members now?

    Oh this isn’t me beating my chest over brexit; labour would NEVER had done as bad had they stuck to what they promised and respected the ref result . No, this is me lamenting the fact that the party allowed/allowing nuckfuggets like you to be part of it.

    The lib dim(s), and all the new MP’s they’ve got with their stance on brexit – is over there <<<<<

  20. It was Jeremy that dragged me into politics kicking and screaming, it was him that stopped me ending my life due to the hope he gave me and I clung onto that with every fibre of my being and began to fight back.

    I’m frightened & my heart is broken to have to admit that Jeremy has to go at some point. he has always treated everyone, even his foes, with humility and dignity, something the right wingers of the party have no idea how to do !

    It was because of his determination not to capitulate and to take, sometimes, a solo stance and fight. Time has shown him to be on the right side of history but for the life of me I will never understand why he caved in to allowing the 2nd referendum with remain on the ballot, it’s just not his style.

    I thought that maybe Laura Pidcock could pick up his mantle when he retired but she’s gone too now. We need a socialist that lives in the heart of the midlands or up north that won’t capitulate on important issues, who will stand up to the Blairites without fear or favour. Now Laura P has gone who is left that won’t be a sell out ?

    1. Foggy
      Spot on
      JC has moved the dial way to the left, created clear red water between us and them, there is no going back,
      There is a clear out to be had and we need the right woman for the job,
      Kari Murphy for me, be as ruthless as the Tories and engineer a by-election

    2. Foggy,

      Corbyn did not capitulate over the Party’s Brexit stance, rather there was a London-centric Palace Coup led by an unlikely alliance of Abbott & McDonnell on the Left, and the Remainiac Centrists on the Right. Effectively, from May 2019 onwards, JC had ceeded Brexit Policy to the London Remain Mob and they took over full control following the Conference Brexit Vote, which endorsed a Second Referendum effectively, and even this compromise was not enough for the Remainic Brigade as Emily Thornberry made quite clear in numerous TV studio interviews, we then had the crap of should the Party support a pre-Christmas Election, thus exhibiting fear at the prospect of taking on the Clown – to be blunt, most folk were sick and tired of the Brexit crap and just wanted it over and boy, by trying to rescind the 2016 Brexit outcome the Remainics gifted the Tories the election, based on the fact the PLP had utter contempt for working class Brexit voters, a contempt exhibited on these boards by our very own Remainics, who fail to take ownership for yesterday’s disaster – no doubt Starmer and Thornberry will be at the top of their lists as replacements for JC. How very sad is all i can say.

      1. ” we then had the crap of should the Party support a pre-Christmas Election”

        … which, since you raise it was always going to be a problem. It was obvious to anyone that this was the wrong time for Labour. It allowed Johnson to escape being pinned.

        Whether Labour could actually have avoided the trap is another matter. But – like Brexit – it was a Tory trap.

    3. Well Foggy,, JC ain’t gone yet and more so he will still be a Labour MP able to influence things in the background no doubt , so there is always hope . It is a blow that Laura P has been defeated but ,she too will remain a member and you can BET your bottom dollar she will be back if she so wishes it , again there is hope.
      Right now tho I feel we need to stick together and deal with the inevitable coup from the right wingers , it will be unpleasant and the press will have a field day .
      BUT not as much as we fear as their eyes will be on Johnson and his Brexit progress , which will be wall to wall. Thus I think we maybe left in relative peace to quietly get on with removing and neutralising the bastards in the PLP .

      1. How can we remove the buggers who actually caused this defeat from the PLP, I mean, they detest democracy and detest the members having a say on anything – just look what happened with Trigger Ballots, nothing, bloody nothing happened – the PLP is utterly disconnected from its electoral base, nevermind many of the desires of the membership – I really expect many further expulsions and a revocation of the Miliband Reforms, never mind the small reforms Corbyn enabled – they have what they wanted, Corbyn’s head on a plate and they won’t stop until we have a Tory Party MKII, one with a smile on its face as it stabs its electorate.

      2. christopher rogers 13/12/2019 at 1:06 pm
        How can we remove the buggers who actually caused this defeat from the PLP

        A very good start would be to persuade Len McCluskey to change his mind and support mandatory reselection using OMOV.

      3. Christopher & SteveH , I had assumed we had by now all agreed that Mandatory reselection was the way to go and that is my fault for not making it clear in my post…. my assumption sorry , indeed to me there is now no other way of us moving our party to a firm and solid socialist base other than by MR and OMOV.
        McClusky will indeed pay a price as his Union ( along with many others ) will now no doubt be subjected to even more draconian Tory regulation until it is totally broken but he will be handsomely pensioned off.
        Lansman is a different kettle of fish , Momentum is still I believe a force for good and has many good people in it , BUT Lansman Zionist approach and past decisions make him unfit to lead it , especially as he runs it like a private business ,with a appointed board of leaders and no democracy to speak of.
        Still we have 5 yrs to sort this out or worst still maybe 10 .But by then there will no longer be a NHS or much of a chance for us to Nationalise anything . I fear this was our last/best chance

      1. Maria
        So how do we get this party started,
        How do we get behind lads and lasses like Umaar and begin the clear out,
        That’s where folk who know how this party works eed to educate the rest of us,
        Can I suggest we address hiring and firing issues, those who refuse to do the day job and bring the party into disrepute should be out,
        Selections need a national as well as a local resolution, if it was good enough for Blairites
        Cummings glove puppet had every MP signed up and on message,
        PLP members are highly paid employees of the party, subject to the same employment law as the rest of us,
        When any of them think normal rules dont apply, get them out
        Finally what is the answer to those who leave party mid term
        Regards

      2. I think like minded Socialists need to get together and begin to identify unifying messages based on local community and working class concerns.

        I make no secret I am a political novice but I don’t think energy should be squandered on trying to ‘clear out’ the PLP and LP at this stage. I think building needs to come from the ground up and LP will respond, or not, to pressure from below. Trying to make change via party system hasn’t worked so a new approach is needed based on real life issues people face in their daily lives.

      3. Critical Path Analysis
        Quickest way to get us from here to GE victory
        Clear out is essential we need unity now
        One discussion to start as you suggest is what was should be in manifesto
        Call Cummings glove puppet bluff Social Care, tie it in with NHS funding triple lock (thanks to Jimmy Carr for that suggestion on Channel 4 last night)
        UC is not broken it is simply in the wrong hands, dont go anywhere near Universal Income
        Free Broadband should have had a basic charge like University fees, theres nowt for nowt
        WASPI £58 billion should have been means tested,
        Never understood why manifesto comes out at GE,
        Start the process now and have it ready at next conference, then campaign on it ad nauseum through to GE

      4. Maria,

        Sorry to rain on your parade, but let me wind the clock back to just after the 2015 Electoral defeat, when Ms Harman replaced Miliband as interim leader and failed comprehensively to oppose Cameron’s Social Welfare cuts – those very same neoliberal, austerity loving member who enabled this crap are still very much the majority within the PLP, the so called Centrist, Moderates, or Red Tories. And it is these same folk, Remainiacs more or less to a man/woman who could not accept the 2016 Brexit result, indeed, after the 2017 Election shock, they strove to ensure Labour became a Remain party, and guess what, we lost more than 20% of our seats yesterday, the majority in Leave voting areas – now, we tried to get Open Selection, we tried Trigger Ballots, but the bastards still inhabit our benches, and they do so because of the hard work the rank and file put in, a rank and file they detest, nevermind how much they detested the core Labour Traditional Voter who did not share their uber identity politics, so, we lost, we lost heavily and many of those who contributed to said loss remain in place – they won’t starve, they won’t struggle to pay bills and they won’t change there spots, despite the fact the Nation has no desire whatsoever to embrace centrism, as yesterday’s results also underscore. But, mark my word’s, Labour will soon be returned to a centrist party, with a sensible leader who’ll no doubt gift us a result similar to yesterdays, see Ed Miliband’s 2015 result and compare with JC’s 2017 results – Centrists/Moderates have destroyed the Party and brought us the Party’s disaster of a Brexit Policy.

      5. Christopher Rogers,
        You rain on my so called parade all you want. I don’t have the LP knowledge or political experience you have but I am saying the resistance to this far right Tory regime and support and campaigns for people suffering isn’t through the Labour Party. Even many Labour councils have drunk the ‘privatise the world’ kool aid.
        I think you are right it will return to a full on ‘centrist’ (led) party, that’s why I don’t think it’s worth the effort trying to fight that.

      6. Well Maria, its glad you are becoming acutely politically aware, that’s the first step, and, its best to understand the composition of the PLP, which is at odds with that of the membership, its also necessary to accept we need more working class folks in our ranks and the PLP, then we won’t make mistakes like the PLP forced on Corbyn this year – it was without doubt electoral suicide.

        Without doubt we’ve lost some decent MPs, as such, regrettably the Party is more centrist today than it was on Wednesday, hence we need to democratise, and how can we benefit/democratise society, if we cannot democratise ourselves, so this means Open Selection and OMOV being used to formulate Party policy, even if sometimes the bulk of the membership gets it wrong.

        As for the new, very Rightwing ERG Tory Party, well they own Brexit now, as they always did, so, if they fail to get the job done quickly, or the economic impact is so severe as to cause a deep recession, they can kiss goodbye to any further extension in power – ultimately the LPs job is to opposed the Tories every step of the way and demonstrate to all UK citizens that it stands for social justice and fair play, and that also means honouring Election results however much we may disagree with outcomes.

    1. Just view the clip and its excellent and says it all , well done Maria for pointing it out. I wish we could have had something similar from the front bench to stop or reduce the panic and also uplift some of the morale of folks .

  21. I see that Hodge is already screaming for JC to resign immediately , so the WAR starts , surprised it took this long

  22. I can remember!bet in 68 on a civil rights march being ambushed by a bunch of RUC, BSpecials and paisleys Orange men..They attacked with trucheons,pick axe handles and beer bottles ..Were beaten badly and I managed to crawl away with a broken leg and a fractured jaw..I was asked after by Bernadette Devlin whilst recovering was I up for it again I don’t know what she thought of my writting but I wrote course I am because if we don’t now we never will..and they can’t do this to us and win..My jaw never healed pretty but my legs are okay.We will win again and the Labour party will require surgery.But like all movements we had to get rid of collaboraters and informers ..We have time to pick ourselves up and learn from our mistakes and carry on,because if we don’t do it now we never will Admit our mistakes and pick the right people.The kinder gentler politics have gone.

  23. Peddling a simplistic notion that this is all the fault of remainers is no more intelligent or accurate than others blaming it all on Momentum The idea that the remain campaign in Labour was a right wing plot to get rid of Corbynism – that is for the birds. You need to take a look at the facts instead of dwelling in fantasy land.

      1. No it’s not, RH , you are dead wrong on this , I can testify from my door step experience in Normanton and Bolsover that the vast majority of door step conversations I had were “I don’t trust Corbyn to do Brexit ” they “Hate “Johnson but he says he’ll do it .FFS even young mothers and families on the door step were of the same opinion and I thought they’d be a dead cert to vote Labour !
        I could have sold the party line no problem if we had maintained JC’s original decision in 2017 to support the Referendum and do a Lexit ,much as you and your colleagues detest that idea , I can tell you from bitter experience that if I had said Labour will do Brexit but our version not a Tory bastards version , it would be JOB DONE and they’d have voted for us .
        Now do give over , we lost massively , the evidence is clear and the only difference between 2017 and 2019 was the remain option . If we want Corbyns legacy and improvements to the party to survive the oncoming tsunami of rightwing PLP purges then we have to unite and stand firm ,
        AND that is a voice or many voices from the REAL WORLD of Bolsover !

    1. I suggest you look at the actual votes in 40 seats in wales, there you’ll find all the facts you need, particularly in once Labour held Leave seats – my own Constituency is now a marginal, that’s a seat that’s been labour since the 1920s – the Brexit party/Tory party vote exceeds all other Party votes – but of course Brexit played no part in this, which i’m afraid to say the 2017 results undermine such a narrative. Still, ignore the elephant in the room, the PLP Remainiacs certainly did, which is why there are far few today i’m afraid.

      1. Completely agree. My CLP was Labour marginal, Labour held for 100 years. Went to the Tories last night. The Tories ffs !!

        I was watching the results come in on Sky news, each time a Labour heartlands result was due in it had ‘voted leave’ at the top of the screen, we lost them ! Even Caroline Flints constituency and she tried to uphold the decision of her constituents that voted overwhelmingly to leave.

        For me, it’s too undeniable why and where our votes went.

      2. “it’s too undeniable why and where our votes went.”

        Relatively few went to the Tories – probably Leavers. A larger chunk (about half) stayed with the LibDems – probably Remainers, and a chunk of Corbyn hating obsessives,couldn’t-give-a-tossers and the rain averse stayed at home. A net drop of about 8%

    2. I think it is hard to rule out change of LP Brexit policy between 2017 (respect the EURef result) and 2019 to full EURef 2 as a big factor in this crushing defeat.

  24. Lexitories and Blairites together : peddling Tory policies and voting Tory encourages a Tory victory. Now there’s a surprise!

  25. One factual note for Brexit ‘Leave’ obsessives : the key missing vote share was that retained by the LibDems : Labour never regained all the ‘Remain’ votes lost to them from the period spent shadowing the Tories. These outweighed any gift given to the Tories.

    1. RH out does himself, now he claiming that the LP did not gain votes from the LibDem’s, despite the LibDem vote collapsing, we are now told Remainiacs voting for LibDems were greater in number than Labour traditional Working Class voters turning their backs on the Party. Tell you what RH, do go through the Result’s in wales and then explain your bunkum to me again: https://www.bbc.com/news/election/2019/results/wales

      1. As usual, Christopher, you see what you see through one eye.

        I didn’t claim that Labour had claimed back no votes from the LibDems – but that they left them with a significant number. The figures are there.

        Leave voters were always outnumbered by Remainers in the Labour support, and backing Leave unequivocally would have certainly done more damage. The hesitation did enough. Labour ‘Leave’ voters will have had some impact, but not as much as the continuing loss of Remain votes.

        The Labour ‘core’ vote being for ‘Leave’ was always a myth. The main problem was the perceived unpopularity of Corbyn – which led to people not voting, more than voting Tory (the Tory share of the vote didn’t increase by much).

        One basic fact you got wrong : the LibDem vote share *increased*, even though they lost seats. Which is what I’m highlighting.

      2. ‘Leave voters were always outnumbered by Remainers in the Labour support’

        Nope. Try again, numbnuts.

        Support is NOT exclusively the membership. And if you’re representative of the membership, then thank fuck I got out 20-odd years ago.

        The leave voters turned away in droves because of the wnetminster bubble remain clique which refused to even consider a compromise but instead bullied, coerced and cajoled their way to getting a 2nd ref with remain option. Just like was forecast. Time & time & time again.

        Antisemitism alone wasn’t cutting it to get rid of Corbyn, but you’ll still try to blame his alleged ‘unpopularity’ – That you gave the public the perception of by your unwavering, uncritical support to make him look weak by not criticising watson & starmer in any way, shape, nor form for their shithousery.

        YOU gave the leave voters the reason to abandon the party. You don’t take the ball away and then blame the other kids for getting a game in the next street.

        But it was all in your plan. You’re not of the left rh; your overt dismissal of the working classes rpeated as nauseam on here has proved it beyond doubt. You’re naught but a watsonist shithouse. May you suffer first and the longest once the NHS is gone forever.

      3. Have you turned into Paul Mason RH by anychance, and hate to break it to you, but if you can’t turn votes into seats then voting LibDem was a waste of time, and, we all know there is only one Party that benefits from tactical voting, namely the FibDems, so, where were the legions of Remain Tories sickened by the ERG Tories who would vote Labour due to its Brexit stance – not in wales, not in the North East, not in the North West and not in the Midland’s, still, we picked a few votes up in London, how great, and lost a legion elsewhere – God help us if strategists like you conducted our military actions during WWII, for the fact is, we’d all speak bloody German now.

      4. It’s not surprising that you haven’t a clue, if you don’t even grasp the basics of the attitudes amongst Labour support – solidly in favour of Remain in all classes. I said ‘support’ not ‘membership’. Do try to keep up whilst reaching for the next sweary bit of drivel that you mistake for the ‘working class’ authenticity you pretend to.

        As to Corbyn as an issue – you have to be pretty dim not to understand how that media campaign (of which antisemitism was only part) was viciously effective.

        The rest of you’re fantasy drivel, I’ll leave.

        “thank fuck I got out 20-odd years ago”

        Thanks for that clarification. We’d noticed – in more than one sense.

    2. ‘One factual note for Brexit ‘Leave’ obsessives : the key missing vote share was that retained by the LibDems : Labour never regained all the ‘Remain’ votes lost to them from the period spent shadowing the Tories. These outweighed any gift given to the Tories.’

      Yes folks, after the toerags gained 47 seats, rh STILL posts this sort of HORSESHIT as FACT.

      What an utter fucking abortion your mindset is, rh. why, WHY are you still posting on here? Even the toerags know and are grateful for your efforts but STILL you persist.

      They’re NOT giving you a knighthood so just go away and stop making a total toby young of yourself.

      1. Keep throwing rattles out of your pram – the facts won’t change, little sweary one.

    1. Let’s hope Labour remainers learn from their mistakes: never betray a commitment to honour a referendum; it’s political suicide. They were warned often enough. The size of the majority compared with the 2017 election confirms that this is exactly what happened. They lost this election for us.

      They won’t, of course, because to them the working class is invisible, even when it routs them in an election. They’re “fictional”. And having decided that 17+ million people were all racists, “a basket of deplorables”, they can continue to ignore them and their increasing economic marginalisation. As with Trump in the US, the only beneficiary of this stupidity is the far right.

      Fools or knaves; one or the other, often both.

  26. David Lammy has just thrown his hat into the ring for the party leadership. BBC R5L at c15:42

  27. David Lammy has just thrown his hat into the ring for the party leadership.

    Oh, well that’s just effing terriffic!

    Silly season’s started then. 🙄

  28. An interesting observation from Prof John Curtice.
    The majority of the votes in the GE were cast for Remain Parties

    Votes for Remain parties: 52%
    Votes for Leave parties: 48%.

    1. You could win a referendum with percentages like that.

      By the way, Johnson just won the election with a 68 seat majority.

    2. You sound exactly like a Hillary Clinton loser whining that she won the popular vote.

      1. I’ll point out a fact, you cunt, Johnson just won the election with a large majority. That’s a tad more significant than your nit picking attempt to rescue some credibility for yourselves by whining about an irrelevant statistic. 52% v. 48%, eh? Speaking of dreams, what kind of a nightmare leads you to consider that a victory. Loser.

    3. I guess you’ll both just have to hang around until Stephen Kinnock rescues the party for you and you can finally breathe a sigh of relief.

  29. We had the advantage with social media, the number of activists and the youth but the politics were wrong.
    If we had respected the Leave result we would have had a landslide!

    1. I am afraid we lost because of an alliance between Right Wing Labour Remainers and Left middle class progressive Remainers (good socialist hearts but lacking in socialist analysis) who voted people like me down when we said with 400 Leave constituencies and 200 Remain not to respect the Leave Result was electoral suicide!
      John Penny ex Philosopher King of Left Unity was always right in his analysis but sadly he always leaves us undefended by not suggesting what need to do.
      Millions of the poorest citizens which soon will increase need Labour & unions to fight alongside them now more than ever.
      But another reality exists with the economy. With QE the Tories as elsewhere have spent billions (£435b since 2010) on QE which is only keeping the economy static as Streekt argues “To buy the rich and powerful time, because they haven’t s clue what to do.”
      But left wing democratic socialists do.
      We now need to elect a Left Wing Democratic Socialist Prize Fighter and with then get in working class communities! Solidarity!

    2. ‘Have yourself a Merry Little Christmas.
      4 million kids without.
      Homelessness it is increasing.
      As you fill your snout.
      Some day soon.
      It all will be over.
      We won’t let the rich deny.
      And with a socialist analysis.
      We will win I vow.
      So have yourself a Merry Little Christmas now.’

    1. Another desperate attempt to rescue your credibility. Not even Jonathan Cook can do that. Good article though.

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