Labour Together ‘general election review’ is best avoided by Labour’s left majority
Labour Together and LabourList have launched a ‘cross-factional review’ of the general election result that they say will be ‘independent, and… made up of people who believe that Labour will only be successful if it moves past factionalism’.
However, Labour Together was created after Jeremy Corbyn’s election as Labour leader, as a means of bringing together New Labour and Blue Labour – Blairites and the ‘conservative’ Labour right.
More recently – just in June of this year – Labour Together said that the party had to move beyond the ‘politics of hate’ and ‘faction and personality’, in what was seen as a clear attack on Jeremy Corbyn and his supporters.
Labour Together is also a limited company registered at Companies House. Lisa Nandy, one of the MPs said to have hopes of the Labour leadership, is a director – as is Trevor Chinn, one of Tom Watson’s main donors.
Labour members should steer clear.
The SKWAWKBOX needs your support. This blog is provided free of charge but depends on the generosity of its readers to be viable. If you can afford to, please click here to arrange a one-off or modest monthly donation via PayPal or here for a monthly donation via GoCardless. Thanks for your solidarity so this blog can keep bringing you information the Establishment would prefer you not to know about.
If you wish to reblog this post for non-commercial use, you are welcome to do so – see here for more.
This just makes it obvious to me that the concept of a broad church needs to be shed. Lets leave the church on the village green.We need to go back to labour values and promote these.
And as a builder once reminded me, if your church gets too broad, the roof falls in. Quite.
… and if the foundations are sand, it will never get built.
There are limits to the width of any church (and I don’t give a flying one about this latest limited company), but if anyone thinks that a narrow sectarianism is going to garner support – particularly after the last debacle, they are truly in a La La Land.where the Labour Party will have no relevance – not even in Tooting.
and meanwhile another organisation within Labour attempts to virtue signal the fact that they made a significant contribution to us losing the GE.
Read the full article and then decide whether you think this organisation should remain affiliated to the Labour Party.
For the first time in our 99-year history of affiliation to the party, the Jewish Labour Movement effectively downed tools for this election, campaigning only for exceptional candidates – the truest of our allies in the fight against Labour’s antisemitism. Our members had decided, months ago, what last week’s election confirmed the majority of voters believe too: that Jeremy Corbyn was unfit to lead our party or the country.
https://labourlist.org/2019/12/jlm-we-stayed-and-fought-now-its-time-to-fight-some-more/
‘Affiliated’ doesn’t even begin to describe the influence the JLM have over the Labour Party. Make no mistake, the JLM have massive control and should be banned from membership. Zionism is incompatible with Socialism.
Calling the Labour party “our party” would suggest so!
To what extent is JLM responsible for promoting accusations of anti-Semitism against Jeremy Corbyn & the Labour Party? Who co-ordinated accusations for the EHRC?
I really do feel that any group who down tools and refuse to campaign for all our candidates should not be affiliated to our party.
Agreed. Perhaps one useful thing achieved by this election is to clearly prove that the JLM has no place in the Party, since it is in reality affiliated to the Tories, and supports principles antagonistic to the anti-racism of the Party.
Certainly any ‘broadness’ of the church doesn’t include this.
Any MP having affiliation to this ‘other Party’ should be automatically excluded from standing for the leadership.
Thanks for the info.
Interesting that those who shout loudest for a ‘broad church’ are the ones who least want one.
Any ‘church’ large enough to host the Blair Mourners is too big for me too.
Indeed. The dishonesty of this position lies in the myth, by implication, this is about a broad church of politics when in reality we are faced with something entirely different and impossible to a niece and maintain – a broad church of values.
Comfortable in the wilderness without any power and support, are you?
Wolfie would be proud.
I prefer the wilderness to enabling tories any day of the week. But I don’t expect you to even understand that.
I’m making the point that wilderness of narrow sectarianism *is* enabling the Tories. Can you understand that?
You are, of course, entitled to your opinions. But as a Labour Party supporter, I have to confess a complete lack of interest in the opinions of tory enablers.
Prof Richard Murphy has published an interesting and thought provoking article.
https://www.taxresearch.org.uk/Blog/2019/12/27/what-the-election-proved-is-that-we-need-a-new-politics-that-reflects-reality/
SteveH
The article is considered but the responses are more enlightening,
The author then appears out of his depth when confronted by experts on the ground
To sum it up BP was not originally a public company, did not know any of that and China is not a socialist country
From our perspective on here what would our manifesto commitments for a National investment bank and the regional banks have achieved, a hell of a lot in my opinion
And what legal form would the nationalised industries have taken, which is critical for investment and control,
I liked the article, I loved the comments
Thanks for that one – the strangling of political language by polar opposites has for some time been a herald of the present disaster. Poverty of language is always a symptom of poverty of thinking and detachment from reality.
As Murphy highlights, ‘socialism’ has largely become simply a tribal knee-jerk playground chant – like the terms ‘working class’ and ‘elite’ (just for instance). The lack of real meaning has allowed the absolute corruption of language and meaning by the tribes of Johnson and Trump across the western world.
… which is the irony – the corrupted language is all of a piece with what has happened in the media.
Come back George – all is forgiven.
He started ok, but then he dismissed socialism with a sweeping lie, and it was clear he hasn’t a clue. So I have up. Soz.
I was under the impression that the Labour party supported a well regulated mixed market economy, don’t you?
He doesn’t dismiss the concepts that inform socialism – just the corruption of language that pretends the term is half of a simple duality.
I always keep in mind that both Hitler and Stalin were able to use the word ‘socialism’ – and keep a straight face. Such is impoverished terminology.
“In politics it appears that you have to be for capitalism, and against socialism, or vice versa. This is the virility test that current debate imposes. But it’s a false test: neither of these organisational forms meets the needs of a real society. Neither even actually exists. The state, state owned enterprise, and state driven activity for the benefit of all all need to co-exist in a modern society with well regulated markets where the rules of proper behaviour are enforced to create a level playing field for all participants. Believing in both is not inappropriate: it is required, and yet it is alien to much of our current political discourse.”
– pure and utter tripe. Simplistic; even childish.
Sure you can believe in both, but to say it’s ‘required’ reveals his agenda from the start.
WE socialists ‘live’ with a mixed economy, because we are realists and don’t live in isolation from everyone else. But we have a vision, and to assert that our vision is invalid is pure tory. So deep in the closet, he doesn’t even realise.
heenan73 – Is that really the best you could manage. On the one hand we have your ‘vision’ which you yourself acknowledge is unrealistic and on the other we have an internationally recognised economist and tax expert who has presented a pragmatic, cogent and reasoned argument to which your ‘impressive’ reply is “pure and utter tripe. Simplistic; even childish.”. I guess people will have to make there own minds up about who is being childish.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/sep/22/richard-murphy-corbynomics-tax-social-housing-britain
Can Corbynomics guru Richard Murphy fix Britain?
The Joy of Tax author thinks we should clobber tax avoiders and pump money into social housing rather than the banks. Does this wonkish former accountant have the masterplan to reshape the country?
A pragmatic, cogent and reasoned argument that assumes its conclusions before it starts. And you fell for it.Do grow up.
heenan73 – Yet more of the same 🥱, are you incapable of putting together a convincing argument. As I said above I’ll leave it to others to consider the facts and decide for themselves who is being childish.
‘Useless Ed, political lightweight.
Couldn’t communicate.
Surrounded by political morons.
Disastrous BBC QT performance.
Duly sealed our fate.
But here’s the rub for Right Wingers.
Which crushes the political ignorants fears.
Whist his arrogant elite wouldn’t listen.
The Left didn’t criticise him ONCE in public in three years!
Fast forward to Mr Corbyn.
In 2015 they were doing fine.
But Right Labour Barbarians slagging him off in public for over a year.
Stopped us getting over the line.
And since AS “It has traction” and.
Remainers demanded their way must be.
The Right Wing of Labour political morons.
Snatched DEFEAT FROM THE JAWS OF VICTORY!
I am a mild and peaceful socialist.
And this is written on this page.
So Right Wing political morons.
Feck off and join an allotment.
It’s time for the political big boys and girls to take the stage!’
What you got against allotments?
Lavery and Butler sounds refreshing.
JC did his best.
No Jeremy Corbyn IS the best. He never stood a chance with the entire weight of the establishment, the PLP, the MSM and the Tory propaganda machine ( commonly known as the BBC) lined up against him. He can hold his head up high. Those who viciously abused him should hang their heads in shame. They are not fit to lick his boots . We know that and they know that and if they forget in future we, the members, will remind them.
If they were capable of experiencing/feeling shame Smartboy they wouldn’t have been capable of conspiring in the black op smear campaign(s) against Jeremy and the left.
Psychopaths/sociopaths are completely devoid of empathy and a conscience, and all the lies and falsehoods and machinations and the deceit/deceiving (of millions of people) are an endless source of amusement to them.
Yes you are right – these people are without decency or conscience.
The behaviour of some of them has been absolutely vile.
No, smartboy. There is no such thing as ‘The Best’. That’s idolatry, and Corbyn, much as I admire him, has his weaknesses.
You’re right that the campaign directed against him was of a savagery almost unprecedented in living memory, and I have the utmost respect for his resilience under that pressure.
But he isn’t the ideal leader. He is a brave accidental leader, with flaws.
RH 28/12/2019 at 4:24 pm
Have you read Tom Watson’s interview in this morning’s Guardian. TW certainly isn’t my favourite person and although iIt’s a fairly long read I think it is a worthwhile one particularly for his perspective on the various actors that were exercising power behind the throne.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2019/dec/28/tom-watson-was-i-disloyal-i-dont-take-kindly-to-being-told-what-to-do
Steve – I can’t warm to Watson’s transparent self-justification. He definitely didn’t do proper service as a Deputy Leader, and has an ego as large as his old self.
That said, there is a need with the election out of the way to address the organisational failings of the Corbyn era. Idealism is no substitute for competence (particulalry if th idealism goes no further than sloganizing), and the denial of the need for both that and a broad base of support is simply a mark of irrelevance to the future of the Labour Party.
Both the ersatz-Tory right and the Tooting left are equally irrelevant in that sense to a thriving, combatitive Labour Party faced with a dominant Tory hegemony backed by a viscious propaganda machine.
FFS – this site is still wasting time and effort promoting the Tory policy of Brexit instead of addressing the real causes of defeat, whist banging on about a totally illusional concept of ‘THE working class’ v. ‘THE middle class’. You can’t get more irrelevant than that! Marxism as decorative ducks on the wall.
No socialist Labour leader can survive the PLP and the parasite affiliated groups of the Zionist and right-wing collaberators.Nows the time for a clear out. .We will still have a massive loyal membership but a reduced PLP..We can rebuild the Labour party under a true socialist banner.
I have no idea what the complexion of the Labour Party is – ie how many of the 203 MPs we now have are moderates, so-called, and how many are socialists who would fully support a Jeremy Corbyn Mk 2 – but how many MPs approximately do you envisage need to be ‘cleared out’ Joseph? 20, 30, 50? More perhaps?
Did it really take you TWO hours to come up with THAT one Jack! and I see the ‘Likes’ are being manipulated again!! As always!
PS In case anyone missed it, on Christmas day RH wished everyone happy Winter Solstice, and I posted a response, as such, pointing out that the Winter solstice was on the 21st, four days earlier, and then RH responded saying I was being pedantic. Yep, so now pointing out someone’s mistake and correcting it is being pedantic! And JACK thought he’d get on the bandwagon! I mean it’s so infantile it’s pathetic!!
Allan Howard “Today I dare to struggle” tomorrow I dare to win
Was that in response to my 6.31pm post Joseph? If so, you forgot to mention how many MPs you have in mind. And when you say NOW, do you literally mean NOW, so soon after a GE?
Allan – In your rush to state the bleeding obvious you appear to have overlooked one important factor. Removing the Labour whip from a significant number of MPs would starve the Labour Party of funds. We are already having to make staff redundant because of the reduction in funds due to losing so many seats.
Allan 6.31.
Of ejection, if JC had sacked 20, pour encourager les autres, he might have later had to sack a few more, but not many.
Now, I’m not at all sure. Many retired, but on the other hand, there’s a few new ones who filled in the wrong application form by mistake.
Not a new problem, of course, but one that Labour had never got to grips with. You’ll never have real change without party discipline. Real discipline. The tories never have a problem with that.
heenan73 28/12/2019 at 1:25 pm
“Real discipline. The Tories never have a problem with that.”
I doubt that either May or Cameron would agree with you.
You’re right, I should have been clearer. “core tories”; your Thatcher, your Johnson are vicious when the need arises. “One nation tories”, from Major to May don’t have it so easy.
Of course Johnson is currently mouthing the One Nation BS, but no-one believes that shite from him.
Who do you suspect is behind the “Likes … being manipulated again” Allan?
“Manipulated” by just one person (Skwawkbox) or is it a conspiracy?
I assume it works in one or both of two ways:
1. most people agree with you but their ‘likes’ for your comments are being blocked.
2. most people agree with you but others are trying to diminish your arguments by conspiring to ‘like’ those who disagree with you.
To be ‘manipulation’ the perpetrators must be doing it for reasons other than simply agreeing with those other comments and not yours.
Joseph, I would suggest that any member of the PLP or staff who supported the suspension of Chris Williamson, a model Socialist, should be looked upon as candidates for the clear out. This includes ALL of the JLM.
In this case JackT I wholeheartedly agree with you . How to do it is another question . We do have tho 5 yrs to make a start
Well, you could hardly ‘clear out’ PART of, or SOME of the JLM could you Jack! As for those who supported the suspension of Chris Williamson, well we know of a few MPs who did so, and we know because they did so publicly, but how would one determine who did so privately, so to speak, whether an MP or member of staff. I mean do you include Jennie Formby, as such?
As for the JLM, the reality is that they wouldn’t suddenly vanish into the ether if they were disaffiliated, or close up shop, and would continue to be a party to any A/S smear campaign, and nothing much would change (and No, I’m not saying they SHOULDN’T be disaffiliated, only that they will continue to smear and damage the left anyway if and when needs be).
“I see that IDS has got a knighthood”
What did Herod get?
The following article doesn’t actually contain any NEW information, as such, but is an over-view of the forces that have been ranged against Jeremy (and the left) from the outset (a tweet on the right-hand side of this page was high-lighting it):
Study Reveals How UK Intelligence Works With Media To Smear Jeremy Corbyn
https://www.mintpressnews.com/new-study-reveals-uk-intelligence-smear-campaign-against-jeremy-corbyn/263231/
These low lives are buoyed up by their recent victory of course.The victory being helping to prevent a Labour victory in the election.They have to be removed along with all who aided and abetted their campaign of lies and intimidation.
I am going to give this lot a try:
https://www.left2030.org
Their outline agenda is encouraging. Let’s see.
A way forward here by my favourite economist Bill Mitchell – worth a read = it is a six point plan for Labour. http://bilbo.economicoutlook.net/blog/?p=43876
I don’t think a guy who hasn’t managed to disentangle the concept of correlation from that of causation has much academic credibility.
He’s just a Leaver banging on.
This is beyond satire!!!! The group includes Chuka Ummuna!!!!!
Mine is beyond satire also. Left2030.org has a petition calling 4 Public vote on Brexit … campaigning for remain. So there u have it. Left2030.org is just another RW pv front. Move on.
You get an idea of Labour Together’s angle by looking at it’s big donor’s recorded at the Electoral Commission. £171,000 from Martin Taylor who is a retired £1 billion hedge fund manager, who to be fair supported the “Mansion Tax” and has only donated to Labour since Ed Miliband was leader (also donated ~£77k to Dan Jarvis), and £35,000 from Trevor Chinn whose funding history goes black to Blair’s private office and a long list of Blair supporting and centrist MPs.
Donations to Labour Together:
£Amount / Date / Source
40000 30/10/15 Martin Taylor
45000 20/06/16 Martin Taylor
18000 22/06/17 Martin Taylor
18000 16/08/17 Martin Taylor
10000 16/08/17 Mr Trevor Chinn
12500 08/11/17 Mr Trevor Chinn
50000 04/01/18 Martin Taylor
12500 19/07/18 Mr Trevor Chinn
Total or these recorded larger donations is £206k, which works out near £70k per year, plus a bit from smaller donations.
Interestingly Labour Together has also donated to other Labour organisations:
£Amount / Date / Donation to
15000 25/04/17 Labour Tribune MPs Group
10000 01/11/17 Labour Network in England Ltd
Thanks for the info
Here’s some bedtime reading:
UK Election Analysis 2019: Media, Voters and the Campaign
https://www.jewishvoiceforlabour.org.uk/article/uk-election-analysis-2019-media-voters-and-the-campaign/
A reminder that the JVL website is perhaps the single most intelligent source for a left perspective.
Debate is good between Universal free stuff and those who prefer tough choices
Social Care
Bet you all a pound to a penny you all have a different solution
We know there is no such thing as Free markets and the Free Press
Equally WASPI women, broadband and tuition fees should have a cost
If it’s free it’s not worth anything, we expect to pay our way
Regards
An interesting graphical/factual assessment of press partisanship in Figure 1 of this article :
http://www.electionanalysis.uk/uk-election-analysis-2019/section-7-news-and-journalism/the-final-verdict-patterns-of-press-partisanship/
… and this issue, which smacks you in the face is still largely not discussed in any depth outside specialist articles. It’s the real elephant in the room.
On media bias, what have we to lose by calling them out as scumbags and a threat to democracy
What you will also find if you drill down into abuse we get, very little is on policy,
Same applies to internal attacks, they have not got anything better to offer, the attacks are all on personalities and perceived management issues
Time for someone to step in and frame the story to concentrate purely on our offer to the country and how it affects each individual and their community
… and a another fascinating insight into the BBC’s automatic deference to the Tory agenda.
Lunchtime news – and an inordinate amount of coverage given to an old insignificant Tory hack’s (Michael Howard) attack on the judiciary – obviously a key target of Liars Incorporated.
Meanwhile a similar anti-social hack is given a knighthood, and the BBC pretends, in the next item, that the ‘Honours’ list has some credibility on the basis that a few genuinely worthy plebs also get a gong.
A gong ‘appropriate’ to their ‘station in life’.
Precisely.
Ed Miliband in 2010 was politically useless and a weak Leader but the Left didn’t criticise him once in public in 3 years.
Fast forward to 2015 and Snake Wattson undermined Jeremy from day one (the jury is still out on if he secretly recorded part of an NEC meeting and leaked it to the media?) and 100 Right Wing Labour MPs slagged Jeremy off in public for over a year which probably stopped us getting over the line.
In 2019 led by the Right, Remainers ditched honouring the 2016 Leave result and caused Labour to commit electoral suicide and to SNATCH DEFEAT FROM THE JAWS OF VICTORY.
Other minor errors were an excellent but overlong manifesto when perhaps less is more and perhaps it would have helped to have a simple oft repeated message.
Whilst the Waspi women deserve justice McDonnel suddenly announcing £58b for this (not costed) probably fed the doubts of the electorate on how will you fund all this?
But make no mistake, the Right for the second time in a row lost Labour the election when a significant number of citizens wanted Brexit AND WHEN DID THEY WANT IT, NOW!
I believe if we had had a centrist Leader like David Miliband and a modest programme we would have ended up like PASOK with 80 seats!
So learn from the above, have a left Leader, Deputy and policy but get out amongst the poor to counter the Tory Neo-Liberal narrative and offer practical support like info on food banks, welfare rights surgeries, support benefit take up campaigns including pensioners and pension credits, so we help individuals, families and the local pound – POLITICAL and PRACTICAL SUPPORT.
I would argue we need to be like SYRIZIA and fight back and rebuild from below alongside the oppressed (and encourage people to join Labour and trade unions – could all pay a minimum of £2 a month to local Labour Solidarity Committees made up of CLPs and trade unions) whilst all the Right and Hedge Fund boss backed Labour Together can offer is become like PASOK and face oblivion.
Solidarity!
Now what was that quotation from Einstein?