Two Labour MPs who consistently warned the party of the consequences of the disastrous swing toward a ‘referendum and remain’ position have called on working-class people to join the Labour Party and pull it back toward its working-class roots.
While leadership hopefuls Keir Starmer, Emily Thornberry and Jess Phillips led the push toward the remain position that lost Labour more than fifty seats in its leave-voting heartlands, ex-miner Ian Lavery and former plumber Jon Trickett stood up for their communities – and for a Labour government. That they were not heeded has led to tragedy for millions.
And today, the pair have called jointly in a Daily Mirror article for working-class people to join the party ahead of Monday’s deadline for voting in Labour’s leadership contest, in order to ‘rebalance’ the party towards its authentic roots and nature while maintaining the vital ‘coalition’ of the working and middle classes.
They wrote:
On April 4 Labour will elect a new leader and deputy leader…
This is a generational chance to have your say on who these people are.
When Labour wins, it is because a coalition of working and middle class people believe in our party to make Britain a better place.
We must rebuild this historic alliance right across our country in order to transform it positively.
However our membership is now disproportionately one that voted to Remain in the referendum and drawn from the South, mainly from metropolitan areas and from the middle classes…
To win again the coalition of working and middle class people within our own party must be rebalanced.
That is why we are calling for Labour supporters from working class backgrounds and from the North to join the party by January 20 and have their say in the upcoming leadership election.
Want to help with the task of ensuring Labour properly represents the working-class people it was formed to defend and promote? Join the Labour Party here by next Monday, 20 January – and don’t just vote, get involved in your area.
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.
Meanwhile, Rachel ‘Venezuela coup/piss on the unemployed’ Reeves was on the television yesterday. She is backing Jess Phillips and I have read that she has been promised a shadow cabinet job if Phillips wins.
This is a chilling reminder of what is at stake in this election.
Yes, but the main question is, which candidate do Lavery & Trickett recommend we vote for?
Ian Lavery actively and enthusiastically campaigned for Remain prior to the referendum and flip-flopped to Leave after the result. It is strange that he is now so obsessed with something that he has previously been so fickle about.
“the disastrous swing toward a ‘referendum and remain’ position”
I’m afraid Skwawkbox is just totally out of its depth in terms of getting to grips with a reality that contradicts the sort of Old Right union politics represented by McCluskey and Co.
This item (and others) has it in spades – a fictional television idea of what constitutes the ‘working class’ which Marx would have clutched his sides at, and a lack of basic mathematical competence that pretends that a 3-way split of the ‘Leave’ would have gifted Labour a tactical victory (forget that it actually irreparably damages the real, multi-faceted working class – that’s just a boring fact that get in the way of plodding fantasy ideology) – and, actually alienates the large majority of the *actual* Labour membership and vote! … as well as pampering the anti-Labour over-50s and alienating the younger generations. Great politics for a future-oriented radical Party!
The tenuous allegiencies of the fictional ‘Labour Heartlands’ and ‘Core’ should be pretty obvious to allbut the dim witted by now.
Such is the Tooting brotherhood of Wolfie – a gift to the Right.
But Hilary if you don’t vote for RLB however imperfect (I support Richard Burgon too) then the Right wins and it is over for the Left, the right wing political moron Starmer today said there will be no place in Labour for factions (he means the left, not his Right) and probably using AS there will be many expulsions of the left.
This is no time for socialists to be pure, heart and head need to be in harmony.
If Starmer/Phillips/Nandy/Thornbury/Rayner get in then I’m getting out.
We need you to vote for RLB/Burgon or to quote John Lennon “The dream is over.”
I can only speak for myself but there are 2 right wing Labour Barbarian MPs and a lightweight careerist in a reasonable train distance from me and I will take on one of them, I will get probably 500 votes but will fecking intellectually crush Benn or Reeves.
Respecting and honouring the referendum result does not make a person a leave supporter it defines them as democratic socialists .Starmer Thornberry also said they would honour the result .Did they have a change of stance or were they lying for votes?
Oh gawd! Yet more naive distortions of the term ‘democracy’!
Would you ‘honour’ a wish of vote by a third of the electorate (or more) to give black people second-class citizenship; or reinstate hanging?
Majoritarianism isn’t the totality of ‘democracy’ … and a stupid idea remains a stupid idea even if a real majority votes for it. (Although a good Tory would disagree 🙂 )
Oh gawg!democracy means what I say it means, says the arrogant one.
john – Don’t be thick. I’m sure you’re not really that simple minded . And I reckon you can read. In which case, you shold work out that I’m saying what democracy is *not*.
Assuming that I’m right about your capabilities, and you have a genuine interest in politics beyond superficial ‘Sun’ stuff, I suggest you go and read about it a bit more.
Liz
Exactly. I voted remain but once the result was in I knew it would have to be honoured, even though it meant damaging the country. I just had to put my faith in Corbyn and his “Labour Brexit”.
Cos that’s democracy, folks: you live by the vote, you die by the vote, too. Otherwise we might as well all pack up and go…home? Where is that now?
Sorry but that’s pathetic there nobody in the leadership contest that’s truly Left Wing & worth voting for. There are three votes in my household & they will go to RIchard Burgon for deputy leader we will not vote for leader & before you all jump on me… I’m sick to death of holding my nose whilst voting Labour prior to JC and will not hold my nose & vote for the leadership shower. Labour will be lucky to get our votes in any future election & after the contest they can stick their memberships where the sun don’t shine before they expel me for supporting Derby Chris, Jackie & Marc
I am tired & fed up of fighting tooth and nail for a party that couldn’t give a damn about me, my family, the working class or the membership.
I share your frustration. But just surrendering to the Tory hegemony isn’t a great idea. They’ll love the fact that you leave the Party.
It is too soon to think about leaving,there is a very important Conference coming up this year.Decisions should be made about staying or going after that.If the Party decides to make the impertinent BoD ten commandments part of the rule book then any left wing person might as well leave.Not just because of the symbolic importance of allowing an outside body ,and one which supports another party,to dictate what rules the LP rules by,but because it would provide the perfect weapon for a witch hunt that would be tailor made for ridding the party of anyone genuinely on the left,or indeed holds principled views on Israel.
I am working class and originally from Bolton and Irish Catholic family members.I would not want to be seen to damage the Labour party by voting for fake candidates who are only interested in furthering the moderates agenda.Only Burgon can be trusted for deputy leader .I will let my membership expire in July and walk away from nearly 40years inside the Labour party and previously an activist in direct confrontation in Ulster and S.Afrika.I am not defending my position,but I am too old to continue with the shenanigans of the Labour party governance and the lies of the AS scam.The younger generation need to fight for democracy in what we are about to recieve from the alleged regime of the Torys and backed by the bulk of the PLP NEC.and the puppetmaster jon lansman of the momentum fiefdom….Remember the old labour rallying song “Things can only get better” .
Oh come on! It wasn’t just our backing of a second referendum that lost us the vote. Sure it had an impact, but it wasn’t the whole story by any means.
What we got on the doorstep was much more.
Yes, we were told that people were sick and tired of Brexit, including many Remainers, and they just wanted it over and done. Johnson was the only one offering that.
But, like it or not, Cobyn’s “brand” was so tainted by the campaign against him that many people stated over and over that they could just not vote for him.
It does not matter that we know they were wrong and had been lied to. They believed he would be worse than Johnson!
There was no persuading them.
Explaining the policies made a difference to people’s views about our manifesto, but they could not be shifted on Corbyn.
Thank you for that balanced insight that reflects the massive *real* effect of the bog-paper press on the gullible that was the real issue. As you say, Brexit fatigue may have had a role, as the ‘anti-semitism scam’ may have done – but it was simply part of that wider campaign – of which Corbyn was the detested focus.
Even away from the doorstep, the issue wasn’t difficult to see. But the common head-under-the-blanket response was that all the pre-election polling was fake.
I’m not sure what the Party could have done against this tsunami of propaganda, the like of which we have not seen in our lifetime, and it poses a continuing problem – as seen by leadership candidates bowing to the BoD demands (even tho’ capitulation has been shown not to solve anything).
But all the rattle about Brexit policy that we hear is just sucking a comfort blanket.
Powerful piece by a north eastern working class voter on why Labour’s “Red Wall” crumbled.
https://www.thefullbrexit.com/post/why-labour-s-red-wall-finally-crumbled
I think we all know why thanks, though the full dogshit appreciate your dedication to their cause, I’m sure.
Problem is, the candidates clearly don’t know why or can’t admit it, but then again I don’t think they read the Skwawkbox!
I’m from the North West from a working class background I’m from a constituency that voted Leave as did my family & friends, in my town there is no industry & very little job prospects & whilst I mostly agree with what is said in the link, I could not vote conservative under any circumstance, in the 2019 GE I couldn’t vote to make my life worse under the Tories, I couldn’t vote to lose the NHS etc & I certainly wouldn’t have voted for a known liar who is a dictator & a threat to national security.
I agree with the writers analogy of Labour which is the same as mine but I knew Jeremy Corbyn was in my corner & looking out for me & 100% sure Johnson & his cohorts would only make my life harder. so to make a point they have sacrificed everyone else on the alter of stupidity, I cannot get my head round why they would do it unless they had a suicidal death wish.
Thanks Danny for the link, very enlightening
Liz, why should I respect the result of a vote which I know for certain, because I canvassed endlessly in all areas including ‘working class’ areas, was based upon racism and lies told by the far right including UKIP. There are also legitimate questions about the validity of the referendum in the first place but because the media are so right wing, they are being ignored.
The result of the vote will endanger the livelihoods of many of those who voted to Leave but in addition, it will undoubtedly affect the future prospects of everyone in the country, why should we have any respect for the harm it is going to inflict upon us?
Say for example you lived in a commune, religious or otherwise and one day they took a vote that the world was a terrible place to live in, therefore they should all commit suicide. If you disagreed with it, would you go through with it because it was ‘democratic’? You’d be a fool if you did, wouldn’t you?
In certain circumstances, democracy can be termed ‘mob rule’ and this is without doubt one of those occasions. Do not be lulled into the trap of those who are too lazy to think for themselves and therefore try to justify their laziness as being ‘democratic’.
We shouldn’t lose sight of the fact that in Dec16 in response to an unprecedented 200+ applications to the High Court to have the result of the EU Referendum set aside the Supreme Court Justices ruled that they were unable pass judgement on the numerous electoral irregularities because an advisory referendum doesn’t have any status in law.
How ironic is that.
Say for example you lived in a commune, religious or otherwise and one day they took a vote that the world was a terrible place to live in, therefore they should all commit suicide.
You saw the Storyville docs on the Jonestown massacre too, eh? 😉