2019’s “I will never turn on Corbyn” became 2021’s attempt to deny appearing with him – yet deputy leader, as well as Nandy, eyeing leadership bid as knives sharpen for Starmer
Deputy Labour leader Angela Rayner is reportedly canvassing support for a leadership bid, with the Labour right preparing to despatch Keir Starmer after last night’s by-election disaster in Chesham and Amersham. Shadow Foreign Secretary Lisa Nandy is also said to be ringing round to assess support.
Rayner’s hopes of winning a leadership contest appear to be vanishingly small. The right of the party will no doubt be manoeuvring for the likes of Rachel Reeves, or perhaps even Nandy – while much of the left has long since turned its back on Rayner for her attacks not only on Jeremy Corbyn but on the left’s mass membership.
Yet Rayner seems to have been trying to push them even further away, with a denial of knowingly appearing with Corbyn at a ‘Stop Fire and Rehire’ parliamentary campaign launch.
Attacked by the usual right-wingers for appearing with Corbyn, Rayner reportedly tried to claim Corbyn had simply ‘photobombed’ her at the event and she had not even known he was there. Yet pictures have emerged showing the two posing with the campaign’s Barry Gardiner – as well as reports that she took the microphone from Corbyn to make her speech at the event:
Former Corbyn speechwriter Alex Nunns commented witheringly:
The MP hasn’t a leg to stand on to defend her conduct or credibility when she swore in early 2019 that she would “never turn on Corbyn”:
The left looks set to have a last chance to rescue the party from the right-wing disaster – moral and electoral – that has unfolded since the end of Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership, before the right walls up the door forever by reverting leadership election rules to the old, discredited ‘electoral college’ system that gave a handful of hard-right MPs as much voting power as the whole membership put together, as it intends to do at September’s conference.
But under the current rules there will only be enough nominations available to get one candidate into the contest, if that. That opportunity cannot be squandered and any MP who backs Rayner rather than a candidate with a chance of winning will be contributing to the end of the Labour party.
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Utterly disgraceful Rayner Rodney Reeves … the lot of them. The Howard Beckett news has saddened me greatly. 🥀🔵🥀🔵🥀🔵
Rayner is useless and an embarrassment, she thinks Diane Abbott is a role model! Anyway should be a good laugh and plenty of hilarious interviews if she gets the job.
The real question on this is where the Unions stand, will they vote on behalf of their members or will the reinstatement of their block vote be too tempting a prize for the Union leaders.
Angela doesn’t seem to have no shame.
Not long after the 2019 GE I spoke to her about the devastating results. Even then I felt she wasn’t as sincere as she attempted to come across. Perhaps my gut feeling was correct.
Especially now with another one of her denials that she didn’t notice Jeremy being there. After all Jeremys no friend of hers!
If a leadership election does take place and the other candidates are perceived by what’s left of the left in the party as being dreadful it’s unlikely she will receive their votes.
Is there any news/rumours that Yvette Cooper may stand.
Cooper & Burnham have long been on manoeuvres. Expect the usual ‘strategist’ piping up to say he does’t want to stand. Hint – the same fan of Lewis and Gardner. Bet the individual raved about Ummuna too. They praised Mandelson and Blair right here on Skwawkbox.org SEVERAL times even before i started posting. Word for word the still pump out the defeatist dross that Lewis won’t be attacked by the media. We must choose our leaders according to who the media wants… they call it “pragmatism”. They are walking dead. Spirited but spreading dead spirit like a virus.
They repeat and spread their willingness to pander to the status quo but they are “disposed” to whomsoever you and any free thinking person would value, but they will spout things like “it’s not the right time” etc.
NB. When Obama was running, many repeated over and over, “I don’t think THE PEOPLE are ready for a black president”. QUESTION – Which people❓❓❓
Obama WON!!! Two terms. NB the difference with the vastly more “Left” candidate Bernie. He too caved in TWICE‼️‼️‼️
NB ALWAYS the unnamed individual above are BEHIND the curve. They NEVER campaign for progress. They think they do. Yet check. They NEVER offer anything original. It is always a reaction to their IMAGINED worse outcome based on their OBSESSIVE worship of how the Right Wing may ACT. They plan REACTIONS constantly of where to run and hide.
BackofBeyond, you ARE right about Rayner. You said “perhaps” above. It’s YOUR “gut” feeling. Trust it. Language is POWERFUL and revealing. What cones first; the chicken or the egg? The Word or the Action. The “gut feeling” may be the truth. There is much to discover re how we think and act. But we have detached ourselves too much from some light speed instincts which saved the lives of our ancestors. Today we may have been bred to use that sane instinct to be afraid of people we FEEL have some yet undemonstrated omnipotent power. Just off the top of my head. Feel free to dissect it. That’s how we improve.
I try not to repeat errors though. I believe now that Howard Beckett pulling out makes him unfit for my support. There was no need to stand down now. Question: If the argument was about splitting the vote, then surely Graham should have stood down IF nominations truly reflected membership votes.
Graham + Turner nomination numbers exceed Coyne’s. No?
There was no badgering TO DATE for Graham to step down. What does that say? Graham and Turner REFUSED to present themselves for hustings and yet we are told that they are suitable leaders??? Please…
❓📡❓📡❓📡
Backofbeyond, between Cooper or Rayners and Starmer, I will be tempted to vote for Starmer in order to accelerate the destruction of the right wing of the Labour Party.
Starmer is doing a good job in this respect, why stop him? With Starmer at the helm we could see the backs of Streeting, Phillips, Coyle etc comes the next General Election that I predict will be in 2023.
Either the PLP gives a choice of selecting a leader with a back bone that will sort the internal bureaucracy of the Labour Party by getting ride of the right wing plotters that populated Labour Regional Officers and GLU.
I can be persuaded to stick to Starmer, no because I like him (I find him dreadful) but because Starmer will clear the deck for us.
Why should the left help the right of the Party to get ride of Starmer for more of the same in the form of Cooper or Rayners?
I ask once yet again, seriously, – WHO on earth could the credible, necessarily very tough, politically astute, socialist member of the so-called ‘Socialist Campaign Group’ be as a candidate – even assuming no Left split and sufficient nominations under the present set-up ? As others have said, Barry Gardiner is a great TV performer, likeable, was loyal to Jeremy, BUT he himself would never claim to be on the Party’s Left – he just aint. As for Clive Lewis, key pro EU fanatic in al the divisive 2nd Ref and Remain stuff that undermined Jeremy and lost us so many Heartland Leave voters, and his constant campaigning for that Guardianista favourite, the fantasy ‘Lib Dem, SNP Plaid Cymru, Greens , Labour, ‘Progressive Alliance’ bullshit — forget it – Clive is a slippery Big City middle class lovie Left Liberal careerist , with no believable socialist credentials by now.
No one in the Socialist Campaign Group is worth a candle as a believable hard-nosed radical Left mobiliser and Leader. John McDonnell and Abbott certainly showed their true opportunist colours , stabbing Jeremy in the front in 2019, and going on Mandelson’s People’s Vote march – but saving their own gravy train seats in Remainer constituencies !
Wake up socialists – Labour had its once in a lifetime chance to decisively ‘turn Left’ in 2015 to 2019 – but the Labour Left leadership were craven in the face of constant Right sabotage , and most of the supposed ‘Left’ members supported Remain and 2nd Ref, and many even voted for Starmer as Leader !
Labour is now simply a zombie Party, a walking corpse, and what looked like a Left-led revival in 2015 to 2019, ie, Corbynism, proved only to be the last spasms of a corpse , powered by self-generated internal decomposition gasses – and windy Left rhetoric !
I can almost hear the echoing bootsteps of a near future fast-growing radical populist Far Right in the distance as the Left wastes more time as it continues to believe the Labour Party can still be won to socialism – with just one more push !
Excellent jpenney. The only way this is going to happen is if an MP has the guts to stand up in the House and say he is no longer Labour but pledges his loyalty to (say) the SWP and the unions get behind him/her.
I agree with jpenney’s assessment of B Gardiner — which is why I believe he could be a contender. Loyal, left, but not “too” left. Good, articulate performer – one of the best, in fact. If a true leftie can’t win, he’s head and shoulders better than anyone on the right.
Plain Citizen and Bad Penny
As loyal as you both are to the Tooting Popular Front, the world moved on in 2015 and you two missed the memo
The country was / is screaming out for a choice, clear red water and if anything the pent up demand for a Socialist Labour party government is, in light of Covid19, now overwhelming
The internal report simply confirms what I have known for 40 odd years, remember the SDP
Theres a job to do, let’s get on with it, jump two generations, elect a history making candidate who will show up cheap and nasties for what they are, force a lot of people in this country to have a long hard look at themselves
Regards
Rayner! That would be the final straw for the Labour Party after the Starmer torpedo barrage.
She is a two-faced whatsit. Whose eyes is she trying to pull the wool over? She is toxic and people know that.
…contributing to the end of the Labour party…
This is what is required.
I believe the definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting a different result.
We didn’t kill labour, they managed it all by themselves
Just trying out a comment on this thread. Can’t get any on two others I’ve tried to post on. Have I been banned?
No, you’re stuck in a time loop
Mmmm. Since ’59 I think.
Aha! Things seem to have righted themselves. My earlier comments have now appeared.
I hear that Starmer’s Director of Communications has resigned.
Poor bloke. Nothing there to communicate.
Carolyn Harris PPS to Captain Hindsight went last month, how many more?
Here’s a link to further details on this and more.
https://labourlist.org/2021/06/keir-starmer-to-reshape-his-communications-team-after-resignations/
Here is another issue Labour PLP have been asleep at the wheel over so busy are they with cleansing the LP of socialists, this issue taken up by Foxglove legal campaigning group –
‘A few weeks ago I emailed about the government using “disappearing message” apps, like WhatsApp and Signal, which allow messages to be automatically deleted – hiding them from scrutiny.
The big news is we’ve forced the government to disclose their policy on message retention. It confirms our worst suspicions – right now, the government has told ministers and civil servants they ARE allowed to delete messages.
This is unlawful. It breaches the Public Records Act and the Freedom of Information Act. Communications about government business have to be kept and retained for future review, a process which is crucial for historical archives, and for future investigations or inquiries into how decisions have been taken.
Now we’ve forced the government to admit what’s going on, our next step is to get it stopped – and urgently. We’ve sent the government another letter before claim, demanding action within 14 days, otherwise we’ll issue proceedings. The case has been reported in The Guardian, you can read their last report here.
https://web.archive.org/web/20210613181632/https://amp.theguardian.com/politics/2021/jun/13/uk-government-admits-ministers-can-use-self-deleting-messages
A real opposition should be shouting this from the roof tops.
Need a new Left Wing Democratic Socialist Party but the challenge would be to keep the bourgeois vanguardists out, they offer socialism FOR when a left wing democratic socialist party would work with diverse working people from below – a socialism WITH. So first rule can’t be in another party of faction, second rule membership fee £5, 3rd rule its MPs get average wage £39k (keeps out careerists) 4th rule – don’t stand against genuine left Labour candidates (for now). Oh and it should try to politicise the masses which Labour has never done – its Right Wing MPs, Councillors & Right Wing members want the power for themselves. Enough of the Right Wing Labour political lightweights. Solidarity to Socialists!
Agreed , Bazza. But keeping those poisonous , tired old slogan-bashing, ‘bourgeois vanguardists’ , ie, the tiny splitter and wrecker ultraleft sects -( who wrecked ever past attempt to build a Party of serious radical, non revolutionary,, socialism outside of Labour , from the Socialist Alliance, to Respect, to Left Unity,) out , would be a BIG issue and problem to enact. But , undoubtedly , as soon as a new Left grouping with mass potential starts up the ‘usual entrist suspects’, join en-masse, and start campaigning for mad ultraleft policies like ‘building the workers militia’ or ‘general strike now’, and insisting that any reformist progress under even a mass-supported radical Left government is now simply impossible , “because only world-wide simultaneous revolution can succeed” ! In other words the divisive ultraleft are actually nowadays a quasi religious set of tiny, guru-led, sects, playing political games – and blocking the building of a real socialist alternative.
This may seem pretty abstract just now – but with Corbynism, 2015 to 2019, easily crushed, Labour is now finished as a mass party with government potential – and many trades unions are also truly pissed off with NuLabour2 – maybe enough to fund a serious new radical , but non-revolutionary, Left party. And , with politics across the UK (Ok, maybe NOT Scotland, trapped now in pseudo radical petty nationalist SNP thrall), in current ferment , with no Party of any credibility actually offering a voice for the masses of working people, crushed by neoliberalism and turned off by Starmers neoliberal NuLabour2 , that old barrier of FPTP is not the total roadblock to a credible new Left Party that it was in the past. One thing is for sure – the neo fascist populist Far Right are waiting in the wings to fill the void left by the death of Corbynite Left Labour ! Exactly this has happened all over Europe in the last 15 years as social democracy has collapsed – it WILL happen here too if the Left fails to act.
What a disaster the obnoxious Keith ‘I am a Zionist without qualification’ Starmer has been, closing down free speech on Israeli atrocities, suspending and expelling members without due process, no policies, he could probably get more votes standing as a Knesset member for Tel Aviv,
George Galloway at the very least has the courage of his convictions says what is in his heart. Rayner is simply counting up the number of ministerial posts pensions, without actually contributing to the betterment of society…that and her business contacts.
Dearie me, barrierreid, That huge egotist, and serial wrecker of Left initiatives, like Respect, George Galloway, has never had a serious real personal political conviction in his entire 40 year opportunist, self-enriching, career. He has simply profitably surfed the gullibility of the UK Left , and the Muslim communities, with his opportunist sloganising , and , via his earnings from Putin TV (RT) , Iranian TV, and his ‘controversial voice’ columns in the press, and occasional interludes as an MP, has made £millions for himself over the years. That you still think George Galloway, groveller to umpteen dictators and oligarchs, rape-defender, profound male chauvinist, and con artist, ‘has the courage of his convictions;’ just demonstrates the endless gullibility of too many on the Left for mouthy, eloquent, Left fakers. ‘Gorgeous George’ Galloway has currently conned a tiny mad bunch of unreconstructed Maoist/ stalinists to do the leg work for him in his new vehicle , the ‘Workers Party’ – but , illuminatingly, the campaign posters in Batley-Spen, are only about ‘George Galloway’ , and his huge ego , as ever !
GG is a first class communicator, puts Andrew Neil and every other MSM and toilet paper glove puppet to the sword
Would be my choice to win back Scotland
Doug – Really?
Are you basing this on Galloway’s obvious popularity in Scotland?
2021 Scottish Parliament election, South Scotland, All For Unity, 1.5% of vote
GG
Reason he is unlike Trident, a deterrent and independent is he has been around since the year dot, he knows where all the bodies are buried and the dates they were put into concrete
Doug – Yes he’s been around forever. Unfortunately his last four outings indicate that he is very definitely yesterday’s man.
Not unlike yourself then and your woodentop idol?
🥱