Friday, June 16, 2017

Labour and the PLP - will it be total surrender or a fight back ?


Jeremy Corbyn is still going around as if he won the election and his popularity seems to be on the way up. What are sensible Labour MPs going to do about it ?

Now although Labour won 30 extra seats it is nowhere near enough to be able to form a government. All the Ulster Unionist MPs are against him and I would imagine that the Liberals in reality would want nothing to do with Corbyn and his fantasy manifesto if the offer to go into government with him was on the table.

As for that manifesto its clear the moderates just let Corbyn and co hatch up whatever they wanted and boy did they go for it. Bribes for students and other giveaways with a semblance of a funding plan arranged (although it was still dodgy) and wow the electorate went for it. Then there was the cost of renationalisations which would just be magicked up. Of course the Tory campaign was dire and inexplicably failed to hold Labour to account on any of this but I doubt that will happen again. 

Presumably now all this stuff will be party policy. Will all the party come in behind it ? ATM the craven behaviour of the likes of Harriet Harman (see here) and others seems to say they will but surely once the Tories get back on track they will be holding Labour to account for their lavish promises.

The other big issue in Labour is Brexit, it is clear now that Corbyn and McDonnell are for hard Brexit, unfortunately some of the Remainer electorate don't seem to realise it, or don't care as they are lost in Corbyn worship. One of the reasons Corbyn and McDonnell may want hard Brexit is that then they won't be constrained by EU laws which might stop them renationalising companies (see here), which is a big part of their vision. Again once this becomes apparent lets hope things change in Labour (and indeed we see Keir Starmer being more flexible over Brexit here). Or perhaps none of them care and they will all just swallow their doubts as they might get back in power. If so what a bunch of disgraceful turncoats.

I still think Labour will never win from the Left and hope this is Corbyn's high point but if it isn't and we somehow get the nightmare of a Corbyn government then it will very much be the Labour moderates who are to blame.

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