Let’s Talk About Corbynite Labour | History On The Dole. Labour Party Poster, 1935 General Election. Via the British Political Campaign Posters Collection, Bancroft Library, UC Berkley. Labour’s in a bit of a mess. From parliamentary turmoil to accusations (and now a wider perception) of irresponsible behaviour on social media, the Party is increasingly unable to bring to bear the considerable frustration felt in the country with the inequalities that have arisen as a consequence of austerity.
Simply put, they are not making a dent in the Conservative Party’s lead. This malaise is symptomatic of the weakening of social democratic parties right across Europe. But that is what we have to work with. It means that the Labour Party has to appeal to the many, not to the few. In his study of the development of the Labour Party from its split with the Liberals in 1910 (by which time the Miners’ Federation had affiliated) to the first Labour government in 1924, the historian Ross McKibbin reflected that Here, I think, is the nub of it.
Sound familiar? What if Labour splits? | The Constitution Unit Blog. In the post-referendum turmoil facing the Labour Party, there are increasing questions about whether the party might split. Despite shadow cabinet resignations and a Parliamentary Labour Party vote of no confidence, Jeremy Corbyn seems determined to hang on, and to force a contest if necessary. If that proceeds, a split looks very likely. But what would this mean in organisational terms: both inside parliament and beyond? Meg Russell investigates. Events in the Labour Party over the last week have been extraordinary. The prospect of a contest raises the very serious possibility of a Labour Party split. On the parliamentary side there are three immediate considerations. The official opposition and second largest opposition party House of Commons standing orders give certain formal privileges to Her Majesty’s Official Opposition – described on the parliamentary website as ‘the largest political party in the House of Commons that is not in government’.
Committee seats About the author. What if Labour splits? | The Constitution Unit Blog. Fractured and unmanageable? Labour Party Management under Blair and under Corbyn. Under Tony Blair, Labour’s managerial structure shifted from a pluralist system to a centrally directed one. Eric Shaw explains that this structure of control has now unravelled and power is dispersed among a range of institutions which are resistant to Jeremy Corbyn’s rule – and so Labour at times verges on the ungovernable.
Labour is facing a crisis of party management. As a leadership function, party management has as its objective the preserving of internal order and cohesion, as well as the maximising of the party’s ability to harness its energies to respond swiftly and effectively to external challenge. It is an indispensable function, but the way it is discharged can vary. Under Tony Blair, Labour shifted from a pluralist system of party management, characterised by complex patterns of bargaining and accommodation, to one that was much more tightly-run and centrally directed.
How could this have happened? All this was part of a wider political project. About the Author. Whose Labour party is it anyway? And will anyone survive the warfare? | Politics. On Wednesday afternoon, after a harrowing prime minister’s questions, it is said that Jeremy Corbyn had a tearful moment in the relative privacy of his Westminster office. According to senior Labour sources, there was a “wobble” and suggestions that he wanted to go. One of Corbyn’s most influential aides, director of policy Andrew Fisher, is said by three senior sources to have drawn up potential terms for the leader’s resignation. Under the deal to be struck with the rebelling parliamentary party, there would be a place for Corbyn in the shadow cabinet and his close friend John McDonnell would be retained as shadow chancellor. There would be a commitment from the next Labour leader to retain an anti-austerity policy programme. A Corbyn spokesman has dismissed all of these claims as “100% not true”, insisting the Labour leader was resolute and strong.
More than 500 Labour councillors have signed a public statement calling on Corbyn to step aside. The battle, then, goes on. What if Labour splits? | The Constitution Unit Blog. How does Labour appoint a leader? | Politics. Around 60 frontbench Labour MPs have called on their leader, Jeremy Corbyn, to resign. His chief ally, John McDonnell, the shadow chancellor, has said he accepts there will be a challenge. He said Corbyn would stand and had the backing of party members. If an MP wanted to challenge a sitting Labour leader, how would they go about it? Labour’s rules stipulate that anyone who wishes to challenge the sitting leader needs the backing of 20% of Labour MPs and MEPs.
Party officials are still debating whether a candidate needs 50 or 51 signed-up supporters. If a challenger has 50 or 51 signed-up supporters, what would they do next? They have to write to the party’s general secretary announcing their intention to run. Would Jeremy Corbyn’s name automatically be on the ballot paper? Good question. What about the huge mandate Corbyn received from members last year? The new system had been introduced by Miliband, who announced the reforms in February 2014 to bring in one-member-one-vote elections. Fractured and unmanageable? Labour Party Management under Blair and under Corbyn. Labour rebels plan a ‘Party within a Party'
Fractured and unmanageable? Labour Party Management under Blair and under Corbyn. Blair: Corbyn in power would be a 'dangerous experiment' Syria, again. Free vote – Shadow Cabinet – Corbyn’s view – Stop the War PG Jeremy Corbyn has decided he will allow the Labour Party a ‘free vote’ on intervention in Syria. This means the vote will not be ‘whipped’ allowing party members to vote however they wish. This came in the wake of many members of the Shadow Cabinet threatening either to resign if this was not allowed, or to defy any whip put in place, therefore daring Corbyn to sack them.
This is crucial for a vast wealth of reasons. This also reflects the growing factions within the Labour Party under Corbyn’s leadership. It is finally a good example for pressure groups and particularly for a new social movement. Like this: Like Loading... Blair’s frail legacy shows why Labour must win arguments as well as votes | Tom Clark | Opinion. The two wings of a warring Labour party have given up trying to change each other’s minds. In place of persuasion, both sides are aiming for destruction. The activists of Momentum call for the scalps of establishment MPs, while parliamentarians demonise those who have rallied to Jeremy Corbyn as an entryist rabble, and ask themselves what one described to me as “the only question: when will we get rid of him?”
Where will it end? With MPs doomed because there is nobody to give out their leaflets; or activists’ hopes running aground because they are not willing or able to reach beyond the leftwing tribe? The rage of the parliamentary Labour party is not complicated. It strikes MPs not merely as maddening but as a form of madness when they read polls of Corbynistas saying that Labour should stick to its principled guns even if that means losing again next time.
Now think of the apologetic nervousness with which New Labour did great things. Labour activists launch new group on party's left | Politics. Labour activists are launching a new group to operate on the left of the party – saying they will reject “the sniping intolerance and divisiveness that has sadly gripped debate in recent weeks”. Open Labour, which is launching on Thursday, has been formed by 50 activists who are claiming to be operating in the traditions of the Tribune Group, the former foreign secretary Robin Cook, and the ideas generated by Ed Miliband’s 2010 leadership campaign. Its insistence that it is exclusively a Labour operation distinguishes it from Momentum, the alliance that has tried to keep alive the enthusiasm generated by Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership campaign. However, Momentum has been criticised by the Labour deputy leader, Tom Watson, for being an entryist vehicle for the hard left, a claim hotly disputed by the group, which says it is bringing new mainly young voices into Labour politics.
In an opening statement the group claims: “The need for a renewed democratic left within the party is clear. Labour’s warring factions: who do they include and what are they fighting over? As the party reconfigures itself after Jeremy Corbyn’s resounding victory, new factions have emerged – and previously powerful forces in the party have faded away. Here is your guide to the main contenders jockeying for position alongside Momentum: Labour First Labour First, founded in 1988, is a pre-Blairite pressure group seen as the voice of the party’s traditional right.
Headed by campaigner and former councillor Luke Akehurst, this faction supported ABC (Anyone But Corbyn) in the leadership election, while Akehurst himself backed Yvette Cooper. In the deputy race, it emphasised its ties to Tom Watson. The group made headlines during the leadership contest by urging fellow centrist group Progress to promote the other non-Corbyn candidates as well as its first choice, Liz Kendall. Labour for the Common Good A new moderate pressure group, Labour for the Common Good is wryly referred to in Westminster as “the Resistance”. Progress Compass The National Executive Committee Left Futures. The fear and loathing in Labour and the question of accountability | Andrew R... When Labour went down to defeat last May, Hilary Benn came close to quitting the shadow cabinet. “He almost did a Harriet,” says one of his friends in reference to Harriet Harman’s decision to retire from the front rank. Having turned 60, he thought his race was almost run. Even if he had the ambition, he had no prospect of ever leading the Labour party.
Other MPs had always spoken of him as one of the nicest men in parliament, but they also struggled to pick out anything notable from his career, even though it had encompassed seven years in the cabinet. That changed in the 15 minutes that it took him to deliver his electrifying speech at the climax of the marathon debate on Syria. Does this make him, as the bookies and some of his colleagues now have it, a Labour leader in waiting? That has not prevented a sudden explosion in Hilary Benn studies, a hitherto neglected area of research at Westminster. There is a fairly obvious strategy at work here. The Corbyn earthquake – how Labour was shaken to its foundations | Patrick Wi... “What about if I stand?” These were the tentative words, volunteered by a rebellious 66-year-old veteran of the Labour backbenches, that kicked off Britain’s unlikely summer revolution.
It was the end of May. The Labour party was still digesting its crushing defeat, and a group of leftwing Labour MPs had gathered in a small room inside Westminster to discuss the names of potential candidates to represent the left in the leadership election triggered by Ed Miliband’s abrupt resignation. A handful of “establishment” candidates from Miliband’s shadow cabinet had already announced themselves, including Chuka Umunna, Andy Burnham, Liz Kendall and Yvette Cooper – and the leftwingers were looking for someone to carry their standard in the race. “There was a silence around the room,” recalled Clive Lewis, the new MP for Norwich South. Some had pinned their hopes on Ian Lavery, the former president of the National Union of Mineworkers who chairs the Trade Union Group of Labour MPs.
Which direction will Corbyn go. The undoing of Ed Miliband – and how Labour lost the election | Patrick Winto... On 23 September 2014, Ed Miliband prepared to take the stage at the Labour party conference in Manchester to deliver the most important speech of his career. But instead of rehearsing the speech he had memorised, he was being forced to concentrate on a new opening section, endorsing the proposal David Cameron had made that morning to join the US bombing of Isis in Iraq. “Stupidly, none of us had thought the late changes could have an impact on the quality of what he would deliver in the rest of the speech,” one of the advisers most involved in its writing recalled. “My sense is that looking back, it knocked him off course slightly.
He started with the Isis passage, and it went over relatively poorly in the hall. He was off his game.” “What’s worse,” the adviser continued, “for the whole of the speech, he was improvising more than you might imagine. The adviser who had helped to write the speech now admits Miliband’s human lapse reflected a deeper political truth. Then 10 o’clock struck. How to rebuild a political party – from the ground up | News.
2015 leadership election.