Should Labour move right or left?

[DrNorm]

The problem for labor as I see it is that if they move to the right they become no different to the conservative party and if they decide to move left they then become unelectable.

 

Well that's wrong on both parts. There is a lot of room to manoeuvre in the middle ground. You can work with business without being a Tory and you can work with unions without being a Trot.

 

There's no shame in not picking a fight with everybody who doesn't agree with you 100%, in fact I'd say it was the duty of a responsible party that aspires to lead the country.

[mossdog]

let's see how he does in opposition.

 

I seem to remember they said Corbyn was unelectable as party leader...

.........lets see indeed! will Corbyn become Dustbyn or will he raise the Labour party from the ashes?

Remember the Labour party once elected one, Antony Teflon Blair to lead them, who did very well adopting more Tory policies ,but then............you know the rest!

[tinfoilhat]

After reading an article on the bbc website called "24 things Jeremy corbyn believes" I now very much believe labour are in trouble. I don't doubt labour needed to shift more to the left but they've gone way further than the working class they'd left behind will want to go.

[TJC1]

isn't it. i thought the unions were going round their membership offering to pay the subs for them to vote corbyn.

voters think.

 

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/jeremy-corbyn-becomes-labour-leader-today-is-our-darkest-hour--we-have-become-unelectable-10497770.html?icn=puff-2

 

 

Jeremy Corbyn becomes Labour leader: Today is our darkest hour – we have become unelectable

 

We have just chosen a leader considerably less electable than Michael Foot, after whose election it took Labour seventeen more years to regain power

 

 

 

This is not about mere differences in political opinion. No-one likes it when their candidate loses, just as others do not when their football team does. But today is about much, much more than that.

 

My team, and that of thousands of friends and colleagues, has just somehow jumped from the Premier League into the Third Division, with little chance of promotion for at least a decade.

 

Those of us who backed Liz Kendall for leader would have accepted Yvette Cooper. We would have, perhaps more grudgingly, accepted Andy Burnham, although neither would probably have won in 2020.

 

But Corbyn? Words fail me.

 

Today there is a howl of anguish, not just from the party’s centrists but from all those who understand the slow, grinding slog of making a party respectable in order to win power. It takes years to win that respect, but you can lose it in a day.

 

This is one of those days.

 

The harsh truth: this is a disastrous, collective decision made by Labour’s comfort zone, aided and abetted by hard-left dinosaurs leading the big unions, some wide-eyed youth looking for inspiration, a few leftover Trots and some three-pound political tourists.

 

It is almost a storyline for a low-budget comedy film, where the Monster Raving Loony Party candidate unexpectedly claims the seat of the Prime Minister. It is something which so hits the party’s credibility, it is difficult to see it recovering by 2025, let alone 2020.

 

Worst of all, many of the party’s rank and file seem blissfully unaware of this fact.

 

Who's rob marchant. ...?

 

---------- Post added 13-09-2015 at 12:07 ----------

 

It's like when John Prescott was asked about Jamie reed, who?

 

It's funny how all these people come out the woodwork you've never heard of, ,,,

 

---------- Post added 13-09-2015 at 12:08 ----------

 

That's howhat important they are....They can do there jobs anonymously

 

---------- Post added 13-09-2015 at 12:12 ----------

 

After reading an article on the bbc website called "24 things Jeremy corbyn believes" I now very much believe labour are in trouble. I don't doubt labour needed to shift more to the left but they've gone way further than the working class they'd left behind will want to go.

 

I've read a lot of rubbish....He hasn't brought together a shadow cabinet or set out a program yet.

 

I'm not defending corbyn but even his own deputy has different views.

 

It's not about disagreeing on singular issues, it's about opening a debate.

 

Even conservative voters are split on stuff like re nationalising railways, Europe in or out and trident.

 

---------- Post added 13-09-2015 at 12:14 ----------

 

Well that's wrong on both parts. There is a lot of room to manoeuvre in the middle ground. You can work with business without being a Tory and you can work with unions without being a Trot.

 

There's no shame in not picking a fight with everybody who doesn't agree with you 100%, in fact I'd say it was the duty of a responsible party that aspires to lead the country.

 

Tories started some good things with business, it's tailed off....I don't think they've been progressive enough at all lately.

[Eric Arthur]

I'm a member of the Green Party in fact

That is why you are a Corbyn supporter. The Green Party and Corbyn share very a similar Marxist outlook on everything from state ownership of anything and everything to nuclear anything and everything.

 

---------- Post added 13-09-2015 at 17:12 ----------

 

After reading an article on the bbc website called "24 things Jeremy corbyn believes" I now very much believe labour are in trouble. I don't doubt labour needed to shift more to the left but they've gone way further than the working class they'd left behind will want to go.

 

You've summed up the whole problem with Corbyn. The 2020 general election isn't Labour's problem, the local elections in May 2016 are their big problem.

 

The ordinary Sheffield people who moved from LibDem to Labour at the last election in places like Ecclesfield, Crookes, Broomhill, Chapeltown, etc will run a mile from Corbyn and Labour will be wiped out at council elections all over the country next May.

 

Sheffield could easily go back to the LibDems next year. If it can happen in Sheffield it can happen anywhere and everywhere, leaving Labour as a shadow of what it is today.

Edited September 13, 2015 by Eric Arthur

[DrNorm]

After reading an article on the bbc website called "24 things Jeremy corbyn believes" I now very much believe labour are in trouble. I don't doubt labour needed to shift more to the left but they've gone way further than the working class they'd left behind will want to go.

 

Hmmm .. after reading that article I like the guy a little more, however I think his friends are a little more suspect.

 

He says he'll work to unite the party - well that's a big job. He'll need a lot of help and good will - seemingly absent at the moment.

[alchresearch]

The Tories need to get their story straight: up until now they've been saying Corbyn is unelectable, and political suicide for Labour. Suddenly he's become a 'danger to Britain', but that suggests he is electable, meaning the public might like his message. So apparently, there is an alternative after all!

 

Remember "New Labour, New Danger"?

 

http://www.cityam.com/assets/uploads/content/2015/03/new-labour-new-danger-54fea69bf3b70.jpg

 

Quite insulting at the time, but in hindsight, accurate.

[Guest]

This is Jeremy Corbyn when it became apparent he was going to win. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4sFYjigIZG8

[spilldig]

Well that's wrong on both parts. There is a lot of room to manoeuvre in the middle ground. You can work with business without being a Tory and you can work with unions without being a Trot.

 

There's no shame in not picking a fight with everybody who doesn't agree with you 100%, in fact I'd say it was the duty of a responsible party that aspires to lead the country.

Trouble is, if they take the middle ground they then become invisible like the liberals.

[gomgeg]

Hmmm .. after reading that article I like the guy a little more, however I think his friends are a little more suspect.

 

He says he'll work to unite the party - well that's a big job. He'll need a lot of help and good will - seemingly absent at the moment.

He might struggle a bit with uniting the party unless he adopts "do as I say not as I do" it's just been on TV that he voted against the labour government over 500 times between 1997-2010.