How will you vote in the Labour Leadership election?

RLB/Allin-Khan as I have forgotten any reason why the latter may not be good.

― nashwan, Tuesday, 18 February 2020 16:20 (eleven minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

who's gonna post that minister of fabulosity clip

sorry that was two posts! just as well I have a ridiculously complex board game to play now eh

(while I'm here, the 'unvarnished empire history' thing was poorly worded but I do genuinely think she got misconstrued. still open to positive arguments for butler)

rlb butler

And to think I almost joined the Labour Party. RLB/Rayner, the shine has very much gone off the former but look at the alternatives, as for the former, nobody's perfect. I've never been particularly impressed by Butler but maybe I haven't been paying attention. I might vote Tory if Burgon gets the nod.

Dawn Butler has a very respectable track record of not being a wrecker when working with a way to the left of her leader who she didn't vote for. She came across very well and very decent likeable person for a pol on that recent novara interview. I can't recall her ever being disloyal to Corbyn or trying play to the Labour Right gallery. It probably doesn't really matter that much who the deputy is as long they aren't another habitual mischief maker, cracking up from too many dodgy dietary supplements.

Yes, the Deputy Leader, who cares really?

I confess I'm not really following this process at all now though.

AR is going to absolutely walk it so in a real sense nobody’s choice itt for deputy matters

Virtually every other choice I could make some sense of bit I honestly can't fathom the logic of voting for Burgon over Dawn Butler.

The best argument for Rayner is that she isn't a wrecker (given previous incumbent this is even more of a plus rn) and that Butler would be deprived of a good shadow cab post.

From day one it's been RLB/Butler. Almost nothing has made me question it.

Whoever goes in will have their biggest fight to just keep Labour as any kind of electoral force. Given that the Tories will re-draw boundaries, look for voter suppression efforts and anti-union legislation their task might be completely different to what the contestants think it is now.

They might not need to suppress my vote the way this leadership competition is going.

I don't know that much about Allin-Khan in terms of positions and policies, I had a look at her website and twitter feed but it's all pretty non-specific? I did find out that her mother was a member of Filipinki, 1960s Poland's most popular girl-group:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PpzwA-VOO08

Automatic thread bump. This poll is closing tomorrow.

https://cdn0.tnwcdn.com/wp-content/blogs.dir/1/files/2016/08/Duke-Nukem-796x398.jpg

yes we can

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Nandy/Burgon 2

:D

6 starmerite roaders amongst us!

the grown-ups that dare not speak their name

this is not the level of lockstep idological purity i expect from the uk politics cru, crying and shaking rn

I usually try and sabotage political polls on twitter by clicking Yes I love tories option, but I couldn't do it on this one.

30 votes?

hows that tally with contributors to say ukpol thread?

WRECKERS

RLB elected leader, going to have to go to second prefs to for deputy with butler edging rayner atm

Jo Bird, candidate for NEC, was briefly suspended when someone complained abt her "jew process" joke, now back in the running. where we're at rn

I went with 'Not a member but: RLB/Allin-Khan'. Don't know all the ins and outs of all the deputy candidates, but Allin-Khan, for me, stands out as someone deeply rooted in her local community. Something, I think, is key for Labour to bounce back: weaving a web of solidarity, knowledge and organizing a grass roots campaigns. In mosques, churches, town halls, food banks. T make people see how damaging the Tories are (as apparently people still don't see this enough to not vote for that scum). Her curriculum vitae is impressive, having worked in Asia and Africa as a doctor there. Bonus point: she's a boxer!

this is not the level of lockstep idological purity i expect from the uk politics cru, crying and shaking rn

I didn't actually vote here I think?

i mean i'm not gonna fault anyone for not spending sufficient time in the uk politics threads tbrr xp

If the Nandy/Murray voter could de-lurk that would be good thanks I'd like to...congratulate you.

Maybe they thought this was SPOTY /trulypatheticjoke

from what I can see only one candidate has expressed public solidarity with ucu members today. unqualified support for strikers hasn’t always been guaranteed by labour leaders - let’s use this leadership election to make sure that it continues https://t.co/QQbLVIBBaX

— mike (@michael_millar_) February 20, 2020

can't decide how to rank butler&burgon. more I've seen of rayner the less I'm convinced she knows what she's doing, seems more abt energy than coherence. deputy is a weird role tho you are basically the hype so you can make a case for that approach and she is popular w/ members and good on the ground on a wet tuesday in stoke etc. butler is more measured and thoughtful and has some genuine warmth and humour. burgon comes across poorly imo but has the slightly better voting record & line on open selection, public ownership etc. although there isn't all that much to pick between the candidates.

it does seem atm that all the candidates for both positions are much closer together than you wld think reading the discourse. it's been interesting to see the 3 leadership candidates kind of coalesce and seem to get on better through the hustings. some of this overlap is just the weird abyss of meaninglessness politicians fall into when faced w/ stupid/delicate/impossible questions (the nuke question was fkn odd and totally unenlightening - keir backs trident, won't say if he'd nuke, nandy doesn't back trident but would nuke, rlb doesn't want to change anything and is vague abt nuking - hard to really say after all that what they really think it's all just messaging abt values but this is to be expected) but they do seem to be generally agreeing quite a lot and the commitment to all being in the shadow cabinet reflects this. even the nominal right/blue labour candidate has come out strong for immigration and challenged the nonsense issue of reducing numbers which I think is fairly promising.

Starmer actually did put out a tweet backing the UCU strike so I think he is playing this well.

I saw some of the younger members I follow utterly losing their shit with RLB and going 'I'm leaving Labour blah blah'. Put it down as Sunday night blues however RLB hasn't played this well. It's a weird question but you say no every single time. You differentiate yourself like that.

pic.twitter.com/Vs3yzH0R2I

— Nihilists for Labour (@Nihilists4Lab) February 24, 2020

that's my kind of content

It's a stupid question, as was the one about whether they'd consider themselves 'zionists' - and Starmer has handled both better than either of the others. It seems pretty obvious that RLB's honest answers to both questions would be 'no' and she feels like she's forced into giving these fairly absurd answers to placate the press. It's understandable, to some extent, but she's not good at it and it doesn't bode well for the future.

I think questions about RLB's leadership qualities will prove academic anyway, but she has seemed very unfocused at times. I don't even know why I'm still paying the direct debit when really in my heart of hearts I know the job is fucked and the reasoning I had for joining the party is gone, the cunts will be running the show again soon enough and I won't be troubling a polling station possibly again in my lifetime. Especially going the way cycles of power in the Labour party seem to go, the right could be in charge again for much longer than Corbynism lasted. But in some ways that might be liberating tbh.

None of the frontrunners in this are as good as Corbyn, and Corbyn is highly contentious in approach ffs. Looking forward to performing the ceremonial membership cancellation though.

Corbyn was massively underrated by people right across the spectrum. These useless fuckers are minnows in his shadow, and none of them could be an improvement.

It feels more like a funeral than leadership election tbh

RLB has shown inexperience and it might be the wrong time for her however I like some of the new intake. Still a lot for the left to do around council selection and organising around issues in our communities. Building things from below is still the lonely, arduous task and that remains the case whether RLB wins or loses.

For undecideds, people who don’t have a vote, or just passers by like silby.

Even if she loses RLB can have a second bite at it in the future. I think she'd do better with more experience under her belt and some time working as part of a different group.

The Labour right are already quietly gunning for Starmer. Andrew Rawnsley's column was heavily damning in its faint praise and he's usually a reliable barometer of what they want journalists to think.

I give KS 2 years before being challenged*, but RLB shouldn't and won't be the challenger

*unless he massively outperforms all of our expectations, but our expectations exist for many good reasons

Changing leader again before the next GE is just pure idiocy

Depends how unpopular the leader is and what the challengers are like. The Tories probably benefited from binning IDS and replacing him even with Michael Howard.

There doesn't appear to be a surefire winner even among the likely challengers to Starmer so they'll probably end up sticking with him unless something really bad happens.

Also depends on the level of pure idiocy in the Parliamentary party obviously.

The winner of this contest will not be challenged.

yeah, because starmer will win.

(rlb would be challenged)

RLB would bring open selection, which is a gun to every potential coup plotter's head, and she strikes as far more ruthless than Corbyn.

At this stage I'm fairly convinced that open selection will just lead to most CLPs reselecting the incumbent and even if they do there's no guarantee it'll favour the left candidates. The wider appetite for it appears fairly limited.

James Radio and co, how are they going to reference the Labour's retreat from public life? There's not going to be anything to even talk about other than "can you imagine if Corbyn was still in how bad this would be?", there's maybe a couple of years worth of material in that but has to be diminishing returns

What worries me is that despite whatever he said during the leadership election I don't think Starmer will be interested in scrapping UC. He strikes me as someone who would be more interested in reforming it and just making slight adjustments to make it slightly less horrible. I know events have changed everything now, but Corbyn and McD were attacking them on UC every day nearly, even though events might bring radical reforms to UC from the Tories now as too many people have been exposed to it and the clash of UC and the middle class was not something planned for. But if there is any radical changes it won't be down to pressure from the opposition any more that much is for sure.

post more please, Left

https://i.imgur.com/sDGUglK.jpg

A lot of this to look forward to:

Our ⁦@Adamstoon1⁩ ⁦@EveningStandard⁩ as Starmer forms his Shadow Cabinet pic.twitter.com/NgLP5Usqfg

— George Osborne (@George_Osborne) April 7, 2020

Pretty sure antisemitism is over now.

now there’s nothing standing between keir starmer and a colossal landslide victory in the next general election

Pretty sure antisemitism is over now.

― Matt DC, Tuesday, April 7, 2020 4:05 PM (one minute ago) bookmarkflaglink

:D

It astounds me more than it amuses me that, no matter what current global news or crisis takes up the biggest headline at the Graun site, a bit smaller to the right of it is, and forever and always, will be: Labour antisemitism.

BREAKING: 'WORLD DESTROYED BY METEOR, RIP'
Also in the news: 'Labour promises to tackle antisemitism in party'

A lot of this to look forward to:

🐦[Our ⁦@Adamstoon1🕸⁩ ⁦@EveningStandard🕸⁩ as Starmer forms his Shadow Cabinet pic.twitter.com/NgLP5Usqfg🕸
— George Osborne (@George_Osborne) April 7, 2020🕸]🐦

I was talking more about the Standard's ability to flip from castigating Labour antisemitism to proudly publishing an antisemitic caricature of the most prominent Jewish man in the Labour Party without even blinking.

(xpost)

Yeah I was responding to the original link because it’s depressing how obvious and shameless it is.

Ofc Ayesha Hazarika won’t be disgusted enough by this to stop working there

You are both correct obv.

🤔🤔🤔

Interesting tweet you liked, @MikeGapes ??? pic.twitter.com/JAA0B70W3p

— jewdⒶs // ייִדהודה (@jewdas) April 7, 2020

https://i.postimg.cc/d197YT52/12-D8-AE91-016-A-47-BA-B9-A1-2-C17-D73-ED14-B.jpg

RLB 100/1 now apparently

I’m putting a fiver on Tom Tugendhat.

Rab Butler not running this time? Still dead and a Tory?

I don't think Burnham is going to happen despite the bookies fav status, it's like when you get the same usual suspects placeholder fav football mangers popping in all the next manager betting, despite the clubs involved not even interviewing them for the job.

In some ways Kieth was right to bring in the NEC voting threshold reforms that shifts the power back to the PLP away from the membership. Just in the sense after voting for him in such great numbers they can't be fucking trusted ever again!

I don't think Burnham is going to happen despite the bookies fav status

Is it even feasible? He wouldn't be a very effective LOTO if he wasn't an MP and it's not as if he could be parachuted in in the next month or two.

If he wasn't such an uncompromising street-fighting rebel rouser then ..maybe lol! But now the the PLP can effectively choose the leader, I don't think there is a big enough soft-left voting bloc there to Make Burnham Happen.

In the 70's tv drama Bill Brand there is good ep about all the shenanigans during a Labour leadership election. Spoiler: the character who is possibly based on Michael Foot goes close, but loses and accepts a place in the cabinet.