How will you vote in the Labour Leadership election?

fuck that shit, they won't get a penneth more out of me. The party is dead.

Maybe it’s because Starmer/Rayner not exactly a surprise result but almost more curious for the shadow cabinet picks. It’s been so long since Labour actually used all its talents; now they could really count.

— gabyhinsliff (@gabyhinsliff) April 4, 2020

Enough of this but still, will miss Corbs.

😢 pic.twitter.com/T859crhqD4

— Jase (@jasebyjason) April 4, 2020

Gann is probably correct. I’d be tempted to leave if Starmer picks a hard-right shadow cabinet though.

The Times, Telegraph, senior Tories. etc, falling over themselves to praise Starmer stand to benefit the most from a massive split in the party. It’s trolling. Let’s see who gets the senior positions.

Corbynism inspired 100s of thousands to join Labour, make it the biggest social democratic party in Europe, and give Ian Fucking Murray more of their votes than Dawn Butler. pic.twitter.com/gvypd3lqMz

— Greggs Truther (@invisibleste) April 4, 2020

some people call the membership a bunch of apolitical melty idiots but tbf they are probably quite racist as well.

strangely opaque race hate Twitter account The Core has been crowing about Butler coming last, so good work Labour members

Ok ok ok enough from me, I’m too sad about this and I thought I had been ready for it.

The grief I feel is indescribable pic.twitter.com/xhn5i8xGdq

— Fraser 🌹 (@comradefraz) April 4, 2020

tbf to Mr Starmer he has already inspired me to get some outside clothes on and go and buy as much cake and wine as i can carry. now *that's* forensic opposition.

https://t.co/p4whrRlmaX pic.twitter.com/HlMVviFfhk

— ryan 🚩 (@ryxnf) April 4, 2020

Rousing stuff!

What a dismal country this is

not so much a failed state as a fucking state

look forward to centrist cunts wanking themselves to death over “forensic inquiries in select committee meetings” while the world burns.

Being good at the boring shit matters - attention to policy detail, fine print, the difficult technical stuff, it's all important. It's a different political skill to the stuff that Team Corbyn were good at - firing up, energising and growing the base, striking the right emotional tone, developing a real vision, understanding what the party is for etc. I wouldn't assume for one moment that that skill set is exclusively or even predominantly located on the right of the party.

In any case, the Hinsliff tweet is nonsense because "all the talents" refused to work with the leadership anyway, or they did for a bit an engendered such a sense of mistrust that the leadership wasn't interested in working with them. They weren't cruelly and wastefully cast to the margins and even people like Yvette Cooper showed an ability to work with the Shadow Cabinet in a constructive capacity even when they weren't in it.

The boring stuff going to be especially important because the actual Cabinet is stuffed to the rafters with people who are shit at that stuff. And the result of them being shit at that stuff is going to be the deaths of tens of thousands of people. The Labour front bench has to have the ability to do that sort of work and not let the government off the hook. But they have to actually HAVE that sort of competence rather than just give the illusion of it because they look the part.

But it's going to be about the policies in the end really. If they can find a way of repackaging 2017-ish social democratic policies and professional sensible boring lawyer shit (as someone else said a couple of months ago) then that's probably the best case scenario*. Especially as the government begins to look more and more like a troop of incompetent clowns who can't keep on top of the virus OR manage the economic reconstruction.

*Whether they're interested in doing so is a different thing. I still don't know what kind of programme Starmer would follow and I doubt a lot of people who voted for him do either.

he kind of has to say that in the time of plague tbf (although of course he doesn't have to make it QUITE so lapdog)

i'm with SV here - let's see what his cabinet looks like. not pulling my membership just yet, and it's not like there's an alternative (as it stands) - any new grassroots party would probably have a Sisyphean task trying to gain a foothold unless like 100 MPs jump ship (unless you're all quitting to join the baader-meinhof idk). i really do not think Labour is lost to the neoliberals for good - maybe these are simply teething troubles in the leftward shift. RLB was no convincing figurehead - not her fault, but nobody else from the left ran!

the Butler result is awful I agree and if I'd thought about how the voting system works a bit harder I'd have reversed the ordering of my two-person deputy ballot. a sizeable minority of fuckwits were always going to vote Murray but why the hell were people voting for those flops Burgon and Allin-Khan *above* the highly competent and righteous Butler? it makes absolutely no sense - even within the party's left there are clearly some bizarre hang-ups that tend towards misogyny and racism

long game folks, long game. Corbyn was the pioneer and others absolutely will follow. the Whittomes and Sultanas. they didn't get elected just to give up (unless, as above, they all give up at once, but that'll have to be orders of magnitude more decisive than Change UK)

oh good post Matt DC

https://twitter.com/JP_Maybe/status/1246381790224429056

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8PaoLy7PHwk

i was just catching up on some reading on Keir Starmer this morning, including Patrick Maguire's very sympathetic/soft profile of him in the New Statesman.

literally just made some notes on the key things to watch, and coming here was immensely disheartened to see that tweet calz posted.

* How handles the press - messaging around immigration, labour rights, housing, the welfare state and benefits need powerful and clearly stated messages without triangulating, rather than trying to soft-pedal in case of right wing press attacs.
* His instinct for working with rather than against the establishment (Maguire cites his time working to establish consensus for the PSNI as part of the Good Friday Agreement to be critical to his development here). A cross-party government of national unity could be an early example of Starmer forging closer links with the government than with the people and places who most need the Labour Party's attention and support.

some specific things that we will want to see out of covid will be important in terms of winning the narrative around a strengthened safety net and welfare... not just *state*, but infrastructure and embedded process eg. a universal credit designed to deliver cash to the pockets of those who need it - ensuring that lack of face-to-face interviews stay unpicked, and that the 5 week wait is removed.

It’s a bit of a shame that the person who will be putting together the shadow cabinet responsible for holding government to account has just given a speech saying that the government have a really tough job to do and we mustn’t get in their way too much, at literally the exact same time that government policy is killing thousands of people in the most conspicuous way possible.

There is nothing that Labour could do to get in their way in any case, the majority is so commanding and you can't exactly get people out in the streets right now. Its about the optics of being seen to engage constructively at a moment of national crisis.

well yeah you can phrase it as strong criticism without seeming like you're not pulling in the same direction. a lawyer especially should be able to do that

The last time Labour had any real power in opposition they used it to frustrate and paralyse the government at every turn and we all know how that went down with the electorate.

Part of their skill set is it now? xp

It sucks for all the reasons we know it sucks but there is no getting away from the fact that a concerted effort from the press and the Labour right has cemented the idea that the party is wholly illegitimate, and actively dangerous, in the minds of a lot of voters. That’s his starting point. Any kind of collaboration with the government is a bad idea and will backfire but I can understand why he might want to present himself in the least threatening, most Reasonable, way possible off the bat. He’s in an invidious position as there is no way to keep the ghouls happy and I don’t think he has the nous to navigate his way towards the kind of big-tent compromise his campaign suggested.

^otm. I'm intrigued to see him try, but as it stands I don't think he has the imagination, force of personality, empathy or conviction to make it work. But let's see

Last post in here for the foreseeable. Enjoy your optimism.

There are literally zero examples of any other party benefiting from being seen to be working with the Tories since the Second World War. Look at the LibDems. Look at Scottish Labour. I would be surprised if they went for it unless they made the calculation that the crisis is on the same level as a World War, with Starmer fancying himself as Atlee.

If the Tories think it's a good idea then it's almost certainly a terrible idea for Labour, and the Tories know that full well.

Just to be clear are we all now saying that the last election result was about Labour being too ‘oppositiony’ rather than Brexit?

Remind me what the last government's flagship policy was again?

Lol at the notion that working constructively with the government is going to work any better with Labour than it did the fucking Lib Dems. Starmer is a fool to go along with this.

Secondly, no shit that select committee forensic enquiries are important - during normal times.

Amber Rudd was found to have acted in contempt of parliament. The government was repeatedly found to have acted atrociously across its departments and no one cared. So spare me if I’m not finding so much as a shred of consolation in some fucking libs getting wet over Yvette Cooper being steely-eyed and forensic right now.

I was talking about him trying to pull off a big-tent leadership within Labour (which is what I assume SV's last sentence was about), not of a cross-party crisis coalition, which is obviously a really, really bad idea!

I'm not one of those people who believe that Brexit had nothing to do with Labour's defeat but it didn't just start with the second referendum policy, it was also the two or three years of voting against and blocking the government's Brexit policy. It was the opposite situation they had with the FPBE crew but it didn't just come out of nowhere. Whether it was the right thing for Labour to do at the time or not is beside the point, it turned out to be counterproductive for Labour and Johnson's campaign just proved that.

Obviously the current situation is completely different but looking like you're too brazenly trying to make political capital while people are still dying is likely to go down like a cup of cold sick while people are still terrified. That's different to letting the government off the hook and if Starmer does that then fuck him.

“Make political capital”, ffs at this, honestly. We don’t have an opposition to make nice with the government that’s failing the country and is getting away with it! The media isn’t going to do much so you need an opposition to make a fucking fuss about furloughed new starters and the self employed being expected to eat dust for two months!

Every doctor and every nurse that dies in this country is political. Every card home that’s devastated by this is political. Every ventilator made by the government’s non-ventilator mates is political.

i do also think there’s a lot of ground to be worked on *right now* to win the post-covid consensus. to my mind there are two models emerging: the “but how will we pay for this?” tory austerity model and the model that builds on the fact that a lot of state institutions and government capabilities like UC have been called into service and found wanting because of deliberate cruelty (UC) and underinvestment (social care and by extension the pressure that places on the NHS).

this should be a consensus changing event and if it’s not, and is only used for more of the same but nastier and worse, that would be a colossal failure of opposition. we are already seeing the “but the )
economy” arguments being made, badly, by the usual vectors for US economic liberalism, and as an opposition you lose no points by celebrating the importance of the NHS, social care (the care home time bomb is in the process of exploding) and the need for universal credit to be able to get people income and be flexible enough to support the gig economy on which the country is suddenly much more reliant.

They absolutely need to hammer the government on all that stuff. Just because the "why are you making this political" argument is completely stupid and inane doesn't mean it doesn't reliably blow up and the Tories know how to exploit it.

LOTO has never been so crucial to visibly keeping people alive in this country. It’s not hard to get that across and still make clear that Labour will do everything in their power to support any measures that will help people not die. If it then gets spun as playing politics then so what? Surely the press will want to get a reducer in on Starmer regardless to put him in his place (though he seems to be there already) before he picks his cabinet. We’ll all be dead by the next fucking election.

There also isn't a free-market answer to the question of how you rebuild the economy after this, it can't be done without major state intervention and if they attempt it then the result is likely to be a long depression. So yeah Fizzles OTM, this should be fertile ground for Labour if they can play it well.

So far the only slight shifts to the govt’s dogshit playbook have come after they catch flak for it so I just have a bad feeling when the LOTO plays it conciliatory https://i.imgflip.com/1x2pef.gif

Exactly. Otherwise we just get ‘all these old cunts would be dying anyway wgaf’ and we’ll be back in our call-centres by May

In case I'm not making myself clear, "great, let's get our sleeves rolled up and work with the government to ensure we send the virus packing!" is not the way to go about this. Absolutely the LOTO should keep pressing and scrutinising the government, "where are the ventilators we were promised?", "how are you actually going to deliver the testing we need?", "what are you not telling us?", "why people can't get hold of the money they were promised?" etc etc but it has to be forward looking. And yeah it has to make saving lives the absolute priority and supporting measures that do that.

"You guys fucked up and now people are dead" can wait until later, or it can come from other people for the time being. I find it very difficult to believe the public won't come to that conclusion anyway regardless of how much they're being fluffed by the right-wing press (and even the press isn't playing especially nice right now).

Gann is probably correct. I’d be tempted to leave if Starmer picks a hard-right shadow cabinet though.

The Times, Telegraph, senior Tories. etc, falling over themselves to praise Starmer stand to benefit the most from a massive split in the party. It’s trolling. Let’s see who gets the senior positions.

― ShariVari, Saturday, 4 April 2020 bookmarkflaglink

A lot is about one position, which is Shadow Chancellor and if its Rachel Reeves I would say a lot of the politically engaged crowd who joined because of Corbyn may leave.

On a lower level its also about whether Starmer closes down the community organising unit.

This was a brilliant little thread from '16, a lot of it starts with your bog-standard anarchist analysis but then he goes outside of that (and the bit I link from) into thinking about what a movement would look like in this party bureacracy and its very much whether Starmer leaves it alone or not (some of this has been definitely started by Corbyn but it was all very long-term, and was taking place where its right are hostile to it; a lot of it will not be done now, for sure).

But working class people collectively pay millions into unions, £4.6m into the Labour Party in 48hrs...

— Joseph (@JosephKay76) July 21, 2016

Labour will probably fail to examine this, but ... Starmer lost to 'Did Not Vote'.

Votes (% of eligible voters)

2015
Corbyn: 251,417
DidNotVote: 131,350
+/-: +120,067

2016
Corbyn: 313,209
DidNotVote: 146,188
+/-: +167,021

2020
DidNotVote: 293,420
Starmer: 275,780
+/-: -17,640 https://t.co/lcwyqo1l32

— Matt Thomas (@Trickyjabs) April 4, 2020

this Did Not Vote person could do a better job than Starmer.

xps to Matt ok I agree with that. Just not confident in starmzy doing any of that stuff properly atm

sorry one more. so brave, honest and positive. if only the PLP had another 300 of her

There are mixed feelings among members about today's results, but one thing is for sure:

If you want to promote the interests of the working class, if you want eliminate poverty & inequality, & if you want to fight racism & war:

The Labour Party is still where you should be.

— Zarah Sultana MP (@zarahsultana) April 4, 2020

One more.

Congratulations Keir!

— RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE (@RATM) April 4, 2020

eurgh

'yes, Boris, I will do as you tell me!'

I feel bad for cancelling the dd when I see people like Zarah. But I feel a real visceral hatred for the party rn and can't support them anymore. And if Reeves is the new shadow chancellor then eliminating poverty and inequality is not going to be on the agenda and they are just merely the least racist party.

Pet Shop Boys back to form with new album Hotspot. Check it out. Neil Tennant's voice as clear and haunting as ever.

— Andrew Neil (@afneil) April 4, 2020

The 'centre' has been emboldened today

NEW: I'm told Keir Starmer is likely to appoint:

Anneliese Dodds as shadow chancellor
Nick Thomas-Symonds as shadow home secretary
Jo Stevens as foreign secretary

Not finalised. But that trio was "100%" discussed in Team Starmer this week. https://t.co/ZHUdWCNgaI

— Gabriel Pogrund (@Gabriel_Pogrund) April 4, 2020

Dodds as Shadow Chancellor would be totally in line with soft-left (and not awful)