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politicalbetting.com » Blog Archive » Corbyn remains on the ballot and doesn’t require nominations as Labour donor loses court case

Foskett's ruling says "natural impression" of party rules on members was without leadership vacancy, no need for MPs to nominate incumbent

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TGOHF

The Labour rebels should have dared him into finding nominations rather than heading to court.

GIN1138

GO JEZZA!!!!!!

oxfordsimon

TGOHF said:

The Labour rebels should have dared him into finding nominations rather than heading to court.

And he would have - quite rightly - refused.

For a challenge mechanism to exist, you have to have someone to challenge. That person must necessarily hold the office/position in order to be challenged.

Artist

Another victory over the establishment. #TeamCorbyn

PlatoSaid

I remain totally amazed that anyone ever seriously thought this outcome wasn't bloody obvious from the start.

Months ago we talked about this, inspected the rules and most thought it was totally clear. IIRC our conversations first kicked off from almost the moment Jezza was elected Leader.

Still, some lawyers made a few quid from it.

williamglenn

Smash him in the ballots?

BudG

The "unelectable" Mr Corbyn steamrollers on.

Next stop, court action, I believe next week, to decide whether NEC was right to disenfranchise 130,000 members signed up since January.

SimonStClare

Unlucky, Mr Smith. - Suck it up, buttercup.

kle4

From the details of the rules floating around, from a layman's perspective it looked pretty solid an interpretation that Corbyn did not need nominations. Corbyn will be loving it, this just fuels the passion of his supporters as someone really did go all out trying to stop him using technical points, and they lost to boot.

oxfordsimon

SimonStClare said:

Unlucky, Mr Smith. - Suck it up, buttercup.

I don't think Smith would have been automatically annointed Leader - the nomination process would have had to be restarted. And that would have opened things up again.

RochdalePioneers

BudG said:

The "unelectable" Mr Corbyn steamrollers on.

Next stop, court action, I believe next week, to decide whether NEC was right to disenfranchise 130,000 members signed up since January.

A funny story on the freeze date according to leftist NEC member Ann Black. After succeeding in securing his place on the ballot Corbyn left the NEC meeting and was filmed outside celebrating with his supporters.

Meanwhile inside the NEC debated the various options which had been circulated in briefing packs 30 minutes before the start of the meeting. The usual 6 month freeze was in effect unless the NEC chose otherwise. A proposal to set a June freeze was tied 14-14. Had Corbyn not left early the motion would have carried and 130,000 would have a vote.

It was Corbyn's fault....

Carolus_Rex

PlatoSaid said:

I remain totally amazed that anyone ever seriously thought this outcome wasn't bloody obvious from the start.

Months ago we talked about this, inspected the rules and most thought it was totally clear. IIRC our conversations first kicked off from almost the moment Jezza was elected Leader.

Still, some lawyers made a few quid from it.

Including me. But only by laying Smith.

DavidL

So the choice is Corbyn or Smith. What a mess.

All of the PLP needs to get behind Smith 100% now. Confirm unequivocally that if they are asked to serve by him they will. Confirm that if Corbyn wins they will continue not to serve leaving Corbyn without the ability to draw up a shadow cabinet. Confirming that as the people who have had to work with him most and are best placed to assess him Corbyn is just not good enough and not up to the job. And they need to all be saying this every day.

TCPoliticalBetting

I noticed that Lord Deben had retweeted something from a twitter account and intrigued I had a look at what else they had written. This line about LEAVE = STUPID people seems to be a common view amongst the hardened REMAINers.

InForBritain ‏@InForBritain Jul 26
Our SHOCKING poll finds number of thick, stupid Leavers has actually grown since #EUref. I despair. #brexitin5words

Speedy

PlatoSaid said:

I remain totally amazed that anyone ever seriously thought this outcome wasn't bloody obvious from the start.

Months ago we talked about this, inspected the rules and most thought it was totally clear. IIRC our conversations first kicked off from almost the moment Jezza was elected Leader.

Still, some lawyers made a few quid from it.

I can name the person who started this nonsense:

HYUFD

BudG

RochdalePioneers said:

BudG said:

The "unelectable" Mr Corbyn steamrollers on.

Next stop, court action, I believe next week, to decide whether NEC was right to disenfranchise 130,000 members signed up since January.

A funny story on the freeze date according to leftist NEC member Ann Black. After succeeding in securing his place on the ballot Corbyn left the NEC meeting and was filmed outside celebrating with his supporters.

Meanwhile inside the NEC debated the various options which had been circulated in briefing packs 30 minutes before the start of the meeting. The usual 6 month freeze was in effect unless the NEC chose otherwise. A proposal to set a June freeze was tied 14-14. Had Corbyn not left early the motion would have carried and 130,000 would have a vote.

It was Corbyn's fault....

Problem is, the "usual 6 month freeze" was not used in last years leadership election and not thought usual enough to make mention of it on the Labour Party website that most people signed up on. It simply said Join the Labour Party and take part in leadership elections.

TheWhiteRabbit

TCPoliticalBetting said:

I noticed that Lord Deben had retweeted something from this twitter account and intrigued I had a look at what else they had written. This line about LEAVE = STUPID people seems to be a common view amongst the hardened REMAINers.

InForBritain ‏@InForBritain Jul 26
Our SHOCKING poll finds number of thick, stupid Leavers has actually grown since #EUref. I despair. #brexitin5words

Like hardened people of any political persuasion, it's if you were clever, you'd understand and agree; you disagree => you are not clever.

oxfordsimon

DavidL said:

So the choice is Corbyn or Smith. What a mess.

All of the PLP needs to get behind Smith 100% now. Confirm unequivocally that if they are asked to serve by him they will. Confirm that if Corbyn wins they will continue not to serve leaving Corbyn without the ability to draw up a shadow cabinet. Confirming that as the people who have had to work with him most and are best placed to assess him Corbyn is just not good enough and not up to the job. And they need to all be saying this every day.

It won't work.

Momentum isn't listening.

GIN1138

PlatoSaid said:

I remain totally amazed that anyone ever seriously thought this outcome wasn't bloody obvious from the start.

Months ago we talked about this, inspected the rules and most thought it was totally clear. IIRC our conversations first kicked off from almost the moment Jezza was elected Leader.

Still, some lawyers made a few quid from it.

RodCrosby was right again...

kle4

BudG said:

The "unelectable" Mr Corbyn steamrollers on.

Unelectable is used to refer to his prospects among the wider electorate, not the Labour selectorate. We won't know the definitive answer to whether he is indeed unelectable in that sense until 2020, all evidence before then is not complete proof - however, one can certainly make an assessment as to whether victory among the Labour selectorate is a better indicator of his wider electability or if other evidence, like annual locals, polls, etc, are a better indicator. Reasonable people will differ on that front.

Speedy

Time for a re-post:

https://twitter.com/AngrySalmond/status/758395441188839425

Morris_Dancer

Good afternoon, everyone.

Hearing fictional rumours that the PLP are looking at sending Martin Brunt to the next Momentum meeting.

SimonStClare

A right-wing rag writes – “Owen Smith wanted to be a slick version of Jeremy Corbyn – but he's ended up as a dodgy sexist copy”

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/jeremy-corbyn-owen-smith-labour-leadership-dodgy-copy-theresa-may-smash-her-back-on-her-heels-a7159621.html

bigjohnowls

DavidL said:

So the choice is Corbyn or Smith. What a mess.

All of the PLP needs to get behind Smith 100% now. Confirm unequivocally that if they are asked to serve by him they will. Confirm that if Corbyn wins they will continue not to serve leaving Corbyn without the ability to draw up a shadow cabinet. Confirming that as the people who have had to work with him most and are best placed to assess him Corbyn is just not good enough and not up to the job. And they need to all be saying this every day.

We will replace the PLP

DavidL

bigjohnowls said:

DavidL said:

So the choice is Corbyn or Smith. What a mess.

All of the PLP needs to get behind Smith 100% now. Confirm unequivocally that if they are asked to serve by him they will. Confirm that if Corbyn wins they will continue not to serve leaving Corbyn without the ability to draw up a shadow cabinet. Confirming that as the people who have had to work with him most and are best placed to assess him Corbyn is just not good enough and not up to the job. And they need to all be saying this every day.

We will replace the PLP

But what will replace Labour? Do we really want a choice of the Tories or UKIP for the next government?

Sunil_Prasannan

"Not one step back, Comrades!"

CarlottaVance

kle4 said:

From the details of the rules floating around, from a layman's perspective it looked pretty solid an interpretation that Corbyn did not need nominations. Corbyn will be loving it, this just fuels the passion of his supporters as someone really did go all out trying to stop him using technical points, and they lost to boot.

https://www.judiciary.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/summary-of-judgment-foster-v-mcnicol-and-corbyn-20160728.pdf

Looks pretty open & shut to me too....

Polruan

DavidL said:

So the choice is Corbyn or Smith. What a mess.

All of the PLP needs to get behind Smith 100% now. Confirm unequivocally that if they are asked to serve by him they will. Confirm that if Corbyn wins they will continue not to serve leaving Corbyn without the ability to draw up a shadow cabinet. Confirming that as the people who have had to work with him most and are best placed to assess him Corbyn is just not good enough and not up to the job. And they need to all be saying this every day.

That's not going to work. It's the same type of mistake as the Remain campaign: telling your voters that you, the grown ups, know best, and how dare they think of making a different democratic choice.

The Labour Party as constituted is closer to a direct than representative democracy. If the MPs aren't happy with the results that produces they have to find better ways of convincing the membership they're right, rather than trying to impose a more representative democracy model through blackmail.

Tissue_Price

DavidL said:

So the choice is Corbyn or Smith. What a mess.

All of the PLP needs to get behind Smith 100% now. Confirm unequivocally that if they are asked to serve by him they will. Confirm that if Corbyn wins they will continue not to serve leaving Corbyn without the ability to draw up a shadow cabinet. Confirming that as the people who have had to work with him most and are best placed to assess him Corbyn is just not good enough and not up to the job. And they need to all be saying this every day.

Fine, then what when Corbyn wins?

GIN1138

Time for those ex-shadow cabinet members who made complete and utter fools of themselves resigning to follow the example of Sarah Champion MP and return, tail between legs, to Jezza and beg forgiveness from Dear Leader.

Jezza isn't a vindictive man so I'm sure he'll allow some of them back in...

Sean_F

TheWhiteRabbit said:

TCPoliticalBetting said:

I noticed that Lord Deben had retweeted something from this twitter account and intrigued I had a look at what else they had written. This line about LEAVE = STUPID people seems to be a common view amongst the hardened REMAINers.

InForBritain ‏@InForBritain Jul 26
Our SHOCKING poll finds number of thick, stupid Leavers has actually grown since #EUref. I despair. #brexitin5words

Like hardened people of any political persuasion, it's if you were clever, you'd understand and agree; you disagree => you are not clever.

Like gay marriage, Brexit has gone from being part of the lunatic fringe to the conventional wisdom in half a generation. Trying to overturn Brexit is now a lost cause.

DavidL

oxfordsimon said:

DavidL said:

So the choice is Corbyn or Smith. What a mess.

All of the PLP needs to get behind Smith 100% now. Confirm unequivocally that if they are asked to serve by him they will. Confirm that if Corbyn wins they will continue not to serve leaving Corbyn without the ability to draw up a shadow cabinet. Confirming that as the people who have had to work with him most and are best placed to assess him Corbyn is just not good enough and not up to the job. And they need to all be saying this every day.

It won't work.

Momentum isn't listening.

Momentum is not a majority of Labour members. Even now. But a lot of not very active members need to be persuaded to vote.

PlatoSaid

BudG said:

RochdalePioneers said:

BudG said:

The "unelectable" Mr Corbyn steamrollers on.

Next stop, court action, I believe next week, to decide whether NEC was right to disenfranchise 130,000 members signed up since January.

A funny story on the freeze date according to leftist NEC member Ann Black. After succeeding in securing his place on the ballot Corbyn left the NEC meeting and was filmed outside celebrating with his supporters.

Meanwhile inside the NEC debated the various options which had been circulated in briefing packs 30 minutes before the start of the meeting. The usual 6 month freeze was in effect unless the NEC chose otherwise. A proposal to set a June freeze was tied 14-14. Had Corbyn not left early the motion would have carried and 130,000 would have a vote.

It was Corbyn's fault....

Problem is, the "usual 6 month freeze" was not used in last years leadership election and not thought usual enough to make mention of it on the Labour Party website that most people signed up on. It simply said Join the Labour Party and take part in leadership elections.

Angela encouraged her supporters to join Labour during her launch event. Those who joined during the last ten months had a reasonable expectation that they'd have a vote.

Pagan

HurstLlama said:

Pagan said:

The solution is to stop as many people needing to commute.

A sensible government policy to promote companies to allow staff to work from home would do all of the following

1) reduce congestion of the transport network . Road and rail
2) Allow staff to be more geographically widespread so allowing staff to live in cheaper areas
3) Bring much needed income into the cheaper areas as wages were spent locally
4) Give people an effective payrise while not costing the company anymore as they no longer have the cost of commuting
5) Provide an employment boost to poorer areas of the country as people are enabled to move out of the south east
6) It would also make infrastructure such as schools and hospitals potentially more effective as a better mix of people were in each area. This last is largely supposition on my part though as it seems fairly accepted that the poor and workless tend to have more health and educational issues so diluting areas with people moved from the south east may help
7) Lower the housing crisis in the south east

Wouldn't disagree with any of that, Mr. Pagan. It would take not very much money (all of it from the employers) and provide huge benefits. It will however, really impact on middle managers (what are they going to do without employees in the office to "manage") and people whose jobs depend on meetings.

Hmmm, the more I think about it the better the idea becomes. HMG enacts legislation requiring a company to provide a guaranteed seat per ticket. The City (and the civil service) and their equivalents in Leeds, Manchester, Edinburgh etc., are forced to reform their working practices. The worker bees get a better life and a whole level of pen pushers become redundant. Productivity will zoom, and it will shift employment out of London.

In my old company it seemed to be the middle managers who worked from home all the time while the ground troops weren't allowed to on the whole. It probably wouldnt take much to bring in. A guaranteed right to ask to be able to work from home, much like the flexible hours right they brought in. Perhaps a small tax incentive initially to give companies a carrot. In these days where we have the like of video conferencing within the easy reach of most there really is little reason not to except for managers fearing they can't properly oversee things and that is a failing on their part.

Innocent_Abroad

GIN1138 said:

Time for those ex-shadow cabinet members who made complete and utter fools of themselves resigning to follow the example of Sarah Champion MP and return, tail between legs, to Jezza and beg forgiveness from Dear Leader.

Jezza isn't a vindictive man so I'm sure he'll allow some of them back in...

Who told you JC isn't vindictive?

DavidL

Tissue_Price said:

DavidL said:

So the choice is Corbyn or Smith. What a mess.

All of the PLP needs to get behind Smith 100% now. Confirm unequivocally that if they are asked to serve by him they will. Confirm that if Corbyn wins they will continue not to serve leaving Corbyn without the ability to draw up a shadow cabinet. Confirming that as the people who have had to work with him most and are best placed to assess him Corbyn is just not good enough and not up to the job. And they need to all be saying this every day.

Fine, then what when Corbyn wins?

That is for the PLP to decide but as BJO points out they are going to be replaced one way or another in that scenario.

Charles

Is it permitted to say "I told you so"?

The number of people on here who were confidently asserting that the NEC/courts would rule against the natural interpretation of the wording was quite extraordinary

David_Evershed

DavidL said:

So the choice is Corbyn or Smith. What a mess.

All of the PLP needs to get behind Smith 100% now. Confirm unequivocally that if they are asked to serve by him they will. Confirm that if Corbyn wins they will continue not to serve leaving Corbyn without the ability to draw up a shadow cabinet. Confirming that as the people who have had to work with him most and are best placed to assess him Corbyn is just not good enough and not up to the job. And they need to all be saying this every day.

The Labour Party is its members.

The parliamentary party is not the Labour party.

MPs should go join another party if they are out of line with the membership.

bigjohnowls

BudG said:

The "unelectable" Mr Corbyn steamrollers on.

Next stop, court action, I believe next week, to decide whether NEC was right to disenfranchise 130,000 members signed up since January.

140K I understand. What happens to CLP hustings meetings that have taken place and nominated without the 140k, would need to be re run.

The way the NEC/PLP have gerrymandered the vote is a disgrace for any democratic party

brokenwheel

bigjohnowls said:

DavidL said:

So the choice is Corbyn or Smith. What a mess.

All of the PLP needs to get behind Smith 100% now. Confirm unequivocally that if they are asked to serve by him they will. Confirm that if Corbyn wins they will continue not to serve leaving Corbyn without the ability to draw up a shadow cabinet. Confirming that as the people who have had to work with him most and are best placed to assess him Corbyn is just not good enough and not up to the job. And they need to all be saying this every day.

We will replace the PLP

Invasion of the Party Snatchers.

BudG

DavidL said:

So the choice is Corbyn or Smith. What a mess.

All of the PLP needs to get behind Smith 100% now. Confirm unequivocally that if they are asked to serve by him they will. Confirm that if Corbyn wins they will continue not to serve leaving Corbyn without the ability to draw up a shadow cabinet. Confirming that as the people who have had to work with him most and are best placed to assess him Corbyn is just not good enough and not up to the job. And they need to all be saying this every day.

Alternatively, all of the PLP should persuade Mr Smith to pull out now and confirm that if they are prepared to do the job that they were elected to do and oppose the Tories. It would save the Labour Party the cost of holding an expensive election, save the cost of defending the court case regarding disenfranchising 130000 of their members and save the damage that a further two months of public in-fighting will do to the Party.

If the Party is to remain in one piece and if there is to be any chance of Corbyn being persuaed to relinquish the leadership ahead of the next election, this would be a better alternative

MTimT

Pagan said:

HurstLlama said:

Pagan said:

The solution is to stop as many people needing to commute.

A sensible government policy to promote companies to allow staff to work from home would do all of the following

1) reduce congestion of the transport network . Road and rail
2) Allow staff to be more geographically widespread so allowing staff to live in cheaper areas
3) Bring much needed income into the cheaper areas as wages were spent locally
4) Give people an effective payrise while not costing the company anymore as they no longer have the cost of commuting
5) Provide an employment boost to poorer areas of the country as people are enabled to move out of the south east
6) It would also make infrastructure such as schools and hospitals potentially more effective as a better mix of people were in each area. This last is largely supposition on my part though as it seems fairly accepted that the poor and workless tend to have more health and educational issues so diluting areas with people moved from the south east may help
7) Lower the housing crisis in the south east

Wouldn't disagree with any of that, Mr. Pagan. It would take not very much money (all of it from the employers) and provide huge benefits. It will however, really impact on middle managers (what are they going to do without employees in the office to "manage") and people whose jobs depend on meetings.

Hmmm, the more I think about it the better the idea becomes. HMG enacts legislation requiring a company to provide a guaranteed seat per ticket. The City (and the civil service) and their equivalents in Leeds, Manchester, Edinburgh etc., are forced to reform their working practices. The worker bees get a better life and a whole level of pen pushers become redundant. Productivity will zoom, and it will shift employment out of London.

In my old company it seemed to be the middle managers who worked from home all the time while the ground troops weren't allowed to on the whole. It probably wouldnt take much to bring in. A guaranteed right to ask to be able to work from home, much like the flexible hours right they brought in. Perhaps a small tax incentive initially to give companies a carrot. In these days where we have the like of video conferencing within the easy reach of most there really is little reason not to except for managers fearing they can't properly oversee things and that is a failing on their part.

I work from home most of the time, but most of my work is solo work.

For teamwork, face time in the same room rather than over the internet, is important. So any work from home rule should still permit companies to require a minimum of on-site work too in order to build and maintain teams/culture.

Morris_Dancer

Mr. Wheel, the PLP has only itself to blame. They put Corbyn on the ballot.

GIN1138

Innocent_Abroad said:

GIN1138 said:

Time for those ex-shadow cabinet members who made complete and utter fools of themselves resigning to follow the example of Sarah Champion MP and return, tail between legs, to Jezza and beg forgiveness from Dear Leader.

Jezza isn't a vindictive man so I'm sure he'll allow some of them back in...

Who told you JC isn't vindictive?

Jezza is a man of peace, love and solidarity... The beardie leftie will show great mercy to those who have conspired against him...

eek

RochdalePioneers said:

BudG said:

The "unelectable" Mr Corbyn steamrollers on.

Next stop, court action, I believe next week, to decide whether NEC was right to disenfranchise 130,000 members signed up since January.

A funny story on the freeze date according to leftist NEC member Ann Black. After succeeding in securing his place on the ballot Corbyn left the NEC meeting and was filmed outside celebrating with his supporters.

Meanwhile inside the NEC debated the various options which had been circulated in briefing packs 30 minutes before the start of the meeting. The usual 6 month freeze was in effect unless the NEC chose otherwise. A proposal to set a June freeze was tied 14-14. Had Corbyn not left early the motion would have carried and 130,000 would have a vote.

It was Corbyn's fault....

By not voting Corbyn has generated £2.5m in additional Labour Party revenue while being able to blame others for forcing those people to fork out an additional £25 each...

Another Win/win for Corbyn

ThreeQuidder

Well, duh. This has been obvious for weeks if not months...

(smug mode off)

Charles

kle4 said:

BudG said:

The "unelectable" Mr Corbyn steamrollers on.

Unelectable is used to refer to his prospects among the wider electorate, not the Labour selectorate. We won't know the definitive answer to whether he is indeed unelectable in that sense until 2020, all evidence before then is not complete proof - however, one can certainly make an assessment as to whether victory among the Labour selectorate is a better indicator of his wider electability or if other evidence, like annual locals, polls, etc, are a better indicator. Reasonable people will differ on that front.

Even 2020 won't be definitive... n=1 is not statistically significant!

David_Evershed

RochdalePioneers said:

BudG said:

The "unelectable" Mr Corbyn steamrollers on.

Next stop, court action, I believe next week, to decide whether NEC was right to disenfranchise 130,000 members signed up since January.

A funny story on the freeze date according to leftist NEC member Ann Black. After succeeding in securing his place on the ballot Corbyn left the NEC meeting and was filmed outside celebrating with his supporters.

Meanwhile inside the NEC debated the various options which had been circulated in briefing packs 30 minutes before the start of the meeting. The usual 6 month freeze was in effect unless the NEC chose otherwise. A proposal to set a June freeze was tied 14-14. Had Corbyn not left early the motion would have carried and 130,000 would have a vote.

It was Corbyn's fault....

It is Corbyn's fault the Labour party has raised £4.5m from the £25 supporter payments.

CarlottaVance

Charles said:

Is it permitted to say "I told you so"?

The number of people on here who were confidently asserting that the NEC/courts would rule against the natural interpretation of the wording was quite extraordinary

@ChrisshipITV: Both Labour Party and Jeremy Corbyn have been awarded their costs. Not a great day in court for the applicant Michael Foster

AndyJS

TCPoliticalBetting said:

I noticed that Lord Deben had retweeted something from a twitter account and intrigued I had a look at what else they had written. This line about LEAVE = STUPID people seems to be a common view amongst the hardened REMAINers.

InForBritain ‏@InForBritain Jul 26
Our SHOCKING poll finds number of thick, stupid Leavers has actually grown since #EUref. I despair. #brexitin5words

That has to be a spoof account.

TheWhiteRabbit

CarlottaVance said:

Charles said:

Is it permitted to say "I told you so"?

The number of people on here who were confidently asserting that the NEC/courts would rule against the natural interpretation of the wording was quite extraordinary

@ChrisshipITV: Both Labour Party and Jeremy Corbyn have been awarded their costs. Not a great day in court for the applicant Michael Foster

I doubt they've got all their costs.

PlatoSaid

SimonStClare said:

A right-wing rag writes – “Owen Smith wanted to be a slick version of Jeremy Corbyn – but he's ended up as a dodgy sexist copy”

http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/jeremy-corbyn-owen-smith-labour-leadership-dodgy-copy-theresa-may-smash-her-back-on-her-heels-a7159621.html

"Smith seems to be having difficulty finding what he stands for. You read the morning briefing and it all seems as though he's very continuity-Corbyn. By dinner time, he's saying that the current Labour leader and Tony Blair have a lot in common. Yes, it's difficult to keep up with. He seems to move from one position to another with great ease. Smith will jump from suggesting Corbyn is part of a hard-left clique to arguing that he hasn't embraced radical policies in the space of an afternoon."

bigjohnowls

brokenwheel said:

bigjohnowls said:

DavidL said:

So the choice is Corbyn or Smith. What a mess.

All of the PLP needs to get behind Smith 100% now. Confirm unequivocally that if they are asked to serve by him they will. Confirm that if Corbyn wins they will continue not to serve leaving Corbyn without the ability to draw up a shadow cabinet. Confirming that as the people who have had to work with him most and are best placed to assess him Corbyn is just not good enough and not up to the job. And they need to all be saying this every day.

We will replace the PLP

Invasion of the party snatchers.

PLP trying to steal the Party back from the democratically elected Glorious Leader.

Party rescued by members.

If they will not serve Jezza under a new mandate. There is no option but to replace.

williamglenn

bigjohnowls said:

DavidL said:

So the choice is Corbyn or Smith. What a mess.

All of the PLP needs to get behind Smith 100% now. Confirm unequivocally that if they are asked to serve by him they will. Confirm that if Corbyn wins they will continue not to serve leaving Corbyn without the ability to draw up a shadow cabinet. Confirming that as the people who have had to work with him most and are best placed to assess him Corbyn is just not good enough and not up to the job. And they need to all be saying this every day.

We will replace the PLP

What will you do? Send Martin Brunt to report on their next meeting?

Speedy

DavidL said:

So the choice is Corbyn or Smith. What a mess.

All of the PLP needs to get behind Smith 100% now. Confirm unequivocally that if they are asked to serve by him they will. Confirm that if Corbyn wins they will continue not to serve leaving Corbyn without the ability to draw up a shadow cabinet. Confirming that as the people who have had to work with him most and are best placed to assess him Corbyn is just not good enough and not up to the job. And they need to all be saying this every day.

Corbyn already has a shadow cabinet functional enough that no one can tell the difference.

In fact it's more functional that the previous one, since it doesn't contain members who are constantly plotting.
It's better to keep them out of the tent pissing in, than inside pissing in.

CarlottaVance

Morris_Dancer said:

Mr. Wheel, the PLP has only itself to blame. They put Corbyn on the ballot.

Ma Beckett called nominating Corbyn 'the biggest political mistake of my life' - and that was many months ago......

jonny83

Tissue_Price said:

DavidL said:

So the choice is Corbyn or Smith. What a mess.

All of the PLP needs to get behind Smith 100% now. Confirm unequivocally that if they are asked to serve by him they will. Confirm that if Corbyn wins they will continue not to serve leaving Corbyn without the ability to draw up a shadow cabinet. Confirming that as the people who have had to work with him most and are best placed to assess him Corbyn is just not good enough and not up to the job. And they need to all be saying this every day.

Fine, then what when Corbyn wins?

Two choices:

Force a split
Crawl back behind Corbyn.

Falling back in line is what I expect they will do as they don't have the balls to force a split and set up a new party imo. So they will crawl back and try and kiss Corbyn's behind so they don't face deselection, but a lot are already doomed as I expect Corbyn and his momentum lot to go on a purge.

I think we might see a lot of the big names, people like Cooper for example perhaps stand down at the next election. A mindset of it's Labour or nothing for me, but I just can't work for Corbyn.

Some of these replacement choices from the resulting deselections and going to introduce some pretty colorful characters (and that's putting it mildly) looking at Corbyn's base support.

Verulamius

The full decision https://www.judiciary.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/judgment-foster-v-mcnicol-and-corbyn-20160728.pdf is interesting. The showman's guild case is specifically referenced. Para 52 is also important.

brokenwheel

Morris_Dancer said:

Mr. Wheel, the PLP has only itself to blame. They put Corbyn on the ballot.

They attach to the spine, so at least Burnham is safe.

rottenborough

Well, what a surprise. I don't think. It always seemed highly unlikely that the court would overrule NEC.

David_Evershed

Artist said:

Another victory over the establishment. #TeamCorbyn

Actually this was the establishment (a judge) making a decision that meant Corbyn will continue as a candidate in the leadership election.

MarkHopkins

BudG said:

DavidL said:

So the choice is Corbyn or Smith. What a mess.

All of the PLP needs to get behind Smith 100% now. Confirm unequivocally that if they are asked to serve by him they will. Confirm that if Corbyn wins they will continue not to serve leaving Corbyn without the ability to draw up a shadow cabinet. Confirming that as the people who have had to work with him most and are best placed to assess him Corbyn is just not good enough and not up to the job. And they need to all be saying this every day.

Alternatively, all of the PLP should persuade Mr Smith to pull out now and confirm that if they are prepared to do the job that they were elected to do and oppose the Tories. It would save the Labour Party the cost of holding an expensive election, save the cost of defending the court case regarding disenfranchising 130000 of their members and save the damage that a further two months of public in-fighting will do to the Party.

If the Party is to remain in one piece and if there is to be any chance of Corbyn being persuaed to relinquish the leadership ahead of the next election, this would be a better alternative

The Party will never be in one piece whilst Corbyn is leader. He is just too damaging and nonconsensus.

justin124

CarlottaVance said:

Morris_Dancer said:

Mr. Wheel, the PLP has only itself to blame. They put Corbyn on the ballot.

Ma Beckett called nominating Corbyn 'the biggest political mistake of my life' - and that was many months ago......

Harriet Harman is the real culprit for her stupidity as Acting Leader a year ago. She should never be forgiven.

RochdalePioneers

The membership won't listen. It doesn't matter that shadow ministers, our economic advisers and Corbyn's own chief of staff all quit saying he's impossible to work for. All those people have no idea what he's like, only the people who have never met him can really know what he's like.

Morris_Dancer

Miss Vance, she's right. But the mistake is still inexplicable.

alex.

Speedy said:

DavidL said:

So the choice is Corbyn or Smith. What a mess.

All of the PLP needs to get behind Smith 100% now. Confirm unequivocally that if they are asked to serve by him they will. Confirm that if Corbyn wins they will continue not to serve leaving Corbyn without the ability to draw up a shadow cabinet. Confirming that as the people who have had to work with him most and are best placed to assess him Corbyn is just not good enough and not up to the job. And they need to all be saying this every day.

Corbyn already has a shadow cabinet functional enough that no one can tell the difference.

In fact it's more functional that the previous one, since it doesn't contain members who are constantly plotting.
It's better to keep them out of the tent pissing in, than inside pissing in.

He's barely got a functional (in the sense of posts filled) Shadow cabinet. He's certainly not got a functional shadow front bench

nunu

GIN1138 said:

PlatoSaid said:

I remain totally amazed that anyone ever seriously thought this outcome wasn't bloody obvious from the start.

Months ago we talked about this, inspected the rules and most thought it was totally clear. IIRC our conversations first kicked off from almost the moment Jezza was elected Leader.

Still, some lawyers made a few quid from it.

RodCrosby was right again...

Didn't he predict a Trump win? God help us.......

kle4

jonny83 said:

Tissue_Price said:

DavidL said:

So the choice is Corbyn or Smith. What a mess.

All of the PLP needs to get behind Smith 100% now. Confirm unequivocally that if they are asked to serve by him they will. Confirm that if Corbyn wins they will continue not to serve leaving Corbyn without the ability to draw up a shadow cabinet. Confirming that as the people who have had to work with him most and are best placed to assess him Corbyn is just not good enough and not up to the job. And they need to all be saying this every day.

Fine, then what when Corbyn wins?

Two choices:

Force a split
Crawl back behind Corbyn.

Falling back in line is what I expect they will do as they don't have the balls to force a split and set up a new party imo. So they will crawl back and try and kiss Corbyn's behind so they don't face deselection, but a lot are already doomed as I expect Corbyn and his momentum lot to go on a purge.

I think we might see a lot of the big names, people like Cooper for example perhaps stand down at the next election. A mindset of it's Labour or nothing for me, but I just can't work for Corbyn.

That's the way I see it. Quite aside from the ballsiness required to split, who does it help. There are those who say Corbyn is incompetent but his ideas are ok, they will definitely stick around, and for those who think his ideas are crazy too, well, they think of themselves as true Labour, and they will cling to the idea that the only way Labour will save itself is if it comes to realise Corbyn will ruin them. So they will either not fight deselection, or play the long game and hope the membership wakes up after a GE defeat.

brokenwheel

David_Evershed said:

Artist said:

Another victory over the establishment. #TeamCorbyn

Actually this was the establishment (a judge) making a decision that meant Corbyn will continue as a candidate in the leadership election.

Nonsense, MI5 tried to get to the Judge but the comrade bravely fought back against Tory intimidation.

ThreeQuidder

BudG said:

DavidL said:

So the choice is Corbyn or Smith. What a mess.

All of the PLP needs to get behind Smith 100% now. Confirm unequivocally that if they are asked to serve by him they will. Confirm that if Corbyn wins they will continue not to serve leaving Corbyn without the ability to draw up a shadow cabinet. Confirming that as the people who have had to work with him most and are best placed to assess him Corbyn is just not good enough and not up to the job. And they need to all be saying this every day.

Alternatively, all of the PLP should persuade Mr Smith to pull out now and confirm that if they are prepared to do the job that they were elected to do and oppose the Tories.

The job they were elected to do is to represent their constituents.

Speedy

bigjohnowls said:

brokenwheel said:

bigjohnowls said:

DavidL said:

So the choice is Corbyn or Smith. What a mess.

All of the PLP needs to get behind Smith 100% now. Confirm unequivocally that if they are asked to serve by him they will. Confirm that if Corbyn wins they will continue not to serve leaving Corbyn without the ability to draw up a shadow cabinet. Confirming that as the people who have had to work with him most and are best placed to assess him Corbyn is just not good enough and not up to the job. And they need to all be saying this every day.

We will replace the PLP

Invasion of the party snatchers.

PLP trying to steal the Party back from the democratically elected Glorious Leader.

Party rescued by members.

If they will not serve Jezza under a new mandate. There is no option but to replace.

I agree that the majority of the PLP needs to be replaced.
People like Hunt, Kinnock, and Benn definitely have no place even in their own constituencies (who seriously thinks that Tristram Hunt is representative of his constituents? ).
And are serial backstabbers that any sane party would have kicked out a long time ago.

But I disagree with the phrase "Glorious Leader", no leader should be called glorious.

Polruan

CarlottaVance said:

Morris_Dancer said:

Mr. Wheel, the PLP has only itself to blame. They put Corbyn on the ballot.

Ma Beckett called nominating Corbyn 'the biggest political mistake of my life' - and that was many months ago......

She's being too kind to herself.

DavidL

Speedy said:

DavidL said:

So the choice is Corbyn or Smith. What a mess.

All of the PLP needs to get behind Smith 100% now. Confirm unequivocally that if they are asked to serve by him they will. Confirm that if Corbyn wins they will continue not to serve leaving Corbyn without the ability to draw up a shadow cabinet. Confirming that as the people who have had to work with him most and are best placed to assess him Corbyn is just not good enough and not up to the job. And they need to all be saying this every day.

Corbyn already has a shadow cabinet functional enough that no one can tell the difference.

Apparently the Speaker can.

TheWhiteRabbit

Verulamius said:

The full decision https://www.judiciary.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/judgment-foster-v-mcnicol-and-corbyn-20160728.pdf is interesting. The showman's guild case is specifically referenced. Para 52 is also important.

Far more interesting point is the ouster clause.

bigjohnowls

jonny83 said:

Tissue_Price said:

DavidL said:

So the choice is Corbyn or Smith. What a mess.

All of the PLP needs to get behind Smith 100% now. Confirm unequivocally that if they are asked to serve by him they will. Confirm that if Corbyn wins they will continue not to serve leaving Corbyn without the ability to draw up a shadow cabinet. Confirming that as the people who have had to work with him most and are best placed to assess him Corbyn is just not good enough and not up to the job. And they need to all be saying this every day.

Fine, then what when Corbyn wins?

Two choices:

Force a split
Crawl back behind Corbyn.

Falling back in line is what I expect they will do as they don't have the balls to force a split and set up a new party imo. So they will crawl back and try and kiss Corbyn's behind so they don't face deselection, but a lot are already doomed as I expect Corbyn and his momentum lot to go on a purge.

I think we might see a lot of the big names, people like Cooper for example perhaps stand down at the next election. A mindset of it's Labour or nothing for me, but I just can't work for Corbyn.

Some of these replacement choices from the resulting deselections and going to introduce some pretty colorful characters (and that's putting it mildly) looking at Corbyn's base support.

Corbynite MPs, as with SNP influx will be a breath of fresh air.

As far as i am concerned I would rather have 150 Corbynite MPs than 172 Tory Lite and 40 Corbynite ones any day

Pagan

MTimT said:

Pagan said:

HurstLlama said:

In my old company it seemed to be the middle managers who worked from home all the time while the ground troops weren't allowed to on the whole. It probably wouldnt take much to bring in. A guaranteed right to ask to be able to work from home, much like the flexible hours right they brought in. Perhaps a small tax incentive initially to give companies a carrot. In these days where we have the like of video conferencing within the easy reach of most there really is little reason not to except for managers fearing they can't properly oversee things and that is a failing on their part.

I work from home most of the time, but most of my work is solo work.

For teamwork, face time in the same room rather than over the internet, is important. So any work from home rule should still permit companies to require a minimum of on-site work too in order to build and maintain teams/culture.

I don't see a problem with that stipulation, however I remain unconvinced that facetime in the same room adds much if you are using the right online tools. Certainly there are many large open source projects that are successful such as Linux where team members are separated not only in geography but time zone that implies it is not important as some seem to claim.

In my experience when working in a team most meetings seems to be more about catching up some manager on a regular basis than the team actually getting much useful out of it. A standup meeting every morning for example can easily be done via skype using voice and webcam with little lost. As can communication between team members.

kle4

ThreeQuidder said:

BudG said:

DavidL said:

So the choice is Corbyn or Smith. What a mess.

All of the PLP needs to get behind Smith 100% now. Confirm unequivocally that if they are asked to serve by him they will. Confirm that if Corbyn wins they will continue not to serve leaving Corbyn without the ability to draw up a shadow cabinet. Confirming that as the people who have had to work with him most and are best placed to assess him Corbyn is just not good enough and not up to the job. And they need to all be saying this every day.

Alternatively, all of the PLP should persuade Mr Smith to pull out now and confirm that if they are prepared to do the job that they were elected to do and oppose the Tories.

The job they were elected to do is to represent their constituents.

Details, details.

It's interesting how Corbyn must presumably believe he was opposing the Tories those 500 times he voted against Labour, if we are to accept opposing Tories is the primary purpose of a Labour MP.

David_Evershed

ThreeQuidder said:

Well, duh. This has been obvious for weeks if not months...

(smug mode off)

ThreeQuidder - Have you not upgraded to TwentyfiveQuidder?

justin124

bigjohnowls said:

BudG said:

The "unelectable" Mr Corbyn steamrollers on.

Next stop, court action, I believe next week, to decide whether NEC was right to disenfranchise 130,000 members signed up since January.

140K I understand. What happens to CLP hustings meetings that have taken place and nominated without the 140k, would need to be re run.

The way the NEC/PLP have gerrymandered the vote is a disgrace for any democratic party

Hardly! - CLP nominations for the leadership have no great significance anyway in that they cannot bind CLP members to vote a particular way.

Speedy

RochdalePioneers said:

The membership won't listen. It doesn't matter that shadow ministers, our economic advisers and Corbyn's own chief of staff all quit saying he's impossible to work for. All those people have no idea what he's like, only the people who have never met him can really know what he's like.

Have you met him ?

alex.

ThreeQuidder said:

BudG said:

DavidL said:

So the choice is Corbyn or Smith. What a mess.

All of the PLP needs to get behind Smith 100% now. Confirm unequivocally that if they are asked to serve by him they will. Confirm that if Corbyn wins they will continue not to serve leaving Corbyn without the ability to draw up a shadow cabinet. Confirming that as the people who have had to work with him most and are best placed to assess him Corbyn is just not good enough and not up to the job. And they need to all be saying this every day.

Alternatively, all of the PLP should persuade Mr Smith to pull out now and confirm that if they are prepared to do the job that they were elected to do and oppose the Tories.

The job they were elected to do is to represent their constituents.

Well quite. You can tell the extent to which Labour has lost the plot to the extent that the one thing they seem to be united on is that what their main purpose of existence is to oppose the Tories.

John_M

Charles said:

kle4 said:

BudG said:

The "unelectable" Mr Corbyn steamrollers on.

Unelectable is used to refer to his prospects among the wider electorate, not the Labour selectorate. We won't know the definitive answer to whether he is indeed unelectable in that sense until 2020, all evidence before then is not complete proof - however, one can certainly make an assessment as to whether victory among the Labour selectorate is a better indicator of his wider electability or if other evidence, like annual locals, polls, etc, are a better indicator. Reasonable people will differ on that front.

Even 2020 won't be definitive... n=1 is not statistically significant!

The Labour party, at inception, did not win an immediate majority. Corbyn and his acolytes can simply say they are resetting the party and starting afresh.

Richard_Nabavi

jonny83 said:

Two choices:

Force a split
Crawl back behind Corbyn.
....

On past form, they'll go for a third option:

Prevaricate and moan, hoping that something will turn up

BudG

MarkHopkins said:

BudG said:

DavidL said:

So the choice is Corbyn or Smith. What a mess.

All of the PLP needs to get behind Smith 100% now. Confirm unequivocally that if they are asked to serve by him they will. Confirm that if Corbyn wins they will continue not to serve leaving Corbyn without the ability to draw up a shadow cabinet. Confirming that as the people who have had to work with him most and are best placed to assess him Corbyn is just not good enough and not up to the job. And they need to all be saying this every day.

Alternatively, all of the PLP should persuade Mr Smith to pull out now and confirm that if they are prepared to do the job that they were elected to do and oppose the Tories. It would save the Labour Party the cost of holding an expensive election, save the cost of defending the court case regarding disenfranchising 130000 of their members and save the damage that a further two months of public in-fighting will do to the Party.

If the Party is to remain in one piece and if there is to be any chance of Corbyn being persuaed to relinquish the leadership ahead of the next election, this would be a better alternative

The Party will never be in one piece whilst Corbyn is leader. He is just too damaging and nonconsensus.

Then the sensible thing, if they want the Party to return to being in one piece is to do their jobs, stop undermining him and use the time to negotiate for a successor that Corbyn is accepting of, to be put on the ballot for a leadership election before the next GE.

CarlottaVance

First Theresa now Boris - talking French in France:

http://www.bbc.com/news/live/uk-politics-36570120

Ishmael_X

rottenborough said:

Well, what a surprise. I don't think. It always seemed highly unlikely that the court would overrule NEC.

That is to misunderstand the judgment. Para. 57 makes it very clear that the court would be absolutely fine with overruling the NEC, if it thought the NEC had got the law wrong.

PlatoSaid

CarlottaVance said:

Charles said:

Is it permitted to say "I told you so"?

The number of people on here who were confidently asserting that the NEC/courts would rule against the natural interpretation of the wording was quite extraordinary

@ChrisshipITV: Both Labour Party and Jeremy Corbyn have been awarded their costs. Not a great day in court for the applicant Michael Foster

How much is that? Isn't he a hairdresser?

AndyJS

O/T:

"The majority of baby boomers plan to spend their money rather than pass it on to their children, a study suggests.
Two out of three baby boomers — the postwar generation widely seen as having profited from the huge rise in property prices as well as generous pension schemes — said that they did not plan to bankroll the future security of their children.
Their offspring, however, are relying more than any other age group on being able to inherit their parents’ money and property in order to retire, the study found."

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/edition/news/baby-boomers-blow-their-childrens-inheritance-js5r72wp6

nunu

This sounds eerily like Owen Jones prediction on LEAVE.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Qi_IipZVG8

bigjohnowls

CarlottaVance said:

Morris_Dancer said:

Mr. Wheel, the PLP has only itself to blame. They put Corbyn on the ballot.

Ma Beckett called nominating Corbyn 'the biggest political mistake of my life' - and that was many months ago......

Ha Ha Ha Ha

Worse than voting for Iraq and abandoning the WWC


And that in a nutshell is wrong with the PLP

Charles

alex. said:

Speedy said:

DavidL said:

So the choice is Corbyn or Smith. What a mess.

All of the PLP needs to get behind Smith 100% now. Confirm unequivocally that if they are asked to serve by him they will. Confirm that if Corbyn wins they will continue not to serve leaving Corbyn without the ability to draw up a shadow cabinet. Confirming that as the people who have had to work with him most and are best placed to assess him Corbyn is just not good enough and not up to the job. And they need to all be saying this every day.

Corbyn already has a shadow cabinet functional enough that no one can tell the difference.

In fact it's more functional that the previous one, since it doesn't contain members who are constantly plotting.
It's better to keep them out of the tent pissing in, than inside pissing in.

He's barely got a functional (in the sense of posts filled) Shadow cabinet. He's certainly not got a functional shadow front bench

There's this assumption that you need to have a Shadow for every single post in the Cabinet.

I'm not sure that's actually right - a smaller team might actually be more impactful (not that I think Corbyn's team has sufficient talented people to make this model work)

Morris_Dancer

Mr. JS, not a father, but that seems a really odd perspective to me. Even if I never have children, I hope to be successful enough to leave something to my nephew and niece.

kle4

Reason 156 there will be no split - the current fighting, unlike Corbyn's serial rebelling, is damaging to the Labour brand as a whole. However much most of the MPs may think Corbyn a disaster, forming a new party and making a success of it (a very unlikely scenario) would just make permanent the fighting on the left and prevent victory for the left. A bare handful, if that, will want to try that again when it worked so poorly the last time in the long run. The brand of Labour is so strong it can survive a Corbyn disaster, should it occur. Not survive well, but it would survive to fight on. So they will stay. Either keeping quiet or bowing out.

This is Corbyn country now. Only electoral oblivion has a chance of changing that, and we won't find out for awhile.

PlatoSaid

Verulamius said:

The full decision https://www.judiciary.gov.uk/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/judgment-foster-v-mcnicol-and-corbyn-20160728.pdf is interesting. The showman's guild case is specifically referenced. Para 52 is also important.

@RodCrosby has trillions of smug points here.

Artist

Speedy said:

bigjohnowls said:

brokenwheel said:

bigjohnowls said:

DavidL said:

So the choice is Corbyn or Smith. What a mess.

All of the PLP needs to get behind Smith 100% now. Confirm unequivocally that if they are asked to serve by him they will. Confirm that if Corbyn wins they will continue not to serve leaving Corbyn without the ability to draw up a shadow cabinet. Confirming that as the people who have had to work with him most and are best placed to assess him Corbyn is just not good enough and not up to the job. And they need to all be saying this every day.

We will replace the PLP

Invasion of the party snatchers.

PLP trying to steal the Party back from the democratically elected Glorious Leader.

Party rescued by members.

If they will not serve Jezza under a new mandate. There is no option but to replace.

I agree that the majority of the PLP needs to be replaced.
People like Hunt, Kinnock, and Benn definitely have no place even in their own constituencies (who seriously thinks that Tristram Hunt is representative of his constituents? ).
And are serial backstabbers that any sane party would have kicked out a long time ago.

But I disagree with the phrase "Glorious Leader", no leader should be called glorious.

A Corbynite wouldn't be any more a suitable candidate for Stoke on Trent than Tristram Hunt is.

TheWhiteRabbit

Charles said:

alex. said:

Speedy said:

DavidL said:

So the choice is Corbyn or Smith. What a mess.

All of the PLP needs to get behind Smith 100% now. Confirm unequivocally that if they are asked to serve by him they will. Confirm that if Corbyn wins they will continue not to serve leaving Corbyn without the ability to draw up a shadow cabinet. Confirming that as the people who have had to work with him most and are best placed to assess him Corbyn is just not good enough and not up to the job. And they need to all be saying this every day.

Corbyn already has a shadow cabinet functional enough that no one can tell the difference.

In fact it's more functional that the previous one, since it doesn't contain members who are constantly plotting.
It's better to keep them out of the tent pissing in, than inside pissing in.

He's barely got a functional (in the sense of posts filled) Shadow cabinet. He's certainly not got a functional shadow front bench

There's this assumption that you need to have a Shadow for every single post in the Cabinet.

I'm not sure that's actually right - a smaller team might actually be more impactful (not that I think Corbyn's team has sufficient talented people to make this model work)

He could have axed positions, he hasn't. He still has the positions, people are double jobbing.

kle4

bigjohnowls said:

CarlottaVance said:

Morris_Dancer said:

Mr. Wheel, the PLP has only itself to blame. They put Corbyn on the ballot.

Ma Beckett called nominating Corbyn 'the biggest political mistake of my life' - and that was many months ago......

Ha Ha Ha Ha

Worse than voting for Iraq and abandoning the WWC


And that in a nutshell is wrong with the PLP

If she thinks nominating Corbyn means Labour will never be in government to help people, then even with those colossal mistakes her view makes sense, even if you think she is wrong.

Although a fringe of the left do seem to think parliamentary politics irrelevant, we've seen evidence that, contrary to claims from some on the Labour right, Corbynistas so care about winning power, they just think Corbyn can deliver it. Conversely, some on the Corbyn left claim what really frightens those on the right is that Corbyn will win. Now, they may also be a fringe who believe that. But the majority, I would suggest, really do think that Labour cannot win and help people under Corbyn. Right or wrong, that is what they think.

As with a lot of politics, both sides are not even attempting to understand each other, and in fact many take pride in not trying.

David_Evershed

My long shot prediction is that after a couple more weeks Owen Smith will realise he has no chance of winning and withdraw.

He will use the excuse of too much abuse (from Corbynistas) and say he is withdrawing for the sake of the party - trying to leave the impression that he could have won if not for the intimidation of Corbyn supporters. Smith will not want to have to admit that the great majority of party members still support Corbyn because this undermines the PLP anti Corbyn position.

bigjohnowls

John_M said:

Charles said:

kle4 said:

BudG said:

The "unelectable" Mr Corbyn steamrollers on.

Unelectable is used to refer to his prospects among the wider electorate, not the Labour selectorate. We won't know the definitive answer to whether he is indeed unelectable in that sense until 2020, all evidence before then is not complete proof - however, one can certainly make an assessment as to whether victory among the Labour selectorate is a better indicator of his wider electability or if other evidence, like annual locals, polls, etc, are a better indicator. Reasonable people will differ on that front.

Even 2020 won't be definitive... n=1 is not statistically significant!

The Labour party, at inception, did not win an immediate majority. Corbyn and his acolytes can simply say they are resetting the party and starting afresh.

Well if the Party doesnt unite behind Corbyn

I for one and I suspect I will be in the majority will blame a defeat on PLP in 2020.

The left have the control of the party till 2025 IMO

Speedy

kle4 said:

ThreeQuidder said:

BudG said:

DavidL said:

So the choice is Corbyn or Smith. What a mess.

All of the PLP needs to get behind Smith 100% now. Confirm unequivocally that if they are asked to serve by him they will. Confirm that if Corbyn wins they will continue not to serve leaving Corbyn without the ability to draw up a shadow cabinet. Confirming that as the people who have had to work with him most and are best placed to assess him Corbyn is just not good enough and not up to the job. And they need to all be saying this every day.

Alternatively, all of the PLP should persuade Mr Smith to pull out now and confirm that if they are prepared to do the job that they were elected to do and oppose the Tories.

The job they were elected to do is to represent their constituents.

Details, details.

It's interesting how Corbyn must presumably believe he was opposing the Tories those 500 times he voted against Labour, if we are to accept opposing Tories is the primary purpose of a Labour MP.

The problem was never about backbench rebellions, it was the constant plotting inside the shadow cabinet to get rid of Corbyn from day 1.

Any leader has every right to remove those who he appoints to positions, and betray his trust.