Labour Left “here to stay”

Labour faces annual leadership contests until the fractious Parliamentary Party is replaced by new MPs who are prepared to respect the members’ vote warned one Labour Party insider after the National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting which decided the arrangements for this year’s leadership ballot.

The revelation came as the virtually unknown backbencher Owen Smith MP entered the Labour leadership race. Opinion is divided on why he has done this. Some believe he is trying to draw Welsh votes away from Corbyn and pick up second preference votes to help Angela Eagle. However, others are suggesting that Smith (who is rapidly becoming known as “Owen Who?”) was in fact the right wing’s preferred candidate all along. Just as it was Margaret Hodge who first questioned Corbyn’s leadership, only for Angela Eagle to emerge as a challenger, now that Eagle has triggered the ballot Smith can organise his nomination without accusations of having destablised the Party by criticising the members’ choice of Leader. He’ll be able to say he was only joining a contest that was already underway.

The right wing of the Labour Party, those who still support Tony Blair’s policies, never dreamed their candidate would lose the election to follow Ed Miliband. Despite the decisive vote, they could not come to terms with failure – doggedly believing that party members never really wanted to vote for Corbyn and would change their minds if they were given a second chance.

As soon as the result was out, they were planning their challenge. They hoped to launch it after the Oldham by-election, which they expected Labour to lose, on the basis that Corbyn could not win elections. The launch was called off when Labour won the by-election. They pencilled in May 2016 for their next attempt – which was again called off when Labour’s performance in that month’s elections did not substantiate their claim that Corbyn was an electoral liability. Finally, they went for it after the referendum result.

When it came to this week’s NEC meeting, the hopes of Labour’s Blair-followers were on the one hand dashed (when the NEC ruled that Corbyn would be on the ballot paper without having to seek nominations) and on the other hand boosted (when the NEC decided who was eligible to vote and ruled out many new members and supporters who are assumed to be Corbyn supporters).

What the Labour right hasn’t realised – they are sometimes a bit slow – is that by starting the precedent of standing against the elected Leader on the slightest pretext, they have ensured that if the NEC’s restriction on who can vote does help Angela Eagle (or Own Who) edge ahead, the left will challenge them straight back again. MPs will be lobbied to back a challenge within days of any unfavourable result. The right’s challenge has not particularly appeased the right wing members (there are still very few of them – which is why they lost the election in the first place), but it has certainly energised the left. Those Corbyn supporters who thought they could vote once and then leave Jeremy to it are now joining the Party and beginning to participate. There are reports of larger meetings taking place around the country (which is probably why the NEC issued a ban on all meetings).

Richard Burgon MP

After the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, many left wing members left the Labour Party – not in an organised move, but in a steady and disparate flow, leaving the pro-war Blairites a free hand to have an easy ride running local parties without challenge (or able to isolate the few who remained). This time, however, the left is ready for a long term campaign and very much in a mood to stay, or return, and fight. As Richard Burgon MP put it:
“It’s important Labour members understand this sad truth: some coup-backing Labour MPs fundamentally opposed to Jeremy Corbyn and his ideas are doing what they are doing precisely because they want to drive party members to resign in disgust at their behaviour. They want you to play into their hands by resigning in ‘protest’ so that they can return to the Blair-inspired ‘business as usual’ which offers a big future for them but no future for Labour or the communities Labour exists to represent. Don’t give them the satisfaction. Come what may: #StayPut”

Whatever the result of the leadership contest, and however protected they are at the moment in the absence of meetings, 172 Labour MPs are, eventually, going to have to go back and face their constituency parties – just months away from when reselections begin. Stories are already emerging about the lengths the Coup Leaders had to go to in order to persuade some of the 172 to back the plot. It seems that some of the 172 so recently admitted to the hall of shame are beginning to regret their actions already

[Adverts]