Wednesday, August 12, 2015

The scenario in which a Corbyn win would harm, not help, Scottish Labour

It somehow seems to have become the conventional wisdom over the last couple of weeks that there will be no breakaway from Labour if Jeremy Corbyn becomes the leader.  But then it was the conventional wisdom not so long ago that Corbyn was just making up the numbers in the leadership contest, and was doomed to finish fourth.  So conventional wisdom has its limitations.  When Tony Blair claimed that he would never walk away and that he was Labour through and through, some people with long memories were probably recalling Shirley Williams saying much the same thing in 1980, just months before she left Labour to found the SDP.

I'm a bit young to remember the SDP split, but judging from what I've read, there were three broad reasons why the Gang of Three (which became the Gang of Four after they joined up with Roy Jenkins) quickly changed their minds and decided their position within Labour was untenable.  The first was the introduction of the electoral college, giving 40% of the vote in leadership elections to the trade unions.  The second was Labour's drift towards supporting withdrawal from Europe without a referendum.  And the third was the return of a full-blooded commitment to unilateral nuclear disarmament.  (The latter reason was ironic because the new party immediately went into an electoral pact with the Liberals, who were scarcely any more keen on nuclear weapons than Labour left-wingers.)

Although some Blairites are hopping mad about the way in which the new leadership election system has worked in Corbyn's favour, it's going to be a tad difficult for them to use the democratic outrage of a one person, one vote system as a pretext to leave.  And Corbyn has also neutralised the European issue by clarifying that he will campaign for a Yes vote at the forthcoming referendum (albeit perhaps with considerable reservations).  But as on so many previous occasions in Labour's history, that still leaves unilateralism as an intractable problem.  Although Corbyn has shown himself to be collegiate, it's surely inconceivable that any party he leads will not have the abolition of Trident and withdrawal from NATO as official policy.  And it's surely equally inconceivable that "mainstream" MPs, who make up the bulk of the parliamentary party, will be able to live with that - even for the two or three years they might think would be sufficient to give Corbyn "enough rope to hang himself".  So something will have to give.

I'm wondering if Blairites and other right-wingers may attempt a variant of the ruthless tactic that the Orange Bookers successfully used to displace Charles Kennedy as Liberal Democrat leader in early 2006, when they toured the TV studios making clear that they would refuse to serve until Kennedy stepped down.  In a stroke of genius, Kennedy agreed to their terms - but then added that he would be standing again in the subsequent leadership election.  Everyone knew he would win, and that any attempts by the Orange Bookers to use his alcohol problem against him would be counter-productive.  So they then started touring the studios all over again, this time outrageously insisting that nothing less than a commitment from Kennedy not to put himself forward as a candidate would be sufficient for them.  He could still have faced them down, but at that point his unselfish nature took over, and he fell on his sword in the interests of party unity.

To have any chance of displacing Corbyn, I don't think it will be sufficient for the right-wingers to refuse to serve - he'll be able to put together some sort of Shadow Cabinet.  The threat might have to be that a new party will be set up unless Corbyn steps down.  Unlike the SDP, the threatened split would have to be big enough in scale that what remained of Labour would no longer look credible as the principal opposition to the Tories.  That's a tall order, but if the right-wingers did put up a united front it's fascinating to ponder what Corbyn's response would be.  He's every bit as much an honourable party man as Kennedy was, but he might have very different ideas about what the most honourable course of action would look like.

If he did stand his ground and a formal split occurred, it would be an unmitigated calamity for Scottish Labour.  The Holyrood group would probably fragment, and if by any chance the new party was numerically stronger than official Labour, the SNP would no longer face a serious opposition.  It wouldn't matter whether the London media recognised an Alan Johnson-led Progressive Party (or whatever) as the true opposition.  There is one reason, and one reason alone, why Labour attract considerable support in Scotland, even after their recent collapse - it's the connection to the past associated with the Labour brand.  Stephen Daisley's granddad and all that sort of thing.  Strip that away, and Kezia Dugdale might find herself leading a party that gets 10% of the vote next year, not 25% or 30%.

*  *  *

Labour activist and blogger Luke Akehurst finally lost all dignity when he wrote this on LabourList yesterday -

"Some of us, including me, had grown complacent and soft in our assessment of the Hard Left, and advocated Corbyn being helped onto the ballot because we had come to see them as an eccentric minority to be tolerated rather than an existential threat to Labour’s electability...

We now have the ludicrous and perverse situation where a newly signed up member or supporter has the same say in picking Labour’s leader as an MP who has served for 30 years."


So in the space of a couple of months, Luke has gone from saying 'I want Corbyn on the ballot paper because I know my arguments are superior to his, and he should be defeated in a fair and open contest', to saying 'actually, he can't be beaten in a fair and open contest, so it would have been better if we'd kept him off the ballot paper, or ensured that each right-wing MP has several hundred times as much voting power as a recently signed-up left-wing member'.

This is what the self-styled Labour 'modernisers' have been reduced to after all these decades of noble struggle against the union bloc vote - they're now arguing, without any intentional sense of irony, that democracy is the problem.

37 comments:

  1. I remember engaging in quite a long correspondence with Shirley Williams just before the SDP split. We exchanged letters of 2-3 sides A4 at a time, and I got the idea she was genuinely listening and open to different ideas. We explored a range of topics in quite a detailed and civilised manner until I said I opposed nuclear weapons. I never heard from her again.

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  2. I'll disagree on one point. Slab doesn't survive because of its association with past Labour.
    It survives only because the BBC in Scotland is controled by British Labour members of the establishment, and promote it at every opportunity. The propoganda is overwhelming, especially now for a party with one MP.

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    1. That's a pretty wild exaggeration in my view. The Labour tradition is something that still exists in Scotland - I know more than a few people who still vote Labour simply because it's what they've always done (and their family have always done). That type of voter is becoming less important in elections as things become more volatile but they certainly haven't disappeared.

      The split argument, though, ultimately rests on how successful Corbyn is. Parties split over policy, but usually the most powerful precipitating factor is a lack of electoral success. The Tories are completely torn on Europe, yet nobody is talking about splitting for the simple fact that Cameron has been successful. Similarly Blair managed to take Labour away from the left and keep unity for the most part because of his electoral success. Ultimately what politicians care most about is winning their seat at the next election so if Corbyn is successful any talk of a split will be far less significant than if Labour's poll numbers plummet.

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    2. There are some MPs who will not be reconcilable to the idea of leaving NATO even if Corbyn is successful. In fact I think NATO might be a bigger deal-breaker than unilateralism itself.

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    3. @Hoplatte.
      Do you mean the Labour tradition, as in socialism, or the Labour Party?
      The Labour Party was infiltrated decades ago by plants from the USA, and the Scottish voting public know that.

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    4. The Nats would stay in NATO and keep Trident. Where else would they go? You Nats are a laugh for me although your faithfull seem to think you offer something different. You are the most devious lying political force seen in Britain for decades and I do admire that. Labour cannot match you.

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  3. All very interesting Hoplatte, but you fail to mention what Scottish voters will think of all this especially in the current climate. I don't know why you bothered with the first paragraph.

    "Ultimately what politicians care most about is winning their seat at the next election"

    In Scotland at least that has ceased to be true. You don't seem to realise what's been happening in Scotland.

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    1. "In Scotland at least that has ceased to be true. You don't seem to realise what's been happening in Scotland."

      I'll be honest, I have essentially no idea what it is you're attempting to argue here. We're talking about Labour politicians in the UK, not politicians in Scotland. I made the point that they're mainly career obsessed and therefore that it will Corbyn's electoral success or failure that will largely determine whether a split happens or not and you've responded by:

      1) Citing events in Scotland even though we're talking about the UK Labour Party.

      2. By implication appearing to argue that you don't think Labour are career obsessed - in which case you must have a far more positive view of Labour politicians than I do.

      I suggest you flesh out whatever point it is you're actually trying to make and then we might be able to have a proper conversation about it.

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  4. I think some labour MPs may defect to the tories or the liberal democrats. I don't think there will be an SDP style split. Such splinter movements go absolutely nowhere under FPTP and just get swallowed up by a larger party anyway. Might as well just defect and get it over with.

    As far as Scotland is concerned, about 30% of people now planning to vote SNP / Green are unionists - and have not changed their position on the constitutional question. Presumably if an identifiably socialist party comes along that is also pro union, these people will jump ship fairly quickly.

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    1. Eh? About 30%? Please tell me that's a typo, otherwise you have just pulled that right out yer backside.

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    2. It is hard to imagine anyone deflecting to a party on as sharp a downward trajectory as that of the Liberal Democrats. Judging by polls, you are quite mistaken about 30% of SNP voters being anti-independence. There are some but nowhere near 30%.

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    3. Pulled out of the arse like most of Aldo's posts. Seems not to realise this is a polling site so has posters who, well, follow polls.

      Still, I admire the optimism.

      Last panelbase, 3rd July, SNP 2015 voters:
      85% Yes
      11% No

      Last Survation, 7th July, SNP 2015:
      78% Yes
      11% No

      Last Yougov, 21st May, 2015 SNP voters:
      84% Yes
      11% No

      So, fairly consistent. If every No voter there walked away from the SNP and they couldn't temp any more voters, they'd still get a landslide on a par with 2011 / 2015.

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    4. Lib dems will soon see a resurgence, in England, at least, if the labour party veers to the left. We'll have a right wing party and a left wing party - there will surely be a gap in the market for a centrist party.

      My 30% figure comes from a simple calculation involving the latest polling figures. 44% are committed to a 'yes' vote, if a referendum were to be held now. 62% would vote SNP or Green in the Holyrood election. That means that 18% of voters are prepared to vote for a nationalist party but remain either opposed or not committed to independence. 18%, as a percentage of 62%, is 29% (I rounded it to thirty).

      I accept that if you strip out the no voters then it is likely there would still be a pro independence majority. But it is by no means certain that the SNP would have a majority on their own. Deals would have to be done with the Greens - this could weaken both parties if measures are adopted that are unpopular with the voting public (all of this assumes that the SNP and Greens go into the 2016 election with matching manifesto commitments to hold indyref 2 - this is far from certain as the SNP appears to be bottling it).

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  5. As the old adage has it---follow the money!
    Corbyne would still get the bulk of trades union money, and many of the activists.
    A new party would have funding from Labour private doners who have made their opposition to Corbyne clear.
    How either party would do electorally is harder to guess. One plus is the dismal state of the Lib Dumbs. They would previously have gained big time from this.
    It does show up Scottish Labour as an empty vessal willing to dance to any tune from the south. It was embarrassing listening to Kez/FiFi this morning desperately backpedaling over Corbyn

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  6. It just shows what an utter lack of political acumen Dugdale and co in SLAB have. It should have been obvious to them weeks ago that Corbyn was attracting a lot of support from the grassroots of the Labour movement in the UK. Instead Dugdale and Murray think that being openly obnoxious towards him was a good idea.

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    1. This. Labour in Scotland waiting for England to decide so they know what their principles will be.

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    2. This. Labour in Scotland waiting for England to decide so they know what their principles will be.

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    3. To be fair, they were only obnoxious to him when it looked like he wouldn't get anywhere near a win.

      Not that any of it matters. They will quickly align themselves with him for votes and all will be forgiven. As for the Scottish public, they are at best dimly aware of the major issues. They wont care about a politician doing a 180 - as long as said politician says the things they want to hear.

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  7. I've always thought that Labour and the Liberal Democrats have a much stronger paternalistic, anti-democratic streak than the other mainstream parties, and this leadership contest is making it pretty explicit in Labour's case. I don't recall IDS getting this treatment from the Tories when he'd just been elected leader (and certainly not before!), even though it was pretty clear from the off he was an electoral liability.

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    1. I can see that with Labour, but struggling to see where you're coming from with the Lib Dems. How can a socially liberal party be "paternalistic"? They also had one member one vote leadership elections long before the other parties. This is Labour's first under new rules, the SNP's first leadership election on that basis was 2004, the Tories still don't have one member one vote.

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    2. Scotland needs to get rid of the opportunist lawyers and Nat si culture that have taken power and offer no progressive policies. The food banks are static and yet the Nat sis blame their Tory Pals.

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    3. Back to bog-standard Nazi slurs, I see...

      Coolheads Prevail

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    4. Hilda Goebbels' suicide note said she wanted to die as life without "national socialism" would be unbearable.

      Sent a shiver down my spine.

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    5. Magda. And it's fair to say that the fact that the Red Army was closing in on her may also have been a major factor.

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    6. @ Jimmy Glega.
      Does our friend Mr Smart know you want him disposed of?

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  8. Do we have a proper democracy in the UK? I ask because there seems to be growing talk from the Red Tories that they will ignore the result if Corbyn wins, and effectively try and remove him as elected leader straight away. How is this in anyway democratic? This is Labour MPs saying these things aloud as well. I cannot ever recall this happening openly before, namely before a democratic vote for a party leader has even taken place.

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  9. I agree, muttley - removing Corbyn without even giving him a chance would be deeply unfair. If the labour party was silly enough to elect its leader by an open primary type process then it needs to live with the consequences - and look at changing the leadership election process next time if things don't pan out. In the meantime, those who can't, in good conscience, serve under Corbyn need to either resign, form a new party or defect. I believe we shall see a lot of defections - particularly labour to conservative in middle class areas where the sitting labour MP was handed a small majority conditional on being 'new' rather than 'old' labour.

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  10. Slightly O/T so excuse me, but who is the semi-literate troll hiding behind the moniker "jimmy glesca"?

    Some Gordonstoun/Fettes wannabe Old Etonian SPAD to the likes of Ian Murray courtesy of "Mad Dog" McTernan or "Fluffy" Mun(d)ell - these Unionist parties are incestuously all the same to the point of "Through the Looking Glass" with a psuedo-dialect "deft" touch that must have them braying with hubristic self-delight in whichever pro-UK bunker they inhabit.

    Got one or two of these transparent trollsters nipping away at me.

    Daft wee puppies that will not learn.

    All rather sad for them.

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    1. He was exposed on a previous thread. I forget his name (on the phone so difficult to have many windows open) but Google 'Nat sis' and you will find him posting on LFF.

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    2. You do not actually have to know who is commenting but if it is essential then it is possible.

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  11. I've seen more than one troll on here referring to Nat "sis" - can someone enlighten me?

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  12. Indeed, Frann.

    Suspect it is a childish attempt to insinuate the smear of Nazis upon civic Scottish nationalists the better to protect themselves from any potential legal recourse.

    Regards
    David

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    1. Childish! What on earth is a civic Scottish nationalist?

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    2. Civic nationalism is a nonsense.

      Think about it for a second. The only possible justification for nationalism is that you believe that your 'people' are in some way superior to others or - at the very least - the people you are seeking to separate from. Now, if that's the case, from where does this 'difference' emerge? It has to be ethnicity. In other words, your nationalism might come in a cute and cuddly costume but underneath it's just like the others.

      And you know what? This truth has been outed several times. Ever heard a Scottish nationalist complain about "foreigners" being allowed to vote in the referendum ('foreign' being anybody who originated outside Scotland)?

      I have - multiple times. And my response is always the same - if your nationalism is civic, why does ethnicity matter?

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  13. Tory HQ is preparing anti-Corbyn attack lines on Syriza, IRA, Hamas.

    http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/tories-preparing-attack-dossier-in-preparation-for-jeremy-corbyn-victory-10452649.html

    "Conservative Party headquarters is preparing a detailed "attack dossier" in preparation for Mr Corbyn winning the Labour leadership. Researchers have been tasked with digging through voting record and public comments of the leadership front-runner going back over more than two decades. The material will then be fed into policy advisers preparing David Cameron and other ministers for questions in Parliament."

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  14. The Tory Party will roll over a Corbyn-led Labour Party like a sherman tank. His views on Hamas, the IRA, unilateral disarmament and the role of the state are simply not compatible with Britishness.

    His only possible use is as an "ooooooo........shiny thing!" diversionary tactic aimed at hard left Scots who have taken to voting SNP + friends.

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