“For the many, not the few”
This is genuinely what I believe that Jeremy Corbyn offered the country, and let’s face it – I’m not even the biggest fan of him.
I know of lifelong Tory voters who did in fact vote Labour because of the manifesto offered. How then did we lose this election is such an emphatic way? And let’s be honest here… we lost this election; this was NOT a Tory win. When your vote percentage goes up just over 1% you have not really been victorious. And yet they have managed to get a gut-wrenchingly large majority – with which, they can now comfortably take us out of Europe without breaking a sweat. They’ve won – we have to accept it now.
So how has this happened?
The hard-left side of an already left-leaning party will say it was Brexit… this is, in my opinion, bollocks. Did it contribute? Yes. But then, Labour’s vote went down in Remain areas as well. The swing was something like 3% points lost in Remain areas overall.
So, it can’t have been just that.
My main issue has already been mentioned, “For the many, not the few.”
I wholeheartedly believe that this is what Corbyn wanted to offer to the country. My issue though, is that there are certain elements in the Labour party that didn’t want to offer that to others who consider themselves Labour supporters. In the last three years I’ve been called Neo-Liberal and a plastic Tory… let’s be clear, I’m an Ethical-Socialist who wishes his country could truly be a Social-Democracy – I’m not a Conservative in any way.
But when you have people yelling at you that you’re wrong – how the fuck do you think you’re going to be able to change their mind? And trust me, I’m just as guilty of this as anyone. I was sat in the pub, the Saturday before the election when someone considerably younger than me asked how I was going to vote (we don’t talk politics usually, he’s not aware of my leanings). Before I could answer he has uttered that he was thinking of voting Tory as he didn’t like JC.
Did I ask him why? Did I try to explain a different way of looking at things? No. I proceeded to (and I blame the copious amounts of Guinness… honest), for lack of a better word, rant at him for 25 minutes as to why it was a truly fucking terribly decision. There was no discourse – just me telling him why he’s wrong and why he should change his mind.
At the end of the 25 minutes, he exclaimed that he had no idea what to do now… I get the feeling he probably voted Tory and don’t blame him because I was guilty of doing what those further left than me have done.
Yelling at someone belligerently, telling them they’re wrong and not bothering to ask how they could help change their mind is not going to lead to anything. Some of the hard-left are happy that they have “their party” back and that anyone else who thinks like a Blairite should “Fuck off and join the Tories”.
Congrats, that’s what just fucking happened.
We lost Blyth Valley – we lost Leigh – we lost Sedgefield. And worse for me, all three Stoke constituencies, and Newcastle-U-Lyme are now all represented by Conservative MPs.
How is it, that these historical mining areas have flipped blue? Voting for the party that fucking closed the pits?
It’s because we have, in the words of my former MP Ruth Smeeth, become the Nasty Party. And in parts, she’s fucking right.
If I see Jon Lansman and Len McCluskey again it’ll be far too fucking soon. These pricks have helped to wreck the party that I have voted for my whole life from the inside out. We’re back in the 80s – Michael Fucking Foot is looking tempting now.
The left seem to hate Centrists almost as much as they hate Conservatives. I would much rather, have a left of centre PM than a Conservative PM – I’m grown up enough to know that sometimes you must choose the lesser of two evils.
Do I think JC would have been a messiah-like PM? No. I do, however, think he would have been a lot fucking better that someone like Boris Johnson… and so would a more Centrist Labour MP, such as Tom Watson – a man so derided by the left that Momentum wanted the role of Deputy Leader abolishing. Why? Because he didn’t agree with everything you said? Fucking tough… that’s fucking life.
So, where do we go from here?
Well, if your reaction is still “Fuck off and join the Tories” then well done, we have 20 years of Tory rule to look forward to. We need to convince those that left to come back to the fold.
I already know people who have said that now that JC is standing down that they will come back. They just didn’t like him.
I liked him; I didn’t love him. Do I think he was anti-Semitic? Of course not. This is a man who as an MP for the last almost 40 years has campaigned against racism and discrimination on one form of the other. He is a good man. However, there is an anti-Semitic element in the party that needs dealing with and he and the rest of the leadership handled it fucking terribly. I do think he tried, but his attempts just weren’t good enough.
We need to expel people who espouse clearly discriminatory vitriol.
Ken Livingstone says that we lost the election because we lost the Jewish vote, Ken Livingstone needs to take a long walk off a very short fucking pier. There’s 260,000 people in the UK who consider themselves Jewish. Ken Livingstone is, and will always be, a fucking idiot. We lost the election in part because there was a percentage of the population who believe that a man who had fumbled an anti-Semitic problem in his party would make a worse PM that a man who has been sacked numerous times for lying, a man who is racist, misogynistic, homophobic and a man who considers the working class to be illiterate in general.
The racist has become PM whilst the anti-racism campaigner has lost his leadership… in what world should that be happening?
And it’s such a fucking shame because I LOVED our manifesto. 87% of it was amazing (fuck off with your free broadband, I’d prefer student loan debt being wiped). It was possibly too good though.
No one believed it was achievable – next time, we need to (worryingly) aim lower. The re-nationalisation of certain industries is something that I agree with. But maybe not all at the same time. Big things have small beginnings… start with one, then move to the next. Rail and Energy would be my picks but that’s for another year, another manifesto I guess.
We need to become the party that welcomes people again though – we need to bring those on the soft-left of the political spectrum back into the fold. We need to learn.
And this starts with choosing a new leader. Where do we go, who do we choose?
I would love to see three names on the list – some will not to everyone’s liking but as I’ve mentioned earlier. Who cares? It’s a democracy. Don’t like it? Then get fucking involved and vote.
- Keir Starmer – more Centrist than some would want. I like him though, fundamentally he seems a decent, caring guy. Former human rights lawyer – excellent orator – and someone not in the mould of JC whilst also sharing his best quality, namely caring for the less fortunate.
- Jess Phillips – passionate, non-metropolitan, and (crucially) honest as fuck. She’ll tell you what she thinks about a subject. It also wrangles me that we haven’t had a permanent female leader yet.
- Angela Rayner – another woman, yay, but more the bigger reason that both Jess Phillips and Angela Rayner are on the shortlist is that (from a purely selfish POV) they’re both similar to me on the political spectrum. Soft-left of the party – more socialist than say Gordon Brown, less socialist that John McDonnell. Angela once again is non-metropolitan and considers education to be a top priority, something I believe in completely. Also, she’s the kind of person that John McDonnell would like to see take over, which I would hope would appease those on the Harder-Left of the party.
Honourable mentions go to Emily Thornberry and David Miliband (if he ever stops swanning around in NY haha)
When we get to decide is anyone’s game. I’d rather see it done sooner rather than later, if no other reason than I can see storm clouds on the horizon – and we’re going to need someone at the helm.
Join Labour and have your say.
No, you can’t always get what you want
You can’t always get what you want
You can’t always get what you want
But if you try sometime you find
You get what you need.Mick Jagger & Keith Richards
thegentdothquotetoomuchmethinks 