Neither Jeremy Corbyn nor Diane Abbott would be "standing against the Labour Party". They would be the incumbents seeking re-election, so Labour would be standing against them. If Abbott is subject to "an independent process", then which independent organisation runs it, within what terms of reference, and why does it not apply to anyone else who has been suspended from the Labour whip, including Corbyn?
Likewise, if Labour plans to, say, grow the economy, then what specific policies does it propose to pursue to that end? If, most obviously, Rachel Reeves ran any risk of bringing about substantial or even superficial change, then she would already have been torn apart by now. There is more than enough material that might be deployed to that purpose, whether against Reeves or against any of the rest of them. It says it all that that deployment has not happened, nor will it.
But when I tell you that there is going to be a hung Parliament, then you can take that to the bank. I spent the 2005 Parliament saying that it was psephologically impossible for the Heir to Blair's Conservative Party to win an overall majority. I predicted a hung Parliament on the day that the 2017 General Election was called, and I stuck to that, entirely alone, all the way up to the publication of the exit poll eight long weeks later. And on the day that Rishi Sunak became Prime Minister, I predicted that a General Election between him and Keir Starmer would result in a hung Parliament.
I have no plan to join the Workers Party of Britain, although nor would I expect to stand against it. If, however, it did not contest North Durham, then I would. To strengthen families and communities by securing economic equality and international peace through the democratic political control of the means to those ends, including national and parliamentary sovereignty, we need to hold the balance of power. Owing nothing to either main party, we must be open to the better offer. There does, however, need to be a better offer. Not a lesser evil, which in any case the Labour Party is not. We have made a start.
Saw your letter:
ReplyDeleteAmid the nostalgia about economically egalitarian and socially conservative MPs from the patriotic working class, it is considered a national emergency that a real, live one has been elected. George Galloway’s two leaflets were mutually dependent, and if it matters, then he received too many votes to have been returned predominantly by Muslims.
Those who bewail Greenery, wokery, the EU, and sometimes also wars of liberal intervention, would have preferred Britain if the miners had won. I am not a member of the Workers Party of Britain, but it has an MP, so it deserves as much coverage as the Green Party, and more than Reform UK. TalkTV is moving online, so Freeview’s channel 237 should go to us, the pro-Brexit and anti-woke Left of Britain’s most recently elected MP.
David Lindsay
Lanchester, County Durham
Ooh, where? I sent it to several of the public prints.
DeleteI love that opening line. "There is no vacancy." In the words of Tony Soprano, "You quote the rules at me, I quote 'em back at you."
ReplyDeleteI genuinely wonder who would sign the nomination papers of a Labour candidate against Abbott, especially.
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