If He Were To Do Us The Honour

The first of these certainly appears on The Times. It and each of the others also appears in one or more other newspapers today, or else they never will. In any event, here they are:

We do not all hold British nationality or reside in the United Kingdom, although some of us do. We are not all members or supporters of the British Labour Party, although some of us are.

However, we are united in rejecting the charge of "economic illiteracy" against Jeremy Corbyn, and in recognising that his economic analysis and proposals are, at the very least, superior to those of the current British Government, as well as being more comprehensive and coherent than those of any other candidate for Labour Leader.

Yours faithfully,

David Lindsay, Lanchester, County Durham

Professor Victoria Chick, Emeritus Professor of Economics, University College London

Professor Alfredo Saad Filho, Professor of Political Economy, Department of Development Studies, The School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London

Professor John Grahl, Professor of European Integration, Middlesex University Business School

Professor Stuart Holland, Visiting Professor, Faculty of Economics, University of Coimbra, Portugal; Senior Scholar of the Institute of Social and European Studies, Köszeg, Hungary; Member of Parliament for Vauxhall, 1979-1989

Professor Christopher May, Professor of Political Economy and Faculty Associate Dean for Enterprise, Lancaster University

Professor Ozlem Onaran, Professor of Workforce and Economic Development Policy, University of Greenwich

Professor Prem Sikka, Professor of Accounting, Essex Business School, University of Essex

Professor Pritam Singh, Professor of Economics, Department of Accounting, Finance and Economics, Oxford Brookes University

Professor Robert H. Wade, Professor of Political Economy and Development, Department of International Development, London School of Economics; Leontief Prize in Economics 2008

Dr David Harvie, Senior Lecturer in Finance and Political Economy, School of Management, University of Leicester

Ismail Ertürk, Senior Lecturer, Manchester Business School, University of Manchester

Ewa Karwowski, Lecturer in Economics, Kingston University, London

Behind the paywall, here.

*

We do not all hold British nationality or reside in the United Kingdom, although some of us do. We are not all members or supporters of the British Labour Party, although some of us are. However, we are united in welcoming the candidacy of Jeremy Corbyn for Leader of that party.

Whatever our differences with Mr Corbyn, the fact is that he has voted against every actual or proposed neoconservative war from that in Yugoslavia onwards. He has opposed all actual or proposed erosions of civil liberties in the name of "the War on Terror".

Far from being the Trotskyist lazily alleged by his detractors, he is a coherent critic of the neoconservative ideology that is itself a species of Trotskyism. We wish him well.

Yours faithfully,

David Lindsay, Lanchester, County Durham

Dr Philip M. Giraldi, Executive Director, Council for the National Interest, Washington, D.C.; foreign policy advisor to the 2008 Presidential campaign of Ron Paul; former CIA counterterrorism specialist and military intelligence officer

J. Arthur Bloom, Opinion Editor, The Daily Caller, Washington, D.C.

Jack Ross, author, The Socialist Party of America: A Complete History

Sean Scallon, Wisconsin

Thomas Smitherman, University of Bergen

*

We, the undersigned, are not necessarily members of the Labour Party at this time, although some of us are. We are not necessarily supporters of Jeremy Corbyn for Leader of that party, although some of us are.

But we should all be more than willing to serve under his Leadership, including his Premiership, if he were to do us the honour of inviting us to do so.

Any Labour MP who will not say this, obviously does not need or want his or her seat in Parliament. Any Labour Prospective Parliamentary Candidate who will not say this, obviously does not need or want the seat to which he or she ostensibly aspires.

Labour currently holds as few seats as it ever realistically could. There would be no shortage of more comradely and less self-regarding applicants to fill any of them.

Yours faithfully,

David Lindsay, Lanchester, County Durham

Ross Ahlfeld, Inverclyde, Blue Labour activist

Dr Luke Blaxill, Research Fellow, Hertford College, University of Oxford

Neil Clark, journalist and broadcaster

James Doran, Darlington

Dr Simon Hewitt, Labour Representation Committee, National Committee

Hani Latif, Hertford

Others who were in agreement felt unable to sign due to local or professional pressures.