Challenge Ahead

29 June 2016

Cogito Ergo Non Serviam

Labour MPs Vote No Confidence in Corbyn, 172-40

Yesterday, the Parliamentary Labour Party voted no confidence in their leader, Jeremy Corbyn. The vote was 172 expressing no confidence with 40 supporting the leader. Another 13 members did not vote. Mr. Corbyn doesn't seem to care. "I was democratically elected leader of our party for a new kind of politics by 60% of Labour members and supporters, and I will not betray them by resigning," he said. A leadership challenge is the only way out of this mess for the party.

A great many on the left of the party like Mr. Corbyn's stance on most issues. Blairites can't stand him. At this stage, this journal believes that his position on the political spectrum is secondary at best. His ability as leader is what one questions, not the purity of his ideology. And as leader, he's done a pretty poor job. The simple proof is that he has lost the support of the MPs, not after a crushing victory for the government Labour opposes but after the Prime Minister led a campaign to stay in the EU and then lost. If anything, the PLP ought to be united behind a leader ready to force a no confidence vote in the House of Commons, not the Labour committee room.

Someone must challenge Mr. Corbyn for the leadership, or this wound will continue to bleed all over Westminster, letting the Tories off the hook for a constitutional crisis they created. Labour's leader in Scotland, Kezia Dugdale, suggested Mr Corbyn's position was untenable, telling the BBC: 'If I had lost the support of 80% of my MSPs I could not do my job'." Of course, she leads 23 MSPs in a house of 129, the third largest grouping after the SNP and the Tories. Her job isn't all that hard as a result.

There is a law in politics (law used in the scientific sense, as in laws of physics) that says "you can't beat somebody with nobody." In other words, the anti-Corbyn members need an alternative leader. Since there can be no leadership fight without a challenger entering the lists, one of the Labour MPs who voted no confidence in Mr. Corbyn needs to step up today to get this over with. Angela Eagle, former shadow business secretary, and Tom Watson, deputy leader, have been suggested as potential challengers.

Mr. Corbyn has chosen not to resign the leadership. Under Labour Party rules that is important because all candidates in a leadership challenge need 20% of the sitting MPs to sign their candidacy papers to get on the ballot. Were he to resign, the leadership would be considered vacant, and that threshold would drop to 15%. There are 225 current members of the PLP, and Mr. Corbyn received 40 votes yesterday. He doesn't appear to have the 20% he would need to have his name on the ballot.

Once the candidates are selected and the ballots are printed, Mr. Corbyn should find he has an easier time of staying in power. Registered (card-carrying Labour members) and affiliated voters (union members) get their say in a postal and electronic election using the single transferrable vote. The voter marks his or her preferences, and the candidate with the lowest vote total is eliminated and his or her votes are reallocate according to second preferences. This will continue until a candidate has a majority. Nine months ago, Mr. Corbyn won that kind of election with around 60% of the vote. The likelihood is that his support in the country hasn't eroded very much.

The situation is, of course, ridiculous. The opposition should be ready to pounce on the remains of the Remain Tories, make life hell on earth for the Leave Tories, and be prepared to trounce both at the polls at every by-election between now and the dissolution of this parliament. Instead, Labour has become such a farce that David Cameron, during Prime Minister's Question Time, could say to Mr. Corbyn, "It might be in my party's interest for him to sit there -- he's not in the national interest. I would say: for heaven's sake, man, go!'"

Pity poor Britain. It has a government that cannot govern, and an opposition that can only oppose itself.

© Copyright 2016 by The Kensington Review, Jeff Myhre, PhD, Editor. No part of this publication may be reproduced without written consent. Produced using Ubuntu Linux.



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