Brian Marwood
Well-known member
Corbyn couldn't beat the Tories, Starmer probably will and therefore gets my vote.
She was one of the bigger figures in the antisemitism scam. She left to form a new party and then stood as a Lib Dem. Allowing her back into the party whilst using the same rules that would prevent her being a member to oust people that have barely transgressed them is what gets people upset.I can’t really believe that Luciana Berger rejoining the Labour Party has upset people. I would imagine that the majority of the voting public won’t even notice. But then again it’s the usual few on here that have a problem with it!
FTFYCorbyn couldn't beat the combined forces of the Tories and the Labour centrists working against a Labour victory.
"Effective" remains to be seen. I'd imagine that plenty of left-wing folk will see any manifesto coming from Labour as very conservative - with a small and large C.Not very nice, but effective.
Corbyn count beat the right wing MPs in his own party and the press.Corbyn couldn't beat the Tories, Starmer probably will and therefore gets my vote.
Effective" remains to be seen
She was actively working against the leadership and against a Labour victory.Here's the rest of her resignation letter where she gracefully tells Jeremy that he's not up to the job of leading the Party.
View attachment 70382
It's the other way around. Those MPs should have been listening to the membership, not their own interests. They are the ones that should have left. Some of them did and quickly found out that nobody is aligned with them so they have come crawling back.In 2016 Jeremy Corbyn lost a vote of confidence from the Parliamentary Labour Party by 40 votes to 127. He should have gone at that point, instead he clung on to the post citing his vote from the membership. Sadly that meant that he had such a limited pool of loyal MPs that he was never able to effectively lead the party after that date. Politics is a brutal game and at that point he was "Yesterday's Man".
I liked Jeremy Corbyn, I liked his policies and believe that had he been elected we would be living in a far more equitable country then we do now. But, it is no good bleating on about other MPs working against him. He should have known that would be the case when he received such a damming judgement in the VoC.
Wrong. MPs should listen to their constituents.Those MPs should have been listening to the membership, not their own interests.
Perhaps.Those MPs should have been listening to the membership, not their own interests.
The point of being an MP is to represent your constituents interests, not ignore them and follow your own.Perhaps.
But that is about as damming a vote as anyone could receive. I'm sure many of the 127 did work with Corbyn though the following period. That's not the point. The point of being an MP is to affect change for your constituents and the country but you can't do that terribly well from the Opposition benches. They judged JC to be "unelectable" and he would know that some of them would actively work against him. That is politics. There is always someone after the top job or a Minister's portfolio. There are plots and allegiances formed with a view to getting into position for the next reshuffle or change of leadership. And that would plainly be the case after that VoC. He was a dead man walking. He did a disservice to the Labour Party and to the chances to oust the Conservatives in 2019 by his insistence on holding on to the Leadership.
Indeed.The point of being an MP is to represent your constituents interests, not ignore them and follow your own.
The point of being an MP is to represent your constituents interests, not ignore them and follow your own.
So we agree that working against the election of a Labour Government was against the interests of her constituents?Would those interests not be better served by having an elected Labour Government?
As above, working against the election of a Labour Government was against "the general good".Here we must take notice of Edmund Burke's speech to the electors of Bristol in 1774.
'I am sorry I cannot conclude without saying a word on a topic touched upon by my worthy colleague. I wish that topic had been passed by at a time when I have so little leisure to discuss it. But since he has thought proper to throw it out, I owe you a clear explanation of my poor sentiments on that subject.
He tells you that "the topic of instructions has occasioned much altercation and uneasiness in this city;" and he expresses himself (if I understand him rightly) in favour of the coercive authority of such instructions.
Certainly, gentlemen, it ought to be the happiness and glory of a representative to live in the strictest union, the closest correspondence, and the most unreserved communication with his constituents. Their wishes ought to have great weight with him; their opinion, high respect; their business, unremitted attention. It is his duty to sacrifice his repose, his pleasures, his satisfactions, to theirs; and above all, ever, and in all cases, to prefer their interest to his own. But his unbiassed opinion, his mature judgment, his enlightened conscience, he ought not to sacrifice to you, to any man, or to any set of men living. These he does not derive from your pleasure; no, nor from the law and the constitution. They are a trust from Providence, for the abuse of which he is deeply answerable. Your representative owes you, not his industry only, but his judgment; and he betrays, instead of serving you, if he sacrifices it to your opinion.
My worthy colleague says, his will ought to be subservient to yours. If that be all, the thing is innocent. If government were a matter of will upon any side, yours, without question, ought to be superior. But government and legislation are matters of reason and judgment, and not of inclination; and what sort of reason is that, in which the determination precedes the discussion; in which one set of men deliberate, and another decide; and where those who form the conclusion are perhaps three hundred miles distant from those who hear the arguments?
To deliver an opinion, is the right of all men; that of constituents is a weighty and respectable opinion, which a representative ought always to rejoice to hear; and which he ought always most seriously to consider. But authoritative instructions; mandates issued, which the member is bound blindly and implicitly to obey, to vote, and to argue for, though contrary to the clearest conviction of his judgment and conscience,--these are things utterly unknown to the laws of this land, and which arise from a fundamental mistake of the whole order and tenor of our constitution.
Parliament is not a congress of ambassadors from different and hostile interests; which interests each must maintain, as an agent and advocate, against other agents and advocates; but parliament is a deliberative assembly of one nation, with one interest, that of the whole; where, not local purposes, not local prejudices, ought to guide, but the general good, resulting from the general reason of the whole. You choose a member indeed; but when you have chosen him, he is not member of Bristol, but he is a member of parliament. If the local constituent should have an interest, or should form an hasty opinion, evidently opposite to the real good of the rest of the community, the member for that place ought to be as far, as any other, from any endeavour to give it effect. I beg pardon for saying so much on this subject. I have been unwillingly drawn into it; but I shall ever use a respectful frankness of communication with you. Your faithful friend, your devoted servant, I shall be to the end of my life: a flatterer you do not wish for.'
It is a fine line MP's have to tread often, but they are not mere Delegates, but Representatives.