Vocal Voices

According to the BBC (who else!) about half of the shadow cabinet is set to resign.

There is already a motion of 'no confidence' tabled against Corbyn. but the rabid wolves want more.

The trouble lies in who will replace him? It will not be one of the failed three from the first leadership election, and leading figures such as Alan Johnson and Rachel Reeves have already opted out, so who will stand? Will brother David be brought back from the US?

This is all pretty pathetic of Labour. Following the referendum Labour has (had) a good chance of at least forming a coalition government after the next general election; that is now blown out of the water. Talk about shooting oneself in the foot, both feet.

I don't know who we now have capable of forming a good government.

The EU Referendum business has shown most of them to be untrustworthy, with the mentality of schoolboys.

The big mistake in the Referendum was the Prime Minister taking sides, and putting out exaggerated statements
of what the results of an OUT vote would be, and thereby inviting the IN brigade to behave in similar fashion.
If he had kept neutral he would not have had to resign.

Aggers wrote:The big mistake in the Referendum was the Prime Minister taking sides, and putting out exaggerated statements
of what the results of an OUT vote would be, and thereby inviting the IN brigade to behave in similar fashion.
If he had kept neutral he would not have had to resign.

The OUT brigade did little more than put their best foot forward. The press then took their statements and twisted them to meet their own political ends. The IN campaign didn't have any direct "positive" that they could give us for staying, besides more of the same, so they went with the fear of leaving.

Having watched the last BBC debate and Ruth Davidson's tirade about the statements on laws (60% vs 8%); then reading the fact checker which stated that the document they BOTH were quoting had a RANGE of possible results which fitted BOTH statements, I despaired. How was anyone going to get to the truth of the matter. On this specific issue it was a matter of perspective. One was saying 60% of our laws were controlled by the EU (mostly true), the other was arguing that only 8% of our laws were MADE in the EU (mostly true). But the point is this. What bothers the people more? What impacts our laws or what specifically makes our laws. Personally I believe that the former is true so Ruth Davidson was being dishonest by using a vertical focus on one specific nitpicking detail.

On the Labour side? They picked Corbyn, now they have to live with him. If true Labour voters want to have a say in which leader Labour has, they need to join the party which will also have a knock on effect of funding them.....

I doubt Corbyn is going to stand down and, I expect, will use every trick he can to stay on. If they want rid of him they'll have to have a vote of no confidence. But if it goes to the party then they will vote for him by at least 60% because so many of them joined to see him in that seat.

For me that works perfectly...

I'm more interested in having the strongest team of Tories leading the Exit. I don't want an election until Corbyn has done enough damage to make Labour unelectable. Then, perhaps, if we were to have an election before the exit, we could have some reasonable number of UKIP MP's to do the job they want to do.

But it's all moot. Labour will do the self destruction dance and the Tories will spend the better part of the next 4 years bickering over getting us out.

It is all getting very interesting.

When Corbyn became Labour leader he seemed to have to appoint Blairites to his shadow cabinet in order to keep the peace within the PLP. Those Blairites, Bryant, Faulkner et al, have now gone of their own accord so he has the chance to appoint his own team. Judging from the appointments already made this looks to be happening - 'Goodbye Blairites. Welcome back the centre-left'.

Will it work? Who knows, but it could well be worth the risk. There are a lot more centre-left voters out there than the BBC, Sky, the Mail and Express would have us believe.

With the Tories tearing themselves apart, and BoJo looking the step into Cameron's 'dead man's shoes' things are not over by a long chalk. If Corbyn survives the 'no confidence' motion, and he might because the party is behind him, the next general election could be something to watch.

I don't know how others saw it but, to me, Corbyn showed a lack of moral courage and a total lack of integrity in the EU Debate. I wouldn't trust him with a rubber duck at bath time let alone the country.

But, please, let all those voters who were centre left Labour, but became centrists, watch Corbyn drag Labour back to the left. That I would love to see because, as far as I can see, the centre left like a person who calls a space a spade and Corbyn showed a real penchant for mealy mouthed politicking during the EU debate....

As you say, it could be very interesting. Because in the last election Labour was nearly castrated by UKIP and the local council elections showed no improvement at all. The EU referendum also showed that the Labour voters had no interest in the Labour message.

Perhaps the workers might think it's really time for a change..

It is noticeable that all the bile over the EU referendum campaign and result is being directed at Cameron, Osborne, Johnson and Farage, and to a lesser extent, Gove and Stuart. The media is having a field day, or week, or month.

Corbyn looks to have avoided most of it. Yes, he is being criticised for his lacklustre performance by a cohort of Labour MPs, but out in the real world nobody seems to care. In the long run it might do him no harm at all.

One thing struck me immediately about the referendum results, the way old Labour areas voted for Brexit.

This means that in areas like Wakefield you have a very pro-EU MP in Mary Creagh (I think she worked for it at one time), but her constituents voted 2 -1 for Brexit.
Which prompts the question - "How did the Labour party come to have MP's that are so unrepresentative of their constituents?"

The answer is of course because they have been parachuting them in from London for the last 20 years. All the same type of person, with the same views, cut from the same cloth.

But they can't actually admit this! So instead it's "Let's all blame Corbyn" time; and the voters obviously, who "didn't understand what they were voting for".

Cromwell, it is the same here in Leeds.

Hilary Benn, Fabian Hamilton, Rachel Reeves and ex MP Ed Balls, all parachuted in.

I am not saying they are not good MPs, but none of them, except maybe Fabian Hamilton in a more prosperous but still safe Labour seat, resonate with the traditional leanings of their constituents.

I think it should be a rule that candidates for a General Election must
have been long-standing residents of the constituency they put up for.

At one time I thought that used to be normal practice.

I'm sure it was normal practise because any MP who only kept up a written correspondence with the constituency was unlikely to survive. Of course fast travel and the internet means an MP can be available as often and in as detailed a way, as they want.

People are people and, in the end, they take a pride in "their" MP being famous or prominent..