A response to Owen Jones

Unless you've been living under an apolitical rock for the past few days, you will have heard about the infamous blog post written by fellow left-winger Owen Jones (if you haven't read it, I suggest giving it a quick read or this post may be a little bit confusing). I'm a big, big fan of Owen and have had the pleasure of meeting him and engaging him in conversation on Twitter a few times, he is someone who I have the utmost respect for. In concordance with this view, I also agree with a lot of the points he addressed in his blog post. There are questions that need to be answered in order to reassure people that they can trust Labour.

Owen makes the assumption that Corbyn will definitely win and that a snap election is very likely, this is how he defends the timing of his blog post. Indeed, it is looking extremely likely that Corbyn will win the leadership again but having voted for the losing team in the 2015 General Election and the EU Referendum, I have learned we should not become complacent.  I think he made a mistake in targeting his questions at Corbyn supporters, I understand why he did as he believes a Corbyn win is near inevitable, but I think he underestimated the influence he has. I think a more apt blog title would've been 'questions all Labour members need to answer' or something akin to that, aiming the post at Corbyn supporters makes it look on the outset like he endorses Smith - I don't believe he does as he reiterates time and time again his investment in the left's future, but I think he made it way too easy for the right to exploit this, even if unintentionally. I don't believe you should blindly support anything ever, which is why I support Owen's right to critique the left's current strategy, and I think he is right in saying that any criticisms he has would've been exploited by the right regardless of the time. However, I think addressing those concerns now when there are people being taken in by Smith could prove to be disastrous. I also think Owen's assumption that a snap election is very likely is a little bit naive, I think the PLP will only support a snap election if Jeremy wins this leadership again because they know Labour is likely to lose and then they'll definitely be able to oust Jeremy and the left. I have no doubts that the PLP would prefer a Tory government over a Labour government under Jeremy Corbyn (as eloquently said by Tony Blair..).

Anyway, criticisms of the post aside. I think now what the left need to do is answer the questions Owen has put forward, if we can't answer these questions, we will never be able to bring anyone back to the left. Instead of hurling abuse at Owen for being an establishment stooge, a Blairite, a traitor, or whatever word takes your fancy, let's just answer the questions. We can't afford to let the right trip us up on any of these issues.

Questions and answers:

1. How can the disastrous polling be turned around?
Before answering this, I think we need to look at why the polling has been so disastrous in the first place. I acknowledge that Labour were lagging behind a little bit pre-coup but post-coup Labour has really taken a beating in the polls, shifting the blame for Brexit onto Jeremy united anti-Corbyn Remain voters, and the resignations in the Shadow Cabinet on top of the 172 MPs supporting a vote of no confidence in Corbyn re-ignited the fear of Labour being unelectable because a divided party does not inspire people or win elections. In addition to all of this, we are in post-Brexit limbo. Once Article 50 is triggered and the British public realise what Brexit will actually mean for the UK, they will no longer back the Tories. Furthermore, Brexit brought about a whole array of divisions amongst Tories - rehashing this debate will divide them further, and as I aforementioned a divided party does not inspire people or win elections.

In regards to turning the disastrous polling around, the trick is to refine Labour's political motives, which Jeremy has already seemed to be doing as he announced his 10 pledges today. Then from here, to publicise them. Once CLP meetings are allowed again, more canvassing and phone banks can be organised to make sure the general public are aware of these pledges.

2. Where is the clear vision?
I believe the clear vision is to try and restore faith in the apathetic and disillusioned by not being a standard career politician basing a campaign on sophistry. This could be shown in various ways, for example Jeremy has said that all Labour MPs may undergo the re-selection process in the run-up to the next election, this is evidence of democratising the party in the process of ousting corrupt MPs and it shows the importance of the Labour Party members, the importance of people, in Corbyn's movement.

3. How are the policies significantly different from the last general election? 
There are some overlapping policies, such as the banning of zero-hour contracts and a pledge to remove the bedroom tax. However, to suggest that Jeremy shares Ed Miliband's centre-left ideology is an outright lie. Ed Miliband wanted to clamp down on immigration (perhaps this was an attempt of political point scoring against UKIP), Miliband failed to offer a real alternative to austerity (he did the talk of claiming he was an anti-austerity candidate, he just failed to suggest many policies besides the Mansion tax that would help in achieving this), he abstained on Iain Duncan Smith's retroactive workfare legislation, he also appointed Ed Balls as Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer who supported an austerity-lite agenda, austerity-lite is not a real alternative to austerity.

This is where Jeremy offers change. Jeremy has not prioritised immigration as an issue, why? Because it's not anywhere near as big an issue as the Tories would have you believe. The Tories have managed to convince people to direct their anger over unemployment and housing at the immigrants rather than where it should be directed, the top. Jeremy has time and time again reiterated that he is anti-austerity, for example, he has stated that he doesn't want to cut public expenditure. You can trust that Jeremy wouldn't whip MPs into abstaining on Tory legislations, for example Jeremy Corbyn voted against the 2016 Welfare Reform and Work Bill (whereas Owen Smith did not, funny that..), you can also trust that Jeremy Corbyn wouldn't appoint a Blairite type as his Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer - John McDonnell shares Corbyn's anti-austerity agenda, you can check his voting record.

4. What’s the media strategy? 
I agree with Owen's point here that the media is never going to support a left-wing anti-establishment candidate. However, I like Another Angry Voice's suggestion that we should mobilise Labour members in a letter-writing campaign to the BBC - they are publicly owned, they should represent the public. I also agree with Owen's point that social media is very useful, and people with bigger platforms should make use of them by outwardly supporting Corbyn.

5. What’s the strategy to win over the over-44s? 
Owen mentioned that Corbyn had said he would fight for respect for older people, he would deal with pensioner poverty, and social care, but this was the first he had heard of it. What we need to do with these ideas is publicise them, we have so many members, if we all went canvassing and took part in phone banks we could get these ideas out there. It may even be worth getting Labour members to do talks at Retirement homes to publicise these ideas.

6. What’s the strategy to win over Scotland? 
It is my view that we lost Scotland because Labour weren't offering a genuine alternative to austerity, whereas the SNP were. If we offer a genuine alternative to austerity and distance ourselves from the Tories as much as possible, we may be able to win them back. That being said, I acknowledge this will not be an easy feat as Scotland were taken for granted for years with Blairism.

7. What’s the strategy to win over Conservative voters? 
I want to say right off the bat that this should not be our priority. We do not need a move to 'radical centrism', if we make winning over the centre ground and the Tories one of our priorities, we will fall into the same patterns as Blair and Brown (it also didn't work too well for Clegg if my memory serves me well). However, 52% of Tories in this YouGov poll support renationalisation of energy and the rails which suggests that there is a unifying goal here that we can capitalise on and publicise without sacrificing the integrity and values of the Labour Party under Jeremy.

8. How would we deal with people’s concerns about immigration?
This is a question that I've thought about many times before and found it hard to reach a solid conclusion, mostly because any talk about immigration in the mainstream media seems to be based on fearmongering and lies and I think in order to address concerns about immigration, it is vital to bring this to people's attention and point out that the Tories have deliberately placed the blame on immigrants to direct the blame from the top - it's no more than a convenient scapegoat. Tory cuts have meant that poorer areas with a population increase due to migrant inflow have been under a lot of stress, and as Owen said Corbyn has spoken about reinstating the Migrant Impacts Fund. This may be a reasonable way to tackle the 'problem of immigration'.

It is also necessary to point out that if immigration is 'the problem', immigration increased massively under the Tories (the largest spike in net migration in British history) so the Tories have failed to address these concerns anyway, it definitely wasn't helped with David Cameron removing the Migrant Impacts Fund.

9. How can Labour’s mass membership be mobilised?
Canvassing, leafleting and phone banks are very popular ways of gaining support. However, we haven't massively had anything to come together for and focus on. The mayoral election brought together a lot of members and we had a Labour victory! If an election is called, we will have something to prove to  both the PLP and the voters and the mass membership would be mobilised. Furthermore, it's very difficult to mobilise yourselves when CLP meetings have been banned so as of recently it has been very difficult to organise any sort of action.

Conclusion

Owen did raise some very important questions, and they are the type of questions Corbyn supporters will be asked when canvassing, when doing phone banks, or when going door-to-door. Instead of hurling abuse at Owen for writing the blog post, I think we should do our best to answer the questions and address his concerns. All it does is make the left look weak if we can't address these concerns. I think it's clear if you read the blog post that Owen is not anti-Corbyn, I do wish he would be more forward in saying that he supports Corbyn though as, afterall, this vote is a binary choice and by not outwardly endorsing Corbyn, it looks as if he is supporting Smith and I do not believe this is the case.

Owen, who are you supporting in this election? This is very important, I think the future of the left is heavily dependent on this election, and I think you should make it clear who you are backing given how influential you are.

A very British coup

It's not even been a week since the results of the EU Referendum were announced, but in just a few short days the UK has descended into chaos. Pie Minister David Cameron announced his resignation shortly after the results were announced, then the internal divisions in the Labour Party sank to the lowest point in a very long time and it was announced that a motion of a vote of no confidence in Jeremy Corbyn was to be raised at the PLP meeting, then Shadow Foreign Secretary Hilary Benn was sacked for stating he didn't think Corbyn was up to being leader, following this the shadow cabinet lost a further 19 members, and the most recent news: 172 Labour MPs have voted in favour of the motion of no confidence in Corbyn. To be blunt, the political world is a complete shambles at the moment. I have already briefly spoken about the internal divisions in the Labour Party, but I wanted to discuss the electorate's relationship with Labour and the problems that arise from a two-party state like the UK.

The argument that we've been hearing for the past year since Jeremy Corbyn came onto the scene are along the lines of "elections are won on the centre ground" so "Jeremy Corbyn is unelectable" - but is that so? If elections are won on the centre ground, can anyone explain why the Lib Dems are yet to have won a single election? Or why Gordon Brown and Ed Miliband didn't manage to become Prime Minister? There are obviously other factors affecting election results, I'm not here to dispute that, but centrist politics are extremely damaging and a key component in creating political apathy and disillusionment.

When the two main parties are offering similar policies, we become shallow and fickle in choosing who we want to represent our country, we buy into the image, the appearance, the charisma of the candidate. This isn't true of all voters of course - for example, I can't imagine a scenario where I would vote Tory because it is my personal view that it is wrong to victimise poorer people, but we all have our priorities, maybe that's just crazy commie Bess speaking. It's the swing voters who can make or break the election result, and when it's hard to distinct between the two main parties because their policies are so similar, you're more likely to be captivated by the charisma. In addition, the apathetic belief that "all politicians are the same" is a direct result of centrism taking over in politics, why would you believe that politicians are offering you something new when realistically they're not because they share a lot of the same policies?

Centrism results in a cynical electorate because it is clear that the politicians are saying what they think the electorate wants to hear, they are making promises to the people but then when they get into power they try and pull away from centrist policies and implement the ones they genuinely believe in. Translation: they lie to get voted in and then don't come through on their promises, this results in people losing faith in politicians and becoming disillusioned. If you're disillusioned and apathetic, why would you vote? Why would you vote when "they're all the same"? This is why turnout is quite low, why would you vote when you feel like your vote doesn't matter? If the EU Referendum showed us anything, it's that we're in dire need of electoral reform - the turnout was about 20% higher than in the last General Election, people vote when they believe their vote matters and will make a difference.

In addition to this, the UK is essentially a two-party state. I'm not saying that's a good thing, but it's true, that's why parties like the Greens and UKIP only have one seat each whilst Labour and the Conservatives hold most of the others (unless you're in Scotland, in which case SNP are a pretty viable option). This means when we vote, you essentially have to make the choice between Labour and Tory. It is a lesser of two evils situation generally. My MP, for example, voted to introduce tuition fees and to bomb Syria just to give a couple of examples. I don't really feel adequately represented by him, but I would rather a Labour MP than a Tory MP which was why he got my vote. I would put money on the fact that most of the electorate vote in a similar way, my constituency represents that we don't support the Tories but it can't really be taken much further than that in this scenario. It it for this reason that the PLP are not truly representative of the electorate, 172 MPs in the PLP supported a vote of no confidence in Jeremy Corbyn and the New Labour sect of the party are using this as evidence that Corbyn has lost the support of the electorate. This is ignoring the fact that Corbyn was never insanely popular with the the PLP to begin with - he needed 35 nominations from the PLP to get onto the ballot paper for the leadership election and he only just got in with 36, but when you compare that to the actual leadership election where he won with nearly 60% which is a landslide, it's obvious that he's more popular with the electorate. For this reason, we cannot honestly state that the MPs are representative of the electorate and we cannot let this coup damage our support of Corbyn. Those who resigned are not worthy of the position they had, I mean every single one who resigned voted in support of or abstained from voting on the 2015 Welfare Bill which resulted in the poor and disabled paying for £12 billion more in cuts - are these the people who represent us?

The media and the right-wingers will have us believe that Corbyn is unelectable, but so many of us voted him in against all the odds, against all the Blairites and the Tories. We have to call into question why the media and the right-wingers are quite so opposed to Corbyn, the attack on him is very extreme in comparison to other party leaders. As Another Angry Voice pointed out, this is exactly the sort of response you would expect when a candidate is as anti-establishment as Corbyn is. I will continue to stick by Corbyn, and I hope you do so too. Do not succumb to the propaganda, remember we are the electorate and we have the power.

The Tony Blair issue

Tony Blair - also known as former Prime Minister and leader of the Labour party, the man responsible for Blairism and New Labour, and one of the biggest red Tories out there. I try not to talk about Tony Blair if it can be avoided, I think ultimately the involvement of Tony Blair in current political affairs is counter-productive - let me explain. Tony Blair is not representative of the Labour Party or at the very least, he is not representative of what the Labour Party is now in 2016. We are moving past the times of New Labour and Blairism ('bout time) and entering the age of Corbynism, Labour are becoming reconnected with the grassroots movement, the links with the trade unions and socialist parties, that they began with.

The issue being that Tony Blair continues to make public statements about the status of the Labour Party and his opinion is still widely listened to and respected by people, the words he says still make an impact because of the position of power he once had. This wouldn't be such a bad thing if he was productively supporting the party he claims to be backing, but all Blair seemingly does when making statements about the Labour Party is complain that they've moved too far to the left since he left government which does nothing but undermine the party. When someone with that amount of political influence makes sweeping statements like it would be a 'very dangerous experiment' if Jeremy Corbyn's Labour with its 'populist policy-making' got into power, it is an outright endorsement for the Conservatives, they can and they will capitalise on the fact that a so-called Labour supporter (and not just any so-called Labour supporter but the one who just so happened to be Prime Minister for 10 years) isn't even supporting Labour under its current leadership, and that to me sounds much more dangerous an experiment than the idea of a Corbynite government.

Not only do Blair's statements endorse the far right, they also reignite support for New Labour which divides not just the members of the party but also members of the public. Division in the Labour party is feeding right into the hands of the Tories and we cannot afford to give them fodder in political discourse. It is vital that the Labour party are united under the common goal of defeating the Tories, and that cannot happen when red Tories are bringing down the party from the inside. What's being presented from that is that Labour's internal politics are not consistent, why would anyone vote for a party that can't unite and inspire their own members let alone the general population? Outside of the party, members of the public are reminded of New Labour and it's possible that they could defect to Tory because Blair is essentially saying that if Jeremy Corbyn's Labour party gets into power, it would be disastrous. It's blatant that Blair is telling us to vote for an alternative, and in this two-party state realistically the only alternative is Conservative. If members of the public who support New Labour take on board what Blair is saying, we may have possibly lost a huge chunk of Labour support - I repeat, we cannot afford to do that.

Another issue with Blair chipping in on these issues is that a lot of people don't respect his opinion and may completely disagree with him - myself included! This is a problem though, because if miraculously Blair does stop bitching about Jeremy Corbyn and gets behind Labour before 2020, this could be a negative endorsement for Labour and could result in people abstaining from voting. Jeremy Corbyn's tagline when running for leader was that he was advocating 'a new kind of politics' and a move away from centrist* Blairite policies. If Jeremy Corbyn is advertising a non-Blairite style of government and he is endorsed by the biggest Blairite there is, Blair, I somehow doubt that many people will be convinced that Labour are going to act any differently to how they have when they have previously been in power. Tony Blair's input in this discussion is not remotely helpful for the left, and Labour has and always will be fundamentally at its core a left wing party, so if Blair cares as much as he claims about the future of Labour, he would do the admirable thing and stop publicly making statements about Labour. It's counter-productive and Tony Blair should no longer have access to this public platform.

On a final note - Tony, if you want to talk about a 'very dangerous experiment', do you want to talk Iraq?

*BLAIRISM IS NOT CENTRIST IN THE SLIGHTEST. LET'S BE REAL. 

Iain Duncan Smith doesn't deserve a pat on the back

On the 18th March, Iain Duncan Smith resigned from his post as Secretary of State for Work and Pensions in the Conservative Party resulting in cries of joy from lefties like myself, but whilst I can relish this moment, I have some opinions. I have seen all over my Twitter timeline and Facebook feed  that Iain Duncan Smith is a good person because he 'stuck to his principles' and resigned his post as he believed that George Osbourne's budget which victimised the disabled was, in his words, 'a compromise too far'. I gots some problems with this, so I'm going to dissect what his little letter said and explain why it is BS.

He opened with:

"I am incredibly proud of the welfare reforms that the Government has delivered over the last five years."

Really, Iain? You're going to say you're 'incredibly proud' of introducing Universal Credit which forces all low paid employees into desperate competition for casual work? You're 'incredibly proud' of the Bedroom Tax which charges the poor if they're given social housing with 'more rooms than they require', despite the fact that there is also a lack of social housing so tenants really don't have much choice in where they live so it's essentially arbitrarily charging the poor, you're proud of that, are you?

"Those reforms have helped to generate record rates of employment and in particular a substantial reduction in workless households."

Hm, are these jobs on zero hour contracts? Y'know those contracts whereby the employer has no obligation to offer work to the employees so the employee can't be certain they'll earn enough money to get through the week? Oh yeah, great job (pun not intended).

"I truly believe that we have made changes that will greatly improve the life chances of the most disadvantaged people in this country and increase their opportunities to thrive."

Is this some sort of sick joke? Just last week, Iain Duncan Smith was in full support of reducing the Employment and Support Allowance meaning that claimants would receive £30 less a week. Claimants include hundreds of thousands of sick and disabled people, such as sufferers of cancer, Parkinson's disease and mental illness - I mean, I could be wrong, these people are pretty disadvantaged and it seems like you're taking away what little opportunity they have to thrive, Iain, but that could just be me. 

"Together, we've made enormous strides towards building a system of social security that gets the balance right between state-help and self-help."

The Tories don't promote state-help, the concept of self-help is fundamental to Conservative ideology - so basically, every man for himself. This is why continually the Tories allow big businesses and bankers to avoid paying their taxes. This is why Iain Duncan Smith, like other Tory MPs, gets away with claiming expenses to buy a £39 breakfast, talk about scroungers, eh? The Tories literally take money from the poor to give other rich people like themselves tax cuts - the reverse Robin Hood effect.

"I am unable to watch passively whilst certain policies are enacted in order to meet the fiscal self-imposed restraints that I believe are more and more perceived as distinctly political rather than in the national economic interest."

Austerity is distinctly political and has been shown not to do much good economically (for a contemporary example, Greece was forced to adhere to strict austerity measures and this resulted in a deeper recession, mass unemployment, the widening of budget deficits, and a rise in debt levels). Austerity is purely ideological warfare used to target the poor and the vulnerable, it's used to restructure the state in a way that benefits the privileged leaving the poor fighting for scraps. However, I don't believe Iain Duncan Smith is against austerity like he seems to be suggesting. Let's not forget that he voted against raising welfare benefits, he voted against paying higher benefits over longer periods to those who can't work because of illness or disability, he voted for a reduction in spending on welfare benefits, he voted against spending public money to create guaranteed jobs for young people who've been unemployed for a long time, he voted against a banker's bonus tax, he voted against the mansion tax, he voted for reducing corporation tax, he voted for raising tuition fees, and he voted for academy schools - Iain Duncan Smith is not anti-austerity.

"You should be very proud of what this government has done on deficit reduction, corporate competitiveness, education reforms and devolution of power."

Okay right, George Osbourne inherited a debt of £1 trillion. By May 2015, the debt was £1.5 trillion. I'm going to really dumb this down for any conservatives reading, but £1.5 trillion is a bigger number than £1 trillion, have you got that? I know I'll end up just complaining about Capitalism with this claim of improved corporate competitiveness, but I'm just going to say is corporate competitiveness a good thing? Or is it just this capitalist mantra that greed and selfishness should be promoted? The education reforms like academisation of schools has done nothing but divide teachers' unions, pit schools against each other, and generally lower standards of education. For example, academy schools are given more money depending on how many pupils they have which results in overcrowded classrooms and a generally much poorer educational experience. Speaking as someone who went to a High School that became an academy, I did notice the teachers were generally a lot less happier, so much so that nearly the entire science department at my school left! Lastly, devolution of power is not a good thing, this is a neoliberal tactic to bow out of accountability. By devolving powers, the government can easily deny responsibility when they're faced with a backlash - basically, it's their get out of jail free card. So, no Iain, I'm not proud of what this government has done regarding the areas you've mentioned (I'm not proud of anything they've done to be frank, I'm not sure if you can tell) and I don't think you, or anyone else, should be proud either.