A vote of confidence for Corbyn

7am. The full results of the EU referendum were announced and, frankly speaking, the country went into panic. Angry Facebook posts right, left, and centre, abuse being hurled from both the Brexiteers and the Bremainers, all of this with the odd meme in between.

I am not going to continue to sit here and complain about the results, I've done enough of that. We need to act fast and organise, we need to make use of our frustration and mobilise, it has been an eventful day and that just goes to show how quickly we must act before the situation worsens.

I'll keep this brief. The Lexiteers and the Bremainers alike must unite under a shared goal of ousting the Tories. As we have learned from the past few elections, elections are not won on the centre ground (just ask the Lib Dems) and Jeremy Corbyn is realistically the only strongly left-wing candidate, he is the only one offering a new kind of politics. We need to remember in the leadership elections, he managed to win back those who had defected to UKIP, he managed to inspire the apathetic and disillusioned which is a great, great feat, let's not forget he won with a landslide! Ever since Corbyn became leader, the internal divisions in the Labour Party have become increasingly clear, to the point where a certain former Labour Party leader essentially endorsed the Tories over Corbyn. As Corbyn was backing Remain, the vote to leave is a point against him, and it's one that the Blairites in the party are cynically capitalising on to attack Jeremy. The Leave campaign was based upon mendacity, it capitalised on people's fears about immigration as well as people's fears about the NHS facing further cuts just to name a couple, it became a campaign based upon hatred and deep seated hostility. Jeremy's campaign during the campaign was spot on, defending free movement and holding the Tories accountable for the damage they have done and used the EU as a scapegoat for. To oust him now would be disastrous for the future of the Labour Party, we need to unite under our shared goal of defeating the Tories. Instead of widening the divisions in the Labour Party, we need to remember who the real enemy is.

This is where you come in. There has been a proposal for a vote of no confidence for Corbyn to be brought up in PLP, if you do not want a Tory government, if you do not want a continuation of fear, lies, and institutionalised oppression, we cannot let this go ahead. What we can do is e-mail our local Labour MPs as fast as we can urging them not to comply. If you want to find the contact details for your local MP, you can go to this website - you must act fast, we must mobilise ourselves. Below is the e-mail I sent to my local MP, feel free to use it as a template.

"Dear Gareth,
Like 48% of the voters in the referendum, I'm incredibly unhappy that Leave won. However, I am even more unhappy that it is being used cynically to attack Jeremy Corbyn. The Leave campaign was based upon mendacity, it capitalised on people's fears about immigration as well as people's fears about the NHS facing further cuts just to name a couple, it became a campaign based upon hatred and deep seated hostility. Jeremy's campaign during the campaign was spot on, defending free movement and holding the Tories accountable for the damage they have done and used the EU as a scapegoat for. I'm writing to you to help stop this very damaging vote of no confidence in Jeremy, and I would like your assurance that you'll vote against the motion in the PLP. Jeremy Corbyn won a landslide in the Leadership election, so many people joined the Labour Party solely to vote for him, he inspired the apathetic and disillusioned which is a great, great feat and it would be foolish to forget that. To oust him now would be disastrous for the future of the Labour Party, we need to unite under our shared goal of defeating the Tories. Instead of widening the divisions in our own Party, we need to remember who the real enemy is.
Kind regards,
Bess Oates"

Solidarity to you all, let's organise ourselves gang - change can happen. As the Style Council once said, "you don't have to take this crap, you don't have to sit back and relax, you can actually try changing it, I know we've always been taught to rely upon those in authority but you never know until you try how things just might be if we came together so strongly"...

The problem with Defeatism

I've seen too many people on my Facebook feed posting about how it's a waste of time to vote because the outcome of the EU referendum has been predetermined by a higher power, it's apathetic, it's defeatist, and it's one of the biggest problems regarding political discourse.

Defeatism in politics is very, very dangerous and all it does is help to maintain the conservative status quo. If you have the mentality that "one vote never made a difference" and that the higher powers are going to ignore the real outcome of the referendum because they've predetermined whether or not we're leaving, the message you're presenting is "things are a bit crap as they are, but I'm not going to do anything to try to make it better because it's not worth my time", you are accepting and essentially justifying injustice and inequality because you don't think it's worth your time because you don't think things can or will change - can you imagine how many inequalities would be able to continue if every protest group and every campaigner shared that mentality? The world we live in would be a very different, even darker place - it may not be quite as relevant in the case of the EU, but defeatism itself is a problem that needs to be defeated (pun intended).

I've said it before and I'll say it again, I am very empathic towards those who are apathetic when it comes to politics and it's very easy to get into this defeatist mentality, but what you need to do is take the anger and resentment you hold against the status quo and use that to fight for a better tomorrow (ew cringe but I'm going somewhere with this). Tony Benn believed that there are two prerequisites for social change: "the burning flame of anger at injustice, and the burning flame of hope at a better world". I believe that defeatism encompasses that anger and upset at the way things are currently, but you're going to have a hard time bringing about social change if the only thing you are doing is sharing posts on Facebook.

Long story short, you think the outcome of the referendum has been predetermined? Fine, you can hold that belief, but you should still vote in the chance that it's not. Sitting on a fence is not progressive, so it saddens me to see people who claim to be radical and anti-establishment sitting back and doing nothing and essentially aiding conservative agenda. Also, FYI, you can be anti-establishment and a voter, the two things are not mutually exclusive.

If you haven't registered to vote in the referendum, this is probably just me screaming into the void but defeatism is a poison and I'd like to see a lot less of it from the left. If you did register, I hope you all go out and vote (cough cough remain).