Rally appreciates Corbyn’s vision & calls for suspension to be lifted

Ben Chacko reports on an online rally organised by Arise on Monday night, at which some Labour MPs vowed to intensify pressure to see Jeremy Corbyn readmitted to the party.

‘The former leader’s vision changed the political landscape of Britain’, the meeting heard.

Poplar and Limehouse MP Apsana Begum said that Jeremy’s message really spoke to her and her community whereas before Labour members of black and minority ethnic backgrounds had felt “kept out” of key positions. Mr Corbyn’s democratisation of the party had allowed people like her to “come up through the grassroots.”

Socialist Campaign Group secretary and Leeds East MP Richard Burgon said party rightwingers who wanted to get rid of Mr Corbyn wanted to permanently erase his political legacy. Noting that the Telegraph had called on Labour leader Sir Keir Starmer to “drive Corbynism out of the Labour Party altogether” Burgon said that such views are shared by powerful media outlets.”

Wansbeck’s MP Ian Lavery remembered Mr Corbyn “standing behind me and my community” as a striking miner in 1984: “He stood on the picket lines and visited the soup kitchens”.

He praised Mr Corbyn for growing Labour’s membership to almost 600,000 and “giving people hope” of real political change for the first time in decades.

Former shadow chancellor John McDonnell recalled complaining, with Mr Corbyn and Diane Abbott, about anti-semitic posters being trialled by Labour for use against Tory leader Michael Howard in the Blair years. Mr McDonnell said that anti-semitism had been a problem in the party for years and the Corbyn leadership had tried to act on it — but efforts to implement the recommendations in the Chakrabarti report were obstructed. He explained:

“We didn’t control the NEC and certainly didn’t control the Labour machine”.

Diane Abbott asked why there was no clarity on what rule Mr Corbyn was supposed to have breached, who took the decision and why members weren’t supposed to talk about it. The former leader’s record of fighting racism was unmatched in the labour movement, she noted.

Bristol West constituency Labour Party passed a resolution on Monday condemning the “politically motivated attack against the left of the Labour Party by the leadership” and demanding Mr Corbyn’s reinstatement.

 

 

 

,

Corbyn support grows as careerists do their worst

Liam Young, a democratic socialist freelance political writer for the Independent and the New Statesman, describes Jeremy Corbyn as a rebel with a just cause. Noting that while Corbyn rebelled over:

• academy conversion,
• foundation hospitals,
• the Iraq war,
• tuition fees
• and detention measures,

Blairite MPs have offered their own warped form of ‘principled rebellion’ – airing their anti-Corbyn views in the press and decimating their party. This is not the sort of rebellion Corbyn ever stood for.

The Times reports that in Pienaar’s Politics Louise Haigh, a Shadow Cabinet office minister with an eye to the future, came to the fore, distancing herself from the Labour leader: “I would not have anything to do with Stop the War. I would have advised him not to [go],” she told Pienaar’s Politics on Radio 5 Live.

However, Richard Burgon, the shadow City minister (below right), commented that he thought Stop the War had “got it right” by marching against  UK intervention in Iraq and Libya.

A for effort: Times rumour

There are ‘fears’ that Mr Corbyn could be preparing to have Ken Livingstone ennobled and ‘swept’ into his shadow cabinet. A spokesman for Mr Corbyn said: “There have been no discussions on peerages or names.”

However, despite the best efforts of media and politicians, support for Corbyn is increasing  by clapometer standards – and   some polls 

On Bath’s Question Time TV programme, the audience enthusiastically applauded Jeremy Corbyn. When asked by presenter David Dimbleby whether “this audience is entirely supporting Jeremy Corbyn as leader of the Labour Party”, attendees at the weekly politics programme clapped and cheered enthusiastically.

Cambridge Professor of Classics, Mary Beard spoke for many. She said that Corbyn had behaved with a “considerable degree of dignity” against claims he faces a hostile media: “Quite a lot of what Corbyn says I agree with, and I rather like his different style of leadership. I like hearing argument not soundbites. If the Labour Party is going through a rough time, and I’m sure it is rough to be in there, it might actually all be to the good. He might be changing the party in a way that would make it easier for people like me to vote for.” 

The thinking public showed their support at this and other events and only a minority of Labour members – 32% – supported airstrikes against ISIS in Syria and only 30% of members and supporters told YouGov in a survey of LabourList readers that they support airstrikes. Corbyn’s approval ratings among Labour voters, including those who are not members of registered supporters, is at 56%.

As Liam Young says, “It’s time to get real. Jeremy’s performance during the last PMQs was powerful and statesmanlike and it is important to remember that he is the chosen leader, having taken more than 60% of the votes in leadership elections. With his clear principles, he is the total opposite of Cameron’s hot air. Each PMQs session goes further towards proving that to the British public”.

–