SUPPORT JEREMY CORBYN!

#KEEP CORBYN? – HERE’S WHY!

In the wake of the Brexit vote, the Labour Party is in a state of civil war and its very survival must be in doubt.

Jeremy Corbyn’s supporters are mobilising in his defence. Here are some reasons why his continuing Leadership of the Party is worthy of support.

• Won the Leadership with biggest mandate from Party members that any leader has ever won – 59.5% – more than all the other candidates put together.
• Placed anti-austerity at the heart of Labour’s policies.
• Adopted popular policies such as building public housing and renationalising the railways.
• Increased Labour’s membership dramatically – now over 380,000 members.
• Won every by-election contested since he became leader, three with increased majorities.
• Won all four Mayoral elections in May 2016 ­– London, Bristol, Salford and Liverpool.
• In the 2016 local elections performed as well as 2001 when Labour won a second landslide in the general election.
• Repeatedly ahead of the Tories in the polls since the start of 2016.
• Fought off cuts to tax credits and benefits, scoring significant blows against the Tories’ austerity agenda.
• Delivered 63% of its 2015 voters to vote REMAIN, compared to the SNP’s 64% and the Tories 42%.

ALL this despite constant sniping, undermining and media misrepresentation.

WHAT HE HAS NOT DONE is

• Lose the 2010 and 2015 general elections.
• Lose 3.9 million voters between 1997 and 2005.
• Lose 228,000 Party members between 1997 and 2008.

 

The coup against Corbyn has absolutely nothing to do with the result of the EU referendum and was reported in the Daily Telegraph on 3 May, 8 weeks before it happened. Despite having been planned for months, the plotters have no agreed candidate, nor policy platform.

Its participants have pursued their plan in total disregard of the seismic shock Brexit is causing the economy, politics and society. When Labour should be seizing the opportunity to destroy the Tories, the coup plotters have seized it to try to destroy their own Party.

It is a political coup against the left of the Party and the policies Corbyn represents– against austerity, war, and Trident; for immigration, nationalisation, a publicly owned NHS and a fully funded welfare state.

Its timing has much to do with the imminent publication of the Chilcot Report and, if it succeeds, Labour Party democracy will be curtailed, Party members will lose their say over policy and representation, and it will mean Labour will continue on its rightward trajectory, alienating its traditional voters and ultimately destroying the Party.

We have been here before – in 1981 when, in opposition to a left-wing leader, the right split and doomed us to 16 more years of Thatcher and Major. Some of the same people are still involved.

The nearly quarter of a million people (235,757 at last count) who have signed 38 Degrees’ petition expressing their confidence in Jeremy Corbyn as Leader need to be listened to by the 176 before they plunge us into an internecine battle where the only winners will be the reactionary right-wing of the Tory Party, the rich and the corporations. The losers will be refugees, migrants, the poor, the sick, the disabled. and the working and middle classes of this country – the very people you were elected to represent.

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This is the work of several talented writers and political thinkers. Many thanks to Simon H and James G for sharing their ideas and words.

Part 2 of my Rant – The Carnival of Reaction is Turning the World Upside Down will follow soon.