Labour's support is going to leak to other parties as never before and this is why the only democratic way forward is to be grassroots-led The leakage to other parties is no such that no leader can claim to know what type of solutions and manifesto today's Labour party and its supporters actually want. This is Corbyn's message, I believe, and this is why he must remain as leader.
Here's my analysis of Labour's prospects:
Our constituencies are:
* public sector workers - many will vote UKIP
* unionised workers - many will vote UKIP or tory
* the left-behind - have already deserted labour in favour of UKIP
* optimistic internationalists - leeching away to Green or Left Unity
* social ultra-progressives - leeching away to Green or (rarely but perhaps more again in future) to LibDems
* republicans - despairing of labour ever making any noises in favour of a republic and hence tempted towards Greens
* supporters of voting reform and permanent (but fairly managed) coalition government - their only home is LD or Green
* pro-EU - likely to be swayed by Green and LD because of lukewarm EU support from Labour
* instinctive anti-tory but still anti-UKIP - possibly the strongest part of the supporter base, but defined by revulsion to torykipism, not by any positive beliefs and no longer sufficiently numerous to win through in a GE.
Scotland and Wales would have been on the list. Scotland is lost. Wales is on its way to UKIP.
Where is the solid Labour core? Such as any exists, it is spread thinly across all those constituencies and therefore shares little by way of common policy platform that could form a coherent manifesto. Labour is fast becoming too much of a coalition party of separate parochial interests, incapable of portraying a convincing and attractive vision of how society could operate.
Dear oh dear, I scarcely realised how bad things had become before I wrote this post.
Perhaps the reason why Corbyn's vision is the right one is that it is bottom-up, grassroots-led. We are almost at the point now where the only way forward is to encourage all CLPs to go flat out for a membership drive, then a re-selection of all MPs and candidates, as a way of finding out what the remaining supporters really believe. Otherwise we are back to the messiah idea - and look where the last false prophet led us and how it turned out for people all over the middle east and beyond.
Here's my analysis of Labour's prospects:
Our constituencies are:
* public sector workers - many will vote UKIP
* unionised workers - many will vote UKIP or tory
* the left-behind - have already deserted labour in favour of UKIP
* optimistic internationalists - leeching away to Green or Left Unity
* social ultra-progressives - leeching away to Green or (rarely but perhaps more again in future) to LibDems
* republicans - despairing of labour ever making any noises in favour of a republic and hence tempted towards Greens
* supporters of voting reform and permanent (but fairly managed) coalition government - their only home is LD or Green
* pro-EU - likely to be swayed by Green and LD because of lukewarm EU support from Labour
* instinctive anti-tory but still anti-UKIP - possibly the strongest part of the supporter base, but defined by revulsion to torykipism, not by any positive beliefs and no longer sufficiently numerous to win through in a GE.
Scotland and Wales would have been on the list. Scotland is lost. Wales is on its way to UKIP.
Where is the solid Labour core? Such as any exists, it is spread thinly across all those constituencies and therefore shares little by way of common policy platform that could form a coherent manifesto. Labour is fast becoming too much of a coalition party of separate parochial interests, incapable of portraying a convincing and attractive vision of how society could operate.
Dear oh dear, I scarcely realised how bad things had become before I wrote this post.
Perhaps the reason why Corbyn's vision is the right one is that it is bottom-up, grassroots-led. We are almost at the point now where the only way forward is to encourage all CLPs to go flat out for a membership drive, then a re-selection of all MPs and candidates, as a way of finding out what the remaining supporters really believe. Otherwise we are back to the messiah idea - and look where the last false prophet led us and how it turned out for people all over the middle east and beyond.