Blairite Labour MPs switch support to Flint – so what?

Getting a bit desperate now, isn’t it?

Firstly, if Blairite Labour MPs are getting behind Caroline Flint in the deputy leadership campaign to offset a Corbyn victory in the top spot – so what? None of the other candidates are particularly leftist so it doesn’t really make much difference.

Also, the rest of the party is going to decide whatever it damn well pleases anyway so – again – it really won’t make much difference.

Note that the Independent here describes Flint as a “centrist” counterweight to Mr Corbyn. She’s a Labour right-winger. Clearly someone is working hard on the language to make these people look less Tory-light than they really are. Something to watch!

Labour MPs are preparing for a Jeremy Corbyn victory by rallying round the leading Blairite in the deputy leadership contest to prevent a left-wing takeover at the top of the party, The Independent on Sunday can reveal.

A string of MPs, including two shadow ministers, have switched their support from other candidates to back Caroline Flint for deputy as a centrist counterweight to Mr Corbyn, who is on course to win the leadership on 12 September.

Source: Labour rallies behind Flint as deputy leader to offset a Corbyn win – UK Politics – UK – The Independent

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18 thoughts on “Blairite Labour MPs switch support to Flint – so what?

  1. Rupert Mitchell (@rupert_rrl)

    It looks as though the Blair regime is very afraid of true Labour and I wonder why that can be. Could it possibly be that they are not really Labour at all? Either way I think they have to start accepting that the majority of true Labour supporters don’t want them.

  2. Ian

    The Blairites have to realise things have moved on apace since the nineties, people are becoming more aware of how badly they’re getting shafted currently. They realised there is something else, that neoliberal wage slavery isn’t the only way.to live. I think even Tory half-wits know they’re getting shafted, they’re just too stupid to realise it isn’t benefit claimants and immigrants doing the shafting.

    People are beginning to want what a genuine Labour party can offer and the New/Blue Labour peeps haven’t fully come to terms with their own irrelevance yet. They also need to remember *they* are the infiltrators, not people joining to support Jeremy Corbyn, those are the people with traditional Labour values, not the likes of Kendall (who is backed by Lord Sainsbury, previously backer of New Labour…) or Burnham.

    If they had the courage of their Tory convictions they’d cross the floor nd fight it out with genuine Labour candidates in by-elections. See what happens then. Won’t happen, though. They have safe seats and will cling on come what may.

    The more this miserable tale drags on, the more I hope Jeremy Corbyn humiliates the others, especially Liz Kendall. A message needs to be sent: New Labour is dead. Get over it or p**s off.

      1. Ian

        How good would that be? 🙂

        What was the mechanism Blair and Mandelson used to parachute the minimes into Parliament?

    1. Florence

      When Blair was swept to power by the electorate, there was no understanding of the New Labour agenda, and those who supported Labour thought they would be an antidote to the nasty years of the nasty party. Labour did a few good things then, but not enough to offset the neo-lib leanings Blair personally championed with Mandy and the others. The truth is now out – Blairites have no place in the Labour party, and it’s high time they b*ggered off. It’s not all about Corbyn, it’s about the population reasserting the place of democratic socialism in the political landscape of the UK (and elsewhere). Corbyn is leading the rallying cry.

      The remaining Blairite rump in the PLP are just showing how shabby they are – they would all be in the Tory party if they could have risen to power in the ranks there, but it’s a fact that none of them – not even Harman – is posh enough to cut the mustard. There is no reason to tolerate their entryism any longer.

      1. Ian

        I think the reasons Harriet Harman and her likes didn’t join the Tory party is they see themselves as above it and are more driven by identity politics to get anywhere in the Conservatives. They focus on feminist, LGBT and anti-racist issues, which in itself is no bad thing but that is the only left wing thing about them. The Tories are less concerned with those issues so don’t attract Harman et al.

        Remember Labour’s thirteen years in government, they did often mentioned the corporate glass ceiling that prevents women and minorities reaching the top in the business world and other such things but all combating that would do is make inequality more representatively distributed but do nothing about the wider problem of inequality and certainly nothing about class inequality.

        If the Tories had shed their racist, homophobic and sexist image, Posh Hattie could and probably would have joined them instead without affecting her seemingly sky-high self image and without being sneered at by other middle class ‘liberals’.

        That’s my opinion, anyway 🙂

      2. Mike Sivier Post author

        I heard a Labour Lord speaking about the way Tories had adopted left-wing social policies, at a meeting a few months ago, so I’m not convinced by your comments about feminist, LGBT and anti-racist issues. These are things that don’t cost Tories money so they can happily support them.

      3. Ian

        “I’m not convinced by your comments about feminist, LGBT and anti-racist issues. These are things that don’t cost Tories money so they can happily support them.”

        These things have a price though: support. Many a time I’ve read ex-Tory Ukippers complaining about Tory political correctness being one reason they abandoned ship. And we all know, people who complain about political correctness are really complaining about the fact hat people who aren’t straight, white and conservative (small c) exist and are in this country. See the omments in the Mail Online’s story about Bob the Builder has a black friend or the frothing in anger over the idea if Idris Elba playing James Bond. These are Tories and the party probably doesn’t want to annoy them.

        The thing is, they aren’t yet seen as having fully left that racist tripe in the past, probably rightly given the racist anti-immigrant vans they had. They – coincidentally, I’m sure* – were sent around black areas of London, not the places where Australians and South Africans are to be found…

      4. Mike Sivier Post author

        Yes indeed, but now we’re discussing the difference between appearance and actuality.
        The Conservatives supported gay marriage because it makes them seem tolerant and because it doesn’t cost anything – conforming to my comment.
        They sent those vans around those areas because, at heart, they are what they are.

  3. Neilth

    If you are left wing in a left wing party then you are left wing, if you are on the right of a left wing party you should still be left wing – if not you’re in the wrong party so maybe you should go find (or even found one) more to your taste.

    Those MPs who joined Labour and stood for and were supported by Labour activists who worked hard to get them elected all seemed to understand that Labour is a left wing party in the British electoral spectrum.

    If you’re not comfortable with that then feel free to resign your seat and try to get elected representing a party that more accurately reflects your political views.

    If you are happy to accept the support, activism, finance etc of the Party then you have a duty to accept and support its democratic decisions.

    By all means argue your point of view before a vote but once the democratic (there’s that word again) decision is made then it’s you duty to shut the f**k up and support the decision in public.

    Continuing to argue the toss especially in public brings the party into disrepute and you end up wasting a lot of energy and even more public goodwill which damages the electoral chances of your friends and colleagues.

    I would argue for instance that the very public disagreement between the two factions in Cardiff Council Labour damaged the campaign in all four Cardiff seats as well as the Vale of Glamorgan from my experience canvassing. Voters were citing the chaos in Cardiff Labour as one of the reasons for not supporting us.

    1. Mike Sivier Post author

      What about MPs who have done as you say up to a point – but have been arguing for increasingly Conservative policies, like Chuka Umunna and Liz Kendall? What about the fact that so many of the current PLP are dead set against Jeremy Corbyn, a leadership candidate who represents traditional Labour values. If they don’t agree with those values – or at least a majority of them – why are they in the Labour Party?

      1. neilth

        That’s what I said. If you can’t support the democratically agreed position shut up or go.

        That applies to all sections of the party.

  4. mrmarcpc

    Apart from Corbyn, Flint, like the other 2, are a joke and that’s why the members of the party are behind him, the people know the other 3 are phoneys and not true Labour!

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