Sadiq Khan: Jeremy Corbyn IS in the habit of winning elections – unlike Blairites
![Sadiq Khan in City Hall, a week after his election as mayor of London [Image: David Levene for the Guardian].](https://voxpoliticalonline.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/160514-Sadiq-Khan.png)
Sadiq Khan in City Hall, a week after his election as mayor of London [Image: David Levene for the Guardian].
By urging Jeremy Corbyn to give in to the Blairite right, he is ignoring the fantastic series of victories won by Labour since the still-relatively-new leader took over – including his own.
Perhaps he hasn’t noticed that any divisions in the Labour Party are being caused by these spoilt right-whingers, who seem to see it as their God-given right to ignore the wishes of the vast majority of party members, throw all their toys out of their pram and squeal like a bunch of babies.
Yes, it is important to secure power – but Blairite Labour lost public support at every election it contested, until finally the Tories overtook them in 2010.
Blairite Labour has absolutely no chance of winning another election.
Jeremy Corbyn, on the other hand, just won a string of victories across the UK – except in Scotland, where the SNP has established a strong anti-Labour narrative, and in Dudley, where MP Ian Austin is a Blairite (and a backstabber, judging from his comments about McDonalds’ sponsorship).
This Blog has congratulated Khan on his huge win, but he’s on the wrong side of the narrative here.
It’s time he remembered that, while he is a representative of the Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn is his leader.
It’s time Sadiq Khan stopped causing trouble and started following orders.
Sadiq Khan called on Labour to unite and get into “the habit of winning elections” as the newly elected London mayor urged the party to go back to the strategy followed by previous leaders John Smith and Tony Blair.
In his first interview with a national newspaper since his decisive election victory, the new mayor delivered a warning to his party about the importance of securing power, saying “I’ve achieved more in these seven days than in the last six years in opposition.”
Khan said that his party leader, Jeremy Corbyn, could not be blamed for general election losses in 2010 and 2015, but added Labour was failing to “score enough goals” against a deeply divided Conservative party, wracked with infighting over Europe.
Source: Sadiq Khan calls on Corbyn to ‘get back in the habit of winning elections’ | Politics | The Guardian
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My worry now is that he might start to emulate Johnson!
Sadiq Khan fails to address me! Bitterites always do!
My concern, my sole concern is the state of the “weak” in this Country. Unity is our strength:- We must overcome our differences, achieve common goals & strive for a society where the weak (sick & disabled) are not just add-ons, but are at the forefront of every new initiative & policy. The “weak” become our strength. The Austerity Axe has to be permanently blunted, not “eventually” but now. We build social housing at an unprecedented rate, owned by Councils, subsidised by Government. We “attack” poverty as though we are at war. Being at “war” money ceases to be a concern!!
hmm Blairite Labour has absolutely no chance of winning another election. correct but khan is just another one hasnt anybody seen through him just another greedie one if jc just rid himself of these snakes in the party but you say he cant take the whip away from them wilderness but doing nothing will bring more trouble for him
Re: Sadiq Khan’s election:- I should like to remind him that he was elected a Mayor of London by Labour voters and I hope he will respect our vote and not let us down by becoming another blue Labour in disguise. I back Jeremy Corbyn not divisive comments.
I felt in his inaugural speech Sadiq Khan made all the right comments but I am not so happy with his inference that Jeremy Corby is not wining votes by omitting to woo the middle class voters.
Labour has done pretty well considering all the intrigues and dirty comments made by the majority of the Press and the last thing we need right now is for this divisiveness to re-emerge.
I am sure that Jeremy is all for encouraging private enterprise, after all we can’t run the country without decent entrepreneurs and successful businessmen but they must be encouraged fully without allowing them to do so at the expense of the less fortunate. As for getting a Tory to vote Labour I have grave doubts that will be a frequent occurrence and I certainly do not want to become a Tory myself.
Khan really rattles you, doesn’t he, Mike? You’re seeing an elected Labour leader with a far bigger mandate than that claimed by the befuddled Corbyn. And you really don’t like it when he starts telling it like it is.
Don’t worry. There will be plenty more where this came from!
He doesn’t “rattle” me at all.
It just annoys me that he doesn’t know his place.
The mandate you claim for him is as Mayor of London, not within the Labour Party.
London has a larger voting population – who, incidentally, supported Corbyn’s Labour.
He doesn’t have a bigger mandate than Corbyn. There was no box to tick to say you preferred Khan’s or Corbyn’s brand of Labour. He won on the Labour ticket, and Corbyn is the Labour leader.
http://leftfootforward.org/2016/05/is-sadiq-khan-a-blairite-or-a-corbynite/
Is Sadiq Khan a Blairite or a Corbynite?
What shortsighted remarks by Mayor Khan, he has fallen in my estimation. Anyway, in-fighting over Europe is not strictly confined to the Conservatives.
‘Know his place’? What do you think you sound like with your patronising tone? I’d love to have seen how many votes your mate Corbyn would have amassed in the mayoral contest.
I have to admit I had my doubts about Sadiq because of his foolish decision to nominate Jez and some of his embarrassing associations in the past. But he had risen in my estimation hugely. If the PLP make the mistake of letting Corbyn cling on until 2020, Khan may well be the guy to pick up the pieces after the inevitable defeat.
Why do you say my tone is patronising?
Sadiq Khan isn’t the leader of the Labour Party – Jeremy Corbyn is. If Khan wants to criticise, there are mechanisms within the party for that. Doing it in public suggests an arrogance that ill-befits someone who is, after all, just a city mayor.
In any case, none of this has anything to do with you because you are a Tory.
Also: What inevitable defeat? Jeremy Corbyn has defied all such expectations. You are spouting ill-informed nonsense.
“Know [his] place”, is simply another way of saying “put up or shut up”, which is what the Bitterites were told to do this week by the Labour leadership. I’ll rephrase that, the Labour leadership elected and backed by a massive majority of the party members, not a self-centred clique of neo-liberals with wealthy neo-liberal backers who want to run Labour party as Tories with a pink frill.
The timings won’t work out for him. If he has a successful mayoral term, he will want to stand for a second, rather than stand in a general election he expects to be very difficult for Labour.
If he wins the mayoral election, he is committed to that for four years. If he doesn’t, the defeat will seriously compromise any attempt to become leader.
Just in case some of your more muddled readers take you literally, I’ll point out that I chaired Frank Dobson’s CLP in London in the 1990s and stood on two occasions as a Labour Parliamentary Candidate. I have been a member of Labour for three decades. So your childish insults are filed under ‘pathetic’.
Why do you support the Tories now, then?
Mr Woodford, I had a quick look at Wikipedia to see what happened in Kingston. 12000 voted Labour in the 1997 GE. In 2001 when you stood, you collected a little over 4000. It looks like quite a large chunk of the Labour vote went to the Liberal Democrats. Is that because Labour supporters had sussed you as a Tory? Just a muddled reader asking for clarification. My apologies if I have got anything wrong.
Alternatively Khan’s comments were being deliberately misrepresented as being anti-Corbyn by a Guardian journalist.
Possibly – although the claim that Labour isn’t “scoring enough goals”, coming after a series of excellent election results including his own, seems to suggest otherwise.
I’m with I. Crawford. This sounds exactly like something the zionist guardian would say to try to undermine Jeremy Corbyn.
“Know his place” was perhaps an unfortunate choice of words however I agree with Khans assertion that Labour Should show a united front and make concerted attacks on this appalling mess of a Tory government. Sadly he seems to be addressing his remarks to the wrong people.
Corbyn was elected by the membership (not me, I voted Cooper) to be leader and since then the right of the party have been spitting out their dummies and briefing against him. I remind you all that he was elected on the first ballot with over half the total vote. The most right candidate Liz Kendall couldn’t get out of single figures. There is NO mass membership support for these people who are trying to destabilise Corbyns leadership so publically.
It’s high time for the right to accept defeat gracefully and put their efforts into attacking the true enemy ie the Tories and UKIP who are attempting to dismantle all the protections that have been put in place in the past and by gerrymandering the boundaries etc to turn England (and consequently Wales) into a one party state.
All the backstabbing is fodder for the right wing press and a major distraction from the real excesses of the present government.
I urge all party members to get behind the democratically elected leader but particularly our more high profile elected members.
A disunited party will never win and by feeding the Tory media with disloyal attacks you are delaying our growth and harming the chances of our elected Councillors etc to get reelected.
Perhaps “know his place” was an unfortunate choice of words. I was attacking what I perceive as the arrogance of a man who has been elected to a civic office in a British city and now seems to think he can tell his party’s national leader what to do.
I do prefer the “put up or shut up” from John McDonnell, but your phrase more accurately represents what the majority of the Labour party are saying. We’ve reached a point of no return witht he Blairites. They have been given time & space to realise they are out of step not only with the majority of the party but also with the hopes and wishes of millions of the electorate who want to be rid of this vicious government, and not have a pink version of neo-liberaliam foisted on them by the “TINA” Blairites. The Blairites have made the ultimate mistake of believing that there is no other economic model for the world other that neo liberalism, and on that they are simply wrong. Alternative models have given us post WWII reconstruction, the welfare state and education and democracy other countries have admired. Now we are reduced to a banana republic without the good weather and fruit production.
To be fair to Khan, he has also called out “others” briefing to the press and constantly sniping and talking abour coups. But the Graun hasn’t said any of that, and have created a headline that tries to show that Khan is anti-corbyn – which he is not.
Not anti-Corbyn? Then why is he on Jez’s own list of ‘hostiles’?
Which list is that? The one that was cooked up by other people so Cameron could mention it in PMQs that one time?
I voted for Sadiq because we had to have a Labour Mayor.
I had watched some videos of Sadiq, and although I was
a bit sceptical, I voted Labour.
Imagine my dismay when I read Sadiq’s comments on Jeremy Corbyn in immediate news reports.
We have enough problems with divisions in Labour’s politicians without Sadiq adding fuel.
I hope it has not gone to his head. Many of us voted for a Labour Mayor believing he would support our Labour leader, but I am disappointed in Khan’s lack of solidarity in his first interviews after the election.
Mr Bills, your reading of that election is so ridiculous it hardly deserves a response, but I feel obliged to set the record straight. The Lib Dems scared Labour voters into believing the election was close and that a particularly right-wing Tory candidate might be elected. I was therefore squeezed by a classic tactical vote.
A little more Wilipedia searching might have revealed the 12.4% swing I achieved against the Tories in Epsom in 1997, pushing the Lib Dems into third place and securing the best Labour vote since the 70s.
Mr Woodford Interesting that you take the credit for the Labour victory in 1997. I always thought that that had something to do with a huge swing to Labour nationally partly due to a failed Tory government that was out of ideas and effectively leaderless as it was riven with internal divisions. Obviously I was misinformed and I have not given you the credit due to you for engineering the Blair victory.