If you’ve never heard of Labour Tomorrow, you need to read this

Last Updated: August 13, 2016By

160813 demoralisation

The big question today (August 13) is: What is Labour Tomorrow?

The answer is, of course: Around 300,000 members smaller, if people like Tom Watson, Paddy Lillis (chair of the NEC), Iain McNichol, David Blunkett, Brenda Dean and Nicola Murphy have anything to do with it.

You’ll know why the first three names are mentioned – these are the movers behind the NEC’s court defence of its decision to disenfranchise 130,000 new members by telling everyone who joined after January 12 they’ll have no vote in the leadership election.

The other three are directors of a new company that seems determined to undermine Jeremy Corbyn and his supporters via the social media.

Labour Tomorrow was registered at Companies House by Ms Murphy (she’s Blairite ex-caretaker-Shadow-Chancellor Chris Leslie’s wife) in April. Blunkett and Dean signed on as directors on June 28 and its website went up on July 26, with a blog article that almost nobody has noticed.

The first This Writer knew of it was today, when a fellow Twitter user posted this image of Labour Tomorrow’s Twitter account –

160813 Labour Tomorrow bought followers

– and asked, “Hi Labour Tomorrow you seem to have accidentally purchased 2000 followers? Start as you desperately mean to go on.”

A glance at the list of followers shows that they are mostly fake ‘spambot’ accounts set up very recently, with very few followers. The idea seems to be that they will ReTweet Labour Tomorrow’s tweets to those few followers, as soon as Labour Tomorrow has any product to ReTweet.

There’s one big problem with that: It is forbidden.

The Twitter Rules state: “You may not use the Twitter service for the purpose of spamming anyone. What constitutes “spamming” will evolve as we respond to new tricks and tactics by spammers. Some of the factors that we take into account when determining what conduct is considered to be spamming are… if you are using or promoting third-party services or apps that claim to get you more followers (such as follower trains, sites promising “more followers fast”, or any other site that offers to automatically add followers to your account).”

If I know this, then you can bet the person who contacted Labour Tomorrow does too.

It seems this organisation’s first notable act on Twitter will be to get itself suspended.

The element that makes this unintentionally amusing is the fact that Labour Tomorrow seems to be an attempt to harness the social media to promote the right-wing, anti-Corbyn, faction in the Labour Party.

As fellow blog Another Angry Voice puts it:

The Labour Tomorrow website claims that it’s some kind of fundraising organisation to support centre-left activities like political blogs, smart campaigns, policy development and debate. The only blog post on the website was written by Blunkett and Dean. After having a few predictable digs at Jeremy Corbyn the article states that the organisation has “already raised funds which will be deployed to back projects in policy development, digital media, campaigning and building activist networks”.

It looks an awful lot like this Labour Tomorrow organisation has been set up in order to shower cash on Blairite approved blogs, social media pages and protest groups in order to create a fake grassroots movement in favour of Blairite centre-right Thatcherism-lite slop in order to try to counter the genuine grassroots movement inspired by Jeremy Corbyn’s election as Labour leader.

This kind of fake grassroots campaigning is hardly a new development, in fact it’s been going on for years and has even acquired the nickname “astroturfing”.

(Source: What is Labour Tomorrow? )

It’s even funnier when you read this line from Labour Tomorrow’s first (and, so far, only) blog article: “This new organisation, designed for modern times, [is] fully transparent and compliant with all political funding rules.”

Oh really? “Fully transparent”?

If this is their idea of a “smart campaign”, they really haven’t got the hang of it yet.

The bad news is that there is a serious side to all this: An intention to discourage and demoralise new Labour members who support Jeremy Corbyn – to get them back out of the party so business as usual may resume.

(Business as usual being Labour’s return to right-wing politics, taking the Tories to task rarely and supporting them often, and following policies which mean the rule of the few over the many will never, ever be challenged again.)

The same article This Writer just mocked also states: “This is the greatest crisis in our party’s history and the outcome is impossible to predict. What is clear though is that it will not be a happy one unless there is a major step-change in how our party is led politically, organised nationally and funded.”

That step-change, I would submit, is a rejection – and ejection – of Jeremy Corbyn’s socialism and its hundreds of thousands of supporters.

In that, Labour Tomorrow is in step with Messrs Watson, Lillis and McNichol.

It’s what Corbyn loyalist Richard Burgon was warning against when he wrote the following on June 26, and he was right.

160813 Richard Burgon stay with Labour1
For the sake of democracy, let’s not give them what they want.

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13 Comments

  1. mohandeer August 13, 2016 at 11:40 pm - Reply

    I’m glad I haven’t posted my letter to Iain McNicol, it would be a total waste of a stamp. Watson isn’t the only one who needs to be kicked out of the Labour Party for illegal pandering, if this blog is as you suspect and the evidence will soon be available to prove it.
    When is the Supreme Court appeal likely to take place? If the Famous Anonymous Five are to win their case on behalf of the disenfranchised members, it had better be very soon.
    If all goes according to plan and Jeremy wins the leadership contest, I do hope he is going to allow the CLP’s to resume meetings and he initiates mandatory reselection with immediate effect. Right now I would rather see a coalition between the Green’s and SNP(I know how much you hate them, but are they really as bad as the right wing hollow suits of the Labour Party) than share one day longer than I have to with Labour right wingers and plotters.

  2. plhepworth August 13, 2016 at 11:43 pm - Reply

    Shouldn’t it be ‘Labour Yesterday’?

  3. Terry Jager August 14, 2016 at 8:02 am - Reply

    Don’t panic , most people have worked this out ,Until the leadership contest is over i refuse to be baited into actions which will see me banned from voting (using words like B******s ) i have all but given up with MSM news ,and i’ve seen enough of the debates to like Smith less now than before he started

  4. peter wyatt (@southerneruk) August 14, 2016 at 8:50 am - Reply

    The fall back party is the TUSC and it Partys inside the Group, like the whole of the Socialist Party or most of the Socialist workers Party, or one of the many other Socialist Groups or Party’s with in it, or one of the many individual Union Member. it was formed back in 2010 because of what Labour was just another Tory party.

  5. Roland Laycock August 14, 2016 at 8:51 am - Reply

    Well well and another trick they get lower and lower JC is the man and I for one will stick with him, this party needs a real good sort out its been a cesspit of self interests for to long run by a load of money grabbers scratching each others back on the gravy train.

  6. paulrutherford8 August 14, 2016 at 10:16 am - Reply

    Yes. I’ve just had a trawl through their followers and it looks like some of the latest may be people who have read this blog.

    But digging deeper, I found a whole lot of ‘followers’ exactly as you describe… professional retweeters from lands afar. I didn’t see any ‘personal’ tweets from them, just RT’s of advertising messages.

    Well spotted Mike.

    • Mike Sivier August 14, 2016 at 10:51 am - Reply

      I didn’t spot it! That was down to one of the people I follow on Twitter.
      I think that the real people who follow that account are just waiting to see what it publishes. I should get around to following it myself, in fact…

      • paulrutherford8 August 14, 2016 at 2:56 pm - Reply

        I’ve just posted this to faceache… and had the same thought myself! Followed it ;)

  7. David August 14, 2016 at 10:31 am - Reply

    Labour Tomorrow doesn’t even sound like jam tomorrow. It sounds rather like a sad, warmed up version of NuLabor, which was the reason I left Labour after hearing Blair’s lies over Iraq and getting sick of his chummy pictures pandering to a grinning GW Bush. I’m not leaving Labour, but I hope I can resist this gang of opportunists from the party’s right.

  8. Brian August 14, 2016 at 12:45 pm - Reply

    I quite like the name, Labour Tomorrow, it has a certain honesty about it, as we know, Tomorrow never comes. Wonder what halfwit named it that.

  9. Jane Owens August 14, 2016 at 2:53 pm - Reply

    I do hope that left leaning followers do not become so discouraged that they contemplate leaving the Labour Party. Yes, it may ‘stick in the craw’ to think of our subscriptions being wasted on court cases in order to prevent many members from voting in the leadership challenge, but bringing about change will be far easier from within the Party.

  10. Methusalada August 15, 2016 at 10:57 am - Reply

    Labour Tomorrow ??? Darn good piece of investigative journalism by Mike Sivier on Vox Political. Similar parallels of operation to those of New Global Economy. The Bilderberg Group . I shall be spreading the news on the developments of this new fascist style brigade more widely. Hopefully & more importantly at The Labour Party National Conference where I suspect they shall launch this US Scarecrow amid the UK’s TV & Media applause & adulation. Roll up for the start of the 4th Reich in 2016 !

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