Get ready – another attempted Labour coup after the EU election results is looking more likely
Tom Watson: As Labour deputy leader, he vowed to support the party’s leader to the hilt – and has continually betrayed that vow. If he challenges Mr Corbyn again, let him seek a poll on his own position, too.
It seems right-wing opportunists in the Labour Party are hoping to launch another coup against Jeremy Corbyn, based on the results of the European Parliament elections.
It doesn’t matter what those results turn out to be. The malcontents know that this may be their last chance of preventing a Corbyn government.
Think about it: Theresa May has as much as admitted that she cannot get her Brexit Bill through Parliament and there is no other business for the current session. So, logically, the current Parliamentary session must end.
With it, the Tories’ confidence-and-supply deal with the Democratic Unionist Party must also end. It is possible that Mrs May’s successor will wish to negotiate a new deal, but that will be difficult, considering the way the Conservatives failed to support DUP desires over Brexit and the Northern Irish border.
Also, with defections to Change UK and the possible loss of This Writer’s own MP, Chris Davies, if my fellow Brecon and Radnorshire constituents agree to throw him out, it seems the Conservatives will be unlikely to command any kind of majority in Parliament.
And that’s before you consider which factions within the Parliamentary Conservative Party will support any new prime minister!
Once the new premier is installed, that reality is likely to make itself clear.
And then they may see no alternative to a general election – that Mr Corbyn is likely to win.
So Mr Corbyn’s opponents in the Labour Party are likely to believe they have no choice other than to make their move today (May 26).
If they want to challenge him, that’s fine.
But I think it would be unfair for them to suggest that he alone is at fault.
So if any Labour representative says Mr Corbyn should seek re-election as Labour leader, let’s ask them to authenticate their challenge.
Let them also seek re-election.
So if Tom Watson challenges Mr Corbyn, he should ask members to endorse his position as deputy leader – and, indeed, a confidence vote in him as a Labour MP.
The same should apply to other Labour MPs. Let them seek confidence votes from their own constituency members.
As for Labour grandees – former bigwigs who do not currently have a position in the party, like Tony Blair – well, it’s not a lot of their business, is it?
There are a lot of big mouths in right-wing Labour. Let’s see them put themselves on the line.
That the Blairites will use any excuse to attack Corbyn I have no doubt whatever. They refuse to accept a democratic vote and have always done so. They need to realise that Corbyn is far more representative of the membership than they are. They are the reason that the electorate is so disconnected from politics in the first place. Corbyn’s surprisingly good showing in May’s snap GE prove that he can bring out those who usually feel disconnected and should have settled the matter.
But as for an incoming Tory leader calling a snap GE, why would they? The polling doesn’t show them getting a majority and, as we saw last time, the polling COULD be showing them at a higher level than they really are.
Thusly the arrangement with DUP doesn’t have to be renegotiated (the DUP are now getting used to being at the centre of power, and the longer they do the more malleable they become, previously they had nothing to lose, now they do. Only on matters pertaining to the border are they intractable, and against their own voters too – this is another party that won’t listen to their members. Their MPs won’t be happy until there’s a wall with barbed wire and watchtowers)
Remember that Greenland left EU when parting ways with Denmark and, despite there being little to disagree on it took them seven years, if memory serves, to resolve it. Our case is more complex, it will take even longer.
Regardless of how you feel about Brexit, no government can simply overturn it after we have had parliament agree that it will honour it and spent three years negotiating a deal. It appears we WILL leave. Either with a BAD deal or NO deal.
That said, parliament has utterly tied the hands of any government. The only way out is to TIME OUT. I’d be surprised if this ISN’T how we end up leaving. We could leave in this manner and have ’emergency measures’ put in place. This COULD end up being better than the current, horrifyingly poor deal put in place by May’s team.
But while this is ongoing, the Tories will use the publicity blanket it provides to slide through progressively ideologically harsher treatment of the poor and disabled. Our news sources are SO obsessed with this as the ONLY story they simply won’t bother to report it.
Meantime, the old ‘uncertainty’ actually WILL have an effect. Investment, spending, building etc will slow to a stop and with it our economy…
It is possible to get a better deal. With Theresa May going, her “red lines” should dissolve as well, and that may give a future UK leader – from whichever party – the leeway to negotiate something that is at least a little more worthwhile.
We just want out of the EU and protection for our planet. The writing was on the electoral wall. What part of this dont Labour inderstand? Or are thier MPs still jostling for power as usual.Giving ip on the Northern heart lands will be at a cost. Bye
Who’s “we”, though?