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Angela Eagle: “Political elite need to lay off Jeremy Corbyn”

AngelaEagle1Angela Eagle, candidate for Deputy Leader, weighed in on the leadership debate yesterday attacking those who have said they would not work with Jeremy Corbyn, and calling for the party’s elite to respect the membership’s decision if they elect him.

Writing to members, Eagle said, “I would happily serve under anyone the members choose to be our leader. Why? Because I respect the wisdom of our members, supporters and affiliates and our Party’s process of electing a new leadership team. Every candidate has the right to be heard and put forward a vision for Labour’s future and, whether you agree with Jeremy Corbyn or not, he is in the race and is entitled to participate. So the talk of coups, remarks about not serving in Shadow Cabinets and former Prime Minister’s telling people to get ‘heart transplants’ need to stop now.”

This followed stories in the Independent last week that Labour MPs were plotting a coup to remove Corbyn by triggering an immediate re-election, if he were to win, and comments from Tony Blair that Corbyn supporters needed a ‘heart transplant’.

The Labour party’s establishment have been out in full force to attack Jeremy Corbyn, from Kendall saying she thought Jeremy Corbyn would be a disaster to Chuka Umunna saying he would never serve in a Corbyn-led one.

Corbyn has been storming into the lead in the race, with a Times/YouGov poll predicting he would beat Andy Burnham in a run-off, 53% to 47%, and would sweep up 43% of all first preferences. LabourList and Guardian readers overwhelmingly back Corbyn as their first preference, while last night’s round of CLP nominations put him up to 103 against Burnham’s 95, with Cooper on 86 and Kendall all but defeated on 14.

Meanwhile Eagle’s own deputy leadership bid has seen her falling behind frontrunners Tom Watson and Stella Creasy in CLP nominations, but her intervention against the attacks on Corbyn will welcomed by his supporters and reflects her strong commitment to party democracy and members’ views.

Eagle is standing on a platform of being the “members’ champion”, as a trade unionist and with a strong record on equality. She has been recommended by the Campaign for Labour Party Democracy for a first preference.

15 Comments

  1. Well said Angela. This intervention was greatly needed. I would echo my recent Facebook recommendation that everyone should follow the advice of the Campaign for Labour Party Democracy (CLPD) and support you for the Party Deputy Leadership

  2. swatantra says:

    General opinion here is that old Tone needs brain transplant; why doesn’t he STFU to put it mildly. Not only have his adventures in Iraq made Labour unelectable for yet another 5 more years, we have absolutely no idea of when the Iraqis and Arabs, and Aghanistanis and Pakistanis will be grown up enough to manage their own affairs, and run the Middle Eastern world properly. Maybe we were silly to give up the Mandate in 1948 in Palestine and simply quashed the Zionist terrorists.

    1. swatantra says:

      …. as for Angela Eagle all credit to her for acknowledging her own limitations and coming to the support of JC. Recent interventions by Tone and his disciplines have led me to the conclusion that he is on a suicide mission to destroy all remnants of the Party.
      fundamental Reform to the Party can only come from an outsider like JC, so that in future neither the Left or the Right can hijack it for their own selfish ends.

      1. John P Reid says:

        Hopefully she’ll knock the attacks on Kendall,as in Kendall for Tory leader by a JC supporter

        1. Rod says:

          “by a JC supporter”

          You’re making stuff up. And not for the first time.

          1. Robert says:

            No he believes what he says.

    2. John P Reid says:

      Iraq made labour unelectable, tell the 2005 election which we won, and a leader denounces Blair,and it’s the first one, we lost in 23 years,

      The Zionist terrorists, I recall the labour leader who denounced Blir me just lead us to defeat said he was a Zioniat, plus,none idea that in 1048 there weren’t some Plasetinians that weren’t terrorists is tosh

  3. David Pavett says:

    It is good that at least a few of the Labour Old Guard have shown a spark of decency and denounced the vilification of Jeremy Corbyn. John Prescott did so strongly and clearly and now Angela Eagle has done the same thing (even if somewhat less strongly and less clearly).

    Angela Eagle’s qualifications for the title of “member’s champion” are however rather more dubious. This seems to rest largely on her reputation as a chairperson who tries to allow everyone to speak who wants to.

    That however, is good in itself but is also a long way from what is needed to be a members champion. For that a chairperson should be someone who strives to ensure that members attending meetings have all the information needed to make an objective decision. Her role at the critical NPF meeting of July 2014 and the Conference to discuss the Collins report are not encouraging in that respect. Neither is her own lack of any apparent political convictions.

    1. James Martin says:

      Although wasn’t one of the complaints against her as Chair of the Collins Conference precisely that she wasn’t particularly fair and even handed in the calling of speakers and gave far more time to the leadership supporters of weakening the union link than to the grassroots opponents.

      The reports of her dodgy chairing were on here at the time, but how soon some forget!

      1. Steve says:

        And like all the other candidates bar Creasey, she voted for the illegal Iraq War.

  4. mark hogson says:

    Eagle is wrong, this is not an argument about a political elite, it is about a political oligarchy.
    Since the failure of democratic reform in the 1980s the leadership and its ‘advisers’ have tended toward money and inherited power over ability.
    Whilst you might be able to all it an elite because of its dominant and reactionary position, it is more accurate to call it oligarchy, the creation and retention of power through wealth and inheritance.

    1. John P Reid says:

      Democratic reform of the 80’s blocking kinnocks plan for OMOV,and the 1981 union block vote

  5. Michael Pinder says:

    David Pavett Have you any substantial evidence to back up your assertion: “… her own lack of any apparent political convictions.”

  6. Barry Ewart says:

    If Jeremy can win hopefully policy will be back with grassroots members and perhaps from our life experiences we will make policy which has a mass appeal.
    I would also like all Parlimentary candidates to be in place 2 years before the next election in 2020 so candidates can work in their constituencies (there are 23 marginal Tory seats with 3,000 or less majorities and if boundary changes go ahead there will be new areas to work).
    3 years before the election I would also like seats where there is no sitting Labour MP to open up their websites to interested Labour members for free to register if they are interested in standing there and outlining their ideas.
    We should also have positive working class action – at least 2 (out of a diverse shortlist of say 6 on a Parliamentary shortlist chosen by CLPs) should be working class democratic socialists (social classes 3-6) then may the best democratic socialist win.
    We also need to try to say things in as few words as possible, so a leader who is a facilitator would have policy ideas sent as one side of A4 to CLPs to discuss and they could then offer amendments/additions to Conference.
    We could deal with an issue every few months or so but each policy document should be just one side of A4. Let’s take Housing as an example:
    . Build 300,000 new affordable homes a year (to rent and buy) and built to Parker-Morris standards.
    . Abolish the bedroom tax & compensate the victims of this Tory/Lib Dem policy.
    . Have rent controls in public and private sectors and better security of tenure (like the European model) with a statutory right to tenants consultation. Private landlords to also be responsible for the behaviour of tenants (like the public sector).
    . Oppose Right to Buy (only 1 in 10 of these homes are replaced) but offer more choice of tenure to working class people and a better urban space for all.
    . Reintroduce taxes on private landlords with multiple properties.
    .The billions saved from the housing benefit bill (with rent controls) to be used to refurbish empty homes to buy or rent, and because these are already there on site it would save space & help the environment. This could be done by LAs or we could set up housing cooperatives around the country.
    . Look at run down estates to radically redesign them in partnership with residents (to green them up with park areas etc. and bring in community amenities).
    . More investment in solar panels on housing and more energy efficient homes.
    . Explore changing the mortgage system so people buy 50% of a home (one property only) and you get the rest on a 120 year lease. We need to get back to the idea of people buying lovely homes to actually live in rather than buying a house just to make money.
    We need brief policy documents to act as a “stimulus response.”
    The top downers in Labour (in their self-imposed Neo-Liberal straight jackets) seem rattled and perhaps as grassroots members, grassroots, bottom up, democratic (what socialism was always meant to be) is the future – could be exciting times. Yours in solidarity!

  7. Steve says:

    Eagle (like all the deputy leadership candidates bar Creasey – who wasn’t an MP at the time) voted FOR the Iraq War despite clear evidence the WMD claims were a fraud.
    She did that so she would get a ministerial job.

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