Yesterday morning saw Angela Eagle announce her leadership challenge against Jeremy Corbyn on Peston, followed by a gruelling interview with Andrew Neil on the Sunday Politics. Eagle is being presented as the ‘unity’ candidate, where unity means members accepting the PLP’s wishes and selecting a leader closer to, but crucially not seen as from, the party’s ‘New Labour’ wing.
While Eagle is not seen as from the New Labour right, she is certainly not of the left, soft or otherwise, and she has the firm support of the New Labour old guard – with her campaign reportedly being orchestrated by senior New Labour figures, including Peter Mandelson.
Asked by Andrew Neil where she disagreed with Corbyn, Eagle repeatedly failed to outline specific policy differences aside from nuclear disarmament – with Trident renewal probably a done deal by the time she became leader in any case.
New Labour are in a conundrum. They feel they can’t make their actual opposition to Corbyn clear. Their problem from day one is that they don’t want the party to be led by someone who will be intractably opposed to austerity, because they believe any opposition to Conservative spending plans, or to welfare cuts, are electoral non-starters.
They know they will lose a leadership election if they say openly what they did before Corbyn was elected, that Labour should be tougher on benefits than the Tories, or that we need an Australian-style points system for migrants, or that £9,000 tuition fees are here to say. Many in the PLP genuinely believe Labour will be unelectable unless it pledges cuts in benefits, or curbs on immigration, and are now struggling to resolve the contradiction of convincing the membership to want the same things that they think the electorate wants.
Last summer the right of the PLP did have an opportunity to put forward an anti-austerity case against the Tories, and failed to do so, with all three potential challengers to Corbyn failing to vote against the Tories’ welfare cuts. The Corbyn surge is impossible to explain without understanding the 2010-15 period, where Labour repeatedly failed to oppose the Tories on major cuts. While Miliband was popular, the party grassroots came to believe (quite understandably) that he was in thrall to those to his right who urged austerity.
This partly explains the choice of Angela Eagle to front up the coup. She will present the agenda of the New Labour remnants, but without, they hope, its tainted reputation. Notably, she told Andrew Neil that, “any party I lead will be an anti-austerity party”.
Yet her voting record, dug up by in the Independent shows, contrary to her launch interviews and the left spin we can expect from her campaign, that she does have substantial policy differences to Corbyn. In foreign policy terms, she is a ‘hawk’, with a strongly pro-intervention voting record. She supported bombing Syria last year, and not only voted for the Iraq war, but against investigations into it – three times.
On workers’ rights, she claimed that even George Osborne’s living wage was introduced too quickly and would harm business, while on welfare, she joined the majority of the PLP last summer in abstaining on the Tories’ welfare cuts. It’s unlikely Eagle will be a hit with young voters either – having voted both to introduce tuition fees in 1998, and then to treble them in 2004.
Eagle is also likely to come in for criticism for hypocrisy, based on previous statements she has made in support of Corbyn. Last summer, during her own Deputy Leadership election, she wrote “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 claimed, “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.” Apparently respecting “the wisdom of members” has a 12-month sell-by-date, or only applies when you yourself are running for a leadership position.
More recently, her role in the coup is demonstrably linked to her leadership bid. The ‘Angela4Leader’ website she has set up was launched two days before she resigned from the Shadow Cabinet, and even before Hillary Benn had resigned.
The story of Eagle’s controversial selection as MP for Wallasey has also resurfaced in recent days, recounted in Richard Heffernan’s book Defeat from the Jaws of Victory. Eagle was selected for the seat only after the favourite, Lol Duffy, was prevented from making the ballot by the NEC, despite enjoying 70% of the nominations. The rulebook was then ignored after a majority of members returned blank ballots instead of voting for Eagle, which should have triggered a new selection process. This was ignored by the NEC and Eagle was allowed to stand.
Given her record and own history in Wallasey, is it any surprise her own CLP voted last week to support Corbyn continuing as leader.
In short, Angela Eagle represents everything New Labour was: the introduction of tuition fees, cuts to welfare, the invasion of Iraq, an anti-democratic culture and endless spin and deception, culminating in an embrace of austerity. She is everything the membership voted overwhelmingly last summer to bury in the past.
Thing is Eagle’s challenge will be the first of many until the PLP have persuaded the Party or at least the trades union bureaucrats that the party cannot have a leader that is not approved by a majority of the PLP. Simply batting off challenge after challenge is not a viable strategy. Even if Corbyn survives the Labour Party will simply die. This first challenge must be defeated but after that Corbyn needs to go on the attack, launch a programme for a radical socialist response to dead capitalism’s austerity and orgnanise the removal of the whip from the coup plotters and their de-selection.
spot on robert
The only way to stop continuing attacks on the leadership is to expel from the Party those who bring it into disrepute. After the conference in September and the elections for the NEC, with a majority that represents members views, such action would quickly quell this nonsense and see the MPs get on with their day job of fighting the Tories.
They’ll have to go in the end alright, but this is the last of many serious coup plans, not the first. This was their one shot. They can carry on making a nuisance of themselves but if so there’ll be no option but to withdraw the whip, which will prevent them from standing as Labour candidates in any election.
IIRC James Elliott has had his own brush with the dark arts when trumped up smears of anti-Semitism were made to stop him being elected onto the NEC…. the NEC that will tomorrow determine whether Corbyn is or is not on the ballot paper in the leadership challenge.
It is quite clear that the uneasy hybrid “broad Church” political creature that always was the Labour Party , is now nearing its end. After 30 years of careful , systematic, progress funded, infiltration of entirely careerist neoliberal MP’s into Labour seats by central diktat , the majority of the current PLP simply cannot be “won over” to either Jeremy’s leadership in particular, or an anti austerity, radical , or even very mildly) Left economic and social programme.
Too many old Labour Lefts are apparently suffering severe mental anomie that their fruitless attempts over umpteen years to win the Labour Party, and PLP, to a socialist programme has now reached a fundamental crossroads – forward to an essentially new (with continued trades union backing) Left Labour Party, WITHOUT a substantial number of the current PLP , OR negatively forward to a UK version of the utterly pro-capitalist US Democrats – with most of the current membership leaving – and the “Labour Left” back in their historical comfort zone – of an ineffectual Left pressure group on the margins of a totally neoliberal Party.
Time to decide comrades , particularly if Jeremy IS kept off the ballot – when we on the Left and the trades unions really will have to face the immediate prospect of forming a new party, or demobilising the hundreds of thousands entering active Left politics around the “Corbyn Surge”..
Or the article could have just said that she is a lying, nasty, backstabbing, vacuous war-monger who can’t even get the support of her own CLP.
Whether she knows it or not Eagle will be beaten hands down by Corbyn as Party members are seething with rage at the antics of the out of touch, arrogant PLP coup plotters and wreckers.
Don’t forget;
Neo-con
Tory-lite
Red Tory
Blue labour
Traitor
A new kind of politics?
If Theresa May calls a snap election now Angela Eagle will have delivered her a massive Tory majority to negotiate a brutal anti-working class Brexit.
If an election is called the left needs to stand candidates against the coup plotters that are not deselected who will not stand in the way of the formation of a Corbyn government.
Excellent article and very important to keep drumming home this person’s hypocrisy and lack of principle.
Also, crucial that we campaign around a serious Labour-Brexit plan, not just a campaign on the basis of ‘Corbyn’s a nice guy and they’re not being fair to him’.
We should call for full citizenship for all EU nationals who were here before the vote.
We also need to be fighting for full restoration of trade union rights – the post-entry closed shop, secondary solidarity action, the lot.
Leave the single market, and re-nationalisation of Royal Mail, the utilities, the steel industry etc.
Re-industrialisation, public investment and public procurement to support industry, proper apprenticeships or university places for all – and abolish tuition fees.
Council house building, reversal of public-service cuts, reversal of private-sector involvement in the NHS.
These are the kind of policies we need to be pushing for as an integral part of the campaign for Corbyn.
Full citizenship for EU job tourists? What garbage you chat. Let them apply for citizenship if they want it. Otherwise get a visa like everyone else if we are out of the single market. Empty vessels make most noise.
Ellis, you’re an idiot.
Go away Ellis, you xenophobic clownshoe.
Her actual ‘launch’ is worth a closer look for a number of reasons. First, apologies for using the Mail but one of the pictures (and I have seen others) clearly show that aside from a handful of coup-plotting MP’s and Hatty Hardperson (who like Angela was never shy of cutting the benefits of poor women of course), it is all just media: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3684188/The-Eagle-FINALLY-landed-Angela-Eagle-launches-desperate-bid-topple-Jeremy-Corbyn-s-branded-Empire-Strikes-candidate-allies.html
But then as the ‘where is everyone’ video laughably shows it wasn’t even the main media (who had all run off for the far more interesting Leadsom story), just a load of photographers. And look what they were snapping, a joke of an ‘Angela’ logo that even Channel 5 would deem too cheap for a daytime z-list chat show. And then there was the politics. No, don’t be silly, there were no politics, not one policy, not one position – aside from ‘I’m a woman’ repeated endless times instead.
Aside from anything else the hustings debates are going to be a real hoot this year, that’s if she even manages to last that long (her CLP appear to be *very* hacked off with her right now)..
Ha ha ha!, it’s hilarious when the pathetic red tory traitor pleads: “…Robert Peston where are you?…Michael Crick?…” and there’s an embarrassed snigger.
I thought the big thing with the ChickenCoup scumbags was they think they’re the media and communications professionals. But they were totally unaware of the real story of the day.
And of course gobshite Phillips was there whooping and screaming like the idiot she is, desperately trying to generate some enthusiasm for this hapless nobody.
All very funny – but let’s not be complacent, we will need a robust policy programme. We’ve got to win support from the people.
Talking of rent-a-gob:
Jess Phillips MP @jessphillips 7h7 hours ago
Please join Labour,we need you to give us chance of a credible opposition.Post proof on here & I’ll be your friend/hang out with you
I can’t work out if that is meant as a threat or worse a creepy promise, either way I’d rather stick pins in my eyes than ‘hang out’ with Phillips!
No point calling for a general election when 172 of your own MPs would vote against you forming a government in the event you won and bloc with the Tories. In actual fact those 172 won’t even get re-elected and Labour will be reduced to about 50 seats if an election was called tomorrow. Correct though I think to demand Angela Eagle withdraws her pointless candidacy in case of a snap election but the Corbynistas now need to concentrate on getting rid of the coup plotters. Withdraw the whip. Suspend them from the party for bringing it into disrepute and then de-select. Where you cannot de-select stand candidates against them. In the 1930s McDonald sprung his government of national unity on the labour movement. This time we know it is coming. It would be a farce of our own making if we let it happen.
I wrote a poem but you need to see it in the context that Eagle is the political Hawk for voting for the Iraq War and bombing in the foreign country of Syria (one of 66 Labour MPs including Benn and I think Watson).
The Chameleon is Eagle too trying to pretend to please all of the members and people and changes her colours to suit!
The Canary is JC and us as members who are generally peaceful people who like to sing, dance etc. but when politically roused we are Lions!
I think it sums the situation up:
THE HAWK ON THE CANARY LANDED
TO PLAY THE CHAMELEON’S PART
AND WHISPERED “I COME TO HEAL YOU”
BUT FAILED TO REMOVE THE HEART
AND THEN THE CANARY TURNED BACK INTO A LION
Agree with everything in the article apart from the comment on curbs on immigration.
If Labour is to keep the support of working people there does need to be restrictions on immigration and a points system would be OK.
What there needs to be is a policy for full employment. If the country still needs workers after that then give them visas but let’s bring immigration back under democratic control.
When I say full-employment I do not mean an aspiration for full-employment to be worked towards by some sort of manipulation of fiscal policy or such crap but an actual regime of full-employment by which every school and college leaver and unemployed worker who cannot find their own job are bought into the local workforce to share the available productive work with each paid the minimum of a trades union wage. We must full take away from capitalism its ability to `maintain’ a reserve army of unemployed labour to be kept in penury and misery to be used against organised labour. In actual fact in a socialist European federation whereby each member state held to a policy of full-employment of the kind outlined above it would be more than possible to retain unrestricted freedom of movement without incurring the misery of mass economic migration.
“What there needs to be is a policy for full employment. If the country still needs workers after that then give them visas.”
That sounds like an excellent recipe for having lots of people doing jobs they don’t like and/or are not qualified for.
Will you be taking on a sandwich packing job, Robert?
I agree with all the points in this article. There are more that could be made. She is a creature of machine politics. She has not got to the top of Labour circles by her strong advocacy of political ideas across a range of themes. In fact it is very hard to find anything written by her or any speeches laying out her ideas. When she does express herself it is with a string of banalities. Her lack of principle is illustrated by her failure to acknowledge the injustice that would be involved if Corbyn were kept off the ballot.
In the leadership elections last year Eagle was recommended for deputy leader by the CLPD. Several of us questioned this and the only answer we got came from Peter Wilsman who wrote
In other words it looked as though the CLPD couldn’t make a case but had decided to support her anyway. For me the lesson should be an end to such recommendations on behalf of the left made by a tiny number of activists in the name of the left. Maybe one of those involved could explain how Angela Eagle made the transition from deputy leader candidate of choice to spearhead of the anti-Corbyn camp.
Angela Eagle is a politician of no discernible talent, her moral compass is defective and her ability to inspire is non-existent. It is difficult to imagine that she could win against Corbyn. She must have been assured that he will be kept off the ballot paper.
David is quite right.There was no basis for supporting Eagle as the left candidate for deputy last year. It was a misguided attempt to promote a gender balanced package, but it was wrong and is now rather embarrassing for the CLGA. The position should have been that the left did not support any candidate, but called for a vote for Eagle or Watson on the grounds that they were less right wing than the other candidates. It’s not as though Eagle has changed her political positions – she by and large didn’t have any then and she doesn’t now.
The CLPD can speak for themselves, and indeed I think already have done on this, but as someone who voted for Eagle last year I’m not sure what the alternatives were from the candidates that were standing as none were on the left. Flint, Creasy and Bradshaw would all have been far worse in my view, and have been central in opposing Corbyn from the start. Both Watson and Eagle made similar (now broken) promises to respect the membership and work with whoever was elected as leader, and so out of the two it was not at all unreasonable to go for gender balance rather than a toss of a coin.
Yes, that was my position, but there is a difference between supporting someone as a left candidate, ( CLPD/CLGA position, and wrong, ) and supporting someone because they are preferable to the alternatives.
Exactly. It was an exceedingly poor field of candidates. But as you say voting for someone as the least worst is rather different from promoting them as a good left candidate.
CLPD’s position was that of JM.What I said was,AE is not a Blairite.DP and PR are distorting things-I hope this is not a general trait of those misguided enough to support Prop.Rep.and some 200 or so UKIP MPs.If comrades read the material before spouting off it would be helpful.Read CLPD member,Lewis Minkin’s book and you will see that AE came out better from the Blair years than a lot of others.
CLPD’s position was that of JM.What I said was,AE is not a Blairite.DP and PR are distorting things-I hope this is not a general trait of those misguided enough to support Prop.Rep.and some 200 or so UKIP MPs.If comrades read the material before spouting off it would be helpful.Read CLPD member,Lewis Minkin’s book and you will see that AE came out better from the Blair years than a lot of others.
Peter (July 13, 2016 at 1:08 am), you say that Eagle is not a Blairite and so does she. Let’s forget labels and talk about policies.
She (1) supported the Iraq war, (2) voted repeatedly against an inquiry into the war, (3) voted for the bombing of Syria, (4)voted for the introduction of tuition fees and for raising them to £3,000, (5) supports Trident renewal, (6) and abstained on welfare cuts, (7) supported cuts to working tax credits, (8) she criticised George Osborne for introducing his national living wage too quickly because of its impact on business, (9) she declined to vote against the Conservative welfare cuts under Harriet Harman’s temporary leadership. Despite her dubious record (and her general absence from Labour debate) the CLPD considered her to be a good candidate for deputy leader.
Angela Eagle was appointed as chief whip by Blair in 1996. She became a minister in the first Blair administration. Among her key backers now are Peter Mandelson and Chris Leslie.
So Blairite or not its the policies and voting record that counts. Her promotions under Blair might just indicate that she is good at getting on with people. A more plausible explanation is that she is a careerist who is ready to do whatever helps get advancement. Her ambition is illustrated by the fact that having come a poor fourth in the deputy leader election last time round she no feels that she is in good shape for a leadership challenge. Her status as a political non-entity is illustrated by the story of her accidental sacking by Blair in 2002 from her Home Office post by appointing someone else, forgetting she was already in post.
And then let us never forget her great insight into the 2008 global financial crash. In the parliamentary debate on the Lib Dem motion “suggesting that the country was facing an “extreme bubble in the housing market” and the “risk of recession””? Her matchless reply was “Fortunately for all of us … that colourful and lurid fiction has no real bearing on the macro-economic reality.”
P.S. You describe support for PR as misguided. FPTP was designed for a predominantly two-party system. Since that system is manifestly breaking down its inappropriateness is become more and more evident. The support for PR is growing. John McDonnell has declared his support for it. Some possible outcomes from the present Labour crisis could lead to its electoral annihilation under FPTP. If the intrinsic unfairness of FPTP doesn’t concern then at least its likely outcome on left representation in Parliament might be something worth thinking about.
I actually said at the time that the left should not vote for any of the deputy candidates as they were merely creating by doing so a rival power base with a modicum of legitimacy.
I don’t understand this strategy. Does it involve hoping that a Blairite deputy leader would suffer sleepness nights about the low turnout?
I went for Watson as he is capable, pragmatic and in touch with reality. On balance I still think he was the best option. He is no fool and gets the situation – note that (unless I’ve missed something) he has not really done anything to damage Corbyn if you look carefully.
One of our biggest problems is having deluded idiots as adversaries – some of them only adversaries because they are such idiots.
Being irrational is no advantage to them (it could be in some circs., but only by coincidence) – but it can still cause a net disadvantage to us, for example when they can’t accept they are beaten and prolong attritional hostilities to everyone’s detriment.
Admittedly this does not look great: http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/len-mccluskey-slams-tom-watson-as-row-erupts-over-unite-backing-jeremy-corbyn-defence-jobs_uk_578f8631e4b0b545e5cc4153
Can anyone seriously see Angela Eagle as a successful Prime Minister of the United Kingdom?
No but she could be the Kinnock candidate go makes, her successor win, unlike Corbyn who wouldn’t even be the foot one, more like the Tony Benn one,
I know this is a lost cause, but could I just acquaint you with some basic facts? Kinnock presided through two election losses while Labour gradually recovered from the internal sabotage, SDP split and khaki election of 1983.
Labour got into power 14 years after he took over, and only once the Tories had an even bigger meltdown in 1997 than Labour did in 1983 – thanks in part to proper opposition from the likes of Robin Cook.
You can’t proceed by trying to equate the current situation with one of a handful of available comparators from recent history, none of which has much in common with it.
But if you insist on a parallel for Corbyn’s leadership career to date, Thatcher would probably be the closest in the past 50 years of UK politics.
Labour was a day away from winning in 1992′ don’t see how the Tory meltdown, partly due to the Referndum party standing in 1997′ when the Tories got 9.6m votes 1.2m more votes than Foot,
You’re saying Kinnock getting back those ex labour voters who went to the SDP, because they didn’t like what labour stood for, was a bad thing
Corbyn voted against the labour whip and with the Tories,so you’re right to say Corbyn was close to Thatcher if he voted with the Tories so many times,
Adopting a bit of a defensive word-salad formation there, John.
Tories lost a third of their vote in 97; Lab lost 29% (mostly SDP defectors) in 83.
(Graph 1) http://twitter.com/SurelySmMistake/status/703741877162545152
I admit I too had thought Lab’s recovery was based on those disillusioned SDP defectors returning:
(Graph 2) http://twitter.com/SurelySmMistake/status/705478168094875649
(Note above shows that in 92 Lab was not a ‘day away’ from winning, whatever that is supposed to mean – somehow Kinnock’s Labour didn’t manage in 92 to capitalise on the events that did catch up with the Tories by 97.)
But it turns out that is not so (and thus a fortiori not because Kinnock’s rightward drift lured them back):
(Table) http://twitter.com/SurelySmMistake/status/705513363737026562
The SDP’s only achievement seems to have been to take a large number of voters from Labour, who did not (so far as one can tell) subsequently return.
Finally: Corbyn voted overwhelmingly with Lab, of course and on Iraq, for example, it was NuLab, not Corbyn, who shared a lobby with the Tories.
I doubt that anyone does. She is seen as a means of getting rid of Jeremy Corby. I would guess that the game plan would be to dump her as her many shortcomings become clear to the wider public.
The thing is David you made a case for not supporting Eagle but put forward no alternative position whatsoever. So we don’t know if you supported Watson, Flint, Creasy or Bradshaw or if you supported asbstention. Could you clarify?
Happy to clarify. I voted for Tom Watson while believing him to be on the right of the party as a part of “blue Labour”. He has a concern for maintaining Labour’s working class roots and has shown himself to not be a total careerist. As such I thought he was the least awful of the candidates. I know many others on the left who voted along the same lines. I thought and said then that Eagle was a complete political non-entity and that I could see no good grounds for supporting her. No one supplied any. So I voted for Watson while having a low regard for his political stance.
DP,Tom W is part of the Hard Right, Labour First, machine.Tom and his mate,Speller,have been up to every trick in the book for years.On the surface he seems very reasonable, but the content is a bit different to the form.Clpd members expect us to make a rec.,not sit on the fence.AE and TW both have big negatives, but we are not about to rec two white men,which was your position.We know enough from the voting data that PR would give us some 200- odd UKIP MPs,which is why they agree with you re PR.But,of course,in your ivory tower that counts for nothing with you.
Why do you feel that you have to recommend someone? If all of the choices are bad then say so and suggest members spoil their ballot or come to their own conclusions.
Also, if we believe in democracy then we have to believe in it even when people opt for our opponents. If 1/3 of the country would vote UKIP (which they wouldn’t, but that’s besides the point) then UKIP deserves 200 MPs. The issue is not that PR gives them 200 seats but that 1/3 of Britons would vote for them at all.
Yeah but Watson is (a) not really a full-spectrum NuLab type, (b) knows which way the wind is blowing, which makes him much less of a liability than one of those still in the ‘denial’ stage of grieving for NL.
As for quotas/positive discrimination, these are a good thing for increased social equality – as an accelerant, in conjunction with measures which actually address root causes.
But they are appropriate only where there are enough qualified candidates available from the appropriate subpopulation (as in the general run of things there indeed are).
And trying to equalise statistics when the pool of candidates is not even in double figures is likely to cause some pretty major distortions.
‘PC gone mad’ is in most cases just a way of objecting to (non-mad) PC. It would be better not to provide cases in which it is actually apt.
TW,I have known TW and AE for at least 20 years and there is little to choose politically,but TW is an Operator and AE isn’t.CLPD started the campaign that led to AWSs in 1980.We regard it as a fundamental issue of justice and equality,not ‘PC’.We are developing such mechanisms for the working class in general and for BAME members.We would only rec.2 white men in very exceptional circs.,which did not apply here.CLPD members prefer that we make a rec.where poss.(expressed at our AGM)and here there was no major problem.
CM,we live within a vicious class system/struggle and the exploitative capitalist mode of production.To talk about abstract ‘democracy’ in such a situation is to look at form not content,or what I term,the fetishism of the voting system.It leads you to have the hots for a system that would produce perhaps 200 UKIP MPs,rather than one that produces 1 UKIP MP.How daft is that?!!
Here are the five headline points of a programme for the transition to socialism that the labour movement needs to adopt if it is to reunite on a principled basis, defend the liberal social gains of the past period and release society from the capitalist coffin:
1. People’s Bank to replace the bankrupts;
2. A Regime of Full-Employment;
3. Workers’ democracy to replace fat cat executives;
4. Socialisation of the property and monopoly profits of the out of control corporations and super rich;
5. Federation of sovereign nations to replace the Westminster Union and a Socialist European Federation to replace the reactionary EU.
I’m sure Jeremy and John are jotting down your revolutionary socialist programme already, Robert (aka, the twice banned ultraleft, David Ellis).
What is the point of proposing this tactically utterly inappropriate ultraleft nonsense, other than to “prove” yet again how very, very, “revolutionery” you are ?
(Awaits yet another stream of foul invective from the ever-sensitive, Ellis.)
This does look prisnmiog. I’ll keep coming back for more.
If Jeremy Corbyn is cheated off the ballot, I will simply write on his name with an X next to it and sent it back. I suggest every members who believes in democracy and fairness does the same.
Yes it’s SAVE JEREMY to fight for a JC Labour Govt to: end austerity, grow the economy out of recession, address poverty, get our schools back, actually get more our country back (democratic public ownership rail etc) end the housing crisis, build unity amongst our wonderfully diverse population, and for global peace and stability
Versus: SAVE LABOUR/SAVE NEO LIBERALISM/SAVE OUR TOP DOWN CONTROL!
After the NEC result for all those with JC it’s: “Walk on, walk on, with hope in your heart and you never walk alone, you’ll never walk alone!”
If it turns out that Smith is splitting the anti-Corbyn vote he will withdraw. If he is splitting the anti-New Labour vote Eagle will withdraw.
Don’t tarry with this sub-Kinnock New Labour facilitating corporate shill and all round windbag Owen Smith.