Picture of Jeremy Corbyn
The media and anti-Corbyn MPs had made this a referendum on Corbyn’s leadership and predicted massive losses.
No.
Because of geographic clustering, a few seats were lost, but the overall vote is up.
This is remarkable. Almost the entire media in Britain has been relentlessly anti-Corbyn. Half his own MPs are constantly sniping at him. There is a ginned-up anti-semitism “crisis” in the Labour Party (how dare members criticize Israel).
And the Labour party improves its vote.
This a sign that the elites in Britain, as elsewhere, are losing control of the narrative. Ordinary people do not believe their shit any more. And it’s really a sign, because the elites have been united in vituperative and never-ending opposition to Corbyn.
Let me give some advice to my British friends across the pond: You need to purge the disloyal MPs. Oh yes, there has been great talk about how one shouldn’t do that.
You are a fool if you listen. The MPs have been acting not just in opposition to Corbyn, but traitorously to the party. They have been deliberately trying to sabotage him.
This is up to rank-and-file Labour party members. Corbyn won’t put his fingerprints on this. But Labour still has nomination meetings.
Start now. Get control of the local ridings, and, when the time comes, get rid of them. Do not apologize for this: They refuse to represent the democratic will of the Labour party membership. If they want to run on neo-liberal Blairite policies, the Lib-Dems and Conservatives can have them.
And if Corbyn gets in power, he must then purge. Within the first 100 days, major figures in the BBC must be forced to step down, the civil service mandarinate must be broken and a media-breakup law instituted and carried through, while steps must be taken to break the power of the City.
This is because those sectors will oppose his plans relentlessly. They cannot be appeased, and a deal cannot be made with them.
This is the lesson, by the way, that people should be learning from what is happening in South America. Having been left with commanding control of the media and economy, the old forces of the right have been able to use that control to sabotage and destroy left-wing governments and they have done so in extraordinarily non-democratic ways and in Venezuela’s case, through clear-cut economic sabotage.
You cannot do business with these people. They are not trustworthy, and they will use every bit of power they have to destroy you.
Those who think this is not true in Britain but only in Third world countries are whistling in the dark.
And yes, the phone call came from inside the house.
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Paul
I was really quite amazed by the partisanship of the BBC this morning. Even by recent standards.
highrpm
thanks for the reminder of the necessity to “muzzle” to some extent the corporate media.
there never was/ will be “free speech.” it tracks the “tragedy of the commons.” since the humanoid species has not yet broken free of the wolfpak mentality. collectives will form and beta and omega personalities will line up under their alphas. presently, those are the easter euro genomes calling themselves zionists.
“he who controls the media, controls the mind.”
TVA
How many of the anti-semitic trolls hail from Langley, I wonder?
amspirnational
Is that Tel Aviv Authority?
markfromireland
@Ian
Actually he will and has put his fingerprints on it and rightly so. The Momentum ( Momentum: A new kind of politics ) movement helped bring him to the leadership. Have made it clear that they’ll defend him and promote his agenda while protecting his left flank – they’ve plainly learnt the lesson of the Militant debacle (At home with Momentum: the rise of ‘Corbyn’s shock troops’ | Politics | The Guardian & Corbyn’s Momentum group moves to block influence of hard-left parties | Politics | The Guardian) have vowed to defend him against the Blairites Momentum vows to protect Jeremy Corbyn from leadership challenge | Politics | The Guardian) and actively participated in these local elections Momentum – Congrats and huge thanks to Momentum activists… | Facebook.
Whether they’ll succeed or not only events will tell. I’m rather optimistic about the prospect of their success myself. There’s a great deal of enthusiasm amongst those of them I’ve met – coupled with good organisation and a realisation that there’s a lot of boring slogging ahead as well.
There’s a good possibility that the Blairites will eventually hive of off to become something like the SPD and hopefully meet the same ignominious fate.
markfromireland
As a PS to my comment above. The very poor Scottish results were entirely predictable and inevitable (I mean JESUS! Kezia Dugdale ffs!!! How stupid do you have to be to pick the candidate dedicated to doing the stuff that’s lost you your core voters only more so?)
Kezia Dugdale is Jim Murphy in a skirt and anointing her as leader was a clear ‘fuck you’ to the Scottish electorate from a party that like the Bourbons has learnt nothing and forgotten nothing.
Dugdale has also refused to support Corby in fact she’s repeatedly mounted sneak attacks on Corbyn and she point balnk refused to even contemplate tackling her patrons and mentors in Labour Scotland’s arthritic and corrupt establishment she now has paid the price – the voters decided to do the tackling for her. The Left in Scotland is now represented by the SNP the Right by a resurgent Conservative party.
Good news all in all.
markfromireland
Yay – Khan wins London very convincingly with nearly 10% more than Goldsmith and this despite the Tories disgracefully racist campaign. The Tories should now distance themselves from Zac Goldsmith, not defend him (Scroll down in that article for a table showing where the votes went) and also see Zac Goldsmith attacked by senior Tory over London mayoral election tactics | Politics | The Guardian.
Oooooh what fun the Tories are about to have one of their periodic Night of The Long Knives re-runs. Pass the popcorn, the tetleys, and the salt and vinegar crisps.
Ian Welsh
MFI,
glad to hear it. At a distance I was under the impression he was refusing to have his hands in it.
highrpm
if a nation really cared about its “health” and longevity, like responsible individuals care about their physical and mental health maintenance and their house and car maintenance — mowing the lawn, fixing the structure, changing oil….the governing body would require news delivery meet standards of neutral objectivity similar to how the FDA requires pharmaceuticals to meet safety standards. after all, news directly effects mental health. it should meet similar quality standards as products sold to be consumed by the body. it should not be left to profiteers funded by advertisements. as currently packaged, it is simply another category of “entertainment” show. sick. and washington is just another reality t.v. entertainment show. and the mob populace ultimately pays, as the victims of the decades long mid east conflict have/ are paying. with their blood, sweat and tears.
our elite masters couldn’t care less about their slaves.
highrpm
and the nation would take its “governors” seriously enough to put qualifying standards in place to ensure only quality responsible “rule of law” respecting and mentally “normal” (no personality disorders) individuals make it to the election process. i doubt a private citizen hillary type would make it past the google hiring line. (not that google sets the hiring standard, yet their bar for qualified wage slaves is broadly recognized as being set pretty high.)
anonymous coward
Before you can think about fixing the BBC you’re going to have to do something about the fucking Guardian. The anti Corbyn rightwing slant there is worthy of any US based corporate propaganda mill. Start there.
Maddie
It’s interesting how we in the US know when the vote tips leftward: by the silence of the network TV and radio. Even NPR.
Maddie
That is to say, the US media doesn’t say diddly when UK (or any other) lefties do well. That’s how we know they are in fact doing well.
Bigot Boris gets the boot? Excellent! Demographics are changing and so will Tory fortunes.
TVA
The anti Corbyn rightwing slant there is worthy of any US based corporate propaganda mill.
They’ve also been engaging in the by-now-standard trick of selectively deleting the most persuasive left-wing reader comments while leaving some of the weaker ones up to give the appearance of an open discussion. They’ve been doing that at least since cablegate and probably for much longer.
And when the issue is so clear-cut that left commenters would just be shooting fish in a barrel, they either don’t enable comments to the article, or don’t report on it at all.