Jeremy Corbyn will not quit without a fight. Labour have a
history for not having the courage of their convictions and waiting for someone
else to make the difficult decisions for them. In Government they left the
difficult decisions to the Coalition to rebuild the shattered economy. David
Miliband was rumoured to challenge the unpopular and failing Gordon Brown but
it never happened. Now in opposition there is still no challenger to take on
the 'mighty' Jeremy Corbyn. They have done all they can safely do without
damaging their careers by resigning their shadow positions and voting in a
meaningless non-binding motion of no confidence. Labour are now in unprecedented territory.
There are no political giants in the Labour Party like Shirley Williams and Roy
Jenkins to go off and form a new party so where does Labour go from here. It
would not be difficult to imagine the complete disintegration of the Labour
Party as we know it and this would all fit with my previous article that
project Corbyn is full steam ahead (tory-story.blogspot.co.uk/project-corbyn-makes-its-move).
Despite reports of Angela Eagle being given the support of
the Parliamentary Labour Party to Challenge Corbyn for the leadership the
message is that she is giving Jeremy Corbyn more time to do the right thing.
What she fails to see, or does not want to see, is that Jeremy Corbyn and his
supporters believe he is already doing the right thing by waiting for a
challenge and letting the members decide. This is his deep felt philosophy and
shy shouldn't it be. He was elected by the membership with a huge mandate. In
his mind it would be crassly undemocratic to have the will of thousands of
members overruled by 172 MP's so he's going nowhere.
Knowing a contest is inevitable, the delay in challenging his
leadership gives Momentum
ample time to organise his election campaign and mobilise his supporters. Even
a casual glance at Momentum's website and social media shows they are in full
swing recruiting supporters, getting new members to join and relentlessly
promoting Jeremy Corbyn to the mass membership (twitter.com/PeoplesMomentum).
Jeremy Corbyn will win the leadership challenge. Labour PLP
know that and probably explains the delay. Given his almost certain victory we
would then see the complete disintegration of the Labour Party as we know it and
this is the rub. Jeremy Corbyn doesn't want the Labour party to carry on as we
know it. He and his supporters want it to carry on as they want to know it.
With 172 MP's having no confidence, his return as Labour Leader with a fresh
mandate can only mean mass resignations from the Labour Whip. In Parliamentary
terms this would convert all those Labour MP's into independents. The rump of
the remaining MP's may not be sufficient to be the largest party in the House
of Commons. That honour would fall to the Scottish Nationalist Party,
especially if they form a coalition with others.
This would be a planned low point for project Corbyn. What
would follow in the party would be a throng of deselections in the
constituencies and refusals by others to defend their seats as a Labour MP in the
General Election. The Left Wing will then make it's final and decisive move and
become Labour candidates with many becoming MPs and re-establish the party as the
official opposition, or even in Government. Never say never.
I agree wholeheartedly with the Prime Minister when he said
to the Labour leader "For Heaven's sake man, go!" But it is equally, if not more so, a failing
of Labour MP's to stand up to him and remove him by mounting a challenge and is the danger to the nation. With Jeremy Corbyn refusing to go we could well
see Angus Robertson at the despatch box as Leader of Her Majesty's Loyal
Opposition, with an SNP Shadow Cabinet at his side and his SNP shadow ministers
on the front bench. The spectre of the 2015 General Election was Vote Labour
get SNP. Under Jeremy Corbyn this might yet come to pass.
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