(20th September 2016, 00:42)Ornette Wrote: With a few days left now until the leadership annoucement, I'm still left wondering as to what, really, this was all about. Putting aside the issue of brexit, which I think most can see was a pretext, the theme was Jeremy Corbyn was too left-wing and meant electoral disaster, which may or may not have been a valid concern.
Corbyn isn't particularly left wing in traditional Labour terms, even if he might be regarded as such in today's political climate.
Whether a Labour party led by Corbyn is "unelectable" is a different question. The Labour right keep saying he is and may actually believe he is – and are doing their best to ensure that he is – but obviously they're massively invested in believing that, since their entire approach was to move right to win votes. Corbyn being elected would be a complete dismissal of everything they've done.
Whether their strategy is effective either is a serious question too of course. Blair won a big victory in 1997, but Labour were always going to win then against a conservative goverment mired in corruption scandals. Blair won again in 2001 and (just about) in 2005, all the time losing votes by the bucketload, particularly heartland votes. Brown and Miliband only continued that decline, so that there's now almost no Labour heartland left, as seen most clearly by their obliteration in Scotland.
But as Blair has said: he wouldn't want Labour to win an election with Corbyn as leader. Probably a lot of the Labour right feel the same way. They're mostly career politicians with no real roots in a (previously fading) Labour movement, and no desire at all to see it revive itself. They're basically Red Tories. Deselect the lot of them.
