We can’t let the Labour Party split into two lesser versions of itself

Once again the Labour Party is spending a summer at war with itself. The disgust at antisemitism that has been rightly vocalised by Jeremy Corbyn, Tom Watson and many others has not stopped the issue becoming a political football in Labour’s vastly overheated National Executive Committee elections.

Many Corbyn supporters, the vast majority of whom share the disgust at antisemitism, still feel bruised after the attempted ousting of Corbyn in 2016 and vindicated by the party’s better-than-expected showing at the general election. They know that the Venn diagram of those who are outraged and upset by antisemitism has a lot of overlap with those who will never accept Corbyn as a leader. Some have therefore understandably – if wrongly, in my view – seen this issue purely through those old lenses.

PoliticsEmma Burnell20 August 2018Jeremy Corbyn, Labour Party

Corbyn, Capitalism and the Horizon

There is a sense I get from some Corbynsceptics in the Labour Party that if they just sit quietly and ride out the storm, then eventually things will return to their version of normal.

This is why there is so much infighting on process issues. They know that mandatory reselection, whereby MPs have to refight for their seat before every election would put at risk some of their MPs and would change the largely Corbyn-critical membership of the Parliamentary Party.

Politicsemma@politicalhuman.com8 June 2018Jeremy Corbyn, Capitalism, 2008 Crash, Labour Party

It’s not just poor organisation—Labour Live was always going to fail

Tens of thousands of people hanging on your every word and singing your name to the heavens. Who wouldn’t want to experience that? More pertinently, who—having experienced it once—wouldn’t want to recreate it?

It is very easy to see how, after the high of Corbyn’s post-election appearance at Glastonbury, the temptation to go big on Labour Live was as difficult to resist as it has proved impossible to deliver. According to reports, ticket sales are rather low and my younger, cooler friends tell me the line up isn’t up to much. Even I can see that there’s no Stormzy there—an oversight apparently caused by him already being booked to do something else. Which begs the question why that wasn’t checked before the date was set.

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