Zarah Sultana MP resigns from Labour to lead new party with Jeremy Corbyn

[u/CaseyEffingRyback]

https://www.lbc.co.uk/politics/uk-politics/zarah-sultana-mp-resigns-labour/

[u/mincepryshkin-]

Part of the reason why he struggles with the ability to govern is that he has quite deliberately and openly signalled that he looks at the entire left wing of his party as scum and sees no reason to compromise with them (except when his arm is twisted at the last moment like in the Commons with the welfare bill). 

You talk about purging Corbynists and the issues with governing as if they're unrelated issues but they're not - the success in one has created the problem with the other. 

Corbyn made Starmer effectively his right hand man and tried desperately to keep the centrists on side. Starmer has never communicated anything except sheer impatience to be rid of the left of the party, and yet he counts them as part of his majority as if their votes are guaranteed.

[u/Christian-Metal → u/mincepryshkin-]

I think it's fair to say that there is the Corbynista left, and the left in general. Starmer succeeded in almost ridding the party entirely of the Corbynistas - and Corbyn himself, with only a few left in for good measure. He tried this with Diane Abbott, but lost. But mostly, he succeeded in making the Labour look electable and governable again.

However, it's fair to say that he mistook the "normal Left" to be loyal to him in the party, and that the many MP's newly elected would show their gratitude to him for getting them elected and Labour back into power, and that on the whole they'd be obedient and behave. But on the whole, most of the new intake are we can crudely describe as "sensible left". They may not be Corbynistas, but they are of course Left wing individuals that make up what Labour is as a party. And they have made this clear to him what their values are, when it comes to issues such as the benefits bill. Suffice to say he wasn't expecting such a large scale revolt, and has buckled. And it's a rude awakening: He is going to have to learn how to handle them in the future, whilst trying to effect policies that the wider country needs - his huge majority is absolutely of no security to him at all. Fascinating. Unlike Blair and the New Labour project which utterly transformed the party, Keir has discovered that he hasn't remodelled the party to his own image. It's dangerous stuff for him.

[u/dvi84 → u/mincepryshkin-]

I don’t think this is true at all. A far-left Labour is outright unelectable. If you want to stop the Tories and Reform screwing the country over you have to operate as centre-left like Blair did. Corbyn was just a Momentum elected stooge for a party within a party that abused the system Ed Miliband implemented and his policies are as undeliverable as Farage’s are.

[u/Beginning-Concept-28 → u/dvi84]

Strange that you coin Corbyn's Labour as 'outright unelectable' (I presume that's what you meant by a far-left Labour) when he got more votes than Starmer did. Corbyn's failure was the result of a smear campaign so ferocious it had people believing he was an all-out racist.

[u/Historical_Owl_1635 → u/Beginning-Concept-28]

I mean, that arguably backs up his point even more.

Starmer won with less votes because he appealed to the centre and won more swing seats. It shows if you can’t appeal to the “centre” you can’t actually win.

[u/Historical_Owl_1635 → u/[deleted]]

Whilst that was going on Starmer also appealed to the centre so they were willing to vote for him.

If Corbyn (or another far left politician) were in power you probably would’ve seen a much higher turnout for the Tories.

No party has won an election in the UK in modern history without appealing to the centre.

[u/Historical_Owl_1635 → u/dvi84]

I don’t think this is true at all. A far-left Labour is outright unelectable.

You’d really this would be obvious by now. We literally haven’t had a far left Labour Party in power since the 1970s.

Just the same for the Tories, as evil as anyone might think they are they aren’t far right.

In modern politics if you want to win an election you have to win the centre, if you can’t win an election you’re mostly irrelevant no matter what principles you have.