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Related: About this forumIs anyone here going to mind if Ian Austin gets deselected?
He spent much of his own party leader's speech on Chilcot heckling his leader and telling the man to sit down and shut up.
TubbersUK
(1,439 posts)LeftishBrit
(41,208 posts)However, I think deselection should be the decision of the local, not national, party, or it gives leaders too much power (imagine Thatcher or Blair getting rid of every awkward MP).
Horrible behaviour, though. Especially during a speech on something with such important and tragic implications as the Chilcot report. I wonder how on earth he could have thought that was OK?
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)Pretty much any CLP is pro-Corbyn and anti-"rebel" (the "rebels" tend to feel they owe their constituency parties nothing at all, and treat them with utter contempt).
T_i_B
(14,738 posts)LeftishBrit
(41,208 posts)Local parties choose their candidates on all kinds of grounds, not always greatly related to ideology, ranging from local personalities and 'who they know, not just what they know', to how good they are at defending local issues, to what is perhaps the top issue: their chances of getting elected or re-elected as MP in that particular constituency.
Personally, I would be ashamed of a candidate or MP who heckled during a speech of such importance, but then I am usually ashamed of my own MP anyway. She's a Tory, 'nuff said. Even most right-wing Labourites would be much better! And even she's not the worst (did I actually just say that? - it shows what a mess we're in!): at least she did not support the Brexit nightmare.
T_i_B
(14,738 posts)And make that case to Dudley Labour party if that's such a big priority for you?
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)There has been a consistent pattern since the "rebels" launched #ChickenCoup that MPs were calling for Corbyn to resign in defiance of the wishes of their CLP's(i.e., the people actually responsible for getting the MPs elected and re-elected).
Moreover, many of the anti-Corbyn MPs were effectively imposed as Labour candidate by Blair, Brown, or Ed Miliband-all of whom forced CLP's in marginal seats to select the candidate from a "shortlist" drawn up by the party central office-usually a list that only included candidates from the right wing of the party, thus leaving the CLP's with no real say over who would be selected, since the differences between a group of "moderates" were always going to be too trivial to matter.
Consquently, those MPs feel deep loyalty to the leaders who imposed them as candidate, but little or none to the Labour Party itself or the values and people it historically fights for.
What Austin did was a far greater show of disloyalty to Corbyn as leader than anything Corbyn ever did as a backbencher. The bills Corbyn defied the leadership on were always reactionary, generally unnecessary, were frequently punitive to core Labour voters and more often than not deeply unpopular. But in voting against them, Corbyn was never personally disrespectful to whoever his party's leader was and certainly never heckled the leader in the HoC. He showed respect then...he's owed respect now.
T_i_B
(14,738 posts)...a very different picture emerges to the one you portray.
The best way forward is not to obsess over who hates who as you are doing, but to engage with people from all wings of the Labour party and get people working together so we actually stand a chance of pulling this country out of the mess we are in.
Before the referendum I was thinking that deselection would be a good thing for a number of MP's, for more significant reasons than being rude about Corbyn. Now I see it as much less of a priority if the Labour party is to stop fighting itself and start fighting for Britiain.
Ken Burch
(50,254 posts)If so, that's progress(with a small "p" .
Because Corbyn has shown quite clearly that he isn't up to the task of running the Labour party.
Labour clearly needs a new leader. That doesn't mean a lurch to the right but it will necessarily entail the party leadership working constructively with others (which Corbyn has proven to be incapable of). We need a big tent in opposition to the Tories and UKIP, not a repeat of this situation
RogueTrooper
(4,665 posts)Did Corbyn ever show that kind of loyalty to his predecessors?
LeftishBrit
(41,208 posts)But because he is choosing a speech relating to the deaths of thousands of people worldwide, including over 200 British troops, for his partisan heckling. So far as I know, Corbyn never did anything of that nature.
I'm not recommending or opposing his deselection: that's up to the Dudley North Labour party, as I said. But I still think it's fairly horrible behaviour.