Jeremy Corbyn

It wasn’t just Alistair Campbell types, Blairites, who defected from Labour to the Lib Dems or the Greens in the 23 May Euro-elections. Many left-wing Labour supporters defected too, or didn’t vote, disgusted by Labour’s equivocation on Brexit. In July we will get a new Tory leader and prime minister, almost certainly a hard-Brexiter. How they will negotiate the difficulty, which destroyed May, of getting a parliamentary majority for any Brexit formula at all, we don’t know. They will be under pressure to steer a course capable of drawing back millions of Tory voters who on 23 May went for...

In the 23 May Euro-election, Labour, by not putting their lot in with the Remain parties, muddied the waters and stopped a clear Remain vote emerging. The Labour leaders also allowed the Lib Dems to detox. For the first time since the 2010-15 coalition government, lots of people are willing to vote for them. That is damaging for Labour (though also for the Conservatives). The good news is that the group formed by Chuka Umunna’s split from Labour, Change UK, with 3.4% of the vote, are for now a spent force. There are things that could revive Change UK, like a sizeable group of anti-Brexit...

Comrade Corbyn! Your wishy-washy politics on Brexit are usually explained as electoral manoeuvring in an attempt to attract both anti-Brexit internationalists and pro-Brexiters to the Labour Party. It is likely to satisfy neither. “Because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I will spew thee out of my mouth”, as somebody said a long time ago. But even should your calculation here prove to be accurate, your approach is wrong in principle. The relationship to the European Union is Britain’s most important political issue in decades. To approach it in terms of manoeuvring for votes is a...

In the 18 May Morning Star, CPB (Communist Party of Britain) secretary Rob Griffiths indicts those he calls “Labour’s pro-EU fanatics”: “They have succeeded in scuppering the talks with the Tory government by demanding that a permanent customs union and a second referendum form part of any new Brexit package”. Leave aside that a permanent customs union is agreed Labour policy, endorsed personally by Jeremy Corbyn time and time again, and a second public vote is conference policy. What I’m struck by is that phrase: “They have succeeded in scuppering the talks with the Tory government.” Does...

According to all polls as we go to press on 21 May, the Brexit Party, the personal vehicle of the ex-Tory, ex-Ukip-leader, friend-of-Trump, right-winger Nigel Farage is set to come top in the European Parliament elections on 23 May. The Tories will do very badly. Labour will get a mediocre result, and according to one poll may even get fewer votes than the Lib-Dems. Labour for a Socialist Europe has distributed around 47,000 pro-Labour, anti-Brexit leaflets for the campaign to constituency Labour Parties and to individuals, and reports a good response on street stalls and on doorsteps. The...

Over 80 people turned out for a “Love Socialism Hate Brexit” meeting in Nottingham on 8 May, despite the Euro-election campaign being already underway. Many were students from the Nottingham Trent University, where the meeting was held. Every speaker from the platform, and almost every speaker from the floor, stressed their support for the post-2015 anti-austerity direction of the Labour Party, but deep concerned about fragmentation of Labour votes and Labour’s failure over Brexit to campaign against rampant nationalism. Further “Love Socialism, Hate Brexit” meetings are planned in Streatham...

You texted me saying “I am seriously considering voting Lib Dem in the European Elections. Can’t believe I’m writing this. Am I mad?”. My first response was “Yes”. However I recognise that there are many people like you — lifelong Labour voters and people who supported Corbyn in the leadership elections — who are angry about Labour’s failure to support a remain position and a referendum on Brexit and find it unacceptable that Labour can enter European elections with no clear position on this key issue. Many, like you, are wondering whether they can support Labour “this time”. Why not vote for...

Jeremy Corbyn’s victory as Labour leader in 2015 promised the possibility of a left Labour Party which would in government renationalise rail, gas and electricity, restore union rights and tax the rich. In the aftermath of the 2008 crisis and years of Tory austerity, that looked attractive to many tens of thousands of people who had never been active on the left before. Labour’s membership surged and the membership was optimistic. The Party’s right wing was on the back foot. Now all that is in jeopardy. The opportunity to re-shape Labour politically and open-up its structures democratically is...

Every Labour canvasser will have come across him (and, invariably, it is a he). Leering out of his doorway he delivers a deranged tirade about how the country is going to the dogs. Communist-run trade unions. Moscow gold. Economy wrecked by strikes. Scroungers living off the dole. Better off than him, an honest hardworking man. Of course, not a racist. But too many immigrants. Especially Muslims. Bogus asylum-seekers. Should stay in France. Got a council house instead of his daughter. Live off the state. He’s accused of racism for telling the truth. In his own country! And, in the more up-to...

As we go to press on 2 April, the Tory government has just finished a special Cabinet meeting. Theresa May outlined a plan B: To approach Jeremy Corbyn to seek a joint Brexit proposal to put to Parliament. This would include the existing Withdrawal Agreement. It might (she implied) also involve changes to the document on future relations after the end in December 2020 of the “transition period” during which Britain remains in EU rules though outside the EU. And a plan C: To get agreement with Jeremy Corbyn on a list of Brexit options to put to MPs, with a joint commitment from both Tory and...