Britain: The election, the media, and the anti-Corbyn bias

[Sentinel]

In a confident anti-establishment speech in Whitechapel on April 29, Corbyn launched the Labour Party’s slogan for the upcoming general election. In spite of (or perhaps because of) another week of more-or-less open sabotage by current and former Labour Party grandees, the Labour Party election campaign has generated a lot of enthusiasm. An estimated 200,000 activists participated in some form or another in the Labour Party campaign this last weekend.

With promises to reform the trade union laws, build more housing, tax the rich, and provide more funding for public services, Corbyn’s more militant tone over the last couple of weeks has tapped into the seething hatred that exists towards the Tories. It marks a stark difference to the endless hand-wringing by Labour over the EU and immigration at the beginning of this year.

[...]

It would be even better still if Corbyn actually called out this system for what it is: the capitalist system. Although there is a more strident tone in recent speeches, it is clear that Corbyn and his team avoids calling things by their true names.
There is an alternative to the capitalist rigged system - and it is socialism. This should be said. As Marxists and socialists, we know what “upgrade” the economy needs: nationalisation of the banks, the utilities, and the large multinational corporations, under workers’ control. But Corbyn, like McDonnell, prefer to talk in vague terms. In fact, the two of them appear to avoid the word “nationalisation” like the plague.
This is a real limitation for the Corbyn programme: how are they to tax the rich when the wealthy can just move their money abroad? How are they to create a £500bn investment bank if the banks refuse to lend any money? Furthermore, how are they to carry out a programme that really attacks the rich and powerful when the majority of the Labour Party’s MPs are mainly interested in defending the power and privileges of the few?
The upcoming Labour manifesto, soon to be released, will undoubtedly generate enthusiasm among Labour Party members, young people and trade unionists. If implemented, it would give some much needed relief from the worst of the cuts and attacks of the past ten years. Even if Labour doesn’t win this election, a bold campaign could serve to strengthen the Left and has the potential to involve even greater numbers in the Labour Party.
Whatever the outcome of the election, the class struggle in Britain is intensifying, both inside and outside the Labour Party.

Corbyn is kicking off the final month before the British elections. More militant rhetoric is certainly needed by the left wing Labour Leader, to reenthuse the hundreds of thousand of workers and youth that poured into the Party to defend him against the attempted coup of the party right, in order to cut the gap that remains to the Tory party in opinion polls.

Attempts to appease the parliamentary party right, instead of hammering while the iron was hot and pushing for their deselection after the defeat of the 'coup', combined with the party machinery that still is controlled with the right expelling left wingers basically for standing up for the founding principles of the party and the working class, have so far left many disappointed.

When the election was called the gap between the Tories and Labour was so enormous that Theresa May confidently declined to take part in TV debates. With her campaigning only half-heartedly and refusing debate, while the Corbyn movement has sparked into action on the streets, it has since diminished significantly, but there is yet a long way to go.

http://www.marxist.com/for-the-many-not-the-few-corbyn-launches-election-slogan.htm

[Jimmie Higgins]

UK comrades, what does his support seem like now to you. From the article it sounds like it has cooled since the first internal Labour fight. Is this true in your experience and if so is it due to lowered expectations, his weakness or reversals on some issues, all or none of that?


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[Sentinel]

The election manifesto of the Labour party was leaked yesterday. The programme is quite radical, includingthe re-nationalisation of vital infrastructure and services, such as railways, the post office and the energy sector, boosting of the NHS (which the tories want to privatise) and workers' rights, and building 100 000 apartments per year.

This is meant to be financed by a strong progressive taxation on incomes over 80 000 GBP and by raising corporate tax to 26%. The capitalists, of course are not going to accept this and capiutal flight and economic warfare is sure to follow, unless their assets are nationalised too along with the banks.

But this kind of bold election manifesto by a Labour party vitalised by the hundreds of thousands of workers that have joined to support Corbyn certainly has the potential of serving as a first step to keep building the movement - which will later have to take a revolutionary path to succeed.

Socialist Appeal/IMT wrote on this today:

https://www.socialist.net/labour-s-leaked-manifesto-a-bold-break-with-the-past.htm

[GiantMonkeyMan]

UK comrades, what does his support seem like now to you. From the article it sounds like it has cooled since the first internal Labour fight. Is this true in your experience and if so is it due to lowered expectations, his weakness or reversals on some issues, all or none of that?


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Corbyn basically has all the sorts of policies that are popular on opinion polls - renationalise the rail, higher wages, stopping the piecemeal privatisation of the NHS etc - but he's just struggled to convey them in a way that would have galvanized his support outside the usual suspects of lefties. Part of that is a media that's done its best to utterly crush him at every turn, including supposedly left-wing publications like The Guardian, part of that is the right-wing PLP and the internal bureaucratic machinery trying their level best to oust what they see as a uppity backbencher and then part of it is, frankly, that Corbyn is just a bit of a wet blanket.

May's Tories are parasitic - stealing policies from UKIP and Labour, whatever works best, without any of their own ideas except 'business as usual' - and will be an utter disaster for the country but they're probably going to win in a landslide and that means I have to suffer through five more years of shite.

[Sentinel]

Fresh surveys reveal, that currently at 35% the British Labour Party under Corbyn has much higher support in the opinion polls than it gained in the last elections under Ed Miliband - which clearly showing how talks about his 'unelectability' for being 'too radical' are bullshit.

By appealing with a radical manifesto not to 'middle voters', ie those undecided between Labour and the Tories, but instead to the huge crowds of workers and youth that were too disillusioned to vote in past elections, the movement behind Corbyn has demonstrated that success is possible.

The gap to the Tories is still considerable at 9% but is now for the first time recently in the single digits, and keeps steadily decreasing - all this despite sabotage attempts from the Labour party right.

With 3 more weeks of campaigning ahead before the elections, it is certainly possible Labour will win even though hard work is still needed.

Reuters article:

British Prime Minister Theresa May's lead in the opinion polls has narrowed after her Conservatives and the Labour opposition published their policy plans this week, with one survey showing the gap between the two parties halving to nine points.
May had been on course for a landslide with a majority of up to 150 seats, opinion polls had indicated in the early stages of campaigning ahead of the June 8 national vote.
Four polls on Saturday however showed the Conservatives with an expected vote share of between 44 and 46 percent, still easily ahead of the Labour Party on 33 to 35 percent, but pointing to a smaller projected majority of about 40 seats.
A YouGov poll showed her lead had halved to 9 points in a week.

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-br...-idUSKCN18G0XJ

Evening Standard article:

Crucially, a result on these lines would put Mr Corbyn comfortably above the 30.4 per cent vote share achieved by Ed Miliband in 2015, which some supporters argue should be seen as a benchmark of whether he should stay on as leader.
The 35 per cent support for Labour recorded by YouGov is the best rating for the party since March last year before the EU referendum and challenge to Mr Corbyn's leadership.

http://www.standard.co.uk/news/polit...-a3544376.html

[GiantMonkeyMan]

So there's been a sudden surge in Labour support. In Wales, for example, Labour were a few months ago below the Tories in polls and are now suddenly 10% above them. There's also this hilarious grime4corbyn where all the grime artists in London are supporting Corbyn (grime basically being a London rap scene). But overall it's likely to still be a Tory victory.

The Labour candidate in my area is such a slimeball - I met him when I was standing in local elections and did a debate with other candidates at the university, he just came across as a complete self-serving political robot. And I've also met the Tory candidate - when I was more involved in political activity, an individual who had personally been effected by disability welfare cuts wanted some support when they visited him to ask him to not vote for more cuts but the Tory ridiculously said something along the lines of not being present for the vote because he was on holiday in Paris. I kinda hate them both.

But I'm kinda thinking of holding my nose and voting Labour regardless. Last election, the Tory candidate only won by a few hundred votes in my area. I really don't want the Tories to get a massive lead in Parliament. Ugh, I just kinda feel dirty even thinking about it though.

[Sentinel]

With the British elections now merely a few days away, I thought it would be in place to highlight and salute the magnitude of the work the hundreds of thousands strong grassroots movement of workers and youth in and around the new, reinvigorated Labour Party has done. Lifting the Party from what seemed a certain defeat with double digits when the snap elections were announced, Labour is now close to bypassing the Tories in opinion polls, the latest YouGov putting the figurs insdie the margin of error, 39% LAB vs 42% CON.

What makes it truly remarkable that it has so far been a struggle against an unanimously hostile mainstream media. Here is a good article on the role of media in shaping public opinion. As Lenin is quoted saying therein, “In capitalist usage, freedom of the press means freedom of the rich to bribe the press, freedom to use their wealth to shape and fabricate so-called public opinion”.

https://www.marxist.com/britain-the-...orbyn-bias.htm

Interestingly, 'left-liberal' the Guardian yesterday (after the printing of the article, chose to endorse Labour after constantly vilifying Corbyn and downplaying his chances to lead the Party even close to victory. Now the tone is different: "Jeremy Corbyn has shown that the party might be the start of something big rather than the last gasp of something small".

Clearly, with Labours ratings soaring far above it's last elections result under Blairite reign, they realise that the 'unelectability' bullshit can not fly anymore. They realise that the power of the Party left will be very hard to break after the recent campaign success.

Thus the tone of the editorial is instead focused on appealing to Corbyn to cooperate, listen to others etc in hopes of him diluting and toning down his programme should Labour win.

https://www.theguardian.com/commenti...ote-its-labour

[The Intransigent Faction]

Whether Labour is even worth the effort of saving is one question. Right now, though, I'm wondering how sustained that surge will be in light of recent events (given the suspension of campaigning, among other impacts).

Granted, whatever cynical populist stoking of fears occurred in weeks past doesn't seem to have prevented this surge of Labour. Still, the potential for a certain kind of political response is disturbing.

[Kilgore Trout]

Replyed unintentionally

[ckaihatsu]

NHS and the UK Parliamentary Election, next Labor Beat on CAN TV; starts Aug 3


The National Health Service and the UK Parliamentary Election

Chicago - CAN TV Channel 19
Thursday, August 3, 9:30 pm
Friday, August 4, 4:30 pm
Thursday, August 10, 9:30 pm
Friday, August 11, 4:30 pm


The June 2017 election in the UK was a setback for Primer Minister Theresa May’s Conservative Party. It lost its Parliamentary majority, and the opposition Labour Party gained 32 seats. One of the things Jeremy Corbyn and his Labor Party fought for was to stop Theresa May's privatization of the NHS, the National Health Service. The strength of the NHS defense campaign was a big part of Labour’s push against the Conservatives in the election. Reel News, our friends in London for two decades, reports on the NHS campaign in Cumbria and Huddersfield, with British workers mobilizing to stop the downgrading of maternity and children’s services, closing of community hospital beds, the demolition of a local hospital, and cuts to local surgeries. To find out about how you can see these videos: reelnews.co.uk, [email protected]


UK workers defense of NHS connected with Labour Party advances. @ReelNewsLondon‪

Labor Beat is a CAN TV Community Partner. Labor Beat is a non-profit 501(c)(3) member of IBEW 1220. Views are those of the producer Labor Beat. For info: [email protected], www.laborbeat.org. 312-226-3330. Labor Beat, 37 S. Ashland Ave., Chicago, IL 60607. For other Labor Beat videos, visit YouTube and search "Labor Beat". On Chicago CAN TV Channel 19, Thursdays 9:30 pm; Fridays 4:30 pm. Labor Beat is a regular cable-tv series in Chicago, Rockford, Urbana, IL; Philadelphia, PA; Princeton, NJ; Cambridge, MA.