Logically the right wing of Labour should indeed move over to the Lib Dems but I bet they want to keep hold of the Labour name so they keep the votes of people who blindly vote the same way each time (although that's definitely slipping these days). If I was the Lib Dems though I'm not entirely convinced I'd be happy to accept them tbh. Would anyone be welcoming that bunch of toxic back stabbers in a hurry?
At the moment it's highly unlikely they'd be bringing any of the union funding with them so it's not like there's a party funding benefit to off-set the downsides.

If they split but then form a pact with the Lib Dems, Greens, SNP and both factions of the Labour party to bring in a decent form of PR it might work otherwise a split will basically hand the governance of this country to the Tories in perpetuity under FPTP unless they fall to bits and end up divided between the Conservatives and UKIP. We could indeed see a big shift to UKIP if whoever ends up in charge of the negotiations doesn't deliver on the Brexit voters perception of what was meant to happen with immigration if we voted to leave.
Interesting times indeed (in the Chinese proverb type of way).

Given a portion of the people who voted Leave seem to think it was vote to make 'other people' who are already here leave, I think the chances of anybody delivering on what they think they were promised is pretty slim.

Can't imagine UKIP running a church fete with any degree of competency, let alone a country.

Remember how Angela Eagles was so upset when she 'had to' resign from the shadow cabinet. Well...

Tom Watson calls on Labour MPs to prevent leadership contest | Politics | The Guardian
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/201 ... ip-contest

Part of me does want to see Labour implode - at least the Tories have a twisted ideology ffs. Labour doesn't believe in itself never mind having a position. On anything.

This somewhat conspiracy theory but nevertheless interesting
I don't go for the 'secret illuminati controlling the world' kind of stuff generally, but it is certainly obvious that the campaign to force Corbyn to resign - because frankly that's he only way they'll get rid of him - is orchestrated, long in the planning and is patently not simply a reaction to the referendum result. The details around Tom Mauchline and the degree of prominence given to his heckle of Corbyn is certainly unusual.

Edit : More details

It's beginning to look like somebody might be actually doing some proper journalism.

Shadow cabinet agrees to peace talks

In other words "Crap! The coup's failed, Chilcott comes out tomorrow, lets try and salvage as much as we can out of the wreckage of the massive [LIFTED] up we've made."

Corbyn may challenge Labour's executive over leadership ballot | Politics | The Guardian
http://www.theguardian.com/politics/201 ... hip-ballot
...

Neil Kinnock: ‘I’m bloody angry. Only anger is keeping me from falling into despair’ | From the Guardian | The Guardian
https://www.theguardian.com/theguardian ... byn-labour

I'm still reading that, but it's bloody interesting.

Kinnock is an arse. I'd be somewhat dubious about taking advice on electability from him for a start. I mean, I guess he knows a lot about being unelectable but still...

If the PLP swing it so they exclude Corbyn from the ballot I think the Labour Party as is is pretty much finished. Disenfranchising the memberships elected candidate and also slapping your major financial donors in the face at the same time is unlikely to end well. You could also end up, if Eagle somehow wins, with the leader of the party being deselected by her CLP who I understand have voted in favour/support of Corbyn. Interesting times and all.

It also occurs to me that the image of miserable old git refusing to pay any attention to those younger and less experienced has a certain resonance with recent events.

I suspect he's a bit tee-ed off his and his wife's(!) nice little sinecures have been killed off by Brexit (or at least will be in roughly two years) leaving him with only his MP's pension and HoL expenses to fall back on. I mean, you can barely afford half decent champange and caviar on that! And his son's MPs salary and very large expenses claims as well of course, although I imagine that's got a time limit on it now too...


I think a split of some form in the labour party is now pretty much inevitable. Even if Eagles wins a straight fight with Corbyn this whole thing has been just too acrimonious and divisive. The PLP is simply not compatible with a large portion of the grass roots party any more. Depending on how the result goes, we either get a large chunk of the party's ground troops walking away in disgust leaving the party with little resources to actually campaign with (no, seriously, try running a GE campaign with 171 MPs, a few SpAds and a few thousand loyalsts), or large chunks of the PLP either defect to the lib dems or get deselected at the next election. And that's without even considering the Trident vote that's coming up - nice bit of skullduggery on the part of the Tories there.

The Labour Party as we currently know it probably has a lifespan of four years at the most.


especially now the 'well, young people didn't bother to vote so tough luck' line has proved to be absolute bollocks.

One Simple question

The Canary is patently pro-Corbyn but they do make a decent point - what does Angela Eagles actually stand for? She's been pretty nondescript as an MP up to this point and her campaign strategy basically seems to be 'I'm a woman and I'm gay, so everyone who is a woman or gay will vote for me'. Even her 'branding' is pink rather than traditional Labour red. It's staggeringly dumb identity politics and it's just not going to work. None of the labour voters who have turned away from the party are going to come back just because the new leader fits inside a particular box.

It looks very much to me like she's a patsy to get Corbyn out then six months from now we'll be doing this all again with a candidate the PLP actually wants but who the party membership would never even look at they'd been standing against Corbyn - probably Yvette Cooper.

I did think her promotional material was remarkably reminiscent of the pink transit van they had during the last GE and you know, that went well.

As for whether Corbyn should automatically be on the ballot here is the relevant section from the Labour Party Rules (2013, which is the most recent version I can find online)


I don't personally see that as particularly ambiguous - section 2 applies as there is no vacancy so challengers to the sitting leader need to get nominations.
If they had meant for the sitting leader to do the same then they should have made that explicit and it isn't so he should be on the ballot.

Indeed, they'd have used the word 'candidates' rather than 'challengers'. I suspect this will end up in court, unless they can railroad the election through before anyone can do anything about it. Which is what they're obviously trying to do with the EGM of the national committee at 24 hours notice. However they will still have to allow for a certain period in which for members to vote during which a legal challenge could be mounted, unless they THEN try and do a Tory party and say 'because there's only one candidate we're not going to bother having an election'. Which would frankly cause effing bedlam in the CLPs.

Basically, this isn't going to get any less messy any time soon.

Oh, I think we can safely assume there probably already is going to be bedlam in CLP's.

Well there already is in Angela Eagle's...

Wallasey Labour constituency office has brick thrown through window

That's effing stupid and pointless. Angela Eagle probably wasn't even there and perfectly innocent people could have been hurt. Utter knob, whoever that was. Hopefully will get caught and prosecuted.

At the political level, it seems Eagles and her CLP were never the best of bedfellows

I didn't know Eagles was Oxbridge. I can see how that might not be seen as entirely a positive thing in Wallasey. CAVEAT : My mother's famiiy came from Wallasey. It's a constituency that consists (or did, at least) of a lot of working class areas - quite a lot Liverpool's docks are in it and aside from the actual waterfront it's not seem a whole lot of regeneration. Dropping an Oxford educated party loyalist onto it rather than allowing a popular local figure to stand would have been a very unpopular thing to do..