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Rival Labour factions understood to be discussing how to remove Keir Starmer as leader (www.theguardian.com)

submitted 1 week ago by Veserr@sh.itjust.works to c/uk_politics@feddit.uk

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[–] tetris11@feddit.uk 2 points 1 week ago (1 children)

What Labour needs right now is their own Liz Truss

[–] Skua@kbin.earth 15 points 1 week ago (1 children)

The last thing any of us need is another Liz Truss

[–] tetris11@feddit.uk 7 points 1 week ago (1 children)

That's what's going to happen if they replace Starmer. A series of nothing candidates that will sink Labour further in the polls

[–] Zombie@feddit.uk 6 points 1 week ago (1 children)

They could try an actual socialist, like Labour pre- Blair used to have.

The difficulty there though is finding one within the neo-liberal pro-capitalism modern Labour party...

[–] RIotingPacifist@lemmy.world 5 points 1 week ago (1 children)

They tried that and he was crushed by the Party aparachiks and press

[–] Zombie@feddit.uk 6 points 1 week ago (1 children)

True that.

Funny how despite great interest among the population that got shot down...

Corbyn won the 2015 party leadership election to succeed him. The Labour Party's membership increased sharply, both during the leadership campaign and following his election.[3]

After Labour MPs sought to remove him in 2016 through a leadership challenge, he won a second leadership contest against Owen Smith. In the 2017 general election, Corbyn led Labour to increase its vote share by 10 percentage points to 40 per cent, their largest rise since the 1945 general election.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeremy_Corbyn

Following the short campaign, Labour again finished as the second largest party in parliament but surprised many pundits by increasing their share of the popular vote to 40%, resulting in a net gain of 30 seats and a hung parliament. Although Labour started the campaign as far as 20 points behind, it defied expectations by gaining 40% of the vote, its greatest share since 2001. It was the first time Labour had made a net gain of seats since 1997, and the party's 9.6% increase in vote share was its largest in a single general election since 1945.[113][114] This has partly been attributed to the popularity of its 2017 Manifesto that promised to scrap tuition fees, address public sector pay, make housing more affordable, end austerity, nationalise the railways and provide school students with free lunches.[115][116][117]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labour_Party_leadership_of_Jeremy_Corbyn

[–] hellothere@sh.itjust.works -3 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Funny how despite great interest among the population that got shot down…

Literally lost two elections.

Popular on twitter != electorally viable.

[–] RIotingPacifist@lemmy.world 6 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Popular on twitter != electorally viable.

He got the largest vote and voteshare of any Labour party leader since Blair in 97.

He wasn't just popular on Twitter.

Starmer lost both votes compared to 2019.

[–] hellothere@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

I voted for Corbyn as leader twice.

We have a stupid af electoral system, the popular vote doesn't matter, it's breadth you need. Blair got 418 seats from 13.5m votes, May got 317 from 13.6m, and Johnson got 365 from 13.9m. Then Starmer somehow gets 411 from 9.7m because, again, the system is fucking dumb, but you need to work within it (so you can then change it).

Corbyn's popularity was very concentrated, and he was marmite. Yes, he got the most votes for a Labour leader since Blair, but he also motivated the opposition vote too. The main thing May's 2017 campaign promised was a dementia tax, which was hated, and yet she still got more votes than Blair.

His platform - especially 2017 - was great. But the only measure that matters for the leader of a main political party is election results. You can only make changes if you're in power.

What's somewhat ironic is how much of that platform has now been put in place by Starmer; nationalised rail, a ban on fracking, 30 hours of free childcare, end 0hrs contracts, putting VAT on private schools fees, removing two child limit.