Saturday 31 October 2015

Scottish elections next May are the make or break for far left Labour leadership

Most Labour MPs in the Commons see next May as the crucial test for Jeremy Corbyn's new look far left Labour Party. If Labour wins in Scotland with its far left approach then Corbyn buys himself some time, and evidence can be found that this is both what he believes, and what part of the country believes. Put simply, his approach is that we are going to give far left socialism one more big heave.
So the Scottish Labour Party conference yesterday in Perth was worth a good look.
The report does not make good reading: http://blogs.new.spectator.co.uk/2015/10/jeremy-corbyn-comes-to-scotland-and-discovers-he-has-nothing-to-say/
This passage particularly resonates in the report:

"Labour are trapped. They cannot Out-Nat the Nats and they cannot Out-Unionist the Tories. So what can they do? Where does Labour find its voice? And if it can find its voice what will it actually say?
One thing was made clear in Perth today: Jeremy Corbyn is not the answer. But then you knew that already. His speech was, er, remarkable. It was a speech aimed at – and let’s be generous here – 15 percent of voters. Those voters who think a Spartist shouting “SOCIALISM” is the winning response to a Natjob crying “FREEDOM”.
Or, as Corbyn put it, according to the version of his speech distributed to journalists this afternoon, “Friends, if you want socialist change, if you want a left wing alternative, you have to vote for it.”