Vile Calumnies

Or in common parlance- lies. You remember, waaay back in the dim dark mists of history (like 2 months ago), Labour Leader Jeremy Corbin faced a Quisling rebellion by the Tory-lite, Neoliberal, Blairite Labour Party Members of Parliament (the Parliamentary Labour Party or PLP). Now we know as a matter of fact that the real reason for this attempted coup is that he’s a Social Democratic Unionist who was introducing democracy into the Party hierarchy and they (quite correctly) feared that because their policy was extremely unpopular with the actual activist Regular Party Members and the Labour electorate as a whole, they soon would be booted from their cushy Westminster sinecures.

And rightly so because in addition to backing bad policies they are manifestly incompetent bumblers. Moe, Larry, and Curly could have staged a better revolt as is proven by the fact Corbyn thrashed them 60% to 40%, a larger margin of victory that he had in his first election against multiple opposition candidates.

Among other things he was accused of being a Trotskyist, misogynistic, anti-Semetic, and a bully because he thought that the Labour Leader could tell Members of Parliament how to vote.

And he can. That’s the way Parliamentary Democracy works and if you don’t like it feel free to resign or switch Parties or heaven forfend run Independent. The Party assigns prospective Members to a given District and they don’t need to work there or live there or ever even see the place they represent.

Lots of them don’t. This is the reason why we have a residency requirement in the United States, one of things we fought for in the Revolutionary War.

Anyway, unless you have Party backing you’re highly unlikely to be elected.

But naked self interest doesn’t generally (ahem) appeal to your constituents and so they had the BIG LIE– Jeremy Corbyn was insufficiently zealous in defense of Remain in the Brexit referendum.

Now exit polls show that support for Remain was much higher among Labour voters than Tories and the erosion of Remain’s once solid lead was almost entirely due to defections from the Conservative Party. It is just as untrue to blame Labour (and by extension Corbyn) for the Brexit victory as it is to blame Nader’s partisans in Florida for Al Gore’s defeat. Gore was not defeated, he chose not to contest the results. And besides, far more Democrats voted for W than all of Nader’s votes regardless of affiliation.

And then there’s this-

Labour could block Brexit by voting against Article 50 over single market demands, Jeremy Corbyn says
by Alexandra Sims, Independent
Saturday 5 November 2016

Labour will block the UK’s exit from the European Union if the Government is unable to guarantee access to the single market, Jeremy Corbyn has said.

The opposition will join forces with Tory Remain supporters and other parties to prevent Article 50 from being triggered if this trade access is not assured, the Labour leader told the Sunday Mirror.

Mr Corbyn suggested Prime Minister Theresa May, who has a slim Commons majority, would be forced into an early general election if she fails to meet Labour’s “Brexit bottom line”.
…
A coalition of anti-Brexit campaigners took the case against the Government. Their lawyers told the court, that constitutional law establishes that only parliament can take away rights of British citizens, and some rights would be lost upon losing EU citizenship.

Mr Corbyn said: “The court has thrown a big spanner in the works by saying Parliament must be consulted.

“We accept the result of the referendum. We are not challenging the referendum. We are not calling for a second referendum. We’re calling for market access for British industry to Europe.”
…
He added that in the event of a snap general election, the Labour party would be “ready for it”.

“If the Government calls an election, we’re ready for it,” he said. “We have the members, the organisation and the enthusiasm. We welcome the challenge.

“It would give us the chance to put before the British people an alternative economic strategy for this country.”

Now personally I don’t think Corbyn has a snowball’s chance in hell, but…

If the High Court ruling stands AND there are enough defections from the Tories (unlikely as they know what Party Discipline is) then there’s definitely a slim chance that Theresa May could lose the vote and be forced to call a General Election which would in effect be a second referendum.

In any event this should put to rest any assertion that Corbyn is not strong enough in his defense of the European Union.