If Corbyn doesn't command the support of a majority of Labour voters then that's a perfectly legitimate criticism. Blair was rightly criticised (and ousted) because the Party no longer believed he had support among the majority of Labour voters or a plurality of the electorate. They believed he couldn't win the next election and would be an electoral liability, so "politely requested" he step down in favour of Brown. Blair at the time was toxic, and Brown was seen as the more popular choice, despite all Blair had done and how many votes he won in the leadership contest.
Luiz is asking how much support Corbyn actually has among Labour voters. He is suggesting that the party membership is not representative of Labour voters, since they are such a tiny fraction, and can easily be overrun by extreme factions within the Party (it's happened in the past). These are perfectly legitimate arguments to make, and not at all spurious. The fact that Corbyn had such large support among regular party members (or so little, depending on how you look at it) has no bearing on that argument; Luiz is right to point out that party members are a tiny fraction of the overall constituency of labour voters, and thus the 60% he got in the leadership election, while no outlier, is no reason to assume he is popular more generally.
It's valid strategic commentary, sure, and I'm sure that one of Corbyn's critics could run a challenge to his leadership on that basis, if they ever decide to stop bumbling around and eating each other. But so far as the legitimacy of Corbyn's leadership is concerned, it's besides the point.
And the thing is, I have to think Luiz is talking about Corbyn's leadership, because otherwise, why ask about existing Labour voters? Why not ask about people who
didn't vote Labour? They're the ones who are going to decide any election, they're the ones whose opinion of Corbyn matters, not the Blairites who are, for all their grumbling, probably going to keep vote Labour right up until a giant portrait of Mao is hung outside the party headquarters. So if Luiz was making strategic criticisms, he was pitching it all wrong, and my error is only taking him at his word.
Be honest Traitorfish. If this was Blair you'd be screaming bloody murder.
Nah. I mean, lacking the support of the MPs is not inconsequential, obviously, and it's certainly grounds for a contest; appeals to "party unity" in electoral peace-time are either naive or cynical, no matter who's making them. I just don't think it proves anything much in and of itself. I mean, if MPs were consistently representative of public opinion, you wouldn't see 78% of MPs supporting Remain, would you?
Beside, by the time this all comes round to an election, it might well be foreign affairs to me.
One of my favourite statistics is that the RSPB has more members (c.1 million) than all British political parties combined - including Labour (c.450,000), the Tories (c.150,000), the Lib Dems (c.72,000), the Greens (c.60,000) and UKIP (c.47,000).
In fairness to Labour, I don't think their membership ever exceeded one million. The the trade union vote meant that a lot of ardent supporters never actually felt the need to join the party. The current figure of 450,000 isn't too bad, then, at least not compared to the Tories, whose current membership is around 6% of what it was in the 1950s.
And this is the problem with party politics. It's entirely possible to have a leader who can win over the party base but can never hope to win over a majority of the electorate. That's what Labour have now with Corbyn - to a degree, it's what UKIP had until today with Farage. For a (well, traditionally) small, fringe party like UKIP largely unconcerned with forming governments and providing PMs, that isn't a problem, but when you're aiming and expecting to win a parliamentary majority at any given general election, it is. Unfortunately, and unlike the Tories, Labour do not have a mechanism for removing a leader in that position, short of convincing the membership to put electability over ideological purity. We often shout down people for doing that, but it's worth remembering that all the principles in the world don't mean much if you can't use them to make a difference. You might call that the Lib Dem dilemma, in light of (relatively) recent events.
You've got to be watch, mind, the assumption that principals and electability are mutually exclusive. Recent events suggest Scotland suggest that a bit of principle might just triumph over gangsterism, if the electorate are offered a fair contest. If Labour can hit the right balance of practice and principle that the SNP manage to grasp- or at least give a convincing appearance of grasping, which might well be the same thing- the Blairites might find themselves without much ground to stand on.
They won't, mind, because the Labour party is a burning house. But you can dream, can't you?
