The horizon is not so far as we can see, but as far as we can imagine

On the Anti-Corbyn Coup

Picture of Jeremy Corbyn

Picture of Jeremy Corbyn

So, six shadow ministers have resigned. People Corbyn should never have put in the shadow cabinet, in my opinion, but he’s a good man and thought they could be appeased.

A lot of people think he’s toast. I don’t know. I hope not. He has the support of the Labour membership still, so far as I am aware. If I were him, I’d call their bluff. Indeed, I would escalate and say that re-selection is now on the table. Purge the party of the disloyal MPs who don’t follow the party’s will.

Will this happen? Don’t know. At least he sacked Hillary Benn, the instigator of the coup.

What I do know is this, a lot of people who think they are left-wing want Corbyn gone. These people are fools.

He will be replaced by a Blairite. That means the next election will be between bad and worse, a choice of two evils. There will be no good Brexit scenario.

Machiavelli and America’s founders observed that, in time, a people can become so bereft of the virtues required for a democratic government to function that all they can hope for is a somewhat benign dictatorship.

The reason British left-wingers and centrists were scared of leaving the EU, which is a terrible, anti-democratic organization whose enforced austerity has wrecked multiple economies is this: British politics are even more broken than EU politics. As bad as the EU is, the British needed the EU to protect them from themselves–from the governments they keep electing.

Now, upset that Corbyn did not save them from themselves, they want to get rid of their only prospect for a better future.

One cannot help such people.

On a personal level, anyone who wants Corbyn gone will be telling me who they are and what their judgment is worth. I will almost certainly never trust any such person ever again, just as there are only two people who supported the Iraq war for whom I have time now.

On a larger scale, it will prove there is nothing to be done to help Britain, or rather, England and Wales. Scotland should leave (and should have last time). I’m less sure Ireland is some prize; they massively mishandled the financial crisis and lucked into what recovery they’ve had, but I suppose Northern Ireland will still be better off with them.

The British people have made their choices, again and again. Having been given a light out of the darkness, and having extinguished it, while I wish them well, it will be time for sensible people to find other things to do than concern themselves with England’s fate. Those stuck there, of course, will have to do what they can. Those not there will have to triage to places which might still be salvageable.

As with the US, their hope will be old people dying and young people taking over, but while there’s a lot of ruin in a country, qua Keynes, it isn’t infinite and the English have been doing a lot of ruining for a long time.

So I most sincerely suggest my English friends: Don’t shoot off your own jaw to spite your face– which is what it seems you’re about to do.

Support Corbyn, or you are getting rid of your last chance to avoid a terrible, terrible future.


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39 Comments

  1. markfromireland

    Yes to much of this BUT it’s way too early to write Corbyn off. Look at the man’s career – he’s nothing if not persistent. I’ll just copy and paste what I wrote on the other thread:

    “Too early to tell if Corbyn’s going down or not. He was made leader by a very large majority of the membership and has a good organisation behind him. It’s not all that difficult to deselect a Labour MP and the PLP is very much out of sync with their membership. Another possibility is that a large group of MPs will jump before they’re pushed.”

    and

    PS: Momentum’s Corbyn loyalists to confront rebel Labour MPs | Politics | The Guardian

    and

    First, if anyone is undemocratic enough to think that there can be a new leadership election with the existing leader kept off the ballot, then they are setting the Labour party on course for a split.

    And second, Unite has hitherto opposed any plans to change the party rules governing mandatory re-selection of Labour MPs. That, too, we have looked on as a divisive distraction.

    But those MPs who have missed no opportunity to tweet and brief against the party’s elected leader over the last 10 months will find that their disloyalty finds no favour with party members and will make this an increasingly difficult line to hold.

    Labour mutineers are betraying our national interest | Len McCluskey | Opinion | The Guardian

    Corbyn tried to hold the party together – that”s why he reluctantly went against what he’s been saying for most of his career and campaigned somewhat unenthusiastically for remain. It’s also why he appointed Blairites to his shadow cabinet. I think he failed and I think it unlikely that the rift can be healed. What’s far more likely I think is that the Blairite’s will split off from Labour and well see the SDP fiasco all over again. Tim Farron must be experiencing 60 orgasms a minute.

    From what you’ve written it seems you think that there was unanimity on the British left against Brexit. This is very far from being the case. There was a left-wing campaign for Brexit it didn’t get much attention from the media but it was very active. People like Dennis Skinner were strongly for Brexit and campaigned accordingly. The same is true of Frank Field. Then are centre-left people like Nigel Willmott who made a pretty good case for why Left wingers should vote for Brexit: Remain and reform is wishful thinking – the left should vote leave

  2. Ian Welsh

    Oh, I haven’t written him off yet. We’ll see. He’s been far more conciliatory to these, well in honor of it being British politics let’s call them cunts, than I think wise, but I’m hoping he was stringing them along.

    I wonder if anyone has done any polling to see what a splitter party would poll. Probably do like crap, but just enough to ensure the Conservatives win, which is to them preferable to Corbyn, I’m sure.

    To Blairites the left is the real enemy. Their only real dispute with Conservatives was a matter of pacing and style.

  3. markfromireland

    Too many links – is the upper limit two?

    To address your other points:

    Scotland – I was for Scottish independence and still am. If the Scots want to break free of England and join the EU fine. I suspect that they might be a lot nimbler on their feet than the English and make a go of it. They’d probably be a better neighbour for us as well. Even the rump state consisting of England & Wales might be a lot easier to get along with once they’ve got used to being a smallish country, then again maybe not they could go into one gigantic snit and stay there.

    As to Irish reunification I’m an Irish Republican and my instincts are far more aligned with Sinn Fein’s republicanism than they with the natonalism of the SDLP. (Or the republicanism of Fianna Fail and Fine Gael come to that.) I’m also a realist the fact is that a minority of the electorate in the Republic voted for Sinn Fein. Another fact is that the majority of the population in the Six Counties still look to London. The political loyalty of the Six Counties will change as the Unionist population shrinks and the Nationalist one increases a process that’s well under way. Once there’s a majority Nationalist/Republican population point the English will leave “pausing” as a Loyalist politician once put it “only to write a cheque”.

    Any form of coercion of the Unionist population would be catastrophic for Ireland as a whole and I don’t see the Loyalists voting to join with us just because the province gets a lot of subsidies from the EU. Identity trumps economics.

  4. markfromireland

    Let’s not call them cunts – cunts are a useful and pleasurable and entirely wonderful part of those wonderful delightful and utterly essential creatures called women – whereas these worthless Blairite wankers are, well, worthless and wankers.

  5. Blissex

    I very much like your article, and your support of J Corbyn, who seems to me a mild Eisenhower Republican sort of politician, even if he has a bit of a “wild youth” background. He has a very difficult situation: for example he is very keen as you say on party unity, so he cannot quite disclaim the past 30 years in which New Labour tried to push down low end wages with a policy of high immigration. As to this:

    «To Blairites the left is the real enemy. Their only real dispute with Conservatives was a matter of pacing and style.»

    I have a wonderful quote from the published diary of a Labour politician, L Price, dated 1999:

    «Philip Gould analysed our problem very clearly. We don’t know what we are. Gordon wants us to be a radical progressive, movement, but wants us to keep our heads down on Europe. Peter [Mandelson] thinks that we are a quasi-Conservative Party but that we should stick our necks out on Europe. Philip didn’t say this, but I think TB either can’t make up his mind or wants to be both at the same time.»

    T Blair eventually I think aligned himself with P Mandelson on «we are a quasi-Conservative Party» but with G Brown on «keep our heads down on Europe».

  6. mc

    mfi–I read some commentary on urban-rural splits in Northern Ireland that indicated some problems for reunification, but it wasn\’t very in depth. Your thoughts on that?

  7. markfromireland

    @ Blissex June 26, 2016

    Eishenower Republican – Jesus wept. Sorry but you manifestly haven’t got the slightest idea what you’re on about. Corbyn is an old-fashioned Clause 4 English socialist and proud of it.

    Here’s the text of Clause 4:

    “To secure for the workers by hand or by brain the full fruits of their industry and the most equitable distribution thereof that may be possible upon the basis of the common ownership of the means of production, distribution and exchange, and the best obtainable system of popular administration and control of each industry or service.”

    Corbyn’s a socialist in the same socialist tradition as Tony Benn, Michael Foot, and Eric Heffer.

    He was furious when the Blairites got rid of Clause 4 and said so, repeatedly. He’s also said that he wants it or some form of it back in the Labour Party constitution he said it in an interview with The Independent when campaigning for leadership of the Labour Party:

    “I think we should talk about what the objectives of the party are, whether that’s restoring Clause Four as it was originally written or it’s a different one. But we shouldn’t shy away from public participation, public investment in industry and public control of the railways.”

    http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/jeremy-corbyn-to-bring-back-clause-four-contender-pledges-to-bury-new-labour-with-commitment-to-10446982.html

    What on earth do you mean “Eisenhower republican”? – If I a European conservative catholic heavily engaged in European conservative catholic politics can recognise and honour him for what he is a principled and decent socialist who has repeatedly stood up for his socialist beliefs why the hell can’t you?

    Here he is at the Oxford Union in 2013 speaking in opposition to the motion:

    “This House Believes Socialism Will Not Work.”

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pZvAvNJL-gE

    Incidentally the motion was defeated.

    As to your quote from Lance Price’s book you could at least have had the honesty to point out that the L Price being quoted was Lance Price – that would be the Lance Price who worked at Number 10 Downing Street as special adviser* to Tony Blair. He now works as a political commentator for Rupert Murdoch’s Sky News. You get no prizes for guessing what kind of commentary he gets paid for making.

    *Special Advisers or SPADs as they’re known are explicitly political appointees appointed to give specifically political – partisan political, advice to the minister that appoints them, they lose their job the minute the minister who appointed them loses his or her job.

  8. mc

    Looking more and more like we\’re about to see a replay of the Greek referendum?

    http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jun/26/who-will-dare-pull-trigger-article-50-eu?CMP=share_btn_tw

  9. Hugh

    It is completely expectable that the forces of the status quo will do everything in their power, legitimate and illegitimate, to see that the status quo (and their power) is maintained. I am struck by the similarities between the British and American experiences, despite the differences in the forms of government. The systems in both countries are struggling to provide the same non-choice between a pseudo populist on the right (Trump and Johnson) and an anti-populist on the “left” (Clinton and some Blairite). At the same time, they are seeking to marginalize the moderate, if limited, populist leaders. In the US, they have succeeded with Sanders. And now in the UK they are making their move on Corbyn. If that doesn’t work and Corbyn stays in charge of Labour, they will split the party or whatever else is necessary to see that he does not become PM. The same would have happened in the US with Sanders. The Establishment status quo Democrats would rather lose with Sanders than win with him, but even if Sanders had somehow managed to become the party’s nominee, and had won the general election, they would still have done everything they could to emasculate him and destroy his Presidency.

    Corbyn and Sanders also share the same fatal flaw. They both tried to use completely corrupt parties as mechanisms for reform. At some point, there has to be a showdown, and a break. In the US, Sanders has already rejected these options, validating the BAR’s characterization of him as a sheepdog and mine that he was a Trojan horse. The jury is still out on Corbyn, but he is rapidly approaching his make a break moment.

  10. markfromireland

    @ mc June 26, 2016

    I think it’s making a mountain out of a molehill. The fact is that the Unionists/Loyalists share an identity – and that that identity is a specifically British one. They’re mostly the descendants of two waves of British colonists settled in Ireland first during the reign of Elizabeth I these were mostly English a second wave that settled during the English civil war and the interregnum were mostly Scots covenanters. Irrespective of which type of loyalist they are their loyalty is to Britain not Ireland.

    All other considerations are overridden by that primary loyalty.

    The same type of primary loyalty is found amongst the nationalist community they look to the Republic and want the country to be reunited and ruled as independent republic from Dublin.

    All other considerations are overridden by that primary loyalty.

    They regard Ireland – the republic as a foreign country and they’re right it is – we’re not British and we fought a long and vicious war of independence to force them to leave. My paternal granddad commanded one of General Collins’ death squads and was very explicit about how he wished he could have killed more of them.

  11. markfromireland

    Sorry Hugh but no – it is wholly wrong to say that the Labour party is “completely corrupt” it isn’t. There’s a very large part of it that never accepted Blair and his “third way” and there’s a very large part of it that never abandoned socialism. Quite a bit of the recent increase in membership was people who left in disgust because of Blair and his policies coming back.

    And nobody could describe Corbyn as a populist any more than you could say Tony Benn was or Michael Foot were populists. Corbyn’s a conviction politician who could have had a very good career if he’d been prepared to compromise on his socialist principles. He wasn’t and was ostracised by the party leadership for the entirety of New Labour’s stranglehold on the party. That grip is now slipping. Many of the grassroots never completely accepted Blair and much of “Old Labour” is now resurgent for example in the Momentum movement.

    The Blairite grasp of power was never complete and is now becoming tenuous which is why they’re making their move now they want to hang onto the Labour machine because they know damn well what happened to the SDP.

  12. NLK

    If you’re not willing to break arms like Lyndon Johnson, then fucking forget about it, don’t get into politics. I’m so tired of these milquetoast pussies that the left pulls out of their hats like Sanders and Corbyn. You’re fighting for the lives of millions of people who depend on you, GO FUCKING BROKE. And if your political party is so utterly corrupted that they will steal elections and plot behind your back to maintain the status quo, START A NEW FUCKING PARTY. This is not rocket science.

  13. markfromireland

    From the FT the last few paragraphs of a piece by Andrew Hill:

    The fifth and final leadership failure is unfolding now as politicians fumble the transfers of power. Succession is almost always bloodier in politics than in business. Even so, the sight of leading Leavers Michael Gove, the justice secretary, and Mr Johnson struggling, white-faced, with the implications of victory, and Mr Cameron and Mr Corbyn with the consequences of defeat, presents a scene of near-total leadership disarray. The ever smugger Nigel Farage, leader of the UK Independence party, stands by to exploit the vacuum.

    Boards often allude to contingency plans in case their chief executive is “run over by a bus”. With this referendum, the main political leaders have given such succession crisis scenarios a new and reckless twist. They have loaded the passengers, cheerfully removed the handbrake and stepped out in front, to be flattened by the vehicle of their own ambitions.

    Read in full: Five failures of leadership and one hollow Brexit success — FT.com

    It’s a good point. Johnson, Gove, and the ‘leave’ wing of the Tory party – people like Ian Duncan Smith, and John Redwood thought they could come in and pick up the pieces without being forced to “own” the consequences of their victory. They don’t seem to ever have had (sorry I can never resist a pun) an exit strategy.

    Now they’ve just discovered that they’ve damaged their sponsors’ interests and probably irreparably split their party. I think they thought that Cameron would take the responsibility and the blame for initiating the Article 50 process. Except of course he’s changed his mind about that and said that that will have to be done by his successor.

    Furthermore (I’m told by people I know in the Brexit campaign) that they weren’t at all expecting that Lord Hill would immediately tender his resignation as EU commissioner in charge of financial services. If you have access to the Financial times and have the same sort of schadenfreude laced sense of humour that I do it’s making increasingly hilarious reading. The last sentence is quite delicious:

    His departure is the most tangible sign of British political influence in Brussels evaporating after its referendum vote to leave the EU, with power draining away from Brits in the EU institutions and the European Parliament. No new British commissioner was nominated, in part because a confirmation hearing in the European Parliament was seen as a lost cause.

    Underlining the abrupt shift influence, Lord Hill’s powerful portfolio — initially offered to Britain as an olive-branch — has been taken over by Valdis Dombrovskis, the commission vice-president responsible for the euro.

    The move is a sign the EU is shifting its policy goals towards aligning Europe’s 28-country strong single market for finance with the interests of the smaller eurozone and its banking union, rather than allowing them to permanently coexist. It is an outcome Britain had spent 25 years fighting to avoid.

    City of London has lost its voice with Brexit, says Lord Hill – FT.com

  14. Some on the left of the Labour party, who voted for him, are questioning whether Corbyn is the correct person to lead us, not on the basis of policy, but on the basis of whether he can actually lead. I’m afraid that his performance in the referendum was abysmal. Possibly because he would have prefered to be on the leave side. If that was the case, a man of principle should have resigned, because he could not in conscience follow Labour Party policy, and made his case for leave. Lets face it it wouldn’t’ have been the first time he has opposed party policy.
    It seems to me that a career of questioning and protesting some of the direction the party was taking has not given him the vision or the ability to articulate where he thinks that it should be going. I’m afraid however that I can’t think of anyone left or right that can actually take the party forward and win the election that will almost certainly happen before the end of the year. Basically we’re fucked.

  15. markfromireland

    Oops I mispasted while replying to mc sorry it should have read:

    @ mc June 26, 2016

    I think it’s making a mountain out of a molehill. The fact is that the Unionists/Loyalists share an identity – and that that identity is a specifically British one. They’re mostly the descendants of two waves of British colonists settled in Ireland first during the reign of Elizabeth I these were mostly English a second wave that settled during the English civil war and the interregnum were mostly Scots covenanters. Irrespective of which type of loyalist they are their loyalty is to Britain not Ireland.

    All other considerations are overridden by that primary loyalty.

    They regard Ireland – the republic as a foreign country and they’re right it is – we’re not British and we fought a long and vicious war of independence to force them to leave. My paternal granddad commanded one of General Collins’ death squads and was very explicit about how he wished he could have killed more of them.

    The same type of primary loyalty is found amongst the nationalist community they look to the Republic and want the country to be reunited and ruled as independent republic from Dublin.

    All other considerations are overridden by that primary loyalty.

    Ian,

    If it’s not too much bother could you delete my original comment?

    Thanks

    mfi

  16. EmilianoZ

    Lets say the workers of a factory are dissatisfied with the management. They have 2 solutions. They can take over the factory or they can leave and build a new factory from scratch. Each solution has its pros and cons. Both Corbyn and Sanders are trying the first solution. Corbyn has actually succeeded in having himself nominated as top manager. His problem is that many in the middle management are still faithful to the old management and wanna force him out. Sanders also tried to get himself in the top management position but failed (maybe he would have succeeded without the massive rigging from DNC). Last week, from Vermont, he made a moving impassioned plea for good people to join the factory and make their way up the management. In other words, he’s still advocating a take over, but in an organic progressive way.

    One major advantage of the take over is that the brand name of the factory is already widely known. For many the brand has lost its old luster but many people are still faithful to the brand although the products have steadily deteriorated with time. Building a new brand is very hard work. Many people will not know about a new product, and many knowing of its existence may not trust it. And the media are often reluctant to advertise a new untested product.

  17. I’m so tired of these milquetoast pussies that the left pulls out of their hats like Sanders and Corbyn.

    You’re an idiot. Sanders and Corbyn stepped up because no one else did!!!! If Corbyn didn’t step up, the Blairites would still be in control and have taken an even worse beating re: Brexit. So stop your damn bellyaching and get behind Corbyn. He’s doing the best he can, and hopefully was taking inspiration from the title of The Clash’s second album.

  18. Some Guy

    “British left wingers and centrists were scared of leaving the EU, which is a terrible, anti-democratic organization whose enforced austerity has wrecked multiple economies, because British politics are even more broken than EU politics. As bad as the EU is, they needed the EU to protect them from themselves: from the governments they kept electing.”

    This is true for many, but when I think of the Blairites, I think that these characteristics of the EU (austerity, lack of democracy, etc.) are seen as a feature, not a bug. The Blairite wing of Labour is pure globalist, even more so than the Tories.

    And now the path ahead is so clear to them, dump Corbyn, fight the next election / referendum as the ‘Remain’ champion (assuming the Tories don’t go ahead with article 50) win a glorious historical victory, the neoliberal beat goes on, and they get to be simultaneously hailed as the saviors of the U.K., and look forward to a cushy life on the elite circuit.

    That this plan means that the people who happened to be born on the same island as them (some might call them ‘fellow citizens’ but, these are alien concepts to the globalist (both ‘fellow’ and ‘citizen’)) doesn’t factor into the calculus in the slightest. That this road leads to fascism or worse is something that might worry them (since it might be unprofitable, or impinge on their travel plans) if they could mentally process this concept, but this possibility just doesn’t exist in their worldview (as a real thing, as opposed to a rhetorical device to be employed as needed to convince proles to vote as directed) , so they can’t.

    The only thing standing in their way is Corbyn and they will say and/or do anything to get him out of the way of their rightful prize.

  19. Synoia

    The Brexit vote and subsequent action by the Northern Irish and Scots seem to empathize the dislike and voter repudiation of unresponsive central governments.

    The Irish peoposal for unification is amusing, given the history of seprtness on that Ireland. The South needs to become includes of the people in the North, and thos who consider themselves loyal to the UK crown eith move or reconcile themselves to eceoming Irish. This appears a complete change of heart on both sides.

    A better question is not what will England do, but what others will do in the face of removal of their sovereignty under the EU and various trade treaties containing ISDS and Regulation Harmonization.

    For that challenge the English people, who have been the victims of 40 years of neo-liberal rule have given the mandate to do what they can. The beneficiaries of the neo-liberal order over the last 40 years, the finance industry, can either take their skills and emigrate or put their skills to work to build a counter to the neo-liberal order.

    That requires real leadership in england, and that leadership, inclusiveness and working together, is not a strength of UK conservatives.

    I suggest the English, turn inward, erect tariffs, and create a “Made in England” reindustrialization system, with labor participation – something which has never been done before in England with its class system. It might be impossible, for people never escape their history.

    The finance sector might experience a large outward migration of people to toil under the deliberately abusive neoliberal order elsewhere. Whatever happens the financial sector is too large for a small country.

    One very clear product the UK could sell is a complete banking system software for countries wishing to regain their sovereignty by escaping the Euro. Or the dollar.

  20. markfromireland

    @ Synoia

    “create a “Made in England” reindustrialization system”

    That’s presuming they have the infrastructure including the intellectual and skills infrastructure to do it. I’m not so sure they do have that anymore, and even if they do I’m not so sure that they have either the will or the ability to do it.

  21. V. Arnold

    Phil Perspective
    June 27, 2016
    I’m so tired of these milquetoast pussies that the left pulls out of their hats like Sanders and Corbyn.
    You’re an idiot. Sanders and Corbyn stepped up because no one else did!

    Hmm, who’s the real idiot here? Incompetent leadership, is bloody incompetent leadership.
    Sanders? Are you bloody serious; “I’ll vote for Hillary”.
    And Corbyn? NLK’s statement: “Milquetoast pussies”, would seem a good fit.
    In the end it’s a hopeless morass of manipulated (ignorant) masses who just cannot grasp what’s being (been) done to them; fuck’em all…

  22. You know, it’s not good enough to be a good person or have good ideas. The UK Labour Party has no alternative to Corbyn, but it’s not clear that he’s offering anything the electorate wants. What a pity it is that all the people good at selling things have the values you’d expect people good at selling things to have.

  23. Ian Welsh

    Never said it was. Just that it’s better to have a chance for something good than no chance at all. Besides, his actuall numbers in elections were actually slightly up from the previous leader.

    So perhaps give him an election before writing him off, as opposed to saying “he can’t win”. I mean Labour’s lost a lot of elections lately with Blairites in charge.

  24. No I’m not writing him off, and yes, he deserves the shot at an election. But that doesn’t mean we can’t make some judgements about strengths/weaknesses in advance. He has strengths but we’ve also had a chance to see his weaknesses.

  25. Ian Welsh

    Let’s see how he fights for something he actually believes in.

  26. The Tragically Flip

    Who are the 2 Iraq war supporters worth listening to?

  27. Ian Welsh

    The one who is in public life is Matt Stoller, who learned he was wrong very quickly and who has shown good judgment since then.

  28. The Tragically Flip

    Yeah, agreed. I would add Greenwald who chalked up his support to being lazy/disengaged with politics & trusting our leaders too much but has clearly learned a great deal and would be pretty unlikely to make that mistake again.

  29. Hugh

    Greenwald still believes there are such things as good Democrats and principled conservatives. He went comfortable. He has a nice life in Brazil, a great gig at the Intercept, and all he had to do to have these is not release the Snowden trove. Of course, the relevance and importance of the Snowden files are rapidly diminishing, considering that it is already three years (June 2013) since Snowden leaked them to Greenwald, the NSA has returned to business as usual, and the issue is dead. Way to go, Glenn!

  30. The Tragically Flip

    I never said he was above criticism, only worth listening to.

    I’ll avoid a derail by debating those claims here.

  31. B J White

    Why didn’t the Leavers get mad at the people who were giving the immigrants ‘their’ jobs? The anger just seems misdirected.

  32. Hugh

    “I never said he was above criticism, only worth listening to.”

    The same I suppose could be said of Paul Krugman, David Brooks, and even George Will. The problem that they and Greenwald have is that at some point their errors seriously get in the way of their credibility.

    BJWhite, yes, we do not need to build a wall with Mexico. We only need to punitively fine those who employ illegal immigrants, you know real estate developers and hotel owners like Trump, for example, to name two of the sectors most affected.

  33. LorenzoStDuBois

    1) Glenn Greenwald also supported Iraq. Don’t trust him too?

    2) Who exactly on the left wants to see Corbyn gone? I’m not accusing you of straw-manning, but I haven’t come across this. The argument that Brexit is his fault is laughable and only taken seriously by the drooling elites.

  34. William Burns

    The Scots should go independent if that’s what they want, but I suspect they will find the existence of a small, marginal economy in the Eurozone not entirely pleasant.

  35. The Tragically Flip

    “The same I suppose could be said of Paul Krugman, David Brooks, and even George Will. The problem that they and Greenwald have is that at some point their errors seriously get in the way of their credibility.”

    Krugman loudly opposed the Iraq war at a time when liberal pundits were losing their jobs for doing so (Donahue on MSNBC). We should remember he was hired by the Times to be a boring technocratic economics writer on trade & such and bravely repurposed his column to calling out the Bush campaign in 2000 for its rampant dishonesty. He’s said it was a radicalizing event and the majority of the press corps went along with it as if Bush and Gore were both running conventional campaigns. There are reasons many on the left gave Krugman a lot of credit even if he was generally a pro-globalization/free trade soft neoliberal in his academic career – he demonstrated courage and bucked the mores of his peers. That’s very rare among the elites.

    His recent repetitive dumping on Sanders & blind eyes toward Clinton’s flaws are certainly reasonable cause to write him off going forward (and I’m sure there are other things one can criticize him for) or at least significantly discount his views, but putting him in the same league as Brooks & Will is ludicrous, as bad as all the both-sides-are-equally-wrong centrist fallacies.

  36. V. Arnold:
    You expect Sanders to publicly say he’s voting for Jill Stein? That’s not how those things work. If you want to be a Senator or member of the House, there are still certain rules people like Sanders have to live by.

  37. Corbyn plans to stay, again a non-binding vote is treated as – non-binding. Which means the brexit was what the tory leadership wanted. They aren’t going to suffer.

  38. Jeff Wegerson

    Corbyn refuses to resign. Insists on election of membership. Legal debate over whether current leader is automatically nominated or whether he needs 50 MPs to nominate. Lost by 172-40 in MP no-confidence.

    Another question is whether the Blairites would attempt to create a new party out of a split Labour. That might serve to delay or derail an anti-Neo-Liberal government.

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