Who should be Labour leader?

[HillyMillylunchmunch]

Massively simplistic question I accept, but I was a huge fan of Corbyn in the beginning, I still am a fan of many of his policy views in general - ie socialism is good (told you this was simplistic ), but he's really got the whiff about him of a man out of his depth, in the wrong job, slowly dragging his party to demise

Given we may well have a general election in the next year or two, and we definitely will in the next 4 years, who would be a Labour leader that you could get behind?

I guess this question is directed at Labour voters and swing voters, probably not much at Tories who will never vote anything other than Tory

I don't have any strong contenders myself to start the list off with I'm afraid, but I promise I am a normal person and not some kind of bot / Labour party researcher.

I'm interested in seeing who more knowledgeable people might champion.

Posted in Brexit as I'm a very frustrated and unhappy remainder who is worried about the face that there is no decent opposition when one is desperately needed in the current situation

That is very true actually, but he just seems to get away with murder on that front.

I think people think it's all part of a "cunning plan"

Not many Labour members on this thread, are there? Basically no one named has the internal support to ever become Labour leader. Not because of some mass Momentum voting block (Momentum currently having massive internal disputes) or because people are ‘wild eyed Trots’ blindly loyal to Corbyn (there are some blind loyalists, but Brexit is splitting this block. And probably less than 100 trots in the entire party.) Any leadership candidate needs to be considerably to the left of all those suggested. No one to the right of Ed Milliband stands a chance of becoming leader of the current party.

LovesLabours
You are correct. Not many Labour Party members
but an awful lot of people who would vote Labour if Corbyn and his ilk were gone .......

@LovesLaboursLost but it depends on who the MPs shortlist for the party vote doesn't it? Corbyn only got on the shortlist because some MPs thought there needed to be balance and they thought he had no chance. It'd be interesting to see who got nominated this time.

My choices would be Yvette Cooper and Keir Starmer who have both proven great at understanding the issues and holding the government to account.

The question was who should be next leader.

Not who Momentum think should be next leader.

@WineCheeseSleep the party rules have been changed to make it much easier to get through the MP stage of the ballot. So the politics of the membership are now very important.

Yvette Cooper has no chance of ever becoming leader. Keir Starmer is a very remote possibility if he was endorsed by Corbyn or McDonnell, but that’s unlikely to happen. David I’m not actually certain is still even a party member.

TBH I find it difficult to pick anyone who is likely to both get elected by the membership and be popular with voters Corbyn has lost (and they’d need to make up for the voters he’s gained to, as there are some). I think we’re probably two leaders away from that happening.

My best guess is Emily Thornberry or Angela Rayner will be next. Personally I’d go for David Lammy, and there is a sort of wild set of circumstances hinging around Brexit which could make it happen. Not likely though. Similarly Sadiq Khan.

OK, Kissing, I get that you believe the party will be hard left forever, but I don't. There were people similarly despairing in the Militant heyday, but their doom ridden predictions did not come to pass, and I don't think those made by people depressed by the rise of Momentum will do either.

I will rejoin Labour simply to vote for the next leader when JC resigns or is challenged. Everyone who thinks that Labour has become a party of 'wild eyed Trots and Tankies' could do the same and actually effect change.

@HauntedPencil, was that directed at me? I’m not a member or fan of Momentum and their membership are in open rebellion against being told who they should vote for. Doubtless the Momentum leadership would think Jon Lansman is a great pick for next leader. I’m not sure the members would agree.

But mostdays, since the days of Militant the voting mechanism has changed and it is a racing certainty that the rules on candidate selection and deselection will change too. Even as things stand good, centre-left MPs are being hounded out.

I don’t see this as a matter of opinion. It’s a matter of fact.

As for Momentum having a plurality of views, sure, any group has internal differences. The basic coordinating principle of Momentum, though, is a belief in far left policies.

How many Trots there are in the country is a matter of definition. There are certainly enough to have hijacked Labour, whatever the niceties of labels might be.

Haunted is right that the thread is ‘should’ not ‘will’. In which case I’d choose Cooper or Starmer. Neither has a hope though.

Sorry wasn't trying to be snarky.

Corbyn just brings it out in me.

As he does in most voters.

The most unelectable leader of a major party ever in the history of UK politics.

And when you snatch that crown from Iain Duncan-Smith you’re really rock bottom.

It takes quarter of a million people to control the current Labour Party. Nobody can seriously be suggesting there are quarter of a million people with a commitment to Trotsky’s permanent revolution in the UK Labour Party. Trot is just a label thrown around, like Blairite, and with similar levels of accuracy. There are good people right across the party.

I like Yvette Cooper but unfortunately I can't ever imagine the Labour party having a woman leader.

LovesLabours Why did the good people vote for Corbyn? Heavily? Twice?

Corbyn was better as a rebel. He's hopeless as Leader
Frank Field is good
Chukka ummuna would be good if not for his stupid peoples vote ideas
No to John McD, Dawn B and the current clan around JC
Angela Raynor , no
There's a dark haired woman often on QT who is good, not Lisa Nandy she's too earnest
Not a great bunch
Yvette Cooper deserves it but wont get it and is a bit hopeless
I liked Keir Starmer but he's shown his true duplicitous colours on Brexit
Dunno! Sad!

I liked Keir Starmer but he's shown his true duplicitous colours on Brexit
ROTFLMAO

Caroline Flint is the one I cldnt think of

Oh for sure. Such a lawyer!

Dan Jarvis. He's my MP and he's done a lot for the town where I live. He's also been a visible presence unlike previous MP's of ours who I couldn't pick out of a line up (which is ironic as one of them was done for expenses fraud or something).

I met him, for example, when he was out campaigning for Labour which is unusual as Barnsley is a safe Labour seat, so he didn't really have to IYSWIM. I like him. He seems a man of principle (I'm not really a Labour voter and will never vote Labour while Corbyn is leader).

When Corbyn loses a general election

He did.

@KissingInTheRain Mostly because they believe that things can be better under socialism and are prepared to overlook quite a lot. Or didn’t understand that they were overlooking stuff. A small minority of them because they’re awful people. Less than 5% I’d say in my CLP. And now people have spent several years calling the decent Corbyn voters Trots, so quite a few of them feel defensive and go along with stuff the awful people say. If everyone could believe that the majority of their fellow party members are coming from a basically good place, we’d have more chance of moving forward.

I have not a clue, but Labour should be so embarrassed at the poor poor show they are putting up as a party of "opposition". It's a joke.

It will need to be some who can have and express opinions - for a start. Bottom of barrel really isn't it?

LovesLabours

I very much doubt that everything that was argued in the first and second leadership votes would have left members unaware of the candidates’ political preferences. Few overlooked anything.

In the initial ballot why wouldn’t Yvette Cooper or Burnham, for example, have represented socialist principles?

I think you have - with respect - a rosy view of the motives of the mass of new members.

The idea that Corbyn was seen by considered members as some new, shiny, benign politics is sadly misplaced. Corbyn’s election was the product of entryism.

When Corbyn was elected leader, Brexit was a theoretical Tory issue
by the time of the GE he was still unable to beat Theresa May despite her running the crappest campaign imaginable.

Now the whole country knows that he is pro Brexit and does not give a shit about the economy or detail.
Also that he is utterly ruthless with anybody who behaves as disloyally as he did for decades

His wish for a GE is, I suspect, deluded.

Keir Starmer.