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JEREMY CORBYN IS currently facing a leadership challenge from ‘fellow’ Labour members of parliament (MPs).
The reason is that he is a progressive politician, while the anti-Corbyn MPs are more conservative and include the right wing of the party.
We are thus witnessing, in the words of the London Financial Times, a ‘coup’ attempt led by a ‘cabal’ of Blairite Labour officials.
Discarding the myth
Let’s first discard the myth that this is about Corbyn’s bad performance in the Brexit referendum.
First, Corbyn didn’t do poorly – it is David Cameron who failed completely. Indeed, 63% of Labour supporters voted to Remain while 37% voted to Leave. Compare that with Conservative Party voters: only 42% voted Remain but 58% voted to Leave.
Moreover, in Corbyn’s constituency of Islington, an impressive 75% of voters backed Remain while only 25% voted to Leave. To add insult to injury, some of the Labour politicians making the loudest criticism of Corbyn in relation to Brexit utterly failed to convince the electorate in their own constituencies to vote Remain.
Second, timing. The coup was in the making before the referendum outcome and the plans had even been reported in the media.
For example, the Daily Telegraph had the following headlines weeks before the referendum: ‘Labour rebels hope to topple Jeremy Corbyn in 24-hour blitz after EU referendum’ and ‘Revealed: plot to oust Jeremy Corbyn by using veteran Labour MP Margaret Hodge to spark leadership contest’.
Resentment
In short, there’s always been resentment about Corbyn on the part of more right-wing Labour MPs and it is no wonder that a plot was orchestrated; a crisis like Brexit offered the perfect opportunity to implement those plans.
The real reason why Corbyn is facing a leadership challenge is that he is progressive and threatens the whole British establishment, including the right-wing and moderate factions of the Labour Party. Just like Podemos and Syriza, Corbyn is disliked by the European and national establishment.
This is why Corbyn has received a lot of negative coverage in the British mainstream media and from the Conservative Party as well.
David Cameron is the number one culprit for Brexit because he decided to call that referendum in the first place, campaigned for a Remain vote, but was so out of touch with popular anger at government and the EU that he got smacked in the face with a Leave outcome.
But he is now blaming Corbyn for his defeat and telling him: “For heaven’s sake man, go”. Cameron says Corbyn’s departure would be in “the national interest”.
But in fact it would be in the British establishment’s interest, which is very different from that of ordinary people.
Perhaps the most comical attack on Corbyn on the part of the media came from the right-wing Daily Telegraph, with an article entitled: ‘Jeremy Corbyn’s overgrown garden reflects the man himself, Alan Titchmarsh says’.
Titchmarsh, the UK’s top gardener, criticised Corbyn’s home garden because it looked too messy, like Corbyn’s beard.
If that’s the best argument the media could find against Corbyn, he must in fact be excellent.
An apocalyptic future
More seriously, the Financial Times, which speaks for Britain’s powerful financial sector, editorialised:
“Labour must now act to remove Jeremy Corbyn” because without change, the party faces an “apocalyptic future.”
Corbyn is allegedly ‘unfit’ to be the leader and he supposedly ‘sabotaged’ the Remain side in the Brexit campaign.
But the Financial Times concedes that the plot to get rid of Corbyn faces a little problem: democracy.
Indeed, Corbyn has good support among Labour Party members, who are ordinary people who elect the party leader.
When he was elected as Labour leader in September 2015, his victory over his rivals was stunning. He received 60% of 400,000 cast votes, beating rivals Andy Burnham (19%), Yvette Cooper (17%) and the Blairite Liz Kendall (5%).
Then last month, a YouGov/The Times poll conducted among Labour Party members asked who they would vote for if there was an election for the next Labour leader. The results are clear: Jeremy Corbyn comes first with 43% support.
The second is Andy Burnham at a meagre 10%. Then comes the laughable support for his challengers: Hilary Benn (4%), Angela Eagle (2%) and Margaret Hodge (0%).
A new YouGov/The Times poll was just released on 1 July. It shows that Corbyn’s support has dropped but that he still would beat any contender for the leadership. For example, 50% would vote for Corbyn vs. 40% for Angela Eagle.
The drop in support seems perfectly understandable given the barrage of negative propaganda to which Corbyn has been subjected over the last week (during which the poll was taken).
Moreover, 60% said the Labour MPs who resigned this week ‘were wrong to resign and try to force Jeremy Corbyn to step down’ while only 36% approved of such a move.
In addition, Corbyn just received the backing of ten of the UK’s largest trade unions, which collectively stated that ‘The last thing Labour needs is a manufactured leadership row of its own… we call upon all Labour MPs not to engage in any such indulgence’.
The coming weeks promise to be exciting and could have fateful consequences for the Labour Party.
Julien Mercille is a lecturer at University College Dublin. Twitter: @JulienMercille.
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If Tokyo shot down a drone, which is basically a peice of machinery, I cant see how it could be deemed an act of war, especially when no citizen of China was harmed in any way. Its like if I left my ride on lawn mower out side and my neighbour blew it up, I’d say ah Fred, for fu*ks sake, what are you like. But if Fred tried to blow up my mower while I was on it, then I’d jump fence armed with the rose pruner and turn baritone Fred into a soprano.
Think you need to move house mate, that Fred chap sounds a right bollix.
Ireland should start developing drones through our technology colleges. We’ve got great aeronautical and computer expertise. We could develop valuable intellectual property for export.
I’d rather we didn’t get involved in an industry that espouses extra-judicial killings.
It’s unlikely, in China’s case anyway, that their plan is to use these things for weather, mapping etc.
They are made to kill at a distance, asymmetrical warfare at its most obvious. We don’t need to get involved. It’s dirty. Just because we CAN do something, doesn’t mean we should.
We don’t need to use our colleges to develop drone technology. That’s what we have politics for. Strap wings on ‘em and point them straight up…
No wonder this country will never get anyplace with those sort of attitudes.
Drones are used in certain places to deliver goods to remote areas inaccessible by land. Others are used for research purposes or to aid in search and rescue operations. A drone is not exclusively a weapon of war.
By the start of 2014 ireland will have a debt of approximately 205billion. If you want a future for your kids, we should explore every possible avenue that will excell our growth. If our skill set is building drones, then lets builld them and create thousands of high paid jobs for graduates. With a 205billion debts, its very simple, beggers cant be choosers!
Drone, drone, drone, drone, it’s all so depressing.
On a brighter note it’s Friday and accoring to statistics lots of people are having sex right now.
I’m done!
Might do it again later.
Your hand doesn’t count Jim
I feel safer already.
Excellent drone work.
Like most chinese made things the batteries will wear out after a few hours and the thing will have fallen apart within a month.
God be with the days when all you had to do was call the A team….
Drone on truck in main picture is wrong one, wings are straight… not delta shaped as the article (or indeed the BBC article) points out
It’s 2013, the wings orientation shouldn’t an issue.
What’s even more amusing about the picture is the truck in camouflage green with the very discreet white-wall tyres. Sure, nobody would notice those out in the countryside…..
They are parade trucks,not actual combat vechicles.
The big question of course is where will this end ? . So soon we can see China taking out dissidents in London or New York ? Iran taking out dissidents in Istanbul ? Or for example in former times The British Government liquidating suspects in Dublin or Dundalk ? With the risk of (Some) collateral damage ? Under which international law will drone attacks operate ?
Padric. You might want to look closer to home. Tibetan dissidents in Napal.
I hardly think the Chinese will be sending columns of flying drones over the skies of London or New York to bomb dissidents especially when a poisoned umbrella or concrete shoes will do the trick just as easily. It’s worked quite well for the Russians
@ Mick : I exaggerate a little about London and New York of course, but there must be a provision for this “relatively new phenomenon” written into the Geneva Convention, or some such international law which forbids the use of drone strikes across national borders aimed at extra-judicial killings. Otherwise this will get completely out of hand.
In Cantonese it’s called Hu Flung Dung.
Does the drone pictured mounted on the truck seem a bit small?
Both the Predator & Reaper drones seem much larger.
I wonder what ordnance it could carry & its range doing so?
I doubt it could reach Japan…… probably scares the sh*t out of Taiwan though.
Drones wouldn’t scare any modern force really. They’re big, slow targets with practically no ability for evasive manoeuvres past a few basic programmed moves and very little in the way of countermeasures. Iran also showed that anyone with even a basic understanding of the technology can essentially shut down a drone.
They’re useful for observing an area with absolutely no air defences and can be of limited combat value. Anything more and you really need to call in a manned, supersonic jet with much more ordnance and countermeasures. Something which almost everyone has at this stage.
I’m a bit skeptical about Iran’s ability to bring down that drone. It’s speculated that it could have been a modern Trojan horse, used to deliver targeted malware. We know the US have targeted Iran with malware before; Stuxnet.
Jason is right Barry.
Predators for example are propellor driven, and travel around 400mph at best.
A 1970s jet or any half decent SAM site can pick them off easily enough.
The MiG fighters employed by Iran are more than a match for any drone currently in service.
You must not know of the incident in question, Ricky. Iran claimed they hacked the drone while in flight and commanded it to land. It was undamaged and they said they plan to reverse engineer it. They did not shoot it down.
I heard of the incident,….. i assumed it was just downed by an iranian missile.
China is a bit behind these other boys “Senior analyst Gen. McInerney warns that US is in comparable danger to pre-WWII period, specifically from Russian and Iranian hegemonies.”
Next they be thinking for themselves
Our experts busies in inventing drones an other war high tech technology but how about this Doomsday Debate: Asteroid Threat Could Divide Society. If our God permit this such as the 1979 vn that have an absolute magnitude of 13.2 and the rolling of the moon will come up all the things that we have in this planet will erases that we may pull back in the old days that uses horse and sword that only only came face to face during war. And no civilian casualties.
have your say