It’s Over.

First of all, allow me to point out that the Telegraph is not exactly what you would call a “Left Wing” newspaper.

Defeated Labour rebels admit ‘it’s finished’ as Jeremy Corbyn refuses to resign as leader
Kate McCann, Telegraph
7 July 2016 • 9:00am

Labour rebels are in retreat after admitting that Jeremy Corbyn cannot be removed and would “win easily” if a leadership election is triggered.

One senior Labour MP said: “It’s finished” as it emerged that lengthy talks between union bosses and Tom Watson, the party’s deputy leader, had failed to find a solution to the deadlock.
…
It follows weeks of stalemate between the Labour leader’s office and MPs who want to see Mr Corbyn step down without having to trigger a leadership campaign.

One senior MP told The Telegraph: “It’s finished. He will win easily in a second contest if he is on the ballot, it’s everything we wanted to avoid.”
…
A Labour MP told The Telegraph: “There are more talks planned, but when one side’s red line is that Jeremy stays in post and the other side says he has to go, it is impossible to find a compromise. It’s done.

“It’s no good. It’s possible that the PLP would consider some kind of executive role for Jeremy if he were to stand aside as leader but his team just won’t consider that option, they know where the power lies.”

Ahem.

So I was capo di tutti having won a closely fought but none the less decisive campaign on a revolutionary platform (no, seriously, that was my theme- I’d spent 20 years raging against the machine and out performing it on all the really important metrics which is why people hated me) when I faced a coup.

This particular idiot had been a supporter from the git and I was happy for it and rewarded him with a job that had catapulted my faction into prominence. What the heck, he was totally competent. At our initial team meeting he assumed my place at the head of the table which didn’t bother me so much. When you’re capo any place you sit is the head of the table.

No, what bothered me is that one of my core initiatives was that my officers would spend time in the locals, each executive committee meeting would start with an exposition of where you had been and what you had seen. This guy gave good reports but when I checked up on him in person (yeah, I’m a lead from the front kind of guy) what I saw was him arriving late, leaving early and spending the time in between berating, belittling, and bad mouthing our volunteers, loudly and in public, in front of our customers.

Unacceptable.

Now among the things I didn’t know at this point is that he had turned my consiglieri into a traitor and when I rebuked him, privately, for his conduct she was quickly on the phone in his defense. This was puzzling to me since her local was a lynch pin of my coalition and I had no previous indication of disloyalty. Her increasingly emotional rant culminated in a threat she no doubt felt was a devastating conclusion.

And if you don’t, I’ll resign!

Resignation accepted.

Now I’ll pause for a moment while you digest that to assure you that emotional in this case is not in any way a misogynous slur. I’m plenty emotional, why do you think I’m in therapy? I’ve worked for women, good bosses and bad ones and I think taken as a whole they’re superior to the guy bosses I’ve had. I am not a woman and never will be, my gender identification is completely male and ‘tro down to the core of my fantasies. I’m also whiter than white and have never known anything except a life of privilege.

Sorry.

Then came the busy phone day as word filtered out. In 5 minutes the coup leader was trying to walk it back- “She didn’t mean that.” Did she not tender her resignation? “Umm… yes.” What about accepted do you not understand?

There was also a substantial amount of concern on the local front. I took every call.

Because it was a big deal I called a special meeting of the Executive Committee which I packed with my votes (do I look like an imbecile to you? Good. Then you’ll underestimate me.) and accepted 4 or 5 sympathy resignations (tendered before the critical poll, who’s an imbecile now?) and went on to carry it. The coup leader refused to attend in a display of pique.

Now we get into my parliamentary procedures. I didn’t just know the rules, I’d written a lot of them (did I mention a revolution 20 years in the making?). Within the week was a regularly scheduled Executive Committee meeting to which Locals and their members were invited and encouraged to attend. While it is customary to allow them to vote and express their opinions they are not in fact members of the Executive Committee which is closely and explicitly defined. I controlled the Agenda and Chair and the herd was a mite thinned because of my recent appointments and I should have let that pesky “New Business” slide except I was cocky and confident (only items on the Agenda may be discussed and “New Business” is entirely optional).

So for about an hour I sat there and took it, including from the largest Local in the State (which later on supplied me with about half of my new Board).

Clearly in a “popular” vote I would have lost. This was as packed a room as this type of meeting had seen in decades. On the issue of accepting my consiglieri’s resignation the result was clear and had been confirmed at the previous Executive Committee meeting. When it was my turn to speak I pointed this out, as well as the bylaws regarding this controversy (frantic thumbing) and who, exactly, was a member of the Executive Committee (more thumbing and disappointing Whip counts) AND since the bylaws clearly stated that TWO consecutive absences without excuse constituted de facto resignation from the Executive Committee I was accepting Achilles’ (still sulking in his tent).

More thumbing and uproar.

You may think me cold and heartless, a dictator. I later found out these people had stolen thousands of dollars I had put up to keep the organization running and I am not rich. It doesn’t matter, I am cold and heartless, a dictator.

People still hate me and it’s gratifying in a way. Ultimately I’ll get the crackle, crackle but I hope they’ll display my rotting corpse long enough for them to poke me with a stick to be sure I’m dead, because it’s a bad idea to make a mistake about that.

On the Anti-Corbyn Coup
by Ian Welsh
2016 June 26

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.
…
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.