Corbyn: Losing Is A Comforting Game

"I miss the comfort in being sad" Kurt Cobain

Still seemingly unable to come to terms with the 2015 general election defeat the Labour party, instead of learning the brutal lessons of defeat, unashamedly have retreated into a left wing comfort zone. Comfort zones are normally the natural retreat in response to losing.

With this in mind we see the Labour party elect as its leader Corbyn who is clearly unelectable with the country at large - by his, his own party and by everyone else's admission. They seem not to care, indeed Labour supporters revel in his lack of appeal to electorate:

Electing Jeremy Corbyn would prove that the party is no longer interested in winning or governing.

Labour no longer wishes to win but instead wants to feel good about itself internally. It wants to confine itself to talking to already converted fellow travellers rather than appeal to the soft middle of voters in marginal seats which would help them win. When the headlines talk about a "huge majority" for Corbyn they are actually referring to only 251,417 votes whereas the Tories at the general election in May won 11,334,576 votes. Some 'poor' people's movement. 

Labour clearly can't come to terms with the fact that Tony Blair was Labour's most successful leader and Prime Minister - he won three elections. Blair and New Labour fully understood the methods necessary to win, and without winning power any desirable outcome is fruitless. Thus Labour was ruthless in 1997, particularly with the Excalibur computer system which sat at the heart of Labour's rebuttal strategy:

Question time in the second week of January 1997 provided a perfect illustration of the speed with which Labour could now hit back. On the Tuesday of that week the Deputy Primre Minister, Heseltine, stood in for Major at the despatch box. In reply to a question about the shortage of hospital beds, he said there were now '55,000 more qualified nurses and midwives than there were when the Labour party was last responsible for the health service. At 3.59pm precisely, within half an hour of questions finishing at 3.30pm., fax machines in the BBC newsroom at Millbank were receiving copies of Labour's rebuttal, headed 'Heseltine caught red-handed'.

Yet Labour seems to be unlearning their previous experience of winning thus confirming that education is easier than re-education. And here we can see parallels with the eurosceptic movement, as noted by White Wednesday. Comfort zones and a lack of desire to win. It's all eerily familiar...dum EU Referendum EU Referendum EU Referendum EU Referendum EU Referendum EU Referendum EU Referendum EU Referendum EU Referendum EU Referendum EU Referendum 

EU Referendum: Corbyn's Not Our Friend

It's depressingly familiar that the British media and Westminster cannot debate the EU without communicating it through the prism of a domestic London bubble.

A clear example was neatly illustrated recently by European Commission President Juncker's State of the Union speech earlier this week, a speech which was reduced down to reporting it as an announcement on migrants. The term State of the Union, if it was used at all, was done so in UK media with inverted commas. That the real point of the speech was to fire the starting gun for a new EU treaty which has been signalled well in advance was largely overlooked.

Westminster media though has more 'pressing concerns', mainly that of the ongoing contest over the summer within Labour of candidates jostling for leadership of the party. All indications suggest that it will be Jeremy Corbyn who wins, against his Parliamentary party's wishes and indeed, by his admission, his own.

Within such tittle tattle, we see the question being asked of Corbyn, with an impending EU referendum, how he voted in the EEC referendum in 1975:

The man expected to win control of Britain's opposition Labour Party said on Thursday that he voted 'No' to Britain's membership of the forerunner to the European Union in a 1975 referendum.

And with that admission he's being seen as a eurosceptic. Yet by his own recent interviews that's not what he is at all (my emphasis):

Labour should set out its own clear position to influence negotiations, working with our European allies to set out a reform agenda to benefit ordinary Europeans across the continent. We cannot be content with the state of the EU as it stands. But that does not mean walking away, but staying to fight together for a better Europe.”

Veterans of trying to remove ourselves from a uniquely supranational organisation will not be fooled by Corbyn's comments; they are straight out of the Tory handbook on how to use "reform" as a means to remain in the EU. Cameron would be proud.

Whereas Margaret Thatcher campaigned and voted yes in 1975 and then changed her mind, albeit too late, Corbyn has changed his mind for opposite intentions.

Thus it's worth noting Corbyn has based his vote on being an anti-establishment candidate, but in reality part of the establishment he will become. His supporters will be let down as were Lib Dem ones were in 2010. Probably with no surprise we suspect he will support Associate Membership, or the renamed equivalent, but complain the Tories haven't done enough about reform  - about insignificant detail.

With this in mind it's disappointing then to see Farage endorsing Corbyn:

Ukip leader Nigel Farage has backed Jeremy Corbyn to be the next leader of the Labour party.

An interesting comment from 1975, in the first Parliamentary debate after the referendum, Harold Wilson (Labour leader) noted this:

"Never out on principle; never in on principle [regarding EEC membership]. It depends on the terms and whether it is best for Britain. The country has now decided that it is best for Britain, the Commonwealth, Europe and the wider world."

An illustration on how the establishment never does anything on principle, including Corbyn. We, as a people, have to force them to listen to us.