The shadow foreign secretary showed yesterday what an effective, coherent opposition should look like
I have been a member of the Labour Party for fifteen years and never have I witnessed anything like yesterday.
MPs had a grave decision to make – to support military action against ISIL in Syria or not.
The debate started on a poor note. The prime minister failed to give a clear explanation of his figure that 70,000 moderate Syrians were ready to provide the boots on the ground needed to back up air strikes.
His decision not to apologise for his remarks that those opposed to military action were somehow ‘terrorist sympathisers’ was also an error of judgement that diminished the standing of the office that David Cameron holds.
Then came Jeremy Corbyn – head down in his notes, he simply faced a barrage of noise from the Conservative MPs, failing to answer head on his views about the air strikes currently taking place in Iraq against ISIL, strikes undertaken at the invitation of the Iraqi government itself.
The new, honest politics obviously did not extend to answering a straight question with a straight answer. The sight of deputy leader Tom Watson with his head in his hands said it all.
But then came Hilary Benn. Since agreeing to serve under Jeremy Corbyn Benn has been placed in a difficult, if not impossible position. He was forced to clear up the mess created by Corbyn’s failure to provide leadership on the UK’s place in the EU, and over Syria he has been propelled to play the statesman role that the leader of the official opposition is incapable of doing.
Benn’s speech last night was well and truly electrifying. The passion, the energy and the clarity that he brought to the argument was the kind of speech that neither Cameron nor Corbyn could deliver. It was a speech of a prime minister in waiting.
Jeremy Corbyn sat stony faced throughout, not even able to muster a ‘well done’ on the delivery of a great speech to his shadow foreign secretary.
The Labour Party now faces a crunch moment that it has to confront head on. Yes, Labour members voted overwhelming for Jeremy Corbyn to lead the party but sometimes reality has to hit us.
Jeremy Corbyn is not a prime minister in waiting. His poll ratings are tanking further (if that were possible) among those voters who ultimately decide who governs the country.
His inability to present a united front on crucial security issues would pose severe difficulties of the UK’s position in the world if he were, by some fluke, ever to make it to Downing Street.
But worst of all has been his attitude to his parliamentary colleagues. Yes, he called for an atmosphere of tolerance as MP after MP has faced abuse for supporting military intervention in Syria, but it was he that sent Labour MPs to face the wolves last weekend, leaving them to stew. It was shameful.
Members of the parliamentary Labour Party and the country as a whole know the truth. For all his admirable qualities and principles, Jeremy Corbyn cannot and will not win a General Election. Hilary Benn showed yesterday what an effective, coherent opposition should look like.
Air strikes over Syria are now being undertaken in defence of democracy. In the UK our democracy is in peril thanks to the absence of a credible opposition to hold the government to account.
The Labour Party cannot go on like this. Something, and more specifically someone, needs to change and change now.
Ed Jacobs is a contributing editor at Left Foot Forward. Follow him on Twitter
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127 Responses to “Comment: Hilary Benn showed us what Labour is missing”
Steve Cheney
Sorry, but nothing you say will ever persuade me that the best way for Labour to oppose the government is to let them do whatever they like without an ounce of criticism.
The fact is, the Tories need people like Benn – who will stand up and support their obnoxious policies and if anything say that Labour would do them even better – because they themselves are such a toxic brand. Everyone knows the Tories are evil self-serving bastards… but if mimsy-wimsy touchy-feely Labour are backing them up, they can’t be THAT bad, can they?
Quite simply, Labour should NEVER support government policy while in Opposition, because the role of Opposition is to challenge government policy – to go over it with a fine-tooth comb and pick out all the sordid little details that the Tories (understandably) would prefer to gloss over.
Benn’s speech on airstrikes literally did the opposite – it took all the hard work that opponents had put into clearly illustrating how weak and pathetic and obviously misguided the case being presented was, and just smoothed over it with a big showy piece of oratory that added nothing, proved nothing, but, again, allowed the Tories to bask in vicarious morality.
You say we cannot go on like this, and I agree. Labour MPs who refuse to actually oppose while in Opposition were sent a very clear message during the leadership campaign. All over the country, members and voters alike were utterly damning in their view of this acquiescence.
And now what do we see? Those same cowardly pathetic individuals, fresh from waving through the Tories’ war, squealing about how horribly bullied they feel because their voters, their constituents and their party members have told them exactly how unacceptable their behaviour is.
How many warnings do these people need before we accept that they’re never going to understand? How long do we have to act like they might finally get it?
Today, Jeremy Corbyn and Momentum made quite clear that they are not going to de-select MPs purely for rebelling on this vote or any other, and that de-selection should only occur through local membership. I’m sure some of them laughed heartily at that, knowing that Corbyn will still somehow be presented as an indecisive dictator, while they will look like survivors of abuse.
But reading between the lines, there’s a clear imperative there. If your MP is coasting along, in a safe seat he was parachuted into, undermining the party, and knowing that getting rid of him would mean voting against the party… it’s up to YOU to push for his de-selection. The party leadership, quite rightly, is not going to do it for you.
There are a relatively few offenders, and you won’t be the only one who is sick of them.
Steve Cheney
Sorry, but this persecution fantasy needs to be punctured.
When Corbyn rebelled, it was in the name of representing his constituents – and they have responded by increasing his majority, you’ll note – when the party had gone astray.
When Corbyn rebelled, he had to defy the whip to do so. Defying the whip has consequences that involve being kept out of the top jobs – and yes, there is a certain irony there!
Point being, your efforts to paint Corbyn as having had an easy ride are just plain wrong. His party was not welcoming of his dissent, nor the dissent of so many others who were appalled by Blair’s warmongering and the subsequent assaults on civil liberties. And, you will doubtless remember, the membership were broadly on Corbyn’s side on those issues.
By contrast, when war was on the cards, Corbyn gave the party a free vote – meaning people didn’t have to defy the whip to oppose his position. So he’s already treated them better than he was treated. And, outside your fantasy world, he has been very very clear that he is not calling for de-selection at all.
The fact of the matter is that Corbyn was exactly as vulnerable to de-selection as any other MP. Which is to say, if his constituents wanted to de-select him, they could, just like any other MP would be subject to the choices of their local membership.
What really seems to stick in the rebels’ craw is that they forget to check whether their own local membership were actually on their side. I know my MP, Chris Leslie, is well aware that his CLP support Corbyn and deplore his constant briefing against him. Many of the names listed as supporters of the Tories’ airstrikes will be very familiar to us “Corbynistas”, as people who have never quite accepted the fact that the winner of the contest was not one of their safe approved candidates, but a maverick who inconveniently happened to have massive levels of support, and who attracted people to the party just by being himself, while the others could only talk about how they might go about doing so.
So, to recap: Corbyn had to defy the whip to rebel, whereas Corbyn has not required others to defy the whip to rebel. Corbyn had not special safety net in place to protect him when he rebelled, other than the knowledge that his constituents would not want to de-select him for voting against the party-line (because they agreed with him). The current crop of “rebels” do not have that “safety net”, and were stupid enough to think that it didn’t matter. Their recklessness is what has put them in career peril; they are actually being treated BETTER by the party leadership than Corbyn was under Blair.
Steve Cheney
“A lot of these Corbynistas backed the mass murderer Milosevic.”
Uh, no. Another blatant lie from you.
Steve Cheney
So basically, when an MP takes the path of least resistance, you are impressed by their courage and ability.
Are you a depressing window onto the electorate, or are you a troll?
Steve Cheney
It’s always slightly unsettling when people talk about people as “great orators” – since it almost always has to be followed with some admission that the content of what they said a) didn’t matter, and b) was completely awful.
I suppose they think they’re appreciating the artistry at work, but still, respecting someone’s ability to talk people into agreeing to things that they would never support otherwise… well, it’s kind of like idolising those guys who try to use neurolinguistic programming to pick up women, isn’t it?