Corbyn has a ten point plan to return Labour to office, says Diane Abbott MP
Nothing is more important for the Labour Party than winning the next general election.
But to do this, Labour needs to do two things, not only oppose Tory ideologically-driven cuts, but also to set out an attractive alternative to improve peoples’ standard of living.
It is for this reason that we must be both a firmly anti-austerity and pro-investment party, with a leader who has a clear record of standing up not standing by, and can win the public’s trust.
Now more than ever, Labour needs to fight to protect our public services and stand up for the majority of people in the face of the Conservatives’ ideologically driven offensive.
Austerity continues to decimate our vulnerable communities, with the worst effects of cuts to public services and reforms to welfare still to come for many, especially with the choppy economic waters ahead following the EU referendum result.
To give just one example of the lack of security in austerity Britain, a recent report from Shelter showed that one in three families in England could not pay their rent or mortgage for more than a month if they lost their job.
But it is not just those on low incomes being hit. Across the country each household lost £1,127 on average under the last government just through tax and benefit changes.
Real wages fell for seven years — and the decline only technically stopped because inflation dropped even lower than wages. The Tories’ age of austerity has ushered in a boom in low-paid, insecure jobs with few or zero guaranteed hours.
Today six million working people are paid less than the living wage and poverty among those in work is at a record high.
At the same time the wealth of the richest 1,000 people in Britain has doubled since the financial crash. Measures such as cutting the top rate of income tax have given the lie to the notion that the government is somehow cash-strapped.
Indeed, we live in the most unequal country in the EU. The growth in inequality here is of such a scale that it is helping to drive increasing inequality across Europe as a whole. It is utterly staggering.
And yet it’s a fact which probably many of my constituents, for example, are somehow not surprised at.
Here in our capital city gleaming glass towers overlook some of the most deprived areas of the country. Social and affordable homes are sacrificed for flats and houses which only the wealthiest can afford.
Despite the increase in inequality — and accompanying rise in poverty — much of the media and mainstream political parties had kept saying — in Thatcher’s infamous phrase — “there is no alternative.”
But this all changed with Jeremy Corbyn’s successful leadership campaign last summer.
After our failure in the last election on an ‘austerity lite’ platform, under Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership since last September we have been transformed into a clear anti-austerity, pro-investment, party.
For the first time, our leadership team, including Shadow Chancellor John McDonnell, have made it absolutely clear that austerity is a political, ideological project, not an economic necessity.
This has started to shift the political framework of debate in Britain, as has been shown by the nature of Owen Smith’s leadership campaign, where he has admitted it was wrong for the temporary party leadership – including all the other leadership candidates than Jeremy – at the time to abstain on the Tories’ destructive Welfare Biil.
In the time Jeremy has been party leader, Labour has forced government U-turns and defeats on over 20 issues, including the proposed cuts to tax credits and personal independence payments.
And our stance has seen us make step forwards electorally – Labour has won all the recent mayoral contests. In May, our national share of the vote – the most important indicator – was up. At the 2015 general election, we were nearly seven points behind. In May, we were a point ahead.
Under Jeremy’s leadership, we have put back on the political agenda that Britain needs a proper industrial strategy which invests in the industries and technologies of the future.
Now to move forward, Labour needs a clear plan to stand up for the interests of the majority and defend their living standards from the cuts. It should clearly oppose the assault on civil liberties and human rights that this government wants to inflict.
And Labour needs to embrace Britain’s rich diversity and extol its economic, social and cultural benefits.
Jeremy Corbyn clearly understands that our relationship to the economy, the environment and our political system needs to be radically transformed.
That is why his ten pledges to rebuild and transform Britain provide the policy platform and vision for us to do this, defend our communities as an effective opposition, build the momentum for a Labour win in the next General Election, and then transform Britain into a fair, more equal and democratic society where no-one and nowhere is left behind.
Diane Abbott MP is Labour’s shadow health secretary. Follow her on Twitter @HackneyAbbott
22 Responses to “Diane Abbott: Jeremy Corbyn’s vision can win a general election”
Imran Kahn
Coming from a hypocritical racist like Abbott this article should be treated with the contempt it deserves. She is utterly delusional and whatever tenuous grasp she had on reality she appears to have lost. She sent her son to a private school because the ones in her own constituency weren’t good enough and crime ridden, that was after she had been MP for fifteen years. She used to organise a yearly conference to denounce the educational system as racist because of the low educational achievements of African Caribbean pupils and excused the outstanding performances of Indian and Chinese pupils by saying that the system was selectively racist!
She objected to the employment of Scandinavian nurses in a Hackney hospital on the grounds that blue eyed blonds wouldn’t understand the needs of black patients. The fact that Left Foot Forward allows this drivel shows that it is scraping the bottom of the barrel for contributors.
Jonathan
Personally, I’ve never voted for the Tory-lite Labour Party. Though I would happily vote for the ideas put forward by the current leadership.
It seems thousands of others would even go so far as to join a party with those same political ideas put forward.
Still doesn’t seem unelectable to me.
Rory Merton
Corbyn can never win an election. So a vote for Corbyn as leader is a vote for May as PM. As the Corbyn adviser Owen Jones said:
“Labour’s current polling is calamitous. No party has ever won an election with such disastrous polling, or even come close. Historically any party with such terrible polling goes on to suffer a bad defeat.
Don’t take my word for it: listen to John McDonnell. During the leadership election last year he wrote: “It is inarguable that no modern party leader can win an election if behind in the polls on economic competence.” This is actually untrue: you can be behind on the economy and ahead on leadership and still win. It is when you are behind on both — as they are for the current leadership — that history says you are heading for disaster. According to ICM in mid-July, “on the team better able to manage the economy,” 53% of Britons opted for Theresa May and Philip Hammond, while 15% opted for Jeremy Corbyn and John McDonnell. Labour’s polling has deteriorated badly ever since Brexit and the botched coup. But it was always bad and far below what a party with aspirations for power should expect. Corbyn started his leadership with a net negative rating. (Ed Miliband — who went on to lose — started with a net 19% positive approval rating); it has since slumped to minus 41%. At this stage in the electoral cycle, Ed Miliband’s Labour had a clear lead over the Tories — and then went on to lose. But Labour have barely ever had a lead over the Tories since the last general election. When there is a slim lead, it is seized on with much excitement on social media: but it was the norm throughout the entire last Parliament for Labour to be ahead, often by a big distance. The Tories have now opened up a lead of up to 14 points — yes, undoubtedly partly caused by the destabilisation of the party by Corbyn’s opponents, but there it is. Numerous polls show that most Labour supporters are dissatisfied with his leadership, even if they show little faith in any alternative. One poll showed that one in three Labour voters think Theresa May would make a better Prime Minister than their own party leader and — most heartbreakingly of all — 18 to 24 year olds preferred May.”
As he concludes:
“The situation is extremely grave and unless satisfactory answers are offered, we are nothing but the accomplices of the very people we oppose.”
That’s right. You are Tory accomplices. You are knowingly keeping them in power. How do you sleep at night?
https://medium.com/@OwenJones84/questions-all-jeremy-corbyn-supporters-need-to-answer-b3e82ace7ed3#.9yq8fu2wt
Bob
Comments hear that are so dismissive and defeatist about the Labour Party led presently by the Right Honourable Jeremy Corbyn MP seem to suggest Labour should return to the kind of Party that panders to Tory-type policies that Blair promulgated, ultimately so disastrously, as the only way to government. There is nothing delusional about ‘true Labour’ seeking a purer Labour that was honestly, inclusively and forthrightly envisioned at our Party’s founding and given birth as it was from Unionisation in the workplace all those memorable, historic years ago. I am of the opinion Labour today is going through an exciting, readjusting phase in its history and will, even if with a bit of heartache hear and there where some Labour members entrenched in some status quo of centrist thoughts of power for power’s sake, need in no way feel afraid that the Labour Party is done for. It very much isn’t. On the contrary Labour, built as it was by ordinary members, is being taken back into ownership by unprecedented member numbers from parliamentarian self-servers who have ‘lost the way‘. Labour can and will be a real true, descent, ethical and unstoppable opposition Party to win all our hearts and minds.
wycombewanderer
http://blogs.lse.ac.uk/politicsandpolicy/could-labour-win-an-election-by-mobilising-non-voters/
And here is why he wont win.