THE Labour leadership challenge is a plot by right-wing MPs to frustrate the wishes of the membership says Pete Gregson (Letters, July 22). Would that the issue could be that simple. However, there seem to be plenty of members on the left of the Labour Party who also want to replace Jeremy Corbyn. The issue for them is not where he is on the political spectrum but his competence. Yet will this be reflected in the coming vote?
A friend reports that his branch of the party had 600 full members but has had more than 5,000 new members join recently. It is beyond the resources of the branch secretary to check the bona-fides of 5,000 people. All he can say is that they appear cohesive, well-funded, and many seem to know each other.
Perhaps this is a resurgence in grass-roots membership, perhaps something else. My friend predicts his branch will vote 500 for Owen Smith and 5,100 for Mr Corbyn. If so, and if repeated across the country, Mr Corbyn will win by a landslide.
But will this be a triumph? He will still not command the confidence of 80 per cent of Labour MPs and the credibility of his mandate will be disputed no matter how many votes he gets. After all, 172 MPs cannot suddenly say they have confidence in him, nor will a prolonged purge of 80 per cent of its MPs do anything to improve Labour’s electability. So a Corbyn victory will be a lose-lose result for the Labour Party.
Mr Corbyn should perhaps consider what happened in 1931. Who was to blame for the Labour split then is today a matter of academic interest. The voter response, however, cannot be doubted. In the 1931 General Election, Labour lost four out of every five of its seats. When Clement Attlee took over the leadership, Labour had only 55 seats left. Does Jeremy Corbyn think that this sort of meltdown is impossible today?
Russell Vallance,
4 West Douglas Drive, Helensburgh.
IT is difficult to understand what Jeremy Corbyn and his supporters hope to achieve by his stubborn refusal to resign as leader of the Labour Party. To be able to deliver any of his policies he would need to win a General election, form a Cabinet and lead his parliamentary party. The chances of that all happening in the old saying are slim and none.
For the Westminster democracy to work we need a credible opposition which can hold the government to account and look as if it could contest a General Election. This is simply not the case with Jeremy Corbyn leading the party. The whole situation reminds me of Dennis Healey's description of being attacked by Geoffrey Howe as being savaged by a dead sheep. His performances at Prime Minister’s Question Time and no doubt in the shadow cabinet must have had a large influence in the decision by so many Labour MPs to ask him to step down. Are we going to have 170 Labour MPs deselected for the next election? In the interests of his party he should simply go.
Dave Biggart,
Southcroft, Knockbuckle Road, Kilmacolm.
THE processes of producing new leaders of both the Conservative and Labour Parties have provided a stark contrast. Theresa May became the new Tory leader, and thus automatically the new Prime Minister, within three weeks, whereas the convoluted system of electing a new Labour leader (or re-electing the present incumbent) will drag on acrimoniously throughout the summer.
These events reminded me of another leadership departure and rapid replacement which took place exactly 40 years ago in 1976, when Harold Wilson, who had been re-elected just 18 months earlier for a third term in office, suddenly announced his resignation with immediate effect. Although one or two of his closest colleagues had advance notice it came as a complete surprise to the general public and almost all MPs.
As it happened, I was in the Palace of Westminster that morning attending a meeting of the special committee examining the extremely contentious bill to nationalise the aircraft and shipbuilding industries. I recall seeing lots of people excitedly rushing along the committee rooms corridor passing on the word and discussing the implications.
In the event an election process was quickly organised, open only to Labour MPs, with ordinary party members having no say. Unlike the current situation, there were no fewer than six candidates, all of them political heavyweights – Tony Benn, James Callaghan, Antony Crosland, Michael Foot, Denis Healey and Roy Jenkins. After the first round of voting, the leaders were Mr Foot and Mr Callaghan, with Mr Crosland eliminated. Mr Benn and Mr Jenkins withdrew, and in the second round Mr Callaghan won comfortably.
Unlike the current Labour procedure the whole process took just three weeks, exactly the same as the recent Conservative election. But I have some doubts about the democratic legitimacy of a new Prime Minister being chosen only by on -party of MPs, with the general public having no say in the matter.
Iain AD Mann,
7 Kelvin Court, Glasgow.
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