REBECCA Long-Bailey is the latest candidate to join the squad of failures seeking to succeed Jeremy Corbyn as Labour leader, after the party’s rout in the December general election when millions of Labour voters were disgusted with its position on Brexit and refused to vote Labour!
In an article for the Tribune magazine, she said Labour needs a ‘socialist leader who can work with our movement, rebuild our communities and fight for the policies we believe in.’
She joins Sir Keir Starmer, Emily Thornberry, Clive Lewis, Lisa Nandy, Jess Phillips, Ian Murray (Scotland’s only remaining Labour MP), and Labour MP for Tooting Rosena Allin-Khanin. The result will be announced on 4th April.
Party chairman Ian Lavery, who will not be standing, will be throwing his full support behind Long-Bailey – ‘who has the intellect, drive and determination to take forward and develop the popular, common sense socialist policies that Jeremy Corbyn has championed.’
Confirming her candidacy, the MP for Salford and Eccles said Labour had a ‘mountain to climb’ to get back to power but there was a ‘path to victory’ if the party stayed true to its socialist values.
She said Labour’s election defeat last month – its fourth in a row – was due to a failure of campaign strategy and the ‘lack of a coherent narrative’ rather than a repudiation of its policies. ‘We need a leader that can be trusted with our socialist agenda,’ Long-Bailey said.
She admitted: ‘Those who were in Leave communities like myself repeatedly stated that we were concerned about veering away from focusing on getting a good deal and moving towards a “people’s vote” or a second referendum … We ended up with a compromise solution quite frankly and it was very clear in the election campaign it did not satisfy.’
In fact Labour lost the general election because it sold out the workers and refused to fight for Brexit.
Corbyn and McDonnell capitulated to the Labour right wing, and the party proposed to renegotiate a withdrawal deal with Brussels and then put it to another public vote – with Remain as the only option.
It was Corbyn’s capitulation to Labour’s right wing that cost them the election. Labour’s right wing was opposed to having a generalelection at all – they wanted a second referendum so as to be able to stay in the EU.
Corbyn let them rule the roost, and put forward a programme that Labour did not support Brexit and that it would negotiate a deal and then put it to a second referendum whose options would be to remain in the EU or leave the EU with a deal that would see the UK remain in the single market and the customs union, i.e. remain in the EU.
This formula insulted the intelligence of the working class who treated it with contempt, and understood that Labour was treating them with contempt.
All over the country the working class was aghast at Labour’s betrayal of Brexit, and made it clear to the leaders of the party that this was the case.
Nevertheless, the Corbyn leadership, including Long-Bailey, refused to budge. They forced millions of workers who supported Brexit to consider and then decide to vote Tory to make sure that the UK left the EU.
Labour under Corbyn and McDonnell committed Hari Kari, with Long-Bailey in support, treating the working class as if they were idiots!
The WRP warned Labour that this was the way to lose the election. Labour did not listen and Labour was smashed.
Now the same leaders are talking about keeping to socialist policies – as if they had not betrayed the working class – and being in oppositon for the next eight years!
In fact, the class struggle has not stopped! Huge attacks are being made on the working class – as the news that Port Talbot steelworks is to be closed proves.
Bigger attacks are on the way, including a ban on the right to strike!
Now is the time for the mass of workers to completely break with Labour, to support and join the WRP to organise the struggle for the working class to take the power and introduce and implement socialism.
Join the WRP today – Forward to socialism in 2020!
