Corbyn’s NEC Victory will not stop Labour Split

by Colin Fox, joint national spokesperson.

“The vote by Labour’s NEC to ensure Jeremy Corbyn automatically appears on the forthcoming leadership challenge as the incumbent represents an embarrassing defeat for the 170+ MP’s who had tried to oust him.

But it is clear the bitterness of the past three weeks will not disappear – it will intensify as a split in the Party now seems inevitable.’

“Three weeks ago Angela Eagle sat next to Jeremy Corbyn in his Shadow Cabinet as one of his closest confidantes. Today, she all but accused him of putting a brick through her constituency office window. This stark deterioration in relations between Corbyn and the Parliamentary Labour Party illustrates a far deeper political division.

Eagle and the 170 others have never accepted Corbyn’s leadership and have sought to systematically undermine and humiliate him saying he was not fit to lead the Party, lacked leadership skills and could not possibly win a General Election.

The membership of the party are furious at their behaviour. It is less than a year since they elected him with an overwhelming majority of the votes cast. And those members take a dim view of the plotters’ attempt to override their democratic decision.

“The leadership contest will be bitter. And it is likely to end in a split – UK Labour is in an existential crisis. Indeed as the Scottish Socialist Party has pointed out again and again Labour does not know what it stands for and Jeremy Corbyn’s election was itself a manifestation of that crisis, not its solution.
There are in fact two Labour parties. In Parliament this week one will vote against a second generation of Trident nuclear weapons and the other will vote for. One party will cite Tony Blair for contempt of Parliament over his invasion of Iraq and the other will jump to his defence despite the conclusions of the Chilcot Report.

The Scottish Labour Party is no less split. It’s sole MP – the Blairite Ian Murray – was one of the central coup plotters. He was one of the first to resign in an orchestrated campaign to try to undermine Corbyn. The Scottish Labour Party largely backed the coup attempt with Kezia Dugdale fully implicated.”

“Whilst the Scottish Socialist Party hopes Jeremy Corbyn takes those who plotted against him to the cleaners, we nonetheless believe socialists should be in an unabashed socialist party. We therefore urge all those who might be tempted to help Jeremy Corbyn win yet another Labour leadership vote to recognise it is futile as a split is now inevitable. We suggest your time and energy would be far better utilised by joining the SSP and seeking to build an independent socialist Scotland with us.”

Main photo: Craig Maclean