Election WARNING: Corbyn’s adviser boasts Labour’s ‘return to radicalism’ is complete
THERE is now no going back for Jeremy Corbyn’s Labour Party, nor any alternative to the Labour leader, the leader's Special Political Adviser has said.
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Andrew Murray, who is also the communications officer for the train drivers’ union Aslef, sets out his case in The Fall and Rise of the British Left, published just a few days before Thursday’s general election - and stresses his belief that New Labour, as personified by former Prime Minister Tony Blair, is gone for good. In it, he traces the history of left wing politics in Britain from 1973 - the year the UK joined the common market, forerunner of the European Union, in fact.
A few still try to offer an alternative to Corbyn’s alternative, but the output is meagre
Mr Murray writes: “Labour’s return to radicalism commands very nearly a consensus in the Party, on social and economic issues at least.
“A few still try to offer an alternative to Corbyn’s alternative, but the output is meagre.”
Mr Murray pointed to attempts by Labour MPs to replace Mr Corbyn as leader as evidence of the dramatically different political landscape which had evolved after he won the Labour leadership in 2015 following predecessor Ed Miliband’s crushing defeat in the general election of that year.
He added: “The failed attempt by the Parliamentary Labour Party to remove Jeremy Corbyn as party leader in 2016 may get less attention that it deserves, sandwiched as it was between the sensational leadership election of 2015 and the general election of 2017.
“Yes in its way the defeat of the PLP was of equivalent significance - it marked a decisive shift of authority in the party away from its parliamentary representatives and towards its mass base among the membership and the trade unions.
“More than anything else that has happened, this allows us to speak of a transformed party.”
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Mr Murray explains: “Most of the Shadow Cabinet and about 80 percent of the PLP voted to remove the leader.
“It made no difference. Corbyn did not owe his mandate to those trying to force him out.
“His authority derived from the party membership (including trade unions), not from Parliamentarians.”
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In his book, Mr Murray also delivers a pointed message to Labour MPs elected later this week.
He explains: “Labour MPs are all present in the House of Commons because they stood for Parliament as Labour candidates and for no other reason.
“They may owe their adoption as candidates to a variety of factors - outstanding personal qualities, strong local or trade union connections, the patronage of a parliamentary heavyweight, or plain luck.
“But they are there solely as representatives of their party, and they prosper or otherwise in line with Labour’s success.
There was therefore no “democratic or electoral rationale” for assuming their pre-eminence, he said.
In a clear reference to the New Labour project of the 1990s, personified by Mr Blair, Mr Murray adds: “Transforming Labour remains a work in progress.
“The PLP, or at least a significant chunk of it, is not taking their somewhat reduced status lying down.
“But when Tom Watson laments that he does not recognise the Labour Party anymore, he is right.
“The party of the Iraq War, deregulation, privatisation and widening inequality has gone.”
The Rise and Fall of the British Left is published by Verso.