Dear All
One of the lies that is sold by the right wing of the Labour
Party and the mainstream media is that the ‘Blair Faction’ which is now flying
under the title ‘Progress’ is the moderate wing of the party.
It is a lie, Progress or the Blair Faction are the people
who aren’t socialists who have taken up residence in the Labour Party who are
all university educated and from a middle class background.
The Labour contest in Scotland sees two people standing, Richard
Leonard and Anas Sarwar. Anas Sarwar is the much better known candidate,
however his campaign has hit trouble, he is a millionaire, he is private
schooled, he sends his children to private school; the family business he has
shares in doesn’t recognise a trade union.
Just on his family background, he should be ruled out, the
Labour Party of Keir Hardie has been changed, and not for the better, this is
why the party is in decline. The ‘Blair Faction’, the section of the party
which believes in ‘entitlement’ destroyed the party in Scotland ; they had lived off the
backs of the working class vote for decades while at the same time failing to
deliver for the people.
The proof isn’t just the election results; the proof is the
utter collapse of the activist base in the party north of the border. Kezia
Dugdale should be the last of the ‘Blair Faction’ ever to lead Scottish Labour.
Labour is a Party that needs to rediscover its roots; and
its roots like its leaders should come from the working class, not rich
millionaires who have their own agenda.
Richard Leonard is the MSP aiming to become the next
Scottish Labour leader, if he wins then perhaps the party has a chance to be
relevant again, if Anas Sarwar wins then Kezia Dugdale leaving makes no
difference, one Blairite replaced by another Blairite doesn’t equal change.
As to Richard Leonard’s claim that the party north of the
border would have faced electoral disaster without Jeremy Corbyn is spurious in
my opinion because the Blair Faction still control the party machine. In the
election, the focus was on one seat that was held by Ian Murray, an anti Corbyn
supporter. In East Renfrewshire , the Labour Party
wrong choose to pump money into Blair MacDougall’s campaign which had no chance
of winning.
Blair MacDougall look like a Corbyn supporter to you?
Richard Leonard is one of two candidates hoping to replace
Kezia Dugdale, the fact that only two people are willing to put themselves
forward tells you a lot about the state of the Labour Party in Scotland as it
stands at present.
Anas Sarwar has declared that he is ready to be First
Minister, well I can tell Anas that Scotland isn’t ready to make him
First Minister or the Labour Party the party of government.
The recent General Election in Scotland saw the Labour Party make
gains, but the important thing is not that the party increased their share of
the popular vote to 40 per cent but that the SNP vote collapsed.
The SNP vote collapsed, if you can’t grasp that then you
really do need to smell the coffee, success based on other’s failure is hardly
anything to crow about. I don’t know where Richard Leonard gets the idea that the
UK Labour leader had “revitalised the party and energised young people” since
taking charge in 2015.
The reason for making this statement to me appears to be
electioneering rather than hard fact, when I did Labour campaigning, the ‘energised
young people’ weren’t exactly there in numbers or had the experience to do a
good job.
Anyone can be an activist, only a few can be really good at
it.
Richard Leonard launched his Scottish Labour leadership
campaign in Glasgow on Saturday; it must have
been a quiet affair as the main event that day was the Yes mob walking about Glasgow having lost three
years ago.
If Anas wins the leadership, then Scottish Labour will not
be seen as viable, if Richard Leonard wins then he needs to chart a steady
course so that the loony left don’t wreck things as they traditionally do.
This election is about a choice but sadly the choice doesn’t
appear to be much different from what has gone before, the fact only two people
came forward is rather telling.
Scottish Labour is supposed to have a leaders programme in
operation, judging by this contest, you wouldn’t know it existed.
Yours sincerely
George Laird
The Campaign for Human Rights at Glasgow University
2 comments:
I don’t care who leads the Lie@bour party. Once bitten twice shy. The Krankie SNP can get stuffed too.
Labour. Clue's in the name. Corbyn is, in my opinion, not going to be PM, and some of his followers can be downright vile, such as Jess Phillips receiving the threat of a blowtorch to her neck. True it IS likely only invective, but no less abhorrent.
However, Corbyn can be a good opposition leader if he only sorts that out, and a few other problems too. People need difference in representation, and a lot of the so-called "left wing" in this country come across as a bunch of snobs anyway - their "up-themselves" attitudes to the working class towards simple pleasures like watching football or hanging up English flags in England for the sporting events, to bigger things like Brexit. None of them have realised that Brexit had large left wing support for it, or that they dropped the ball last year. Vain and arrogant left wingers like that are part of the problem.
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