Do these malcontent MPs sniping at Jeremy Corbyn fit in Labour’s big tent?
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Version 0 of 1. Jo Cox and Neil Coyle “have come to regret” their decision to nominate Jeremy Corbyn for the leadership and realise they must not “sit back and hope for the best” (Opinion, theguardian.com, 6 May). No doubt many Labour party members in Batley and Spen and Bermondsey and Old Southwark have come regret their decision to select them as candidates. Given the barrage of invective from the parliamentary Labour party (PLP), the daily vituperation from the media and the biased BBC, it’s extraordinary that Jeremy Corbyn, Sadiq Khan and their colleagues did so well. With this alliance of malcontent MPs and their media counterparts there is no possibility of the split within the PLP being healed. Indeed, so brazen is their hostility to Corbyn that there is no pretence – they are unambiguous in their determination to replace him expeditiously. But the most important split within the Labour party can be healed – the split between the PLP and the membership. Establishing democracy in the Labour party is simple. It involves the introduction of mandatory reselection of MPs in a timeframe that allows party members to influence policy and create the election manifesto through their democratically elected candidates. Cox and Coyle are right. We must not “sit back and hope for the best” – climate change, the destruction of the NHS and the poverty, misery and deprivation caused by austerity politics are challenges too urgent to leave to many of the PLP with their extraordinary sense of entitlement.David ThackerLondon • Lyndon B Johnson said it was “better to have him inside the tent pissing out”. Personally I would prefer all the plotters against Corbyn and the democratic Labour party to go and piss somewhere else altogether. How about the Conservative party or Ukip?Kathleen O’NeillHayling Island, Hampshire • Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com |