Leadership vote is unnecessary

Paul Courtel seems to think that even ‘with the worst personal poll rating ever recorded for an Opposition Leader Jeremy cannot win a General Election’. This same Jeremy could have swung the referendum decisively in favour of remain if he had tried harder.

I heard a BBC political editor during the campaign say that although he was aware of the efforts of Jeremy to support the remain campaign, they were not reported because they were ‘not newsworthy’, by which I think he meant they were free of the lies, bombast and melodramatic speculation.

Again there are two narratives about the Labour vote in the Referendum. Most commentators seem to agree that 60 per cent of the Labour vote was pro EU, but that the Leadership lost the support of those in its former Northern heartlands, where voters were drifting towards UKIP before the last election.

If this is the case then Owen Smith’s desire to have a second referendum is truly bizarre. What makes him think it is likely to be any more enlightening or edifying than the last one? It just seems to be a gratuitous way of insulting the leave voters by telling them they were obviously too stupid to make the right decision the first time and so they must have another go.

The membership of the Labour party voted overwhelmingly for Jeremy Corbyn as leader a year ago knowing that they were getting someone with a different style of politics and a different agenda from the identikit model which had led to widespread disillusion with government. They will probably do so again this year in an unnecessary election which has completely let the Tories off the hook in their own troubles.

Is it too much to hope that if Jeremy is again voted in as leader then that result, like the referendum, can be accepted?

I don’t imagine that other voters will be swayed by me any more than they are by Paul Courtel but for the record, I am voting for Jeremy Corbyn.

John Gately

Harold Terrace

Battle

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