http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/jul/19/owen-smith-jeremy-corbyn-labour-leadership-angela-eagle
Owen Smith to face Corbyn in Labour leadership challenge
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| Owen Smith |
Same
old clichés, same old empty rhetoric.
Owen
Smith, former head of policy and government relations for Pfizer,
former radio producer for BBC, former lobbyist (who voted against a
statutory register of lobbyists when he became an MP) now seeks to
become leader of the Labour Party. In this quest, he is supported by
Benn, Eagle, Kinnock and others, who recognise him as another of
their kind. The "suit" who will maintain the status quo
within the Parliamentary Labour Party (PLP) and restore their
position as the dominant clique leading the party. Not a Blairite as
such, but as close as it is possible to get, while still maintaining
the party line of "Unity", "Representing working
people", "New generation to take party forward",
"Helping people get on", and all the other well worn
banalities that party members have heard so often in the past.
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| "Austerity is right" says Owen Smith. With Angela Eagle on the Marr show. |
On
the Andrew Marr programme, Smith actually stated that "Austerity
is right" but quickly followed this with the qualification "but
we need a plan for prosperity" as if hoping that nobody had
noticed. In that one quote, Owen Smith defines what the
Labour Party would revert to under his leadership. A party offering
the British people more of the same old Labour, a party which offers
Tory-lite, a party which proposes watered down conservative policies,
in a different shaped box, wrapped in a different coloured paper.
This explains why the plotters of the PLP, are (mostly but not all),
now so enthusiastic in their endorsement and support for Smith. Until
mid day yesterday, Angela Eagle was the greatest thing since sliced
bread amongst many of the plotters, but less than six hours later,
she had been sidelined and abandoned for the Lancashire lad, raised
in Barry and now MP for
Pontypridd.
If
the Labour party is to
maintain the progress in policy proposals that has been made over the
last 10 months,
the anti austerity party,
building more houses, rolling back NHS privatisation, bringing energy
companies under public control, removing anti trade union
legislation, investing in industry, controlling the excesses of the
banking and finance industries, attacking tax evasion and avoidance
and all the other policies which we shall implement following the
next election, we must ensure that the party maintains the drive
and commitment of the present leadership reaching out to the people
of the United Kingdom with a clear, radical alternative.
We
cannot afford to have Owen Smith, or any of the other discredited
conspirators of the PLP, as Leaders
of our party. We
have been there before under Brown and Milliband and on each occasion
we have failed because we failed to offer the British people a real
choice.
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Over
the course of the coming months
of the election campaign,
we can expect the usual suspects within
the PLP,
encouraged and supported by their sponsors
and friends in the media and television, to launch an even more
aggressive and hostile campaign than that waged during the election
of last year. With Owen Smith as their front, it is their last
desperate attempt to wrench control of the Labour party away from the
membership and restore their own dominance.
For
the sake of the people that we represent
and for the sake of this country,
we must not
allow this to happen. We must support
the present leadership with
Jeremy Corbyn as Leader.
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