I am not involved in the Labour Party leadership election except as an interested observer. However I think this Facebook posting by Javier Farje, which the Labour Party Forum decided not to publish, deserves a wider audience. (Javier has explained that he meant no offence in his reference to troskyists and apologises to anyone who took offence.)
What was supposed to be a debate among candidates and different positions within the Labour Party has become a war against Jeremy Corbyn. The insults, the threats, the intimidation.
I joined the LP because, for the first time since I moved to the UK 27 years ago and became a British citizen in 1996, I felt that I could become a member of a party that, despite the different approaches to the issues that most concern our society: unemployment, poverty, the neglect of the manufacturing sector, among other things, at least agrees in the need to discuss the best way to make Britain a fairer place.
I am neither a socially inadequate trotskyist entryist nor am I a disguised tory determined to wreck the LP. Like thousands of new members, young and old, native and, like me, adopted British citizens, I am a person who feels invigorated by the speech of a politician who, after many years of hearing other LP politicians, speaks his mind, without gimmicks or focus groups.
As a journalist with almost 40 years of experience, 14 of them working for a major British and international broadcasting organisation, I know when I see a bad economic programme or an illegal war. So when Jeremy Corbyn challenges the current post-Cold War 'consensus' or the levels of poverty that can be easily be avoided if we increased taxes by a mere 0.5% to the richest people in the country, then I have to agree.
What is the response of the other candidates and their informal spokespeople? The Alan Johnsons, the Alistair Campbells, the Tony Blairs, the Peter Mandelsons of this world? A better programme, a valid alternative? No. The threat. The insult.
To suggest that the election of a new party leader should be postponed because some people do not like one candidate is dishonest and undemocratic. The threat of an internal coup if Jeremy Corbyn wins reminds me Latin America, the continent where I was born, with its dirty tricks and its sometimes sleazy political system. It is shameful. I didn't join the LP for this.
Burnham, Cooper, Kendal, convince me that what you have to offer is better than what Jeremy Corbyn offers. Don't patronise me with the idea that we would be going back to the 80s. And do not insult my intelligence suggesting that people like me do not know what we are doing. If any of you convinces me, I am happy to change my mind and vote for one of you. You have not done that so far.
And that is not Jeremy Corbyn's fault.
What was supposed to be a debate among candidates and different positions within the Labour Party has become a war against Jeremy Corbyn. The insults, the threats, the intimidation.
I joined the LP because, for the first time since I moved to the UK 27 years ago and became a British citizen in 1996, I felt that I could become a member of a party that, despite the different approaches to the issues that most concern our society: unemployment, poverty, the neglect of the manufacturing sector, among other things, at least agrees in the need to discuss the best way to make Britain a fairer place.
I am neither a socially inadequate trotskyist entryist nor am I a disguised tory determined to wreck the LP. Like thousands of new members, young and old, native and, like me, adopted British citizens, I am a person who feels invigorated by the speech of a politician who, after many years of hearing other LP politicians, speaks his mind, without gimmicks or focus groups.
As a journalist with almost 40 years of experience, 14 of them working for a major British and international broadcasting organisation, I know when I see a bad economic programme or an illegal war. So when Jeremy Corbyn challenges the current post-Cold War 'consensus' or the levels of poverty that can be easily be avoided if we increased taxes by a mere 0.5% to the richest people in the country, then I have to agree.
What is the response of the other candidates and their informal spokespeople? The Alan Johnsons, the Alistair Campbells, the Tony Blairs, the Peter Mandelsons of this world? A better programme, a valid alternative? No. The threat. The insult.
To suggest that the election of a new party leader should be postponed because some people do not like one candidate is dishonest and undemocratic. The threat of an internal coup if Jeremy Corbyn wins reminds me Latin America, the continent where I was born, with its dirty tricks and its sometimes sleazy political system. It is shameful. I didn't join the LP for this.
Burnham, Cooper, Kendal, convince me that what you have to offer is better than what Jeremy Corbyn offers. Don't patronise me with the idea that we would be going back to the 80s. And do not insult my intelligence suggesting that people like me do not know what we are doing. If any of you convinces me, I am happy to change my mind and vote for one of you. You have not done that so far.
And that is not Jeremy Corbyn's fault.
