Leicester Stands Up For Corbyn

Dozens of protestors assembled at Leicester Clock Tower this afternoon in a show of solidarity with the Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, whose position is currently under threat from the right wing of his party.

Since last Thursday, when the public voted to leave the EU referendum, some twenty members of Corbyn’s Shadow Cabinet have resigned from their position, citing a “lack of confidence” in his leadership.

In reality, these Blairites MPs, beholden as they are to the interests of big business, are opposed to Corbyn’s program of a £10 an hour living wage now, mass council house building, free education, and nationalisation of the railways. Unlike Corbyn, the Blairites are capitalist politicians, committed to war and austerity.

Right wingers within the Labour Party would rather sabotage their own party than see it elected with a socialist leader.

Leicester South MP Jon Ashworth remains one of the few members of the shadow cabinet who has yet to comment, although his failure to support Corbyn in last year’s leadership election may provide a clue to where his allegiances lie.

But Leicester’s Deputy Mayor, Rory (the Tory) Palmer, has refused to remain silent, and has been leading calls for Corbyn to stand down. Palmer states:

“At this moment in time, the Labour party needs to be on an election footing but under the current leadership we it feels like we are in drift mode… People who voted for Jeremy Corbyn last year have changed their minds based on his performance and his direction, or lack of it.”

If Corbyn’s support has wavered at all – and it is not at all clear that it has – it is precisely because of the lack of support from right wing Labour MPs, who have taken every opportunity to publicly attack him.

Corbyn was thrust into office by a popular movement against austerity, mostly from outside of the Labour Party. But since then, Jeremy has been trapped behind enemy lines, with an overwhelmingly hostile Parliamentary Labour Party, committed to austerity and war.

Now they are going for the kill.

It should now be clear to everyone that the strategy of pacifying the Labour right has failed and we need to step up the fightback.

The only way to defeat Blairism is to harness and build on the anti-austerity movement that got him elected.

There should immediately be a conference called of all anti-austerity forces – inside and outside of the Labour Party – that want to support Jeremy Corbyn. This should include affiliated and unaffiliated trade unions, anti-cuts organisations, the organisations involved in the Trade Unionist and Socialist Coalition such as the Socialist Party, anti-austerity Greens and others.

This would be a real step to building a movement capable of defeating the right, and would also be a step towards creating a genuinely anti-austerity Labour Party, organised on a democratic federal basis, in which all socialists can be involved, including those like the Socialist Party expelled by the Blairites in the past.

The Socialist Party calls on Corbyn to:

• Prepare for a general election with a clear anti-austerity, anti-racist programme – opposition to all cuts, £10 an hour minimum wage, mass council housing building and renationalisation.
• Call an immediate labour movement conference of all those who want to defend Jeremy Corbyn against the rightwing coup!
• Drive out the Blairite Red Tories from Labour