It's a response to so many conservative and ukip voters signing up to vote for him.

They can't exclude members and former members of the tory party but allow the green party so it was all or nothing. The leadership chose to purge basically everyone who may not be a "true labour supporter".

The obvious reality if they didn't do anything the second place finisher (Burnham presumably) would mount a lawsuit against the process and likely win given the wording on the docs voters have to sign.

One of the requirements to get a form and vote for leadership is worded something like "supporting the labour party" which makes it really unlikely Corbyn could win a lawsuit and force labour's hand if he lost due to other party supporters being purged off the list. It would be a lock for Cooper or Burnham to win that suit however.

Its kinda irrelevant, no way it's close anyway, Corbyn will win comfortably with union and unpurged paid voters. I'd be surprised if party members first choice him however.

Article in the Spectator re Corbynn.

http://blogs.spectator.co.uk/alex-ma...tical-history/

I expected Labour to go after him much harder but I think that article overestimates how much it matters.

It's quite possible JC will flop badly on economic/socialist/controlling the Labour party grounds in which case it doesn't matter anyway but if he doesn't flop on those grounds and it does matter then, hard as these topics are, if the Tories think JC will get blown out of the water over Ireland/Russia/Hamas etc then they could be in for a very nasty shock.

Bush/Blair have done huge damage to the idea that the west are the good or competent side in international matters. Talking to people and finding peaceful ways forward looks like such a good idea now.

I think as far as the leadership election goes they have to strike a balance of attacking him but not going overboard. It doesn't play out great if it becomes particularly nasty when you are all supposedly on the same side (in a sense).

I agree about the areas he's mostl likely to flop badly in a GE but I wouldn't underestimate the effect that the views he holds that are highlighted in the Massie piece would have. I'd say the general public have fairly conservative (with a small c) view on such things when it comes to electing a PM.

I agree to an extent if they can keep the attacks at the innuendo level.

But if it becomes a debate people will get reminded that those who castigated people like JC at the time for talking to terrorists were the same people who were calling Nelson Mandela, and the ANC terrorists and that later they themselves went on to talk to the IRA and it worked. JC can easily emerge as being seen as far closer to being correct than the Tories were.

Got to love the spin that's put on these issues by the media. US foreign policy (and therefore UK fp) - and specifically the control of natural resources - has caused a great deal of outrage in the affected parts of the world. Is it really so surprising that we now have a situation of fanatics taking the law into their own hands?

It doesn't make it right, and the media won't find Corbyn saying [insert 'terrorist' organisation] is justified, but you can't ignore the root of the problem, which is not religion, nor fanaticism or whatever, it's capitalism and its consequential foreign policy agendas.

Corbyn is right to bring these issues out to discuss, rather than what the right wing media would prefer - to keep them hidden from public view.

This Massie guy uses a lot of choice terms to put his spin on Corbyn's actions that are very typical of right wing media ****e. "Pal around" with the IRA is probably not an appropriate way to describe Corbyn's talks. Nor is the suggestion that he "weasels out" of condemning their attrocities. And the notion that Corbyn should be "disqualified from serious office" would be laughable were it not so typical of the right - completely anti-democratic under the guise of "protecting democracy". Speaking of what "normal people" think is at best an arrogant viewpoint, and in my opinion downright ignorant.

It's about time we had someone in politics (although we already have Nicola Sturgeon of course) who talks about the issues the right like to gloss over. We have deep unrest in society and simply carrying on the profiteering bandwagon at all costs is only going to make things worse. Corbyn is engaging a hell of a lot of people who were previously disinterested which will only be bad news for the right, whose agenda has always been to keep the masses out of their affairs.

For those who think Corbyn can't win a GE - you just need to look at what happened in Scotland, and see the signs of the same happening in England to know that these kinds of political 'impossibilities' are not so far fetched at all.

Beware, Tories!

Labour Party may get into some legal issues over this. They've basically sold the right to vote in a leadership election for less than the price of a pint and are then dismayed that a load of people who don't wish them well have joined up to elect the least competent candidate.

I hope that everyone who is disenfranchised by the leadership's hastily appointed infiltrator detection apparatchiks will be informed personally. Then they can sign up to a class action suit that will get tied up in the courts for years and send into penury a party that is already morally bankrupt.

Can they bring a class action suit? Apart from anything else what is their loss?

Can you be disenfranchised from a vote for leader of a party?

They seem to all get letters informing them they were found ineligible.

Yeah it's not clear what their damage would be if they get a refund of their £3 which I assume is happening. A political party can set is own election rules how they want and presumably they can then enforce them how they see fit like any private club, provided it's not outright discriminatory.

They did ate the rules, which were 'send us your £3 and you can have a vote'. To then arbitrarily decide that certain persons are then ineligible has made the whole process a laughable shambles.

Oh it might well not be actionable, but given that these people allegedly didn't have the party's best interests in mind in the first place they may well start something just to **** with them.

The political fallout when it's bought up - repeatedly - that Labour couldn't effectively organise a piss-up in a brewery is going to be delicious.

Can Labour not just get Luftur Rahman back? He knew how to fix an election in order to get the desired result.

Can anyone explain how pulling out of nato AND getting rid of our nuclear deterrent is a good joined up defence strategy?

I can see the second on its own. I can even see the first if the goal is to be isolationist. But I can't see how it's not the stupidest ****ing idea ever to get rid of both of our last lines of defence.

He seems keen on being mates with Putin, perhaps we can nestle under their wing?

I don't think he sees leaving NATO as anything like being isolationist. Briton wasn't isolationist before it formed the entente cordial and the triple entente. He is very wary of the dangers of military alliances that he think are mostly wanted by the arms industry and the more hawkish elements of foreign policy.

Not that I speak for him or necessarily agree with his views (actual or portrayed here).

I'm very confident he isn't remotely keen on Putin.

Austria, Cyprus, Ireland, Malta, Sweden, Finland are EU member states with neither nukes nor are they members of NATO.

Wasting 100+ billion on Trident is not what the majority of people want. You're in the minority if you do.

Who we going to nuke? Who's going to nuke us? We going to fight jihadi john with nukes?

LOLNUKES

Lol majority of which people? A little over a third of Brits want to get rid of our nuclear deterrent.

Just over 60% want trident either improved or recommissioned at the end of its life. About 5% don't know.

Diego's majority is clearly drawn only from the salt of the earth workers, not their jackbooted elite oppressors who are all going to finish up against the wall anyway come the revolution.

whatever. take yer pick. the comres poll ive read. it sampled more than 4200 in the uk, which is pretty big for this type of survey. usually they're about 1000.

the people don't want nukes.

http://cnduk.org/campaigns/no-to-trident/opinion-polls

you might dig up this, but the question is misleading as it states a cost of 20 billion. it will be more than 100 billion over its lifetime. sample is smaller too, and it's older.

Its preety stupid to propose unilateral disarmament. Its just makes you lose a bunch of votes over stuff that doesnt really matter.

EDIT: Expert play is say that to win votes in the primary or whatever you call the current election. Once you win the leadership say that you are in favor of multilateral disarmament where all the other 8 countries are going to tell you to GTFO but then you can blame them instead for breaking your promise.

You should have just said "yeah you're right" instead of making this post.

I, for one, am stunned to find statistics that oppose trident on the CND website.

aye because clearly opinion research is totally worthless. everyone knows that.

It sure is when you're asking biased questions or are extracting responses out of context to make a wider point.

The biased questions are in the the only survey I could find that shows support for nukes. You're wrong, just like with most of the **** you come out with in here.

Lol go look at your own link again.