To say that the argument within the Labour party “is a dispute over whether the centre left advances its goals through parliament or some other means” (Corbyn can’t just dismiss the importance of MPs, 6 August) is nonsense. But no serious member of the party doubts the primacy of winning a majority at Westminster at the next general election. The argument is about the extent to which the activity of members and affiliates outside Westminster is or should be more than just providing support at election time.
In a healthy democracy, activity of all kinds by members of political parties is desirable, whether through a local campaign, or their trade union, or an organisation dedicated to a particular goal. But there is nothing new about this in the Labour party, which began as an organisation to enable trade unionists and other campaigners for social justice to achieve their aims. One of the aims of the Corbyn leadership is to reinvigorate the Labour party by promoting greater activity at all levels of the party, with a commensurately stronger voice for ordinary members, something that many Labour MPs unfortunately find it difficult to accept, although it can only make the party, and their own position, stronger.
Peter Rowlands
Swansea
• The Labour party is a membership organisation that despite many deficiencies still clings to the idea that it is democratic. I can imagine that the next logical step in Jonathan Freedland’s thinking would be that the voice of Labour’s members should become more advisory than binding, much in the same way as the views of shareholders on executive pay are politely listened to but ultimately ignored. And how can it be that any Labour MP who wishes to dispose of Corbyn cannot bear threats to their own deselection with humility?
Colin Challen
Labour MP Morley and Rothwell 2001-10
• I’ve been a Labour party member since 1964 and even have memories of being taken to constituency meetings by my mother in the 1940s, but I have never felt such dismay and anger as I now do at the state of the party. How dispiriting to read about the “bitterness and boos at Labour hustings” (Report, 5 August) as Jeremy Corbyn and Owen Smith battle it out for the leadership.
What made it worse was to see a palpably decent man like Giles Fraser delivering a cheap shot at Smith, dismissing him as “a former Viagra salesman” (5 August). Fraser shows touching – almost religious – faith in Corbyn, uncritically accepting the line that Labour’s disunity problems stem from the “betrayal” of MPs who have attempted a “coup”, rather than the demonstrable inadequacies of his hero.
With Labour in such a bad state, one has to turn elsewhere for political nourishment. It was thus a pleasure to find Patience Wheatcroft, a Tory peer, making the detailed and convincing case that there should be an act of parliament before article 50 is activated to start the formal process of leaving the European Union (Opinion, 5 August). That would slow the process down and enable everybody to see precisely what Brexit means in practice, and perhaps allow the possibility of holding a second referendum. This is something Labour should vigorously get behind, along the lines Owen Smith is rather too tentatively arguing.
Giles Oakley
London
• What used to seem like naivety in the Labour leader reveals itself in the undistinguished first hustings “debate” of the leadership campaign to be an unpalatable mix of disingenuousness and ineptitude. Corbyn gave his familiar “repeat after me” performance, with the barb of choice a much-reiterated attempt to blame everyone but himself for the current chaos in the party. This accusation may well come back to haunt him, as his rejection by a large majority of MPs and almost the entire shadow cabinet is a consequence of his incompetence, his lack of leadership and his reliance on his own, non-parliamentary activist supporters, leading to the alienation of the PLP.
Carolyn Kirton
Aberdeen
• Diane Abbott is wrong to draw an analogy between the Corbyn and Sanders phenomena (The armies of Corbyn and Sanders won’t just melt away, 3 August). The “millions” backing Sanders actually exist through their primary election votes, whereas the “millions” she claims are backing Corbyn are unfortunately a figment of her imagination. He has certainly attracted a huge swath of new Labour members, but that is just about the measure of his total support in the country. There are sadly no millions flocking to his banner wanting to “move beyond neoliberalism”, evil though it is. Otherwise there would have been a surge of opinion poll support for him when elected last year and the party’s subsequent poll ratings would not have been so dire.
Corbyn has many of the right ideas, but has shown conclusively that he doesn’t know how to translate them into votes right across the UK. It can’t be allowed to continue if Labour wants to win next time.
Robin Wendt
Chester
• Owen Smith has no chance of winning the Labour leadership by negative campaigning (Labour on edge of a split that would finish the party, says Smith, 4 August). The suggestion that John McDonnell is “on the hard left of the party” will be seen by many Labour members as farcical.
McDonnell’s economic proposals are firmly founded in Keynes’s recognition of the government’s role in actively managing the economy through fiscal policy, investment and regulation. Such was the foundation of the Butskellite postwar consensus, which saw the share of income going to the top 10% of the population falling from 35% in 1938 to 21% in 1979. Thatcherism rejected this consensus in favour of trusting an unfettered market to stimulate economic growth. Neoliberal economics, the new consensus endorsed by Labour since the 1990s, has seen the top 10% getting 31% of all income while the share for the bottom 10% has fallen to 1%.
Martin Willis
Malvern Link, Worcestershire
• The friends of Owen Smith damn Jeremy Corbyn for an old-fashioned programme of strengthening the public sector and giving up weapons of annihilation. They offer as personal judgment and conduct, a flat cocktail of Blairism and Smith’s enrichment from loyal service to Pfizer. Hilary Benn woke the new leader up at 2am with a peremptory requirement of immediate resignation. After which, similar moderates have steadily abused him on the Commons floor, radio and TV. They look like members of White’s choking on the admission of a bus driver!
Edward Pearce
York
• Join the debate – email guardian.letters@theguardian.com
