Letter: Time to unite against Tories

This leadership contest where a stooge has been put up to contest the leadership is phoney as no vacancy really exists. Those 171 MPs involved in this squalid plotting and coup are showing contempt to their members and voters, the largest membership in European politics thanks to Corbyn offering a different politics to the status quo.  He offers hope whilst many sadly only offers more of the same dire policies with austerity, cuts to welfare, tuition fees, tax avoidance, low pay, agency exploitation of the unwaged, embracing TTIP — whilst sucking up to the whims of the bankers, press barons and Corporates.

The political class, establishment and media barons know the threat to their cosy lives and are colluding to say “you 99 per cent get back in your box and we the one per cent will continue to tell you what you are having!”

Parties are competing for each other’s voters by offering similar policies rather than instead reach out to the 50pc of people who do not vote because they have lost all trust and confidence in politicians because they all pee in the same pot or do not vote because they have been excluded, been on the receiving end of the swingeing cuts or feel alienated as many of them suffer in poverty. They should be represented by a strong Labour Party with socialist values standing up for them. Corbyn and those MPs that have stayed loyal to the people get it and are offering a welcome change with an alternative politics.

Meanwhile in his parallel universe or bunker, Labour's disloyal deputy and plotter in chief, Tom Watson, would be prepared to sacrifice dozens of Labour seats to see off the democratic left in the Party. This intervention by Tom is the worst, but far from the only, error of judgement he has been involved in over the last few years. His evidence on far left infiltration of Labour is the dodgiest dossier produced since Alistair Campbell left Downing Street or Tony Blair’s claims of WMD in Iraq. He has advocated one measure after another to marginalise the members’ participation in the party's life. He was one of the moving spirits behind the plan to exclude 130,000 members from voting in the leadership election, and in getting that exclusion enforced by the judges who were also Blair’s cronies. Justice can be bought! Watson has backed the complete shut-down of party meetings over the summer, stifling debate and democracy by giving credence to media allegations of bullying and bad behaviour which are sustained b

y any evidence at all. He voted for hiking the registered supporters’ fee to £25 and narrowing the window of application to just 48 hours, moves which make sense only if one is trying to minimise participation and involvement.

The euphoria when Tony Blair defeated the Tories soon evaporated as he continued Margaret Thatcher’s economic policies of prioritising the banks and ignoring our manufacturing and working-class communities. Now, under the Tories, austerity is being brutally applied and the most vulnerable are being clobbered — whilst  investment and manufacturing have continued to plummet.  We have the scourge of casualisation and zero hour contracts with rising insecurity to millions.

Jeremy Corbyn is the only major national party political leader who grasps this key issue and the need for a radical change of direction from neo-liberalism. That is what makes his re-election as Labour leader so important — Jeremy Corbyn and shadow chancellor John McDonnell understand that the productivity problems the UK faces are a product of a chronic lack of long-term investment, and that the reversal of this is now what is needed to deliver both sustainable growth and social justice following the EU referendum result.

This is shown in Jeremy’s ten pledges to rebuild and transform Britain in his campaign to be re-elected Labour leader. He commits to full employment and an economy that works for all. His plan commits to creating a million good-quality jobs, all across the regions and nations of Britain, and seeks to guarantee a decent job for all.   

He commits to new investment spending of £500 billion in infrastructure, manufacturing and new industries backed up by a publicly owned national investment bank.

It is my strong and long-held belief that what holds back Britain's economy is a lack of investment, both public and private, which is now running at its lowest level since World War II.

Nearly all economists now agree that investment is not just the most important factor in economic growth, but outweighs all others put together.

I want all our kids, grandkids and communities to have the same opportunities we had.

We need a real alternative economic strategy. I firmly believe Jeremy Corbyn is the best chance to achieve that and take Labour back to Downing Street to transform Britain. It’s time to Unite, keep Corbyn and take the fight to the Tories.                                                                                                                                                                                 

Ged Dempsey, Wath upon Dearne