NinjaFletch
Full Member
- Joined
- Sep 30, 2009
- Messages
- 19,818
What is dogmatic about citing the very document every single current Labour MP was elected on (and indeed the policy unanimously adopted at the 2016 Labour conference) is the exact opposite of Owen Smith's statement, hence him being removed from the shadow cabinet? If you're a shadow cabinet member and you want to stand against party policy, you're more than free to do so from the very place Corbyn did it for years, the back bench.
Labour aren't bound by their manifesto (which is damn right lucky because their manifesto promised a 'cake and eat it style' Brexit which had freedom of movement ending and the UK within the single market still) and the current party's position is capable of being moulded based upon current evidence. Treating the manifesto as a constitution, or worse some kind of sacred text, is patently nonsense – especially when it was awfully vague on this area.
And seeing as all evidence suggests that Brexit is a disaster that will hit the poorest in society hardest, and is opposed by Labour supporters and voters at large, it seems to me downright disingenuous that Corbyn's policy can be anything other than 'scrap the whole bleeding lot of it' if he is claiming to represent the groups he claims to represent.
Whilst Smith's intervention today saw him rightly sacked, as we acknowledged right at the start, I can't see how any discussion of it can happen without acknowledging that Smith is clearly much more on the pulse of what Labour members want than Corbyn at this point in time – for a man whose made it his priority to represent those views on the national stage, being in a position where he is forced into sacking someone for speaking for the membership is a pretty poor look.