Corbyn and the vote of no confidence

Jeremy Corbyn has lost a vote of confidence by 172 Labour MPs to 40. The motion has been in the works since the beginning of the exodus of the shadow cabinet at the weekend and sadly, few – even those who support Corbyn – are surprised at the result. Now begins the wait for how Corbyn will react. Will he resign? No, he has blankly refused, despite the deafening pleas from MPs. Not to mention he insists that if the party wants rid of him they’ll have to do so in a party election, and considering the more or less unfaltering support he has received from the party members who voted him in, it’ll be a long wait.

Personally, I am glad of this fact. My feelings towards Corbyn as a leader have wavered over the past nine months, especially over the course of the referendum campaign, but at this point I think he is exactly what the party needs. As we face the very real possibility of Boris Johnson becoming the next Tory leader, there are few people I feel would be so well equipped to oppose him. Corbyn isn’t a leader? Good! That isn’t what we need.

I realise that might be a controversial thing to say, but it’s true. Think of the leaders of the last decade or so; Cameron, Johnson, Blair, Brown. How many more of those kinds of ‘leaders’ do we need? Now is the worst possible time for the Labour party to be revolting against one of the few honest people in politics. Because that’s what he is – honest – and the country can’t handle it. He isn’t slick, he doesn’t follow convention, he says what he believes, not what people want to hear. That is exactly what we need, not someone who is easy to spin, but someone who genuinely wants the best for the country. Just because he doesn’t make himself easily swallowed by the press doesn’t mean he can’t do great things, actual things, to help our county.

As a young person in the current political climate, especially since the events of the past few days, I feel the Labour party, and Corbyn by extension, is our only hope. As the future of our country grows increasingly blurred and I lose more and more faith in the people within it, he stands out as someone, perhaps the last person, who could bring about reform. Yes, he could have done more throughout the referendum campaign, but at the end of the day he didn’t call the referendum in the first place and it isn’t his mess. Countless numbers of the same people calling for him to leave are describing him as honest, principled and decent. Then why are they so desperate to have him gone? He isn’t a leader? He’s unelectable? Perhaps if his MPs would get behind him they’d find him to be doing a much better job at both of those things.

Not to say he’s ideal, that is. In a perfect world he wouldn’t have been elected as leader in the first place (I know, I don’t mean to contradict myself); it would have been Yvette Cooper. But it wasn’t, and here we are, with a leader I think is committed to his party and his beliefs and who we should stick behind if we want any hope of not being defeated in a general election. It’s the worst possible time for Labour to fall apart as it has done over the past few days, and gambling with the leadership is such a dangerous game to play. What I would like to see is the party saying, ‘Yes, okay, Corbyn isn’t going to win this on charisma alone, here are A, B and C that we can do to fix this’ and as a result rallying to his side so that as a group Labour can fight as one, with other frontbenchers stepping into the breach where Corbyn’s abilities fall short, instead of tearing itself apart trying to get rid of an actual left wing alternative.

I understand perfectly all of his faults, and don’t deny they exist, but my fears over the racist and xenophobic attitudes that have been revealed within this country far outweigh my fears over Corbyn’s ability. He represents to all those who support him every hope they have for the Labour Party and for our future. I place my last hopes for the future of our nation in the hands of the events of the coming days and the actions of the Labour Party, and hope it can come together for the sake of the people.