Open letter to the Leader of the Opposition concerning Article 50

Dear Jeremy Corbyn MP,

My name is George Harold Millman; I'm an actor, playwright and political activist. I realise that you will most likely have received numerous messages on this subject, but it is important that I express to you my feelings concerning the triggering of Article 50, with specific regard to your intention to order a three-line whip on your MPs to vote in favour of it. I need to say right at the start that generally, I really admire your work. I have been part of crowds you have addressed on four occasions (I believe), I agree with the vast majority of what you say and I generally find you to be a real breath of fresh air in a largely corrupt political system. That said, I cannot help but feel that on the Article 50 discussion, you are making a fatal error that could have far-reaching consequences.

The reason that seems to define any lack of opposition to Article 50 is the need to respect the result of the referendum and the will of the people. I believe this logic to be flawed, for the following reasons:

1) I stayed up watching the results of the referendum as they came in, and all night it was switching between Remain and Leave being in the lead. Right from the start, it was clear that whichever side eventually came out on top, the country would be almost entirely split. I believe this to be a major constitutional problem; a referendum that reveals an almost entirely split country results in a decision which is opposed by almost half of all citizens. I feel that the way to handle this is not to blindly go down whichever avenue came out in a narrow majority, but to undertake a serious investigation into the reasons why people voted either Remain or Leave and take the course of action that will benefit those people the most, whether that is by remaining or leaving. Forcing through a Brexit led by a Prime Minister without a mandate in these circumstances is not respecting the democratic will of the people; it is playing a political game that individuals suffer from as a result.

2) The Leave campaign is known to have used a lot of lies and mistruths to garner support (as did the Remain campaign, but not to the same extent) so the result could be argued to have occurred on false pretences.

3) The referendum question did not say anything about exactly when Article 50 should be triggered. We have a Government which quite clearly has the interests of big business at heart at the expense of everyone else. Voting down Article 50 would not mean it could not be voted in favour of in the future. I believe that setting ourselves a two-year time limit right now would be an extremely foolish thing to do, and that the triggering of Article 50 should at least be delayed until we have a more compassionate Government, even if it is not avoided altogether.

I recognise that you have tabled a wide range of amendments to the Article 50 Bill, but I feel strongly that at this stage that is not enough. I do not believe that the Conservative Government are likely to accept many of your amendments, particularly as you have come out and said that you will be voting to trigger Article 50 regardless. As you are aware, the Prime Minister's Brexit strategy appears to be to demand a host of completely impossible things from Europe, with the backup of a trade deal from the United States if they decline (and they will almost certainly decline). The fact that Theresa May has spent the last few days trying to flatter Donald Trump is something I find quite repulsive - Trump has said the most appalling things about public services, women's rights, the rights of immigrants and many other things besides. As a country, we should be standing up to Trump's divisive and hateful rhetoric, yet this trade deal throws a spanner in the works. I am also extremely worried about what will happen if this trade deal goes through. The Prime Minister has refused to confirm that she will not be offering parts of the NHS to US firms, that she will not lower food safety standards in order to ease trade with the US, and a lot more besides. Trump is an egomaniac who appears to view other countries doing well as him personally doing badly. Any trade deal between the US and the UK right now is guaranteed to be skewed in favour of America at the UK's expense, and I have seen no evidence that May will not bow to his every whim. Trump even says that he will want the right to nullify any trade deals if he is not happy with them at any point (presumably if he feels that they are benefitting another country more than the US). Will the UK have the same right? I would put money on the fact that we will not. The Leave vote was meant to be about taking back control - there is a very good argument that triggering Article 50 at this point would be quite the opposite.

I do not envy your position at all. I know that you have had a huge amount of negative publicity, and that you would be slated in the press whatever you decided to do. I think that in this country (and indeed the world at large) we have got to a place where very few people see the full story - they see things as more black-and-white than they are, and perhaps that is why there is this notion that going against Article 50 would be 'defying the will of the people'. However, this is so much worse. There is a saying: 'Though boys throw stones at frogs in sport, the frogs do not die in sport but in earnest'. I think this applies here; we have the rich and powerful playing political games, and citizens are suffering as a result. My MP Thangam Debbonaire has pledged to vote Article 50 down. I implore you, please stay true to your principles, reverse your decision on the three-line whip and form an alliance with the other opposition parties to vote down Article 50 until we are in a place where we can make this work. Right now, we just are not.


Regards,


George Harold Millman

Brexit and Trump

This week was a tough one for anyone who is remotely progressive. 2016 was notorious for two things: celebrities dying young and the BBC losing the Bake-Off (no, I jest). The referendum result indicating that the UK should leave the European Union and the election of Donald Trump. This week, both of these worrying developments in history came closer, as Trump was officially sworn in and Theresa May made a speech to the EU indicating her bargaining position on the terms of Brexit. I'm going to talk a little about both of them in today's blog, because they are associated with each other, I feel that they both stemmed from a similar sort of emotion, and because I believe that both will require the same area of solidarity in order to deal with them.

This week we said goodbye to Barack Obama, as President Trump was sworn into the White House. The end of Obama's tenure was slightly surreal for me - it seems that he is a suitably beloved President for many, with my Facebook newsfeed showing a swarm of pictures of him and his family accompanied by tributes reflecting on what a wonderful President he has been, and considering sadly the poor substitute making himself comfortable in Washington. I engaged briefly in an interesting conversation earlier about whether this glorifying is appropriate. I have not really agreed with much of Obama's legacy in the White House, his enthusiasm for drone strikes, his vast increase of the surveillance state and his introduction of harmful trade deals such as TTIP, not to mention his lukewarm attitude to his mostly-forgotten commitment to close Guantanamo Bay for good. Is it really a good idea to hold him up as an architect of a golden age? No doubt the immediate response to this is to compare him to what the regime of Trump is likely to hold, which is a reasonable position - it is human nature to look on things comparatively, and whilst Obama may have hardly been a saint, he is at least on the lesser side when it comes to autocratic and ruthless world leaders. I shan't be putting any pictures of him on my Facebook profile; nevertheless I can appreciate that he is a principled man, I am grateful for any social progress that has been achieved under his rule and I genuinely wish him, his wife Michelle and their daughters Malia and Sasha the very best for the future. (I also commend him for doing the right thing and announcing the release of Chelsea Manning, something that I ordinarily would have devoted an entire blog to if there was not so much else going on!)

And so, now we come to a Republican presidency. I say 'Republican' rather than 'Trump' because I'm very much unsure how long Trump will last. Not only is he at age 70 the oldest person in history to assume the Presidency, but his behaviour leads me to believe that he is likely to be impeached  at some point, or to lose his temper and storm out (assuming that no one assassinates him, which could be a realistic possibility in itself). One way or the other, I think it likely that Mike Pence will be the US President before too long - in fact, I have heard a conspiracy theory that this was the Republicans' intention the whole time, and that Trump was only a Trojan horse used to win the election. It concerns me how personal this has become - people aren't talking about parties, they are talking about individuals, and this seems to me to simplify the issue. As much as the thought of a man who boasts about sexually assaulting women and is apparently unable to string a coherent sentence together holding the most powerful position in the world makes me feel rather sick, focussing on that masks a much wider issue. We have a world where career politicians have run things for too long, the world's finances have been conducted by Wall Street and Westminster and people on the ground have realised that they aren't benefitting at all from this catch-22. A change is clearly desired, and yet somehow people firmly lodged into the establishment, such as Donald Trump, have perfected the art of coming across as outsiders. If we ever want a world in which decisions are made for people and not profit, in either this country or the world at large, the media needs to give platforms to people who speak the language of the people - at the moment, they are only doing that with individuals who are going to say the most controversial things, such as Donald Trump, Katie Hopkins and Nigel Farage, and this has resulted in frustrated individuals making electoral decisions that make no social or economic sense.

This week, Theresa May made a speech outlying for the first time her objectives for the Brexit deal. It has taken six months for the Government to give any sort of explanation of its position on this at all, and the speech itself amounted to something which for various reasons does not amount to a good bargaining position. The blogger Thomas G Clark has quite a few articles on his excellent blog Another Angry Voice explaining exactly why May's speech was so poor, but to clarify concisely, it essentially amounted to a series of completely unreasonable demands, and a thinly-veiled threat to turn the UK into a notorious tax haven if these are not conceded to. The EU is highly unlikely to agree to these requests, both because they would not be beneficial for its place in the world at all and because the UK is in a much weaker position than May seems to believe, but even in the slim chance that it did agree, the beneficiaries would be major industries, not including anyone below the super-lucrative. Either way, we are in a situation which is going to benefit very few people, and certainly not the majority of the 52%, whose will we apparently have to stick to at all costs. The lack of intellectualism throughout this whole charade would be funny if it wasn't so serious. There are some quite legitimate concerns with the conduct of the European Union, but none of them were examined in detail either in the run-up to the referendum or in its aftermath. From the very start, the referendum was a ploy of David Cameron's to ensure his return to power in 2015, and it backfired. There is no serious analysis behind any of this; the 2014 Scottish Independence referendum involved a clear explanation of how Scottish independence would work. There was no such plan for Brexit; clearly British people were not considered intelligent enough to be able to make informed choices, and therefore the powers that be had to rely on trite soundbites. At this stage, most politicians seem to feel that remaining loyal to the uninformed 'will of the people' takes precedence over assessing what the Brexit plan actually entails, and this is something I find incredibly dangerous.

Whilst we're about it, I need to talk a little about my reaction to Labour's position on this whole thing. Earlier this week, the Guardian deliberately published a misleading headline suggesting that Jeremy Corbyn intended to whip his MPs to vote for the final Brexit plan irrespective of what is in it. In fact, Corbyn did not say anything of the kind - no decision on this has been made, nor can be until the plan is published, and quite rightly so. Having said that, I am really not impressed with Corbyn's overall attitude towards the triggering of Article 50, which he discussed during an interview on The Andrew Marr Show. It pains me to criticise Corbyn because I generally find him to be a real breath of fresh air in British politics and I may well vote Labour at the next general election assuming he is still heading it then, but I think he has this wrong (though he's not the only one). I think that right now what is more important than the vote on the final Brexit plan is the vote to trigger Article 50, which Theresa May intends to do at the end of March. What the majority of MPs and political leaders seem not to understand is that voting against the triggering of Article 50 does not equate to betraying the will of the electorate, because it could still be done at a later time. Someone who was sceptical about the Tories' ability to negotiate a good deal for the United Kingdom would be quite within their rights to be, and if they voted against Article 50 as a result this would reflect the fact that at the moment we are not in a strong place to strike a bargain. It is not the same as voting against ever leaving the EU; but if we ever do (and it is still an 'if') we need to be confident in the people leading the negotiations. Theresa May has backed down on her initial intention to bar Parliament from voting on the final Brexit deal (not that she has had any choice) but everyone seems very reluctant to speculate on what will happen if it is voted down. Setting ourselves a time limit of two years whilst we have people whose approach is to demand utterly unreasonable things under ridiculous threats seems to me to be a very foolish thing to do. I won't deny that there is a very large part of me that hopes Brexit never happens; but at the moment, this is eclipsed by concern about the negotiating tactics are using. I'd be open to leaving if we were going into this sensibly - in the meantime, I feel strongly that we should put off triggering Article 50. I will be writing to my MP (Labour's Thangam Debbonaire) and possibly to Corbyn to express this. It's another example of a black-and-white viewpoint clouding what is more important, and we should not take any chances on this.

The progressions of the Brexit plans and the inauguration of Trump are both things that have people the whole world over incredibly concerned, and with good reason. I feel that it is important right now that as activists, we devote our time to epitomising a regime of mundialization - 'an ideology based on the solidarity and diversity of global citizens and the creation of supranational laws, intended as a response to dehumanizing aspects of globalisation'. This is not normally a term used in reference to a community without a leader, but in this case I think it is quite clear the world over that no one is going to lead us in a progressive mindset, so the progressive community has no choice but to do this ourselves. Everyone can do this in different ways - writing blogs like mine, going on demonstrations, even just having conversations with people - but if anyone needs some support, let me link you to a great video I came across recently by commentator Myles Dyer. 2016 was a horrible, horrible year, and 2017 promises to be difficult as the impact of decisions made last year begin to affect us all. I'd like to invite anyone who is remotely motivated to make a difference in the world to join me in realising and taking all opportunities to create social change within our society. I hope that together, we can be the progressive force the world needs.

Write to your MP about the NHS

Greetings, everyone!

The NHS is in crisis. I'm not going to spend several paragraphs writing about how it is in crisis, because no doubt you already know, and if not there are lots of news websites you can read this on. However, what the mainstream media might not make clear is the fact that it is in crisis not because of too many patients, or doctors not working hard enough, but because of ideological cuts to services by a Government intent on privatisation.

However, perhaps you do not yet know what you can do to help this. No MP, even one under pressure to toe the party line, wants to see their local health service close down. Every single person who writes to their MP about this is putting them under pressure to demand more funds for the NHS. You can write to your local MP by clicking here and entering your postcode. Below is the example that I have sent to my local MP, Thangam Debbonaire (Labour):



Dear Thangam Debbonaire MP,


I am writing to you to express my extreme concern with the current state of the NHS in Bristol West, and across the west of the country. I read recently that hospitals in this area have been placed on a 'black alert', meaning that they are now so overcrowded that patient safety can no longer be guaranteed. Across the country, cancer operations are being postponed, birthing units are being shut down, and this is just the tip of the iceberg.


The Health Secretary seems to be holding everyone to blame but his own regime for the current crisis. There have been indications that the incredibly hard-working staff are to blame. He has suggested scrapping the waiting times to be assessed for 'non-urgent' cases - overlooking, of course, the fact that it is impossible to tell before such assessments whether or not a case is urgent. He tells people that they shouldn't visit A&E unless it's an emergency - this is patently obvious, but when GP appointments are so hard to come by it is really not good enough to advise people of that, not to mention utterly hypocritical on his part (in 2014, he admitted taking his own children to A&E for a non-emergency situation). The media is not helpful, suggesting that patient numbers have been 'unprecedented' this winter. They are described as 'unprecedented' every year, which makes no sense as the word means a unique situation that could not be prepared for. Patients are in danger now, not even taking into account the extra £22 billion of cuts that health services are expected to produce.


I believe that the NHS is being driven into the ground on purpose to justify further privatisation. I am aware that the current Labour leader has promised to renationalise the entire NHS if Labour are elected into Government at the next General Election, but we cannot wait to see if that happens. The NHS needs more funding right now, and as your constituent, I feel that this is something that must be not requested, but demanded.


Yours sincerely,

George Harold Millman

The Matriarchy

Response to Thangam Debbonaire MP's attack on Jeremy Corbyn

On Sunday, my local MP Thangam Debbonaire (whom I have previously criticised on this blog for taking part in the coup against Jeremy Corbyn) released a statement via her Facebook page where she details her experiences of working as Shadow Arts and Culture Minister under Jeremy Corbyn (the statement in full can be found here). Over the past few days, this has become viral, and I haven't seen any left-wing blogger respond to it yet. For a Corbyn supporter, it is of course extremely tempting to ignore it and hope that people forget about it, but I don't find that to be a particularly honest way of handling things, so I will give my take on it as best I can.

I will not deny that I was shocked by the experiences that Debbonaire describes. To me, her explanations of specific incidents seem to be truthful and accurate, and I will give her the benefit of the doubt as far as that is concerned. I also want it on record that, provided that her experiences actually did happen as she describes them, I take back my criticism of her on a previous blog concerning her decision to step down as Minister. Whilst I remain extremely disgruntled by the Labour MPs seeking to undemocratically discredit their leader, I can also see that on occasion specific incidents make it impossible for an individual to continue holding a certain position, regardless of the impact this may have on any larger movements or counter-movements connected with it.

Having said that, I am not prepared to end my support for Corbyn purely on the basis of this revelation. Much as I will take on board Debbonaire's words when considering how I will react to matters concerning Corbyn in the future, a single person's negative experience is not sufficient to reverse the respect that I have built up for a person over a sustained period of time, as I have with Jeremy Corbyn (in the same way that much as I commended David Cameron for championing equal marriage, this was not enough for me to forgive all of the damage he inflicted with all his other policy decisions). Debbonaire claims that other MPs have had similar experiences, but without those experiences being discussed individually they cannot be counted to support her assertion of him being a bad leader generally. There are three sides to every story - yours, mine and the truth. Although Debbonaire's point of view should be believed and respected, without having heard Jeremy Corbyn's interpretation of what went on we cannot hope to understand the circumstances behind these errors, therefore it is not practical to completely shift focus based on a single dissenting voice (albeit the only dissenting voice out of the many in the Labour Party who has actually said anything that comes across as remotely honest).

But there is something even more important that needs to taken into account when we're analysing people's experiences of Jeremy Corbyn and using that to make a decision about whether and how to vote. Which is that Corbyn has faults. That is to be expected, as all human beings do, and some of those faults may be a quite significant hindrance to him continuing to be an icon of the left in the future (not that they necessarily will, but we must accept that they might do). But right at this moment, those faults don't matter to me very much. What matters is that Corbyn has consistently voted against draconian bills put forward in Parliament, argued against nuclear war, championed funding of public services, generally is more of an opposition to the Tories than any of the past Labour leaders in recent years, and fundamentally, Corbyn has swathes of public support. And right now, he is the only decent politician in Westminster who has that level of support. There are other politicians who represent my understanding of what politics should be about more than Corbyn does - I think Caroline Lucas is awesome, I have a lot of time for Nicola Sturgeon's SNP representatives and whilst I don't personally know a great deal about Tim Farron, I have heard good things about him from contacts of mine who are more invested in Liberal Democrat policies than I am. None of these people though have the opportunity right now that Jeremy Corbyn has. Though I usually vote for them and their support is growing all the time, the Green Party is not currently big enough to pose enough of a threat to take on the Tories. The SNP has done very commendable work in Scotland, but we need some more socialist values across the rest of the UK as well. The Liberal Democrats, perhaps unfairly, are still suffering from the mess-up over tuition fees in 2010. I have a great deal of respect for all of them, and I hope that at some point in the near future these parties can unite to offer a beacon of hope to every UK citizen and the world in general. But before that happens, we need to make sure that the opposition, which is still the Labour Party, actually is an opposition, and that rests with electing Jeremy Corbyn. Were Angela Eagle and Owen Smith saying anything that I found remotely inspiring, Thangam Debbonaire's account may actually have convinced me to consider voting for one of them. But all they are doing is spouting the same empty rhetoric that we've all heard enough of, and I'm not convinced that anything would get better with either of them at the helm.

This is not about Jeremy Corbyn. This is about an opposition that actually listens to the concerns of the electorate and represents them. I'm not a fan of Margaret Thatcher at all, but I have some grudging respect for the fact that she managed to change the whole understanding of politics in this country. Of course, she changed it the wrong way, and we have never quite come out of the cold hard capitalist way of thinking since 1979. I'm hoping that Corbyn can achieve something similar for the left to what Thatcher did for the right, in terms of making politics generally more compassionate, and more about ordinary people than super-rich corporations. Doing that is about more than one man. If in time a less desirable side of him starts to come out, perhaps someone else will take over as an icon for those on the left. From a completely practical viewpoint, if we are to assume our next general election will be in 2020, he will be in his early seventies and for all we know be starting to think about retiring. But hopefully by that point he will have served his purpose, things will generally be better for the people in this country, and having a Government that works for the other 98% won't seem like a pipe dream. For that reason, save for major scandals there are very, very few things that would convince me to stop supporting Jeremy Corbyn, regardless of any negative sides of him that may come out. There is too much at stake to let accounts like that of Thangam Debbonaire dissuade us from supporting the most forward-thinking opposition leader that I have seen in my lifetime.

Earlier today, I paid £25 to register as a Labour Party supporter, granting me a vote in the election. You can do so here up until 5pm on Wednesday 20 July (tomorrow as of the time of writing this). We shouldn't have to pay that much, there is a lot of work going on behind the scenes to challenge this rule, but for now I think we have to be content with what we have, as there just isn't time to waste challenging this decision when we need to put everything we have into having our say. If you are struggling financially and can't pay that amount, there are ways to get help from other people. The JustGiving page has been closed down by the party, but the Facebook page Nye Bevan News, whilst it appears to be having some trouble, is still doing the best it can to help anyone vote who is struggling to find the funds, so please visit if you need any help or if you'd like to donate to anyone who does.

EDIT: Since writing this blog, I have come across this Facebook page which may be also very helpful to anyone struggling to cough up.

Open letter to Thangam Debbonaire MP

I wrote the following to my MP, Thangam Debbonaire, asking her to vote against Brexit. You can also do the same at https://www.writetothem.com.

Dear Thangam Debbonaire MP,

My name is George Harold Millman, and I have recently returned to Bristol West after having spent the past three years living in Essex. I am writing to you to express my serious concerns about the results of the EU vote, and to ask that you vote it down when it comes to Parliament, and encourage your colleagues to do the same.

There have been many reasons why I voted to remain - the economy, our standing relationships with other states - but most importantly, because regardless of my own opinions of the EU generally, I have been increasingly concerned about the straw man arguments perpetuated by the Leave campaigners. It was evident to me that the Leave campaign was fuelled predominantly by xenophobia, and I have felt incredibly disturbed by the amount of racism that has been seen on our streets since the result was announced. I'm sure I do not need to explain this to you in detail, for I know that you were a passionate campaigner for the Remain side and no doubt have felt exactly as I have over the past week. I do not for one moment believe that racism and hatred has been the catalyst for the majority vote - I agree with Caroline Lucas about how it was ultimately a vote against David Cameron's establishment, but this has vindicated the small numbers of individuals who speak from a place of bitterness and hatred, people are suffering for that and I feel very strongly that this has got to stop.

The referendum was pitched to the electorate as being very clear-cut, but as you are no doubt aware, the actual technicalities relating to our impending exit (or lack thereof, in fact) are a lot more complex and will require many precedents to be observed and proposals to be voted for or against. The referendum was only advisory; I am not sure how much this is common knowledge, but it was never intended to be legally binding at any point. It does not give a reflective picture of the common opinion of the electorate, because the vote was so incredibly close that even if it had been legally binding, the result was not distinct enough to warrant a radical change. 51% of a vote is not enough to justify a decision as huge as departing the EU; most countries require a vote by two thirds in order to create that sort of change. In any case, in the UK democracy is based around the decisions of those people we have elected to represent us.

As you will know, if we are to leave the EU it will require an Act of Parliament to repeal the 1972 European Communities Act. As far as I am aware (correct me if I am wrong), Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty cannot be enacted without this. I feel very strongly that the Remain campaign does not end here; even if we ultimately do decide to leave the EU, every single issue must be campaigned on, but in the meantime we should continue to focus on trying to remain. With every day that passes, I notice something else which has come about as a result of this referendum which reinforces this opinion - Scotland would like to remain in the EU, which could cause a breakup of the UK; the fall of the pound has caused serious problems economically over the past week, and media sources suggest that many Leave voters are regretting their decision; and particularly importantly, if Donald Trump is elected the president of the United States come November, a strong and cohesive European Union will be crucial, as I feel that much of Trump's campaign is built on the same harmful fear-mongering around different cultures that much of the Leave campaign's approach has been based on.

I am very much aware of your record in arguing for the benefits of us remaining and I am on your mailing list so I read the email that you sent out the day following the referendum, so I am really hopeful that you will agree with what I have said here and seriously consider voting against any attempt to repeal the 1972 European Communities Act. I think that there has been quite a sense of depression across the whole country following the referendum result, and as time goes by, the potential consequences of leaving the EU are becoming increasingly evident to many people who may not have objectively thought about it before. I'm sure you are receiving many similar messages from other constituents, so please take note of what I have said here and vote against these concerning proposals.

Yours sincerely,

George Harold Millman

P.S. In addition to being your constituent, I am a political activist, campaigner and performance artist. I have been involved in this sort of work for nearly six years, have been involved in numerous topical campaigns over this time, and as a result I have become quite well-respected within certain political circles. Because of this, I have decided to make my letter to you open, as a form of encouragement for others to follow my example and write to their MPs. I shall publish this letter (and potentially any responses from you) on my blog: actorandpoliticalactivist.blogspot.co.uk

The Corbyn coup

Yesterday I made a 20-minute video outlining my opinions on the fallout as a result of last week's EU vote. Towards the end, I touched on how Labour are blaming Jeremy Corbyn for this, but this row has dominated so much of the news for the past 24 hours that I felt I should devote a full blog to discussing this subject.

Today there has been a non-binding vote of no confidence in Jeremy Corbyn by his Labour MPs, which came out 172-40. This follows a string of resignations from around two thirds of the shadow cabinet, who have concluded that he is not the right person to lead the part to victory. (Exactly why they think this is a bit of a mystery to me, but I will come to that.) One of the shadow cabinet who has resigned is shadow culture secretary Thangam Debbonaire, MP for Bristol West and my local MP. In her resignation letter, Thangam wrote that she and Corbyn 'agree on so many things', that she 'genuinely admire[s] [his] honesty and strength of conviction' but that 'much more could have been done by [Corbyn] in order to argue for Remain.'

Many words have been thrown about with relation to Corbyn. The first and most notable is 'unelectable'. This word seems to suggest that Jeremy Corbyn is not capable of taking the Labour Party to the place it needs to be in order to gain the votes needed to defeat the Conservative Party. Given that he has been re-elected as the MP for Islington North for more than thirty successive years and was last elected by the general public as Leader of the Opposition by a vote of 59.5% despite huge opposition from leading members of his party, I cannot agree with this 'unelectable' assertion at any point. It would seem to come less from the belief that it is impossible for Labour to be elected under his leadership, and more the assertion that MPs have no wish for Labour to be elected this way. I need to stress that this is just my personal opinion, but I cannot understand how he is considered 'unelectable' in the circumstances.

I need to come on to the 'Brexit' (I still hate that word) discussion, even though I clarified most of my thoughts on this in yesterday's video, because it is hugely relevant to this coup. The idea being spread seems to be that Jeremy Corbyn was not passionate enough about the Remain vote, and I have even heard it said by personal contacts that they believe he was actually more in favour of the Leave side, and was covering it up by being as dispassionate as he could be. If by 'being more passionate', they mean that Jeremy Corbyn should have engaged in the political game-playing reminiscent of the likes of Farage and Cameron, I cannot help but feel quite personally insulted by that. I'm 22 years of age, I am by my own admission pretty independent-minded and I made my decision to vote Remain based on my own personal opinions of the EU and my fears that the Leave campaign was turning into a movement fuelled by racism and xenophobia (a suspicion which from people's reactions has proven to be pretty based in reality). I am able to acknowledge and accept any flaws that the EU might have, and I cannot guarantee that I would always advocate remaining, but on this occasion I feel that we benefit from it a lot more than we suffer. This is the approach that Jeremy Corbyn took - he wasn't overly dramatic, he didn't predict the end of the world and the rise of Armageddon, he spoke eloquently and calmly about the potential dangers of leaving without suggesting that the EU is a magical fairy palace. The media did not report his campaign well, but when have they ever painted Jeremy Corbyn in a good light? From my own personal experience campaigning and flyering, I came across a lot of Labour members who were very much in on the campaign, and that is Corbyn's doing.

Frankly, I think that Jeremy Corbyn spoke to people as rational adults rather than as gullible fools believing every half truth and misplaced statistic. The fact that this did not work with regards to actually keeping us in the EU is heartbreaking and perhaps goes to emphasise the mentality of your average Brit, but I do not that this is something that he can be condemned for. Where have we come in our society when the person who is talking the most intelligently is the person who has handled things badly? This is not just an issue with Corbyn; it is also something that I have come across. When I was at University, I was told by my tutors that I explain things too formally, using too many long words without an understanding of who my audience is. I'm not willing to speak to people as though they're stupid; I feel that doing that encourages disengagement, which is quite possibly an element of why the public did not listen to Corbyn on this occasion (though I do not think this is the main reason - I believe it to be far more down to the media under-reporting what was actually being said, whilst continually giving a platform to right-wing politicians spreading discord and fear of our neighbours). I read an article in the Guardian today saying that 'the young voted Corbyn in, and now they should push him out because he has betrayed them'. I can truthfully say as a young person who did vote him in, I do not feel betrayed. I feel far more betrayed by the BBC, which allows the likes of Laura Kuenssberg to pursue a witch-hunt against the leader of the opposition, by the advertising standards authorities which allowed a blatantly racist poster to be produced to rally up the sort of hate which caused the death of Jo Cox, and by my local MP Thangam Debbonaire, who is participating along with many of her colleagues in a disgraceful and undemocratic coup against Jeremy Corbyn.

I admire the way that Jeremy has responded to this. He has made it plain that he has no intention of stepping down. Actually if he did I would feel betrayed by him, because I paid to vote him in in the hopes that he would stand by his convictions and he ought to respect that. Not that I would be able to completely condemn him with the amount of hostility that he has faced. I feel strongly that this coup has been orchestrated by people who have been against him from the moment he was elected as leader - they were the very people who this time last year were assuring the public that Jeremy Corbyn had no chance of being elected as leader. These people have found a point to scapegoat him on and are doing their hardest to do just that. From personal experience I know how hard it is to have to steer a ship from beneath a tide of opposition, and I think Corbyn is doing it well. What I do worry about is what will happen if another leadership election is forced. I think that if something is said enough times people start to believe it - I know anecdotally of people who are dissatisfied with Jeremy Corbyn whilst unable to explain exactly why beyond saying 'he can't command the respect of his party'. My response to that is that if the individuals involved refuse to have their respect commanded, it is their doing, and not Jeremy Corbyn's, that the Labour Party is at war with itself. The MPs should not get to decide what qualities they wish their leader to have - this is down to the party members. I have no intention of joining the Labour Party because my independent political stance precludes me from joining any political party, but if there is another leadership election and it is opened to the general public outside of the party again (which I very much doubt) I will vote for Jeremy Corbyn again, and in any case will encourage others to do so. Fortunately, Corbyn has the backing of certain high-profile Labour individuals, including Diane Abbott (who I have always had a great deal of respect for) and Andy Burnham (who I haven't, and whose support has caused me to be pleasantly surprised).

Thank you for reading, I will continue to update with more current affairs.