If you have read my previous blog posts, you will know that I have been a big Corbynite over recent months. Since Jeremy's spectacular win back in 2015 to the challenge on him in 2016, I've continually backed him. But times are changing and as our poll ratings drop, my faith in the Labour Party is slowly diminishing.
Earlier this week, deputy leader Tom Watson sensationally claimed that Jeremy Corbyn doesn't consult him on any strategic decisions, and admitted that he is unaware of who is on his strategy team. Now firstly, if the claims were to be true, then it would be crippling for Corbyn's already dwindling support. But more importantly, I must question why a man who claims to only care about taking us back into power as our deputy leader would take this story to the press. Surely, he understands that this will contribute to our poor polling numbers and help turn people against the party? Watson is already almost as unpopular as Corbyn and it is heavily believed that he is still attempting to orchestrate a coup against Jeremy. Now I must stress that I do not know if this claim is true, but I must admit that I believe that its exactly the thing Watson would do now that I know he is so desperate to moan about his boss to the press. To make matters worse for Watson, it's also alleged that, along with General Secretary Iain McNicol, he was behind the vast amounts of Labour Members being suspended from the party for what seemed to be ridiculous reasons in many cases. I am sure that following this article I will end up receiving an email from the party telling me I am to be suspended.
But it must be noted that Watson isn't the whole reason for all of Labour's problems. Jeremy must take a lot of responsibility as well. His leadership hasn't been as good as I expected. Our media strategy is absolutely woeful, and when the Tories slip up, we never seem to take advantage of it, instead remaining silent. Our recent media campaigns such as #RailFail and the NHS campaign were great ideas, but unless you were a Labour Member, the chances are that you might not have known these existed. Because our media team are awful. Even UKIP and the resurrected Liberal Democrats have far better press teams that get their message out there. This might not necessarily be down to Corbyn, but he is responsible for hiring and firing the team as far as I know.
Now onto Corbyn himself. His recent performances in PMQs have been fantastic and he has impressed with his numerous attacks on the incompetent Theresa May. But other than that, he hasn't impressed much. Compared to my Corbynite status of the past year or so, my views have become more moderate. I wouldn't say I'm left wing anymore. I'm centre left. In a political ideology test I was matched with Tim Farron and the Lib Dems over Labour. But I still have faith that Labour can be an effective opposition, as long as Corbyn gets himself out there a bit more. He needs to do more interviews, more campaigns, more public appearances. He needs to stick it to the PM. I have to admit I disagree massively with his views on immigration. He seems like he doesn't want to accept that a lot of the British electorate want an upper cap on immigration. One of the contributing factors to Brexit was immigration being something that a lot of British people are unhappy with. This is why UKIP has made a resounding fight recently and a threat to Labour. Corbyn however seems too scared to admit that we need to deal with immigration, and this is a huge issue that I think will threaten to bring him down.
His policy on renationalising the railways is one that does fit the bill however. With the Tories leading to a 27% rise in rail fares, this is the perfect time for Labour to step up and campaign for the railways to be brought back into public ownership.
But at times it feels like Jeremy is out of touch with the voters, and he doesn't quite know what he's doing. I will never fully turn against him, because I am not one for joining in with a coup against the Leader of the party. He was elected as the leader by a majority twice in two years, and a lot of members support him. Forcing him out is not what we should be doing at all. We should work with him and see what he can do if he has the full support of the PLP, which is something that a lot of traitorous MP's seem to be firmly against doing. Some Labour MP's allegedly feel that electing the Conservatives is better than electing Corbyn. How can they be Labour politicians if they would be willing to elect the destructive Tories over their own party.
So will I be leaving the party? Not yet, no. If there really isn't to be an early General Election then I will wait until 2019, one year before the next GE, to decide whether to use my first ever vote on Labour. Because as it stands, Labour are on a downwards trend and we don't look like we will be recovering any time soon. I just hope that we regain the all important faith of the voters and win back a lot of the seats we lost in 2015.