Why Owen Smith Is Losing

Owen Smith looks set to lose against Jeremy Corbyn. James Dancey look into why his campaign has fallen flat and why moderates like himself will not be voting at all.

Beating Jeremy Corbyn was always going to be an uphill battle; he has swathes of grassroots support, he’s very mild-tempered and likeable on a personal basis and appeals to a lot of people who have felt disconnected with politics for the previous few months. However, the PLP politicians wanted to field someone against him. 

After ruthlessly ousting fellow candidate Angela Eagle, Owen Smith was the man who stood against Corbyn, to try and take back the left and unite the party. In Owen’s defence, the only way the more moderate side of the party had a chance of winning was by fielding one candidate, any more would’ve diluted the vote and Corbyn would’ve trampled over everyone. And don’t even get me started on how Eagle rubs me the wrong way, she sounds like she’s saying everything in falsetto and has the charisma of a damp flannel.

So I was open minded to the idea of Owen Smith following Corbyn’s reign at first, he was no revolutionary leader but a united Labour would’ve been stronger than a divided Labour. It’s a shame no-one told Owen Smith that, because since the start of the campaign he’s been trying to sell this passive, mature gentleman as this sort of warmongering Disney villain, which no-one buys.  The polls are stacked against him and I’m not remotely surprised.

When Corbyn won last year, he won over half the vote, which would mean Owen Smith would have to convince people who had voted Corbyn to vote for him, he would have to obtain significant swing. If someone has voted Corbyn, it means they have a positive view of him likely, that view may have wavered, but I guarantee most of the people who have voted him are still sympathetic towards his cause. So with that in mind, you have to present yourself as a more positive option, rather than a less negative option.

Unfortunately, Owen Smith has been given the jumped-up obnoxious PR treatment; a Corbynite comrade of mine invited me to watch the Smith against Corbyn debate in Glasgow stream with him. We both regularly cringed at how staged Smith’s responses seemed, and even how aggressive and unpleasant Smith came across, one particular highlight was when he started ranting about how Corbyn must’ve secretly voted leave. He asked Corbyn “Did you vote remain?”, Corbyn replying “Yes”(shutting Smith down completely). Smith then went on to savage Corbyn for his supposed lacklustre support, completely contradicting his previous compliments only a couple months prior.

People wanted reasons to vote for Owen Smith, not reasons to vote against Jeremy Corbyn, the jeers from the crowd against Smith’s accusations told me what I needed to know about how they felt about Smith’s sudden hostility. Smith’s aggression and nastiness isn’t going to heal the wounds, it’s just going to rub salt into them; Smith is doing exactly what he said he didn’t want to do: divide.

This sort of change in tone demonstrates a disingenuous nature of many politicians, and the exact reason that so many people voted Corbyn in the first place. Jeremy Corbyn went against a lot of his principles to support the Remain vote and did a lot more campaigning than a majority of Westminster politicians (including the current Prime Minister Theresa May). The sort of whinging from Labour politicians who blame Jeremy Corbyn for the vote not going their way is comparable to a delinquent child who can’t have ice cream in their favourite flavous. Corbyn was not the deciding factor of the EU vote, the establishment were.

Speaking of Brexit vote, we can talk about some Owen Smith’s policies, which are backward-looking to say the least. Call me a man with vested interests but I don’t want a second EU referendum, neither do most people in the northern areas, the Labour heartlands, Sheffield, Bradford, Wigan, Birmingham, Hartlepool, Barnsley, Doncaster, Durham, Sunderland, Rochdale, Rotherham and many more all voted leave, how can Labour expect to retain these seats with such a metropolitan policy which exemplifies everything wrong with politics currently. Also, how can he expect to win marginal seats in Bolton, Bury, Nuneaton, Derby, Telford (more strong leave constituencies) and so many more with a policy of defiant denial of democracy at the forefront of his campaign? Recent polls have suggest that ‘Regrexit’ is regressing, with a majority of people being happy with Brexit, he’ll end up forcing people to vote Conservative or even UKIP in a defence of their vote.

And then there are the gaffs, how on earth anyone can think it sensible to sit down for peace talks with ISIS is beyond me. He would be torn to shreds before the next election for that one quote alone, you could see it in The Sun now, the fact that he said something as stupid as that does not just demonstrate he has no understanding of ISIS, but no understanding of the motivation people voted for Jeremy Corbyn in the first place. Although Corbyn’s opposition to the Iraq war has been helpful through the Chilcott report, foreign policy was not the primary reason he received a lot of people’s endorsement, and the fact that Corbyn’s own team distanced themselves from Smith’s policy demonstrates that Smith is untrustworthy and unfit for the Labour leader position, and certainly no better option than Corbyn.

I’m no Corbyn supporter, in fact I’m more to the right of the Labour party, however, it’s not just a case of politics, it’s also a case of competence, and as much as I would like to support a progressive alternative, Owen Smith is not that. If you don’t want a protest party, then don’t make your manifesto based on protesting one of the most prominent votes ever.  If you don’t want an unelectable party, then don’t set out peace talks with ISIS.

I’d vote for the Monster Raving Looney Party before I’d vote for Owen Smith.