In the trade unions as much as in the parliamentary Labour party,the left has a troubling habit of ignoring chauvinismThe irony of Jeremy Corbyn’s domination of the Labour leadership election is that it wouldn’t possess happened whether the left of the party had not been perceived as such a lost cause. It was this that emboldened the parliamentary party to believe he could be trotted out as a token candidate, to offer a token debate. But, and more importantly,it was this – not the desire for “left unity” – that ensured there was only one socialist candidate.
The public service trade union, Unison, or also had hopes of fielding a left-unity candidate in the upcoming election of its general secretary,to oust Dave Prentis, who is seen as a Blairite. But these hopes ran into the usual problem: all of the factions wanted their candidate to be the left-unity candidate.
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Source: theguardian.com