Letters: Out of the woodwork to vote for Corbyn

The following letters appear in the July 28 edition of The Independent

So here we come out of the woodwork – the people who’ve always believed in social equality and justice, and who have gone on working for it, often as volunteers, bringing up our children to value community and openness.

Some of us had vainly sought a voice with the Lib Dems, others with the Greens, but many had hung in there hoping that sooner or later our party would hear us again and begin to reflect our values, the values we’d once shared.

But it seems we’re nothing but “extremist infiltrators”, those of us who had retained real hopes for a fairer society; and here we come, insulted by our own party with the invective that was once hurled at them by the Tory press. Haven’t they read Animal Farm?

Jill Sharp
Swindon

I am 77 and my wife is 81. We have been Labour Party supporters all our lives. My earliest memory is helping my father canvass for the post-war Attlee government.

We have recently registered to vote in the election for the next Labour leader. This is because we are so appalled at the antics of those who have infiltrated the party in recent years and distorted the aims and values that we have been so proud to advocate. We are, of course, referring to Tony Blair and the Blairites.

David Bowles
Eastbourne

Fifteen years ago I worked for a Lib Dem MP in Edinburgh. At that time, because of a controversy in the constituency where I worked, I discovered the Labour Party had rules against entryism, the practice of new people joining to vote for a particular candidate in a selection contest.

You had to be a member of the Labour Party back then for at least a year before you could vote to select your Labour candidate for Parliament. But in this current Labour leadership contest, am I right in thinking you can join an affiliated organisation such as the Fabians and pay a levy to then vote as an affiliated member in the forthcoming contest, as long as you do it by 12 August?

Would it not be better for all concerned if this bandwagon was halted and Harriet Harman announced that only those who have been members for a year or more can take part?

Nigel F Boddy
Darlington

Ever since I ticked a box on an online form from my union, to make me eligible to vote in the Labour Party leadership contest and London Mayor candidate selection, I have been deluged with emails from all candidates and their supporters. That is, except for Jeremy Corbyn, who has sent but one email. Maybe that’s the real reason why he’s so popular.

David Keeley
Hornchurch, Essex

The suggestion that countless activists, hell-bent on the destruction of the Labour Party, suddenly are joining it in order to vote for Jeremy Corbyn as its new leader is ludicrous. I suspect the real reason some of Mr Corbyn’s opponents are calling for the campaign to be cancelled is their terror that he might well win.

Very early on, Tony Blair established the New Labour principle that the electorate could choose whatever it pleased providing the choice corresponded with what he wanted: one can appreciate how difficult it would be for former ministers in a Blair government to free themselves of such a mindset.

Robert Bottamley
Hedon, East Yorkshire

For those of us who remember and supported the Gang of Four and who welcomed the advent of Tony Blair as leader of the Labour Party, Liz Kendall would seem to be in lineal descent from these brave and principled people.

Liz of course has been quite right to resist calls for her to step down, allegedly to help counter Jeremy Corbyn’s campaign (interestingly the only other candidate with something distinctive to offer). Liz has already committed herself to the constitutional change this country so badly needs. However as a humble but enthusiastic supporter can I suggest a few other items she might usefully add to her agenda?

As well as campaigning for constitutional change for the UK she could usefully strive to obtain greater transparency and plain common sense in the Labour Party’s constitution. With tales of trade unions rushing round signing up voters in this election the general public may imagine that our party is still in the grip of the “bruvvers”.

She could also embrace a whole-hearted campaign for Britain to remain in a reformed EU.

There is, sadly in many ways, no future for the warm, muddled middle in the Labour Party. The electorate generally will think more of Labour if we can finally make a clear choice between the alternatives offered by Liz Kendall and Jeremy Corbyn.

The Rev Andrew McLuskey
Staines, Middlesex

That Jeremy Corbyn is genuine does not mean one should vote for him. It cannot be in Labour’s interest to be consigned to another five years in the wilderness.

There simply aren’t enough gullible people out there who believe in the utopian rhetoric of the far-left. Like Syriza they would promise the earth and deliver the moon.

Stan Labovitch
Windsor

Migrants and strikers bring chaos to Calais

News that illegal migrants are arriving in the UK on empty freight trains through the Channel Tunnel in no surprise. The French authorities already refuse to arrest and deport the many thousands of illegal immigrants in the camp at Calais. They also happily let them break every law to get into the Channel tunnel or into our lorries heading back home.

They also allow strikers to bring ferry and tunnel travel to a standstill. This is causing mayhem for British holiday-makers, British lorries stuck in Kent, and Kent residents affected by the stack-up of lorries.

Only by boycotting French products can we send a clear message to the French that this behaviour is unacceptable.

Mark Richards
Brighton

I suggest that next time the British ride out to rescue the French that they seize and keep Calais, lost to us at the beginning of 1558 in the reign of Mary Tudor. Had the French tried to take Calais later that year they’d probably have come unstuck, since, by then, Elizabeth I was on the throne.

But we gave Calais up too easily, and it has been the British who have been coming unstuck ever since, something that is abundantly apparent every time we want to go on holiday, when we want to export in vehicles like those that have been sitting idle on the M20 for the past week, when the French want to nobble the ferries or fishermen or the Channel tunnel, or when we want to stop migrant invasions by second- and third-world opportunists who can get from anywhere in the EU to Calais simply because nobody will ask to see their passports once they’ve broken into the Schengen Area.

To sum up, the French are too irresponsible to own that bit of France, so we ought to re-acquire it. Then, in effect, we’d just move the UK’s border a few miles into France.

There are other options for anyone who is squeamish about military excursions. If we can’t wait for another world war, then perhaps we could offer to swap some or all of the Channel Islands for Calais. Or we could have the same sort of agreement with France over Calais as we had with China over Hong Kong, and rent it for 99 years.

Paul Dunwell
Bedford

The situation at Calais is getting beyond a joke. If the French fail to do anything then I suggest letting the migrants on to certain lorries. The containers can then be offloaded and shipped to an African quayside. After a few trips the message may get through.

Mike Skipper
Norwich

Only half way up Tower Bridge

Shah Faisal Shinwari was certainly unwise to leap into the Thames from Tower Bridge for a stunt but perhaps not quite as unwise as suggested by your news item (“Tower Bridge jumper admits stunt was ‘stupid’ ”, 25 July).

It is true, as you state, that the bridge is 65 metres high, but that figure refers to the tops of the two towers, whereas Mr Shinwari leapt from the main deck, an altogether more survivable, if still daunting, drop to the river.

Jonathan Wallace
Newcastle upon Tyne

Obama’s call to end corruption

President Obama is to be congratulated on calling for equal rights for all and an end to corruption during his visit to Kenya. Could he call in on Saudi Arabia on his way back and speak equally openly and directly?

Tom Saul
Wantage, Oxfordshire

The mysterious taste of beans

I suggest that Vivienne Randall (letter, 25 July) needs a taste transplant. If she needs to add sugar (why sugar?) and salt to beans she is obviously unused to tasting genuine beans.

David N Daniels
Mow Cop, Stoke-on-Trent