The critics of Jeremy Corbyn are relentless. If anything goes well for the Labour party, they will say this happened in spite of Corbyn, and if things go badly, then it must be because of Corbyn. Their narrative is prepared before the event, and whatever happens, Corbyn is condemned.
Gary Younge, in an article in the Guardian, puts it well:
"When it comes to assessing Labour's electoral fortunes, Corbyn is treated with all the due process of a 17th-century woman accused of witchcraft and dunked in a river. If she drowns she's innocent; if she floats she's guilty and condemned as a witch. Either way the verdict is never in her favour."
Jeremy Corbyn won the leadership contest by a landslide. His detractors have not accepted his leadership, and I don't think they ever will. In their arrogance, they think they know best what the British people want.
It is as if those who voted for him came from the planet Mars. His critics forget that these are ordinary people who have experienced the hardship of austerity, the insecurity of zero hours contracts, homelessness, exorbitant rents and more under this government. All of his supporters, apparently, know nothing about life, but his critics, sitting in their Westminster bubble, think they know it all.
His critics are incapable of accepting the democratic process. In their behaviour, they insult democracy and all those who have so overwhelmingly voted for him. It really is galling that they demand that the party should do better in opinion polls and elections, when they constantly bark from the side, and purposefully undermine the party's leadership at every opportunity.
The surprise is that the party did as well as it did in the May elections, considering the background noise from within. Yes, it needs to do much more to have any chance of winning the next election. That will only happen if his critics cease undermining Corbyn at every opportunity, and instead unite to expose the incompetence of this government.
Jeremy Corbyn is an asset to the Labour Party, and the attributes that saw him win the leadership are also the ones that will help the Party to win the next election. It is incumbent on all of those within the Party to amplify his message.
Jeremy Corbyn's leadership of the Labour Party is overwhelmingly endorsed by its members. It is high time his critics accepted the democratic process; they should, in the words of the shadow Chancellor, John McDonnell, "put up or shut up".