We are very upset about the size of the Labour defeat on Thursday. I don’t think we saw that coming. I did not realise the depth of dislike amongst so many Labour supporters towards Jeremy’s leadership. I think that we all believed that the vote would be much closer than it was. I live in the socialist republic of Merseyside and so we did not get the same debate that must have been going on in other traditional Labour areas. I have also over the last few months been spending so much time online in Corbyn and Labour groups where many people are like-minded.

We need to talk through about the petition and be sure of what is best for the people who have signed it. Have you lost interest in the petition with the defeat of Corbyn’s Labour led party, or is there still something democratically important here that we should continue fighting for?

In short do we close it or do we continue with the campaign?

After reading this I would like you to complete the online survey which will take only seconds to complete. You will choose either to close the petition or to continue with it.

For me the petition had two deeply motivating factors which made so many people sign the petition:

1)    Many people just love Jeremy Corbyn and are emotionally attached to him. It hurt us deeply when we kept seeing the BBC so openly criticising and making fun of him in a systematic way. A lot of women especially have signed up to the petition because they loved the man in an emotional sense and were deeply committed to his rhetoric and to his ideas. Jeremy connected with an older more traditional Labour party that was committed to the restoration of national utilities, transport and energy companies. Also of course they fought for the regions and the heart and soul of the NHS. Jeremy’s policies covered a wide range of issues for the modern era. He was the champion of those who are victims of austerity. He also stood up for global green issues. A new generation of Labour supporters bought into this and brought a support for Labour and a new commitment that Blair’s government didn’t have. Blair was really a soft Conservative and was responsible for crippling debts brought by the private capital of PFI loans for public building. I am not sure where the Labour Party goes from here? Many do not want to go back to what went before. The genie is free from the bottle and does not want to go back inside.

2)    The other motivating factor that people signed up for was a loathing of the bias in the BBC and the undemocratic ways of the corporation. It is not impartial and should not be peddling pro-Tory propaganda and lies. We started the petition to monitor the BBC going into a new election that we knew was coming. I for one expected the BBC to tone down the rhetoric and to play the ‘impartial card’ so that it did not break the 'purdah' rules in an obvious way. Instead the BBC did some disgraceful things that were unacceptable and shocking. The tampering with the QT film footage, the Andrew Neil interview that was not, the tweet over the Labour ‘activist’ punch that was not, the eve of election declaration by a journalist that Johnson ‘so deserves’ victory and Kuenssberg gently dropping in that she had pre-election knowledge of the postal votes, and declared to a nation that things were ‘looking grim for Labour’ all over the country. Tony Hall, Director-General of the BBC, has said those who complain about BBC bias are ‘conspiracy theorists. How does it make you feel to be called in effect an ‘enemy of the state’? 

For me the first part of the petition is unfortunately dead but not the second part, that is still very much alive and the BBC should be held to account for all of these actions in a general election. As well as the general smearing of Labour with issues like anti-Semitism. The question is that 21,000 people have signed this petition and how do you feel about this? We are seeking your response. I have had quite a few people sign the petition since the election in the wake of the Labour defeat, and also quite a few have asked to join the forum too.

The scale of victory gives the Conservatives and the BBC a sense of power to do what they want and this petition might just get swept away. Over 10 million people (10,269,076) voted Labour on Thursday and they still are mostly paying for a biased BBC, through their licence fee, which broadcasts against their beliefs and aspirations. We owe it to them I think to go on.

Have a good think about this.

Survey over continuing the petition

John