Owen Smith made the worst joke about Labour's #SoftCoup

Owen Smith has made a terrible joke in response to conspiracy theories that there is a 'Soft Coup' underway against Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn.

Smith, who stood against Corbyn for the party leadership in the summer of 2016 might be the first to support such a move against Corbyn.

But what is a soft coup?

The term 'soft coup', presumably like 'hard Brexit' is a nonsense phrase, this time coined by Labour's shadow chancellor John McDonnell.

On Monday a statement from McDonnell was posted online to the Labour party forum Labour Briefing.

In the text the Corbyn supporter suggested a 'soft' coup was underway against the leader.

He asserted that ‘the coup perpetrators’ had a ‘covert strategy’ to destabilise Corbyn instead of challenging him another leadership election (which Corbyn would presumably win).

Picture: DANIEL LEAL-OLIVAS/AFP/Getty Images

McDonnell claimed the article had been written before Labour lost the Copeland by-election, making it the first opposition party to lose a seat to the government since 1982.

A spokesperson for McDonnell claimed it had been written specifically as a response to Tony Blair’s speech on Brexit.

John wants us all to focus on party unity following last week’s by-election results. And he is looking to reach out in the coming days to those across all sections of the party and none.

Why are these people posting without pause for thought?

The Times, the tool of what Corbynistas call 'the Murdoch empire' has unearthed a video shared by a supporter of Jeremy Corbym.

Tweeted from the account @Rachael_Swindon on the day that McDonnell's remarks were published, it talks of the soft coup and explains how to spot the conspirators.

Watch it below:

To summarise, apparently these are the questions you need to ask yourself in order to find the soft coup collaborators online:

• Was the Twitter account created recently?
• Does the Twitter account not have many followers?

And here's the big clue:

• Does the account's feed have posts which undermine the leader?

Rachael has since tweeted:

Which could of course suggest that the video was possibly a prank or a continuation of the joke.

#SoftCoup

Since McDonnell’s accusation, since attacked by himself, Soft Coup has trended on Twitter.

Some are serious Corbynistas hoping to draw attention to the mendacious tactics of making legitimate, evidence based points.

Most people are mocking it.

Pretty standard trolling of a Social Justice Warrior with a Stalinist approach to ideological purity and paranoai.

Chortle, chortle, chortle says the main stream media.

Enter Owen Smith

Once again ruining it for any real coup plotters.

Hang on.

Picture: (Peter Nicholls/PA Archive/PA Images)

The dead hand of the Mister Whippee faction reaching from the past.

No Corbyn is safe.

Flee!

HT BBC, the Times

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