The Chairman Mao resembling, Monarchy hating, threat to Britain, Labour Party thread

[Chindie]

56 minutes ago, blandy said:

In that case, I apologise. I had it in mind that you had thought 

that the extent of AS was tiny and just being massively exaggerated for partisan reasons to “get”Corbyn and there was no kind of actual real AS crisis.

I think the extent of anti-semitism is massively exaggerated and it was used as a cynical and despicable tool. I think there was anti-Semitism in the party, and that is totally unacceptable. I think much of 'the crisis' was manufactured - a nasty self sustaining storm of right wing Labour factionalists fluffing the story, a self created problem in party discipline systems that exacerbated the real issues, attempts by the party leadership to fix the self created issue being briefed to press as sinister while the efforts where held off, and a combative and aggressive element of the Jewish community only too happy to attack a party leadership they viewed as the enemy. A perfect storm of interests combining to fan a spark into an inferno in reputation.

[magnkarl]

10 hours ago, Chindie said:

I think the extent of anti-semitism is massively exaggerated and it was used as a cynical and despicable tool. I think there was anti-Semitism in the party, and that is totally unacceptable. I think much of 'the crisis' was manufactured - a nasty self sustaining storm of right wing Labour factionalists fluffing the story, a self created problem in party discipline systems that exacerbated the real issues, attempts by the party leadership to fix the self created issue being briefed to press as sinister while the efforts where held off, and a combative and aggressive element of the Jewish community only too happy to attack a party leadership they viewed as the enemy. A perfect storm of interests combining to fan a spark into an inferno in reputation.

As a Jew myself Chindie, I can tell you how it felt and looked from the outside. To me it felt like more and more of Corbyn's close mates said absurdly racist things, hang out with extremely hyperbolic groups and took jobs from state actors which inherently work to kill Jews, protesters and women (Galloway, Corbyn, Williamson). It kept on happening with so many people right around Corbyn that there was in my humble opinion a blind spot that created oxygen for these people to be bolder than they had ever been. The list is long. Naz Shah re-posted pictures wanting to 'relocate' all Jews to America and gleefully wrote 'problem solved' on facebook, Corbyn went to a HAMAS-sponsored wreath laying for Munich-terrorists, protested when someone wanted to take down a mural clearly having extreme AS tropes on it, called Jews non-British for not having his sense of humour, was part of several extremely AS groups on facebook, Momentum kept on uttering things like 'Holocaust rememberance day focuses too much on Jews!', Jackie Walker claimed that the slave trade was run by Jews, Corbyn went to Paul Eisen (biggest holocaust denier out there) events several times over with several other backbench MP's. People stood outside Luciana Berger's house and banged pots and shouted 'ziiiiio' for weeks on end, and if anyone dared speak up against the racism at Labour-events you'd hear the same noises coming from the crowd.

As I said, how many times does a labour MP or leader need to do something AS to be prescribed as anti-Semitic?

Sure, Margaret Hodge and her complaints-brigade changed the discourse (she's not very popular within the community either) - but there were imo clearly many more problems than 'everywhere else in society' because this idiocy infected the leadership of one of our two main parties.

Edited June 7, 2023 by magnkarl

[Chindie]

26 minutes ago, magnkarl said:

As a Jew myself Chindie, I can tell you how it felt and looked from the outside. To me it felt like more and more of Corbyn's close mates said absurdly racist things, hang out with extremely hyperbolic groups and took jobs from state actors which inherently work to kill Jews, protesters and women (Galloway, Corbyn, Williamson). It kept on happening with so many people right around Corbyn that there was in my humble opinion a blind spot that created oxygen for these people to be bolder than they had ever been. The list is long. Naz Shah re-posted pictures wanting to 'relocate' all Jews to America and gleefully wrote 'problem solved' on facebook, Corbyn went to a HAMAS-sponsored wreath laying for Munich-terrorists, protested when someone wanted to take down a mural clearly having extreme AS tropes on it, called Jews non-British for not having his sense of humour, was part of several extremely AS groups on facebook, Momentum kept on uttering things like 'Holocaust rememberance day focuses too much on Jews!', Jackie Walker claimed that the slave trade was run by Jews, Corbyn went to Paul Eisen (biggest holocaust denier out there) events several times over with several other backbench MP's. People stood outside Luciana Berger's house and banged pots and shouted 'ziiiiio' for weeks on end, and if anyone dared speak up against the racism at Labour-events you'd hear the same noises coming from the crowd.

As I said, how many times does a labour MP or leader need to do something AS to be prescribed as anti-Semitic?

Sure, Margaret Hodge and her complaints-brigade changed the discourse (she's not very popular within the community either) - but there were imo clearly many more problems than 'everywhere else in society' because this idiocy infected the leadership of one of our two main parties.

I'm not too moved by what things 'feel' like.

Naz Shah posted an image that was anti-Israel and sardonically funny. Probably dumb if you're a politician to post it as it's risque, but I don't think it's inherently anti-Semitic - even if she apologised that it was.

We've done the memorial to death. I don't accept it was evidence of anti-semitism.

The mural had some cartoon esque anti-Semitic tropes on it (though hardly the worst of that ilk you'll ever see) but it's pretty obvious his support for it has nothing to do with it being anti-Jewish and a lot to do with it featuring class war themes.

The sense of humour thing is always taken out of context. Corbyn was referring to a ironic joke made by a Palestinian representative who had spoken on Westminster where pro-Israeli figures had berated them in response. Corbyn's comment was a sarcastic response to those figures by suggesting they didn't get the joke. Unfortunately it's one of those things that has an early mangled meaning when taken without context.

I can't remember the details of the FB groups, and Eisen from the little I know was again massively bigged up beyond what it actually was, but frankly if he's an anti-Semite he's really **** bad at hating the Jews, given his record in supporting, aiding and amplifying Jewish causes. Which is a big part of my reasoning for thinking all of this is quite, quite cynical - for someone that is apparently the next existential threat to the Jewish community (and he was portrayed as that - I recall a Sam Harris podcast where a guest claimed a Corbyn government would have Jewish Brits run for the border - absolutely absurd) he's quite bad at doing anti-Jewish things. And ask the bad things he's supposedly done are all quite minor, all reaching, all guilt by association, all little 'context clues' that reveal the great evil he's hiding. It's nonsense.

A number of factions that really didn't like Corbyn, because he wasn't sufficiently pro-Israel, set about looking for everything that could chuck at him and his faction and had a media and other factions only so happy to verify and improve the ability for the shit to stick.

And I can appreciate that, for some Jewish people, Israel is more than just a country, and for them the context of not being a rabble rousing pot hammering supporter of Tel Aviv is an attack on the very concept of Jewishness. Unfortunately for them, not everyone feels like that, and as a result not being pro-Israel is not an attack on the Jewish community itself.

[VILLAMARV]

23 hours ago, blandy said:

It isn’t. Yes, I agree with you that some Israeli politicians try and conflate criticism with antisemitism, but within Labour it’s absolutely not a “political problem” to criticise the actions of Israel or its government. Nor is it a political problem generally (outside labour).

I respectfully disagree. But I'll meet you halfway with ok, we don't all know it then.

[Jareth]

As someone without a view on Israel or any Jewish reference point at all, I watched all of the above unfold and saw two things happening. A political take down of the left, where a minority and truly a very small minority of Labour members who happened  to be most loud and visibly antisemitic were seized upon as representative of the whole left - pretty much by every actor in UK society apart from the left. And then the genuine anxiety and upset inflicted on Jewish people because they felt under attack and wholly offended by this antisemitism.

Those antisemites on the left were guilty, those on the right of Labour who inflamed it in order to settle political scores were equally as guilty - yet those on the right of Labour are still to this day blithely ignored as having been a part of the problem. My honest assumption on that is because, and this is an assumption, the goals of the right of Labour and the goals of the majority of the Jewish community are alligned - these are all right wing or right leaning people. I would like to know, if anyone has the data - what is the split between left and right leaning in the Jewish community in Britain? If my assumption is wrong then I apologise and am open to changing that view entirely.

[magnkarl]

29 minutes ago, Chindie said:

I'm not too moved by what things 'feel' like.

Naz Shah posted an image that was anti-Israel and sardonically funny. Probably dumb if you're a politician to post it as it's risque, but I don't think it's inherently anti-Semitic - even if she apologised that it was.

We've done the memorial to death. I don't accept it was evidence of anti-semitism.

The mural had some cartoon esque anti-Semitic tropes on it (though hardly the worst of that ilk you'll ever see) but it's pretty obvious his support for it has nothing to do with it being anti-Jewish and a lot to do with it featuring class war themes.

The sense of humour thing is always taken out of context. Corbyn was referring to a ironic joke made by a Palestinian representative who had spoken on Westminster where pro-Israeli figures had berated them in response. Corbyn's comment was a sarcastic response to those figures by suggesting they didn't get the joke. Unfortunately it's one of those things that has an early mangled meaning when taken without context.

I can't remember the details of the FB groups, and Eisen from the little I know was again massively bigged up beyond what it actually was, but frankly if he's an anti-Semite he's really **** bad at hating the Jews, given his record in supporting, aiding and amplifying Jewish causes. Which is a big part of my reasoning for thinking all of this is quite, quite cynical - for someone that is apparently the next existential threat to the Jewish community (and he was portrayed as that - I recall a Sam Harris podcast where a guest claimed a Corbyn government would have Jewish Brits run for the border - absolutely absurd) he's quite bad at doing anti-Jewish things. And ask the bad things he's supposedly done are all quite minor, all reaching, all guilt by association, all little 'context clues' that reveal the great evil he's hiding. It's nonsense.

A number of factions that really didn't like Corbyn, because he wasn't sufficiently pro-Israel, set about looking for everything that could chuck at him and his faction and had a media and other factions only so happy to verify and improve the ability for the shit to stick.

And I can appreciate that, for some Jewish people, Israel is more than just a country, and for them the context of not being a rabble rousing pot hammering supporter of Tel Aviv is an attack on the very concept of Jewishness. Unfortunately for them, not everyone feels like that, and as a result not being pro-Israel is not an attack on the Jewish community itself.

No, you're not moved by what things feel like because it's not aimed at your minority. I get that. There are points in here where you flat down refuse to even consider what you are being told. You don't hold advocacy for British Jews, but you seem to have a very innate ability to always give whoever it is on the left of Labour the benefit of the doubt, even if they work for Iran, Russia or gather with groups who essentially claim the Holocaust didn't happen. Would you be so kind if Keir Starmer worked for Press TV or RT, went to a KKK meeting or attended a wreath laying for IRA bombers? I don't think you need explaining why as a minority group Jews react when people in power do the things that JC has a record of doing - it's essentially been 2000 years of prosecution, and it often starts with the leader of a country having a bit of a gander at race theory, reading a bit of anti-semitic books, supporting tropey material and so forth.

You don't think Eisen is a holocaust denier? He's been tried in a court not ruled by factions of Labour of another country who's got proof and sentenced him for it. You can go on his right-wing shit show of a blog Zundelsite and read all about his support for the Jewish community. He's a proud self-professed holocaust denier who can't seem to separate his hate for Israel (I'm not fan either by the way) with his hate for Jews. That exact red line is something a lot of the Corbynites seem to struggle with.

Or here, from his blog

Quote

'I question that there ever existed homicidal gas-chambers… Deny the Holocaust! For my money, a child of six can see that something's not right about the Holocaust narrative... For me, "Holocaust Denier" is a label I accept.'

The above quote was found between re-posts of David Duke videos and other racist crap, by the way, so I don't know where you get the idea that Eisen is some sort of good man for the Jews or any other minority.

Edited June 7, 2023 by magnkarl

[Chindie]

2 minutes ago, Jareth said:

As someone without a view on Israel or any Jewish reference point at all, I watched all of the above unfold and saw two things happening. A political take down of the left, where a minority and truly a very small minority of Labour members who happened  to be most loud and visibly antisemitic were seized upon as representative of the whole left - pretty much by every actor in UK society apart from the left. And then the genuine anxiety and upset inflicted on Jewish people because they felt under attack and wholly offended by this antisemitism.

Those antisemites on the left were guilty, those on the right of Labour who inflamed it in order to settle political scores were equally as guilty - yet those on the right of Labour are still to this day blithely ignored as having been a part of the problem. My honest assumption on that is because, and this is an assumption, the goals of the right of Labour and the goals of the majority of the Jewish community are alligned - these are all right wing or right leaning people. I would like to know, if anyone has the data - what is the split between left and right leaning in the Jewish community in Britain? If my assumption is wrong then I apologise and am open to changing that view entirely.

Jewish people heavily lean towards the Tories in UK politics. The left leaning wing of the Jewish community is significant, but it's a pointed minority. It's been a long time since I looked up the split, and don't have the time to check currently, but I seem to recall it was something like 16% of the Jewish community in the UK declare themselves as Labour supporters. Theres various reasons for this (location, affluence, demographic size, policy divergence, etc), but generally Labour hasn't been able to rely on the 'Jewish vote'.

[Chindie]

5 minutes ago, magnkarl said:

No, you're not moved by what things feel like because it's not aimed at your minority. I get that. There are points in here where you flat down refuse to even consider what you are being told. You don't hold advocacy for British Jews, but you seem to have a very innate ability to always give whoever it is on the left of Labour the benefit of the doubt, even if they work for Iran, Russia or gather with groups who essentially claim the Holocaust didn't happen. Would you be so kind if Keir Starmer worked for Press TV or RT, went to a KKK meeting or attended a wreath laying for IRA bombers? I don't think you need explaining why as a minority group Jews react when people in power do the things that JC has a record of doing - it's essentially been 2000 years of prosecution, and it often starts with the leader of a country having a bit of a gander at race theory, reading a bit of anti-semitic books, supporting tropey material and so forth.

You don't think Eisen is a holocaust denier? He's been tried in a court not ruled by factions of Labour of another country who's got proof and sentenced him for it. You can go on his right-wing shit show of a blog Zundelsite and read all about his support for the Jewish community. He's a proud self-professed holocaust denier who can't seem to separate his hate for Israel (I'm not fan either by the way) with his hate for Jews. That exact red line is something a lot of the Corbynites seem to struggle with.

It's less that I'm not bothered because I'm not affected, and more that I care about the facts of things rather than the feelings or impressions of things. Theres a feeling that the streets are more dangerous than ever, the reality is things are quite safe these days even when theres spikes against the trend. I can acknowledge and have empathy for those views, but I'm not going to weigh the feeling of something heavier than the facts of it.

I don't 'flat down refuse to consider what I'm being told'. I'd perhaps point that towards you - there are things that have been gone over and over and over and over here that have been explained and elaborated and considered over and over, and yet they come back again and again in the same context - you just refuse to accept the points, you don't want to accept them, like you accuse me of here, because they don't align with things as you'd like. I can absolutely see why, in all of those things you mention over and over, some might see anti-semitism in them, I just put forward the reasons why that doesn't appear to be the whole story. I think a lot of that boils down to anti-semitism having become uwide in definition, and a lot of it also comes down to people being stupid when it comes to making nuanced comments about Israel, and I think some of it comes a pointed desire by some to conflate Israel and Jewishness.

In respect of Eisen - I've never heard of the man, from a brief glance while taking a shit this morning it appears he's a bellend, but his association with Corbyn and Labour's damning a result appears to be a massive reach. I don't need massive screeds of confirmation of his being a bellend, I'd be happy to be corrected about just how chummy and glowing a relationship Corbyn has with him before decrying how clearly Corbyn was a Jew hater by assocition. Give me the evidence, the uncorruptible irrefutable evidence, and I'll chuck Corbyn under the bus as quick as anyone, I don't support the man, he didn't get my vote, I thought he'd be a rubbish PM - but I'm not going to pretend he's evil when the evidence I can see shows he's a nice if naive old man with generally supportable views on most political stand points.

[Chindie]

31 minutes ago, magnkarl said:

No, you're not moved by what things feel like because it's not aimed at your minority. I get that. There are points in here where you flat down refuse to even consider what you are being told. You don't hold advocacy for British Jews, but you seem to have a very innate ability to always give whoever it is on the left of Labour the benefit of the doubt, even if they work for Iran, Russia or gather with groups who essentially claim the Holocaust didn't happen. Would you be so kind if Keir Starmer worked for Press TV or RT, went to a KKK meeting or attended a wreath laying for IRA bombers? I don't think you need explaining why as a minority group Jews react when people in power do the things that JC has a record of doing - it's essentially been 2000 years of prosecution, and it often starts with the leader of a country having a bit of a gander at race theory, reading a bit of anti-semitic books, supporting tropey material and so forth.

You don't think Eisen is a holocaust denier? He's been tried in a court not ruled by factions of Labour of another country who's got proof and sentenced him for it. You can go on his right-wing shit show of a blog Zundelsite and read all about his support for the Jewish community. He's a proud self-professed holocaust denier who can't seem to separate his hate for Israel (I'm not fan either by the way) with his hate for Jews. That exact red line is something a lot of the Corbynites seem to struggle with.

Or here, from his blog

The above quote was found between re-posts of David Duke videos and other racist crap, by the way, so I don't know where you get the idea that Eisen is some sort of good man for the Jews or any other minority.

You can withdraw any claim that I don't think Eisen is a holocaust denier, and nowhere do I say he's a good man for anyone. Respectfully, I'd ask you do that now, unequivocally.

[magnkarl]

36 minutes ago, Chindie said:

You can withdraw any claim that I don't think Eisen is a holocaust denier, and nowhere do I say he's a good man for anyone. Respectfully, I'd ask you do that now, unequivocally.

1 hour ago, Chindie said:

I can't remember the details of the FB groups, and Eisen from the little I know was again massively bigged up beyond what it actually was, but frankly if he's an anti-Semite he's really **** bad at hating the Jews, given his record in supporting, aiding and amplifying Jewish causes. Which is a big part of my reasoning for thinking all of this is quite, quite cynical - for someone that is apparently the next existential threat to the Jewish community (and he was portrayed as that - I recall a Sam Harris podcast where a guest claimed a Corbyn government would have Jewish Brits run for the border - absolutely absurd) he's quite bad at doing anti-Jewish things. And ask the bad things he's supposedly done are all quite minor, all reaching, all guilt by association, all little 'context clues' that reveal the great evil he's hiding. It's nonsense.

Maybe you should do that yourself?

If you want proof that Corbyn attended Eisen's gatherings well after writing the book "My life as a Holocaust denier (2008)", you can read more about how Jeremy attended meetings and donated to his 'charity' well after his organisation was renounced by even Friends of Palestine on Eisen's blog. Complete with pictures and all.

Isn't there a bit too many coincidences for you? You keep calling the reaction to JCs idiocy cynical. What would you describe JCs actions as?

Edited June 7, 2023 by magnkarl

[Chindie]

1 minute ago, magnkarl said:

Maybe you should do that yourself?

It's fairly clear I'm talking about Corbyn.

Withdraw the comment.

[magnkarl]

17 minutes ago, Chindie said:

It's fairly clear I'm talking about Corbyn.

Withdraw the comment.

Wasn't clear to me, if that was your intended meaning I'll withdraw it, but it doesn't remove the reek of you jumping through lots of hoops to identify why JC and his mates aren't anti-Semites even if they keep repeating the same idiocy over and over.

You can agree or disagree with the definition of AS, but what Ken Livingstone, JC and people like Williamson have done is AS by the definition adopted by Labour, heck you even downplay Naz Shah's AS even if she admitted that it was in front of a full parliament. Therein lies the problem for the left. The left wants to own and define what should offend Jews, be it calls for being moved to America, not having been killed in the millions in WW2, owning the world with ominous shadowy organisations, being painted with big noses and coins on murals that 'didn't really mean AS, but was something else entirely' or whatever. The list of explanations is long.

I wonder if you'd jump through so many hoops to defend someone who was openly racist towards black people or travelers?

Here's a little excerpt from Eisen's blog post on Corbyn attending his gatherings after having published his infamous holocaust denial book and having been removed from the Friends of Palestine group for it.

Quote

‘One evening 15 years ago I cycled over to see [Corbyn],’ he writes. ‘I was just beginning to establish Deir Yassin Remembered [a controversial, pro-Palestinian pressure group] in the UK and I wanted him to join.

‘I’d hardly begun my feverishly-rehearsed pitch before his cheque book was on the table. 

‘From that day on, without fuss or bother, whether DYR was flavour-of-the-month or the maggot-at-the-bottom-of-the-food-chain, he attended every single Deir Yassin commemoration.’

Edited June 7, 2023 by magnkarl

[Jareth]

New MRP poll on new boundaries have Labour looking quite comfy

 

[Xann]

At this point, what everyone should be angry about is that Britain got blagged.

[Chindie]

Labour's plan to create a green economy boost? Yeah about that...

At this point I'm pretty sure you'd be well advised to get a second opinion if a Starmer government promised the sun would rise every day under their watch.

[bickster]

18 minutes ago, Chindie said:

Labour's plan to create a green economy boost? Yeah about that...

At this point I'm pretty sure you'd be well advised to get a second opinion if a Starmer government promised the sun would rise every day under their watch.

Well that's one way of looking at it, the other is that Labour have reacted to the current economic forecasts and amended their policy to fall in line with those.

One set of people see broken promises others will see a willingness to adapt to changing conditions.

In reality its a bit of both.

[Chindie]

4 minutes ago, bickster said:

Well that's one way of looking at it, the other is that Labour have reacted to the current economic forecasts and amended their policy to fall in line with those.

One set of people see broken promises others will see a willingness to adapt to changing conditions.

In reality its a bit of both.

True.

But at some point you've got to have some convictions, something you believe in to the extent it's a promise you can't u-turn, rollback, tearfully sweep under the carpet. Otherwise you start to look like your word, your promise, your beliefs, are meaningless.

In which case why should I trust you at all?

[Jon]

10 minutes ago, Chindie said:

 

But at some point you've got to have some convictions, something you believe in 

Hmmmm. I think I can see the problem 

[Chindie]

8 minutes ago, Jon said:

Hmmmm. I think I can see the problem 

I don't doubt they believe in something. It's just that belief begins and ends with 'we should be in power'.

At the moment their message is basically we're mildly less evil, more efficient and professional at being bastards Tories. And that we'll say whatever we can to get in power.

It's a resounding slogan to get behind, but it's what they've got. We're less shit than what you've got, be still my beating heart.

[bickster]

34 minutes ago, Chindie said:

True.

But at some point you've got to have some convictions, something you believe in to the extent it's a promise you can't u-turn, rollback, tearfully sweep under the carpet. Otherwise you start to look like your word, your promise, your beliefs, are meaningless.

In which case why should I trust you at all?

But at this stage in the election cycle that is again a reasonably difficult objective, until the GE timing becomes inevitable, revisions are always going to happen.

The timing of a GE will become more inevitable in early spring next year I imagine, it's either going to be May or Sept/Oct. It will only be May if the Tories are doing well in the polls, (highly unlikely). If it goes past late summer / early autumn the electorate will not thank them for it, If it goes to the wire, i.e. early Jan the Tories will lose more seats than if they went after teh summer as no-one will thank them for a GE campaign over Xmas.

But right now, it is still reasonable to expect changes, certainly in terms of costings / timings for policies.