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

[Chindie]

The party's abstention on the covert bill is verging on unforgivable.

[darrenm]

36 minutes ago, dAVe80 said:

It has occurred to me this is what they want. They want us to leave. 

I'm staying put till at least after the NEC elections. Part of my job in my union now involves me being a member of the party too. Looking on Twitter, our Deputy General Secretary has already has called it out. 

I left when RLB was sacked. I recently rejoined to vote for the left slate on the NEC elections.

As soon as that happens I'm off again.

[Dodgyknees]

8 hours ago, darrenm said:

I left when RLB was sacked. I recently rejoined to vote for the left slate on the NEC elections.

As soon as that happens I'm off again.

I won’t be rejoining any time soon.

[blandy]

11 hours ago, dAVe80 said:

I'm the nearest I've been to resigning from the party, since Starmer put us under "New Leadership". Abstaining on the Covert Human Intelligence Sources Bill puts me personally in danger of being blacklisted, and in the most extreme circumstances, tortured or murdered by the state, due to my involvement trade union activities. I cannot rationalise this one. Feel very let down by the party's leadership. 

Whether they voted against or abstained has no impact on the outcome and / or personal danger you are under. What you wrote [bolded by me] is just not true. The tories win the vote either way. Labour’s votes cannot stop them.

That said, it’s a terrible bill, so I’m with you there.

[chrisp65]

Martin Niemöller says hi!

It might sound extreme and fanciful right now, a real stretch. Then you remember the likes of Priti Patel, the screams Brexit mobs, Farage and Rees Mogg all goading and nudging each other on to be that bit more nasty.

Then you remember that a policeman shagging and having kids whilst undercover probably isn’t that far fetched. Then you remember phones do get tapped. People do get beaten up. There has been an employment blacklist...

The difference will be that it will all be legit in the name of taking back control.

 

 

[HanoiVillan]

1 hour ago, blandy said:

Whether they voted against or abstained has no impact on the outcome and / or personal danger you are under. What you wrote [bolded by me] is just not true. The tories win the vote either way. Labour’s votes cannot stop them.

That said, it’s a terrible bill, so I’m with you there.

This is absolutely literally true, but of course it's also true about every other piece of legislation as well, and we don't want the opposition to have a 5-year holiday from Parliament (I know you're not suggesting otherwise - or I don't think you are anyway - but it's important to be clear that they don't get a free pass on the moral question just because they would have lost the vote anyway).

[dAVe80]

1 hour ago, blandy said:

Whether they voted against or abstained has no impact on the outcome and / or personal danger you are under. What you wrote [bolded by me] is just not true. The tories win the vote either way. Labour’s votes cannot stop them.

That said, it’s a terrible bill, so I’m with you there.

The fact this is true, makes it all the more galling. Why wouldn't the party who exists because of, and is backed financially by the trade unions not support us by voting against it? The average person isn't going to understand, or take the time to find out what this bill means, and that goes double if they see it got voted through with minimal opposition. 

[HanoiVillan]

This might be the single most appallingly-placed smiley in history:

 

[Chindie]

8 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

This might be the single most appallingly-placed smiley in history:

 

Not much of a leap to 'what's the point of the Labour party'.

[tonyh29]

1 hour ago, dAVe80 said:

The fact this is true, makes it all the more galling. Why wouldn't the party who exists because of, and is backed financially by the trade unions not support us by voting against it? The average person isn't going to understand, or take the time to find out what this bill means, and that goes double if they see it got voted through with minimal opposition. 

the Labour position according to McGinn  was

But until then we have to deal with the legislation this government brings forward, and do so in a way that shows we are a responsible government-in-waiting. The covert human intelligence sources (criminal conduct) bill is imperfect, but voting it down would weaken national security and lead to weaker legal safeguards. That’s not a choice we will make.

Maybe McGinn is speaking out of turn , but the suggestion was Labour should /would  vote for it  ... not abstain  or vote against

[HanoiVillan]

28 minutes ago, tonyh29 said:

the Labour position according to McGinn  was

 

 

Maybe McGinn is speaking out of turn , but the suggestion was Labour should /would  vote for it  ... not abstain  or vote against

They abstained om both the 2nd and 3rd readings; the 3rd reading was last night.

[HanoiVillan]

47 minutes ago, Chindie said:

Not much of a leap to 'what's the point of the Labour party'.

It is an exact redux of the last moment there seemed to be no point in the Labour party, the 2015 welfare reform bill, with the one crucial difference that this time they haven't been stupid enough to do it in the middle of a leadership contest.

[blandy]

2 hours ago, dAVe80 said:

The fact this is true, makes it all the more galling. Why wouldn't the party who exists because of, and is backed financially by the trade unions not support us by voting against it? The average person isn't going to understand, or take the time to find out what this bill means, and that goes double if they see it got voted through with minimal opposition. 

Sure. The reason (IMO) they are doing it is because (in no particular order)

1. They have no hope of winning such a vote (if they vote No).

2. They know the tories would use, down the line "Labour voted against giving our Police and security forces the powers they need to prevent terrorism.."

3. They know that only a few folk are following the detail right now, and there's no election forthcoming.

4. There are parts of the bill which are not terrible, and those bits will be picked out by tories as "labour voted against X"

5. They know that the reason they have absolutely no chance of defeating the Gov't is because they just had an "idealistic" leader, who led their party to a horrendous horsing at the last election and one of the reasons was (many) people felt that leader was more sympathetic to Britain's enemies than to the security and safety of the British people. So a lesson has been learned with that optic. To get a government that isn't the tories means not falling into their obvious traps.

We might prefer idealism on particular different issues, but sometimes pragmatism is necessary for a longer term bringing about of a not-tory government, or for national reasons - I mean it'd be satisfying if the UK called Trump "an absolute weapon" or whatever - but that would lead to a bad outcome down the line. it's all grubby politics.

[Xann]

49 minutes ago, blandy said:

To get a government that isn't the tories means not falling into their obvious traps.

Trying to outdo Captain Gullible the VT Brexit traitor for ironic post of the year there.

[darrenm]

1 hour ago, blandy said:

Sure. The reason (IMO) they are doing it is because (in no particular order)

1. They have no hope of winning such a vote (if they vote No).

2. They know the tories would use, down the line "Labour voted against giving our Police and security forces the powers they need to prevent terrorism.."

3. They know that only a few folk are following the detail right now, and there's no election forthcoming.

4. There are parts of the bill which are not terrible, and those bits will be picked out by tories as "labour voted against X"

5. They know that the reason they have absolutely no chance of defeating the Gov't is because they just had an "idealistic" leader, who led their party to a horrendous horsing at the last election and one of the reasons was (many) people felt that leader was more sympathetic to Britain's enemies than to the security and safety of the British people. So a lesson has been learned with that optic. To get a government that isn't the tories means not falling into their obvious traps.

We might prefer idealism on particular different issues, but sometimes pragmatism is necessary for a longer term bringing about of a not-tory government, or for national reasons - I mean it'd be satisfying if the UK called Trump "an absolute weapon" or whatever - but that would lead to a bad outcome down the line. it's all grubby politics.

LOL. I'm sorry but again that is almost literally me desperately making Twitter threads on why 'Corbyn was right to call for the triggering of article 50' 

[blandy]

47 minutes ago, Xann said:

Trying to outdo Captain Gullible the VT Brexit traitor for ironic post of the year there.

There simply are not enough voters, numerically who will side with "the left" on this issue. I'm not sure the accusation wouldn't be better directed closer to home. "Vote for something you know you will not pass, around policing and security and give ammunition to the Govt to throw at you is not going to get rid of the tories. No chance.

 

[blandy]

6 minutes ago, darrenm said:

LOL. I'm sorry but again that is almost literally me desperately making Twitter threads on why 'Corbyn was right to call for the triggering of article 50' 

If you were doing that, your judgement might be off this time, too

[Xann]

2 minutes ago, blandy said:

I'm not sure the accusation wouldn't be better directed closer to home. 

You'd better delete some more threads.

[HanoiVillan]

3 minutes ago, blandy said:

There simply are not enough voters, numerically who will side with "the left" on this issue. I'm not sure the accusation wouldn't be better directed closer to home. "Vote for something you know you will not pass, around policing and security and give ammunition to the Govt to throw at you is not going to get rid of the tories. No chance.

 

I don't agree that this abstain position is good politics, even regardless of my personal view of the issue.

1 - The small number of people who are paying attention to anything at this stage are high-information voters, so they're not going to be easily bamboozled into thinking Labour is something other than what it is;

2 - Reactionary voters are not going to be won over - the sort of people who want to vote for anything the spooks want already have a party they trust better on this issue;

3 - The Tories will accuse Labour of not being patriotic and of making the country unsafe anyway. That's what they do. You think they're going to go easy on him because he abstained, think again:

4 - This isn't just a 'beat up the left' issue. The importance of human rights legislation is something that unites the left with liberal centrists as well; it's not only left voters you risk losing to apathy, but liberal voters to the Lib Dems or (in Scotland) the SNP;

5 - On which subject, this does absolutely nothing to help Labour's Big Scotland Problem - quite the reverse.

In fact, the vote is sufficiently useless that I suspect the main audience for it really is MI5.

[blandy]

2 minutes ago, HanoiVillan said:

you risk losing to apathy, but liberal voters to the Lib Dems

This needs to happen for Labour to win next time. There are plenty places where Liberals came second the the tories with Labour a long way back. Labour needs the Libs to retake or take those seats, because they can't.