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

[blandy]

44 minutes ago, maqroll said:

Does the Labour Party have an actual Jew hating problem or is their criticism of Israel artificially conflated with anti-Semitism by their opposition?

Both are true IMO. It's not that the party hates Jewish people - that kind of claim would be ludicrous. But, there are enough (too many, I mean) Labour supporters, voters, members who display anti-Semitic behaviour and language, probably because of their own abhorrence of Israeli Government and IDF actions and words on Palestine and Palestinians. And as a consequence of that shared abhorrence of what Israel has done, there has been a reflex almost to see all but the most blatant anti-semitism as "not really". And it's further complicated by some of their opponents picking up the stick with which to beat them.

Looking at what Labour has done and said in the past few days they've finally, finally embarked towards doing and saying what they should have done straight away, when it first erupted about 3 years ago. All the delay, all the prevarication and denial of the problem, all the victim blaming only added to the whole furore.

At it's worst it's been a sequence of 

Complaint from Jewish person about an incident.

Ignore.

Complaint from the Jewish person about an incident.

Deny there's a problem.

Complaint from the Jewish person about an incident.

Blame them as a smear merchant, Blairite or Tory or Zionist

Complaint from Jewish person about an incident.

Media are fanning the flames of a non-story.

And round and round.

What they've started to do is much clearer. "Yes there's a problem, yes, we've been too slow, yes our processes have failed, yes we need to be open and the likes of Corbyn finally and without weaselling, outright condemning it.

They're not riddled with anti-Semitism, they've just been blinkered and utterly incompetent in dealing with the problem they do have. It's been pretty shameful and an example of how not to deal with a problem.

[blandy]

11 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

live on air, she said intolerance wasn't the reasoning she was quitting

To be fair, she did cite (in her resignation letter thingy)

Quote

"The lack of tolerance for different viewpoints in the Labour Party frankly worries me.
We have to have respect for each other, even if we disagree, because we are all part of this Party....

..when I hear people being called right wing in the Labour Party I find it utterly offensive....the abuse I’ve had on social media from some who want to overturn the referendum has been pretty grim – so to all those who have said that I only hold the position I do because I want to hold my seat, I’m afraid it’s much worse than that – I actually believe it and I’ll keep fighting for a Brexit with the closest possible trading ties with the EU.

So you can see why the media picked up on it. But your point is valid, all the same.

[chrisp65]

aaaaand Newnight have an interview with Tony Blair about Labour's anti semitism

 

I'm on the phone to Paddy Power now, I've got a tenner on Blair saying positive things about Corbyn and then moving the story on to tackling privilege and people that own multiple properties.

[Chindie]

1 hour ago, maqroll said:

Does the Labour Party have an actual Jew hating problem or is their criticism of Israel artificially conflated with anti-Semitism by their opposition?

Depends who you ask.

I would say no. Unfortunately the world has great many forms of prejudice in it and any organisation that gets big enough is going to reflect all aspects of society, which means that, ultimately, undoubtedly, the Labour party has anti-Semites in its ranks. It also means that the Tories also have some people that don't much like the Jewish folk, and so do all the other parties.

Now, for a party that is founded on ideas of progressiveness, equality, human dignity without prejudice, any anti-Semites are too many. And you'd think that anyone who didn't like Jewish people would would therefore think that the Labour party isn't for them but unfortunately there is the trope of a lot of things the left is not a fan of, on the capitalist end of things for instance, are run by Jewish people, and they attack them for being Jewish rather than, say, for being whatever bad thing they do. And there's some people that are just stupid and don't see the dichotomy of supporting an anti-racism party whilst being racist. And there's the elephant in the room - Israel.

Israel is difficult. It's obvious that what Israel has done with Palestine is wrong. It's obvious that Palestinian people are treated as subhuman. It's obvious that Israel commits war crimes with abandon. It's obvious that a lot of that entire shit show is completely unfair and inhumane. It's difficult to look at Israel and fully support it and be left wing. Which becomes problematic on 2 fronts. The first is some people tend to stupidly fall into anti-semitic tropes when being critical of Israel and assuming Jewish people are inherently accountable for/supporters of Israel. Secondly, there's been a slow movement towards anti-Semitism encompassing many short-handed for criticism of Israel - for instance you could not call Israel a racist endeavour, or make any comparison to Nazism (even if such a comparison may be valid) as these would be considered anti-Semitic by many.

Combine all of this and you get a minefield. It's something the party should continue to fight.

But there's other stuff at play.

The Labour party is currently at war with itself. It's leader, Corbyn, isn't much cop but also comes from a faction that is very different to the dominant one of the last 20 years that still has a lot of influential figures around. Corbyn's trying to shift the party left, and a lot of big figures don't like this at all, and has sought to fight that at every chance. This has lead to a series of attempts at discrediting Corbyn, but only the anti-Semitism one stuck. So it kept coming back, and kept changing. At various times it's been about accepting a definition of anti-Semitism, tacitly supporting anti-Semitism by members through either meddling or inaction on cases, claims that Corbyn has actively drawn anti-Semitic people to the party, to claims that Corbyn is himself an anti-Semite. The latter point is ridiculous, as shown most pointedly when odious Labour MP Margaret Hodge, who is Jewish, claimed Corbyn was an anti-Semite, but neglected to note that he was one of the figures behind a Jewish community group that sought to protect a Jewish graveyard against a new development that would destroy it... which Hodge herself was supporting. The list of pro-Jewish causes Corbyn has backed is huge.

The other factor is Corbyn is undoubtedly a critic of Israel. That's a hot potato. Not as hot as it is in America by any means, but still difficult in the public eye, particularly in politics. By being vocally critical, as he is, he's seen as hostile to Israel and that in turn does mean that some Jewish people and organisations that are supportive of Israel (since Zionist is now considered loaded as well) actively don't like him. Figures in this bracket are some of the most vocal and consistently active in the movement to criticise Labour overt anti-Semitism.

Chuck all of that in and you get to the answer, for me. There's an issue, a societal one, that Labour needs to continue fighting, and never stop fighting, and fight ever harder. It's been picked up by factions that don't like the leadership for various reasons and doubled down on. It's revealed at times. The ultimate requirement of these varying factions is that the leadership falls.

At this point the story is self perpetuating.

[HanoiVillan]

12 hours ago, chrisp65 said:

aaaaand Newnight have an interview with Tony Blair about Labour's anti semitism

 

I'm on the phone to Paddy Power now, I've got a tenner on Blair saying positive things about Corbyn and then moving the story on to tackling privilege and people that own multiple properties.

The rampant antisemitism of the Saudi government doesn't seem to have stopped Blairs foundation taking millions of pounds off them. 

[hippo]

15 hours ago, Chindie said:

Depends who you ask.

I would say no. Unfortunately the world has great many forms of prejudice in it and any organisation that gets big enough is going to reflect all aspects of society, which means that, ultimately, undoubtedly, the Labour party has anti-Semites in its ranks. It also means that the Tories also have some people that don't much like the Jewish folk, and so do all the other parties.

Now, for a party that is founded on ideas of progressiveness, equality, human dignity without prejudice, any anti-Semites are too many. And you'd think that anyone who didn't like Jewish people would would therefore think that the Labour party isn't for them but unfortunately there is the trope of a lot of things the left is not a fan of, on the capitalist end of things for instance, are run by Jewish people, and they attack them for being Jewish rather than, say, for being whatever bad thing they do. And there's some people that are just stupid and don't see the dichotomy of supporting an anti-racism party whilst being racist. And there's the elephant in the room - Israel.

Israel is difficult. It's obvious that what Israel has done with Palestine is wrong. It's obvious that Palestinian people are treated as subhuman. It's obvious that Israel commits war crimes with abandon. It's obvious that a lot of that entire shit show is completely unfair and inhumane. It's difficult to look at Israel and fully support it and be left wing. Which becomes problematic on 2 fronts. The first is some people tend to stupidly fall into anti-semitic tropes when being critical of Israel and assuming Jewish people are inherently accountable for/supporters of Israel. Secondly, there's been a slow movement towards anti-Semitism encompassing many short-handed for criticism of Israel - for instance you could not call Israel a racist endeavour, or make any comparison to Nazism (even if such a comparison may be valid) as these would be considered anti-Semitic by many.

Combine all of this and you get a minefield. It's something the party should continue to fight.

But there's other stuff at play.

The Labour party is currently at war with itself. It's leader, Corbyn, isn't much cop but also comes from a faction that is very different to the dominant one of the last 20 years that still has a lot of influential figures around. Corbyn's trying to shift the party left, and a lot of big figures don't like this at all, and has sought to fight that at every chance. This has lead to a series of attempts at discrediting Corbyn, but only the anti-Semitism one stuck. So it kept coming back, and kept changing. At various times it's been about accepting a definition of anti-Semitism, tacitly supporting anti-Semitism by members through either meddling or inaction on cases, claims that Corbyn has actively drawn anti-Semitic people to the party, to claims that Corbyn is himself an anti-Semite. The latter point is ridiculous, as shown most pointedly when odious Labour MP Margaret Hodge, who is Jewish, claimed Corbyn was an anti-Semite, but neglected to note that he was one of the figures behind a Jewish community group that sought to protect a Jewish graveyard against a new development that would destroy it... which Hodge herself was supporting. The list of pro-Jewish causes Corbyn has backed is huge.

The other factor is Corbyn is undoubtedly a critic of Israel. That's a hot potato. Not as hot as it is in America by any means, but still difficult in the public eye, particularly in politics. By being vocally critical, as he is, he's seen as hostile to Israel and that in turn does mean that some Jewish people and organisations that are supportive of Israel (since Zionist is now considered loaded as well) actively don't like him. Figures in this bracket are some of the most vocal and consistently active in the movement to criticise Labour overt anti-Semitism.

Chuck all of that in and you get to the answer, for me. There's an issue, a societal one, that Labour needs to continue fighting, and never stop fighting, and fight ever harder. It's been picked up by factions that don't like the leadership for various reasons and doubled down on. It's revealed at times. The ultimate requirement of these varying factions is that the leadership falls.

At this point the story is self perpetuating.

Also a lot left wing people are intellectual snobs. They aren't really there to help the working class , or even elect a labour government. They are there to make clever speeches and have debates with a under current of "how clever am I" 

Refusal to compromise isn't a strength - if 80% of what you want is on the table - take it .

Corbyn will not solve anti antisemitism - IMO its a non issue - its more a symptom of weak leadership.  

[VILLAMARV]

11 minutes ago, hippo said:

Also a lot left wing people are intellectual snobs. They aren't really there to help the working class , or even elect a labour government. They are there to make clever speeches and have debates with a under current of "how clever am I" 

Refusal to compromise isn't a strength - if 80% of what you want is on the table - take it .

Corbyn will not solve anti antisemitism - IMO its a non issue - its more a symptom of weak leadership.  

an.

YW

#besttimingcouldn'tresist

[Designer1]

4 minutes ago, VILLAMARV said:

an.

YW

#besttimingcouldn'tresist

Undercurrent is one word too. Tsssk.

[ml1dch]

43 minutes ago, hippo said:

Refusal to compromise isn't a strength - if 80% of what you want is on the table - take it . 

But it that gives you half a decade of what the Lib Dems have been electorally given for showing their ability to compromise, then I expect that next time they (and by extension other parties) might feel that it's probably not worth it.

Edited July 23, 2019 by ml1dch

[cyrusr]

38 minutes ago, ml1dch said:

But it that gives you half a decade of what the Lib Dems have been electorally given for showing their ability to compromise, then I expect that next time they (and by extension other parties) might feel that it's probably not worth it.

But with the likely inevitable general election, I can’t see either party gaining a majority. 

Tories are reeling for infighting and indecision over brexit. They will lose votes of the hard right to brexit party and the moderate centre to the Lib Dems. Labour is also suffering from its own internal struggles and likely to lose votes to Lib Dems, Greens and Brexit Party (for those fervent brexiteers). 

Whilst the number of seats lost won’t be that high, I can really see both parties struggling to gain a majority. Labour will be the more likely to form a coalition but that’s probably what is needed to put some damn common sense into politics, it has been missing for far too long.

[bickster]

17 minutes ago, cyrusr said:

Labour will be the more likely to form a coalition

That'll be hilarious on a number of levels. The crying about what the LDs did when in coalition coming from Labour ever since has been rather prominent oh and Corbyn can't control his own party let alone get other parties onside with him.

 

[hippo]

1 hour ago, ml1dch said:

But it that gives you half a decade of what the Lib Dems have been electorally given for showing their ability to compromise, then I expect that next time they (and by extension other parties) might feel that it's probably not worth it.

Well that was never going to end well. In terms of ideals they were always polls apart - and Cameron and the right wing press stitched up the lib dems - sure they made some mistakes - but the Tories get away with these things - anyone centre left doesn't.

I actually meant compromising on a few ideals to make yourself more electable. 

[cyrusr]

6 minutes ago, bickster said:

That'll be hilarious on a number of levels. The crying about what the LDs did when in coalition coming from Labour ever since has been rather prominent oh and Corbyn can't control his own party let alone get other parties onside with him.

 

Indeed, but if no majority is there, who would even side with the tories now? I think even the DUP would have its doubts. The best they can do is the probably going to be Brexit Party, if they even get any seats. 

Labour are going to have to swallow a lot of pride if they even want a sniff of power. 

[chrisp65]

Hasn't the new LibDem leader said she couldn't form an alliance with Labour if Jeremy Corbyn was still their leader?

Interesting, from a person that was in a tory lead government and voted for austerity (whilst putting tooth floss on her expenses) and lied about student fees. 

Voted against raising welfare benefits.

Voted against raising disability benefits.

Voted for reducing total spending on welfare.

Voted against raising taxes on second homes.

Voted to end financial support for 16 to 19 year olds in education.

Interesting moral compass there for the leader that couldn't face working with Corbyn.

 

 

[hippo]

6 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

Hasn't the new LibDem leader said she couldn't form an alliance with Labour if Jeremy Corbyn was still their leader?

Interesting, from a person that was in a tory lead government and voted for austerity (whilst putting tooth floss on her expenses) and lied about student fees. 

Voted against raising welfare benefits.

Voted against raising disability benefits.

Voted for reducing total spending on welfare.

Voted against raising taxes on second homes.

Voted to end financial support for 16 to 19 year olds in education.

Interesting moral compass there for the leader that couldn't face working with Corbyn.

 

 

I'm not a massive fan of Corbyn. But if you look at what he is proposing it isn't actually that left wing.

[chrisp65]

Just now, hippo said:

I'm not a massive fan of Corbyn. But if you look at what he is proposing it isn't actually that left wing.

sshhh that's not the script

do not talk about actual policy

he's a marxist racist, that's all the people need to know

[Chindie]

Corbyn's the great Satan. Everything is about preventing him being near power for everyone, even more than other disastrous result.

[ml1dch]

16 minutes ago, chrisp65 said:

Hasn't the new LibDem leader said she couldn't form an alliance with Labour if Jeremy Corbyn was still their leader?

Interesting, from a person that was in a tory lead government and voted for austerity (whilst putting tooth floss on her expenses) and lied about student fees. 

Voted against raising welfare benefits.

Voted against raising disability benefits.

Voted for reducing total spending on welfare.

Voted against raising taxes on second homes.

Voted to end financial support for 16 to 19 year olds in education.

Interesting moral compass there for the leader that couldn't face working with Corbyn.

I'm guessing that Corbyn hasn't been asked the question, but if the Lib Dems ended up with a larger number of seats, would he be happy to vote through a Lib Dem economic programme either in coalition or in Parliament? 

If the answer to that is no (and I expect it would be), why would Swinson be expected to support a Labour programme?

[chrisp65]

But I wouldn't expect Swinson to support a Labour programme and the thought of the Libs being the larger party and getting Labour onboard as junior partners isn't really going to happen.

I know we're in strange times, but a swing that sees Labour and LibDem with the majority of seats, but the Libs going from 9 to, to what? 170? and Labour losing 60 or 70 seats? Not going to happen.

[blandy]

36 minutes ago, Chindie said:

Corbyn's the great Satan. Everything is about preventing him being near power for everyone, even more than other disastrous result.

Corbyn is about as competent as Boris Johnson. The bloke’s effing useless as a leader. He’d be an awful pm. Labour’s policies are in some cases excellent and in some cases not. Labour’s problem isn’t policy, it’s Corbyn and his band of angry tramps. He’s not Satan, he’s just a massive pillock, and a bit of a wrong ‘un.