Current Affairs The Labour Party

[catcherintherye]

There was no Labour AS problem. The problem, such as it was, was that in a party of 500,000 members who were all online they had hundred or more of people amongst them who used anti-semitic tropes. When they were identified they were addressed. The other charges on 'cases' within the party at the level of constituencies or people close to Corbyn like Williamson were outragous twisting of anti-apartheid sentiments concerning the state of Israel.

I wouldn't cede ground on this issue at all. There's nothing to charge the Corbyn leadership with that couldn't have been levelled at a LP under Wilson, Blair, or Miliband. Nothing. The AS thing was a political take down of a left leadership. Pure and simple.

I'm certainly not ceding ground mate.

As you've said we need to put the debate in the right context. There was anti-semitism in Labour before, during and now after Jeremy Corbyn. The cases went down under him and are at a much lower level than in wider society. However 1 case will always be too many.

Corbyns rule wasn't good enough, but for wholly different reasons to what most people say. He should have been far more assertive. He has to take some of the blame for that. However those people who bureacratically hampered the ability of the party to act, who are now jumping up and down are in no position to go making any judgement.

 

[PhilM]

Put simply, Corbyn knew Starmer wanted to put as much distance between them as possible. He knew his initial remarks would get a response from Starmer, and he knew what the likely response would be.

Starmer makes his response, gives him the rope, and Corbyn chooses to stick his head in the noose.

On the other hand, and I can't take credit for this analogy, but Starmer's actions are perhaps...

... like a ref, he's basically given a player a yellow card in the first minute of a derby

Corbyn has for whatever reason elicited a response from Starmer, which is another matter entirely, but in itself it has set a precedent - for better or worse.

I personally think Starmer had to do something once Corbyn countered the initial statement, but is it a measured response? I honestly don't know.

Like you mentioned, perhaps they both knew what they were doing and had ulterior motives, but in the end it may be mutually as destructive as it is constructive.

Either way, they're once again being drawn towards another 'crisis', which is distracting them from what they really need to be doing right now. Priorities...

 

[catcherintherye]

Course he didn't have to, but you didn't have to be Brain of Britain to realise that would be the outcome. Anyone that says they're surprised is either thick or naive.

Really? I mean he's hardly been decisive on any other issue has he? It's not a massive stretch to think he would just sit back and allow events to happen like he seems to with everything else.

 

[Catfish Blues]

Really? I mean he's hardly been decisive on any other issue has he? It's not a massive stretch to think he would just sit back and allow events to happen like he seems to with everything else.

Ask Rebecca Long-Bailey what she thinks.

 

[davek]

I'm certainly not ceding ground mate.

As you've said we need to put the debate in the right context. There was anti-semitism in Labour before, during and now after Jeremy Corbyn. The cases went down under him and are at a much lower level than in wider society. However 1 case will always be too many.

Corbyns rule wasn't good enough, but for wholly different reasons to what most people say. He should have been far more assertive. He has to take some of the blame for that. However those people who bureacratically hampered the ability of the party to act, who are now jumping up and down are in no position to go making any judgement.

He wasn't a good leader. He allowed his advisers to push him around. But that's a seperate issue to the establishment attack on his leadership. That's what the bogus AS campaign was all about, and if we lose sight of that the aggressors who hounded Corbyn and the left in the LP leadership have won.

I will give them not one inch. This was a political take down and only that. The EHRC report has zero credibility.

 

[roydo]

That's part of it, yes.

Whats their motivation?

 

[davek]

Ask Rebecca Long-Bailey what she thinks.

Ask the coppers he allowed to infiltrate protest groups to rape in and grass on; ask the soldiers he turned a blind eye to who were torturing prioners of war.

Yes, he certainly can be decisive.

How on earth the LP ended up with a scumbag criminal like this I dont know. It's up to the membership to examine their consciences. They've facilitated him, now they repent at leisure.

 

[davek]

Whats their motivation?

The motivation was two-fold: 1/ to create the conditions that Corbyn was seen as a liability to the electorate (dont forget, the report was commissioned well before the election in May 2019), 2/ it's 'findings' are to hand a pretext to Starmer to go on a witch-hunt of the left in the LP.

 

[catcherintherye]

AS is a means to wipe out the left in the LP. I completely reject the authority of the EHRC report too. It's devoid of all credibility; a thjnly veiled attack on anyone wanting to pipe up against apartheid.

I think more than 1 thing can be true simultaneously Dave.
1) A/S exists and is a major problem that needs to be challenged. I showed you Labour billboards from 15 years ago. As far as I know, I am not sure the Labour Party has ever apologised to Michael Howard, Oliver Letwin or the wider Jewish community for that. They are certainly owed an apology. It will exist in members too (because frankly, if your alleged greatest ever leader behaves like that, it's inevitable some members will) and shouldn't be under estimated.

2) There are layers of people, who are almost entirely not Jewish who try to weaponise this. There are lots of Jewish people who call them out and have been racially abused for doing so. I think of Michel Rosen, who's family were directly affected by the Holocaust being called a "bad Jew" or Rachel Riley apparently calling him a Holocaust denier. Their behaviour puts Jewih people at risk, and actually causes enormous distress at times for Jewish people.

3) While there are many honourable aspects of what the ECHR do, their interpretation of what is anti-semitism is problematic, and leads to many Jewish people being considered racist, while many anti semites (who hold views akin to "Jews shouldn't live here they should all go back home to Israel") to not be considered as thus. It's structurally flawed. Jess Phillips said that the phrase "Palestine lives"-a fairly simple acknowledgement of the existence of Palestine- even within the context of a 2 state solution fails the test.

4) The judge providing over this is anything but impartial. Again he's not Jewish. He is a man who has worked to represent SERCO against benefits claimaints in sanctioning people who are the poorest and most vulnerable in society. We know his actions disproportiontely affect women, children and those from a BAME background (including Jewish people who are also disproportiontely inpoverished). He has no credibility to go passing jugements on racism of any kind when he has behaved how he has.

 

[roydo]

The motivation was two-fold: 1/ to create the conditions that Corbyn was seen as a liability to the electorate (dont forget, the report was commissioned well before the election in May 2019), 2/ it's 'findings' are to hand a pretext to Starmer to go on a witch-hunt of the left in the LP.

Soz, I meant what was the motivation for the EHRC to reach their findings? I fully understand the motivation for his opponents to seize on anything to discredit Corbyn, just not sure why the EHRC would play their game for them.

 

[catcherintherye]

Ask Rebecca Long-Bailey what she thinks.

Well he's normally a lot stricter with women as they work to a different set of standards with him.

 

[zzr45]

Lol.

Bankrupt.

Not really Dave, you asked for evidence of vitriol aimed towards Jews on this forum, but then carried on your post in a way that demonstrated it superbly and in such a way that you couldn’t use ‘cherry picking’ ‘context’ or any of the other usual bollocks.
Congratulations.

 

[davek]

I think more than 1 thing can be true simultaneously Dave.
1) A/S exists and is a major problem that needs to be challenged. I showed you Labour billboards from 15 years ago. As far as I know, I am not sure the Labour Party has ever apologised to Michael Howard, Oliver Letwin or the wider Jewish community for that. They are certainly owed an apology. It will exist in members too (because frankly, if your alleged greatest ever leader behaves like that, it's inevitable some members will) and shouldn't be under estimated.

2) There are layers of people, who are almost entirely not Jewish who try to weaponise this. There are lots of Jewish people who call them out and have been racially abused for doing so. I think of Michel Rosen, who's family were directly affected by the Holocaust being called a "bad Jew" or Rachel Riley apparently calling him a Holocaust denier. Their behaviour puts Jewih people at risk, and actually causes enormous distress at times for Jewish people.

3) While there are many honourable aspects of what the ECHR do, their interpretation of what is anti-semitism is problematic, and leads to many Jewish people being considered racist, while many anti semites (who hold views akin to "Jews shouldn't live here they should all go back home to Israel") to not be considered as thus. It's structurally flawed. Jess Phillips said that the phrase "Palestine lives"-a fairly simple acknowledgement of the existence of Palestine- even within the context of a 2 state solution fails the test.

4) The judge providing over this is anything but impartial. Again he's not Jewish. He is a man who has worked to represent SERCO against benefits claimaints in sanctioning people who are the poorest and most vulnerable in society. We know his actions disproportiontely affect women, children and those from a BAME background (including Jewish people who are also disproportiontely inpoverished). He has no credibility to go passing jugements on racism of any kind when he has behaved how he has.

Unless there's a widespread commitment to forensically and fairly look at all organisations for online content that pertains to them and their actions by their members and supporters then any report on a single organisation is ridiculous and lacking in context.

The stark truth is that LP members and supporters are by and large much more enlightened than all or most other members of other organisations, and to target that party for an investigation is not only unfair but bizarre...bizarre if we didn't also appreciate the wider dimension to the debate: the neecessity to get rid of any leaders of an organisation not committed to neo-liberlaism.

The EHRC might be getting 'good' press, but it's terribly flawed in conception as well as it's conclusions.

 

[davek]

Soz, I meant what was the motivation for the EHRC to reach their findings? I fully understand the motivation for his opponents to seize on anything to discredit Corbyn, just not sure why the EHRC would play their game for them.

Because the EHRC is part of a neo-liberal system designed to preserve neo-liberalism. It gives the system a gloss of fairness that isn't there. The Blairites set it up IIRC.

 

[catcherintherye]

Soz, I meant what was the motivation for the EHRC to reach their findings? I fully understand the motivation for his opponents to seize on anything to discredit Corbyn, just not sure why the EHRC would play their game for them.

The EHRC, who do very important work have a structurally flawed interpretation of aspects of anti-semitism. I know that will be controversial. I admire what they do, but can disagree with aspects of it. The same as BLM really. I agree with the over arching principle and what they do, and on challenging racism, but don't necessarily have to agree with every aspect of what they do. I'm sure for some people that makes me both racist and anti-semitic and while I'm not happy with either label, if that's people's opinions they are entitled to it.

Back to EHRC- the flawed aspects of the definition are merely playing out. It's exacerbated by the fact they are using a judge who is not impartial either.