Abbott ticks too many boxes that bigots dislike because they feel threatened. The abuse is to 'put her in her place' as a black, successful, educated, leftwing, woman on the larger side. Any one of those characteristics would be enough.

 

Three guesses what kinds of people the abuse will be coming from. Losers with nothing going on in their lives who are too stupid or unwilling to accept that that might be their own fault and would rather rage and project their insecurities on to someone else any time she dares to be less than 100% perfect.

 

Because that's the only way some people will ever allow minorities to share the pedestal. If they're 12/10s every second of every day, then they might JUST ABOUT be able to share with a white man of no remarkable qualities. Honestly, pathetic.

classic Labour foot-shooting last night, why on earth:

 

@1286047541570797569

 

I'm so tired of being gaslit by the media over this issue as literal proof of abuse of black MPs comes out along with proof of actively working to lose elections and the grand total of nothing is done by the Labour leadership.

classic Labour foot-shooting last night, why on earth:

 

@1286047541570797569

 

I'm so tired of being gaslit by the media over this issue as literal proof of abuse of black MPs comes out along with proof of actively working to lose elections and the grand total of nothing is done by the Labour leadership.

 

I haven't seen anything relating to the bottom two, but Iz you are just highlighting part of the problem within the Labour Party.

 

The Leadership are working to put the anti-semitism within the party to bed, this is a major step. Whether the party would have won in court is irrelevant really, and still the Leadership at the time just do not understand the scale of the problem or issue. The cost isn't the issue as longer term it will pay dividends. This bad news story would never have even happened if the leadership under Corbyn wasn't so poor.

My issue is principally with the timing, how it buries the story of Conservatives putting this country in foreign policy danger for yet another media cycle focusing on Labour... whoever is in charge of Labour communications really screwed that one up to have Laura K tweeting about solely how Labour antisemitism isn't dead for the entirety of yesterday. This is a story that could have been delayed if Labour's media team were any good at their jobs - including, I will add, allowing Corbyn to post that statement yesterday.

 

And it also isn't putting the issue to bed? In fact it just thrusts it back into the spotlight. There's now going to be further legal challenges, and it will cost the Labour party a lot of time, money and negative press attention. If you are confident you're going to win a legal court case, surely you don't back down and pay off your opponents? See I don't think it is irrelevant, if it can be proven that the Party was less culpable in a court of law, it means that it's harder to falsely smear them in the future. As it is, it just makes people more strongly associate the link between Labour and antisemitism... when again, statistics have constantly shown that all issues of racism including that are more prominent in other, bluer, parties.

 

(the actively trying to lose elections bit I'm referring to comes from the report a few months ago that indicated that certain Labour staffers actively worked against the 2017 election victory, with abuse towards Diane Abbott and Dawn Butler coming out over the last few months - both incidents I would rank as also urgent for the leadership to sort out)

My issue is principally with the timing, how it buries the story of Conservatives putting this country in foreign policy danger for yet another media cycle focusing on Labour... whoever is in charge of Labour communications really screwed that one up to have Laura K tweeting about solely how Labour antisemitism isn't dead for the entirety of yesterday. This is a story that could have been delayed if Labour's media team were any good at their jobs - including, I will add, allowing Corbyn to post that statement yesterday.

 

And it also isn't putting the issue to bed? In fact it just thrusts it back into the spotlight. There's now going to be further legal challenges, and it will cost the Labour party a lot of time, money and negative press attention. If you are confident you're going to win a legal court case, surely you don't back down and pay off your opponents? See I don't think it is irrelevant, if it can be proven that the Party was less culpable in a court of law, it means that it's harder to falsely smear them in the future. As it is, it just makes people more strongly associate the link between Labour and antisemitism... when again, statistics have constantly shown that all issues of racism including that are more prominent in other, bluer, parties.

 

(the actively trying to lose elections bit I'm referring to comes from the report a few months ago that indicated that certain Labour staffers actively worked against the 2017 election victory, with abuse towards Diane Abbott and Dawn Butler coming out over the last few months - both incidents I would rank as also urgent for the leadership to sort out)

 

It begins the healing process Iz. If Labour had won the court case would it have put the anti-semitism issue to bed? Of course not. You would have had the ex-Leadership patting themselves on the back completely oblivious to the problems that happened under their leadership. It's not going to happen overnight but certainly it shows the Jewish community that rather than letting the problem fester and rear its ugly head, the current leadership is actively trying to clamp down on it.

 

Corbyn taking legal advice to try and stop the party apologising to whistleblowers is surely a step too far. It was a smear campaign against ex-party members.

You're right on the healing process, I do want it to be done with in way that satisfies as many as possible - I just fear very strongly that the way this has been handled foreshadows something similar will come up at a crucial electoral time yet again allowing the Tories who never apologise for any of their (far worse) actions to continue in government because of a media that loves to highlight Labour hypocrisy.

 

I am so tired of this country holding the parties to different standards. It is a very ineffective way to combat institutional racism.

Can we please stop pretending the Jewish community is one monolithic group — I am Jewish and you don't speak for me. It has been incredibly draining to deal with (mostly) non-Jews constantly telling me how I should or shouldn't feel. It's deeply personal. The healing process begins for me when we are not treated as a political football.

 

Settling yesterday and apologising to Sam Matthews was short-sighted and does not put things to bed — especially with the Labour report on the way.

 

In August 2016, meanwhile, a member of “Labour International” submitted a complaint about fellow international member Chris Crookes, for antisemitism. In September 2016 he followed up with further evidence. Both emails were forwarded by “Legal Queries” to “Validation”, but no further action appears to have been taken. The complaint came from the “pro-Corbyn” admins and moderators of an unofficial Facebook group for members of Labour International CLP, who had discovered that Crookes had, “over a number of years”, published a range of Holocaust denial and “pro-fascist” materials across the internet, including on Facebook and in Amazon reviews. Extensive evidence was attached of Crookes’ explicit Holocaust denial. This was then forwarded to Buckingham and Stolliday, and Buckingham sent it on to Matthews. Matthews did not respond and no further action appears to have been taken.

 

In total, between August 2016 and February 2018, an 18 month period, the case of Chris Crookes was raised directly with Sam Matthews twelve times, with John Stolliday four times and with other GLU staff four times, as well as being forwarded from “Legal Queries” to the appropriate inbox for action (“Validation” and then “Disputes”) five times. It also went directly to general secretary Iain McNicol twice.And yet, despite repeated assurances, including Matthews’ direct assurances to Black that “We'll be sending a notice of investigation today and will endeavour to have a report ready for Disputes on the 31st”, and then his claim that “my understanding [is]that we’re awaiting a response to questions sent to him” - no action was taken.Chris Crookes was finally suspended in March 2018, in the transition period between general secretaries, and expelled by the NCC in July 2019.

 

@1285930615892840448

 

I'm under no illusion that factions of the left don't have issues with antisemitism, or that Corbyn didn't abjectly fail to do enough — but spending membership money to settle and forcing a Jewish NEC member to apologise to Sam Matthews who refused to take disciplinary action against a holocaust denier is not putting the issue to bed. And that is just one example — it's completely selective, vile, does not combat institutional racism, and continues to perpetuate a hierarchy of bigotry.

Edited July 23, 20204 yr by blacksquare

Interestingly, to win the next election, Labour would need a 10.3% swing which has only happened twice in the last hundred years - in 1931 (14.4% away from Labour) and 1945 (11.8% away from Conservative)

 

Even Tony Blair's landslide win of 1997 wasn't big enough to dislodge this government.

A positive story even though it’s in this thread - Angela Rayner was a breath of fresh air at PMQs this afternoon!

A positive story even though it’s in this thread - Angela Rayner was a breath of fresh air at PMQs this afternoon!

 

She would have made a great leader.

 

I find it funny that Sir Keir is getting praise and comments like 'this is a great strategy' from the center/right of the party* for not mentioning Brexit, and yet Corbyn was given huge grief for doing the same knowing that it polarised the electorate and damaged their polling..

 

*who along with the FBPE Twitter brigade I call Brexit's useful idiots.

There isn't much Labour can do about the B word now. There was something they could have done while Corbyn was leader. Starmer's strategy seems to be to let the Tories screw it up and take full ownership of the whole calamity. Of course, he also has plenty of scope for attacking the government over the pandemic.

She would have made a great leader.

 

I find it funny that Sir Keir is getting praise and comments like 'this is a great strategy' from the center/right of the party* for not mentioning Brexit, and yet Corbyn was given huge grief for doing the same knowing that it polarised the electorate and damaged their polling..

 

*who along with the FBPE Twitter brigade I call Brexit's useful idiots.

 

Yeh exactly

Starmer's speech is going off! "This incompetence angers me"

 

Very rhetoric-heavy, very policy lite, but I can forgive that under the circumstances, he is coming across very forceful and definitely trying to inject some passion and anger into it, he's probably heard too much 'managerial' and 'boring', it'll be a challenge to dispel that image, but this is a good way to change those perceptions.

 

Optics-wise, I can't think of anything I don't like, standing in front of a red wall, in a Northern town, talking about his background, playing to patriotism just enough to start the process of winning back voters who'd dismissed Labour as 'hating Britain' without doing anything harmful with it.

 

I'll give him this one. This speech should do a lot to challenge his critics.

It's perfectly normal for an opposition party to be light on policy nine months after an election and with the next one nearly four years away. With the current situation, it is even more understandable. A lot can change in the next three-and-a-half years which could make policies adopted now obsolete by the time of the election.

Leicester MP Claudia Webbe, who took over the seat from Keith Vaz in 2019, has been charged with harassing a woman. She's now had the whip withdrawn.

Starmer no doubt happily done this as she’s part of the SCG of MPs

Yeah, we don't want a party to be withholding the name of an MP and allowing them to keep the whip when there's a formal investigation going on around them, that would really damage the party's image in the eyes of the electorate.

 

yes, I know the difference is that nameless Tory MP arrested on suspicion of rape has not been charged yet, just rankling how the wheels of justice and media treatment move differently, as always.

Labour should not be abstaining from voting on bills like Overseas Operations and Covert Intelligence Sources Bill. I see absolutely no upside. The Tories get to punch Labour for not supporting them enough (cheek), the socialists get to (quite rightfully) denounce them for not making an effort to oppose the legalisation of extra-judicial activities undertaken by soldiers abroad and intelligence agents, it raises tensions between the socialist wing and the rest of the party (e.g. firing Nadia Whittome a couple of weeks back), if every Labour MP had opposed this latest one it would have failed based on numbers (182-21), and the only possible explanation I've seen is adding amendments later on which will surely be defeated to very little fanfare as well as not addressing the main content of the bill.

 

when campaign season rolls around, there's going to need to be some record of them acting as an opposition, I can't see the play here.

 

also of course the Tories are even worse for introducing these bills but we need someone to oppose them too.

Labour should not be abstaining from voting on bills like Overseas Operations and Covert Intelligence Sources Bill. I see absolutely no upside. The Tories get to punch Labour for not supporting them enough (cheek), the socialists get to (quite rightfully) denounce them for not making an effort to oppose the legalisation of extra-judicial activities undertaken by soldiers abroad and intelligence agents, it raises tensions between the socialist wing and the rest of the party (e.g. firing Nadia Whittome a couple of weeks back), if every Labour MP had opposed this latest one it would have failed based on numbers (182-21), and the only possible explanation I've seen is adding amendments later on which will surely be defeated to very little fanfare as well as not addressing the main content of the bill.

 

when campaign season rolls around, there's going to need to be some record of them acting as an opposition, I can't see the play here.

 

also of course the Tories are even worse for introducing these bills but we need someone to oppose them too.

 

But Iz, what good is voting against a bill? Surely you abstain, make some amendments and you might get one through. Labour don't have a majority and just voting against every bill put forward is not what they need to be doing. Winning the support of the Socialist wing is not where Labour need to concentrate their efforts. Voters want strong governance (elections tell us this, time and time again), not people who are prepared to shout the loudest.

Objecting to the main content of a bill that has a moral angle to it (allowing government actors to commit crimes like torture legally) would be pretty good for the purposes of differentiating themselves from the Tories - especially when your leader is a human rights lawyer!

 

I wouldn't call strong governance abstaining on votes like that. I'm not sure how it shows strong governance in the slightest, I'd consider taking a principled stand on bills like this and voting for bills that don't cause harm to be the much better route.