We’ll have to await the full JR hearing and final decision, assuming it proceeds. The GLP have a tendency to overstate things though; it’s necessary for their business model.
I found this interesting, though again I think this is spin…
Rishi Sunak’s Partygate fine suggests that passing through a gathering en route to a meeting doesn’t prevent you from being fined, so it’s far from clear how turning up to a gathering deliberately, raising a toast and encouraging the revels to continue can be compliant with the law.
As I keep saying, the problem with Corbyn wasn’t the message, it was the messenger (Sort of the opposite of Starmer). The manifesto was absolutely spot on, and should go down as a massive wasted opportunity for the country. He wasn’t the right person to front it, but then without Corbyn you do t get that manifesto in the first place.
The anti-semitism stuff I do disagree with. It was an absolute shitshow, but there was no way Corbyn could shut it down. There was nothing he could do, as it was effectively weaponised in bad faith by people who wanted Corbyn out.
The really sad thing about what has happened to western democracies over the last thirty years is that formerly mainstream political positions like ‘we should be nice to vulnerable people’ or ‘we should nationalise the trains’ or ‘people shouldn’t struggle to feed their kids’ is now basically considered the same as communism.
I disagree with this statement in the context of Corbyn, as Corbyn has been quite Russo-philic, especially towards this government which is the antithesis of what his ideals suppsedly are…
I don’t think any kind of inquiry would have pulled the attack dogs off Corbyn. If a report had been scathing it would been used to attack Corbyn, had it found nothing much to report Corbyn would have been criticised for that too.
At one point Corbyn was slagged off for spending Passover with some Jews that a lot of non-Jews decided were the wrong kind of Jews for Corbyn to be spending time with. That was the point for me where the issue went full batshit for me.
What Corbyn did do, was streamline the process around investigating and expelling members accused of anti-semitism. And a lot of people were in fact expelled.
But in amongst the actual anti-semitism that was dealt with, there was an awful lot of spurious and vexatious allegations that Corbyn was absolutely right to not bow to.
Corbyn seemed to get criticised for believing and insisting that anyone accused of anti-semitism deserved a fair hearing. I always found it strange that the people criticising Corbyn essentially wanted him to throw people out on the spot, which is neither democratic or something he even had the power to do.
I agree with much of that, but I disagree with the implication that it would have made no difference. If he had commissioned a report that was scathing, he could well have used it to have said, we’ll make changes, and we’ll do better because that’s what we want to be, for everyone.
The anti-semitism problem was not unique to his leadership, as far as I can tell? It’s been a problem festering in Labour (and goodness knows the Conservatives have their own issues), so all the more he could have just tackled it head-on in the first instance and said, “I did something about it”. It would defang a large part of the attacks. There would always be more, but being all defensive was not going to help at all.
The one thing I thought he did great for the most part was staying out of individual cases and focusing on the process. It’s where most of the problems where, so fixing the process, or at least being seen trying to do so, would have helped.
Instead, by letting it fester, he let it become a very effective slur, to the point where many think he is personally anti-semitic. Is that fair? No. But nothing is going to be fair when you’re trying to take down established power structures trying to hold on to their power and wealth.
Sorry we never seem to be able to agree and seem in fact to be polar opposites. It is my opinion that Brexit was a stupid idea and has done , and will do , nothing to improve the economic or any other situation in the UK. Almost 50% of the nation voted remain at the time and surely with what has happened since even more wish they had now.
Remember that this was the baby of a totally discredited politician, backed by the ultra right ERG, who has proved many times that he will lie and lie and lie to get his own way.
I think people voted for a wide range of reasons, a lot of them emotional, a lot of them unrelated to being in or out of the EU, and nearly all of them remain unresolved and were never going to be resolved by leaving the EU.
I also think it is very important to recognise that anyone who voted for Brexit is a fucking idiot.
My sense of the anti-semitism problem in Labour is that there are a lot of Labour members (including me) who see a great deal in Israel’s foreign policy to criticise and stand opposed to.
There are a proportion of those people who tread a very fine between criticising Israel and and antisemitism. And a proportion of those who stride right over it.
But there is also an Israeli lobby who actively pursue the idea of blurring the boundary between criticism of Israel and antisemitism for the express purpose of hindering the idea of Palestinian solidarity.
I think that tension is always going to be there.
Perhaps Corbyn could have done more, but I think once the Labour right, the press and the Tories unified around the idea that this was the issue that they would destroy him with, I don’t think there was much that could have been done to counter it. As I said, some of the shit that was thrown at him was completely ridiculous and deeply antisemitic in its own right.
Being a Zionist and being Jewish…not mutually inclusive by any means. It’s being more than just a bit thick if you get that wrong, and also potentially very damaging - on several fronts.
An institutional anti-semitism problem in the Labour Party was entirely manufactured to destroy Corbyn. He is anti-Zionism and occupation. That’s not the same. He’s spent his whole life campaigning against racism and discrimination in all its forms. There are far more racists, antisemites and islamaphobes in the Tory party
If you’ve ever had the misfortune of reading any of Boris Johnson’s novels, with their depictions of secret cabals of money grubbing,hook-nosed Jews, it hard not to conclude that we hounded out the wrong leader over antisemitism.
Wanted the Eastern Europeans gone?
Some left because you were acting like pricks but most are still here and legally
Wanted Muslims and other brown people gone (legit know some people voted thinking this would happen)?
You fucking racist muppet, they’re still rightfully here
Wanted control of borders?
Marginal control of people from EU coming in, most don’t want to come anyway because you’ve made it unpalatable for them and yourselves. But more importantly you’ve made us a third country in our own fucking continent!
Deals with other countries?
US said fuck off
Deals with Oz and Nz that benefit them more than us
That’s it
Energy, food products, other goods, all have had prices go up as a direct consequence of Brexit.
Thousands of job opportunities lost as companies pull investment and move our their headquarters, also denying the country the tax revenues.
Educational and scientific partnership opportunities lost.
GBP value dropped like a stone
You can shove the blue passports up your fucking arses