Skybluefaz
Well-Known Member
I don't think it's Starmer's choice to allow Corbyn back
Oh Jeremy Corbyn (6 Viewers)
- Thread starter shmmeee
- Start date
Ian1779
Well-Known Member
But it is his choice to withhold the whip that would have been automatically re-instated.
shmmeee
Well-Known Member
Yes. He’s leader of the PLP as well as the Party. And the whip wouldn’t have been automatically reinstated. That’s nonsense being spread by people intentionally misreading the rule book.
His expulsion from the party and the removal of the whip are two different things. He needs to appeal his withdrawal of the whip. Not sure what’s happening with that.
Relevant bit of the rule book:
Ian1779
Well-Known Member
Happy to be corrected on that.
To be honest it would be a lot clearer for everyone if this situation was dealt with factually and not played out with ‘experts’ through a media lens.
In terms of his suspension make it clear what rule he breached/broke. Explain what changed so that he was re-admitted but not given back the whip. The actions appear to be in contradiction of the recommendations in the EHRC report (even if the timing of his comment was thoughtless - which it was)
As I’ve said before - I don’t think he is AS. But if he is, show me indisputable proof and then his expulsion would be justified.
shmmeee
Well-Known Member
I don’t either. But I do think he’s too pig headed to just apologise for what happened on his watch. He wants to win the fight as he sees it the morally correct fight to clear people who were accused unfairly or who say he is antisemitic.
The refusal to play politics was a plus for him at the start but eventually there comes a time where people realise others play politics for a very good reason, mostly because the court of public opinion isn’t fair.
Politically Starmer has to distance himself from Corbyn. A smart left would recognise this (and recognise getting Starmer elected is their best hope of enacting change at all) and not lionise Corbyn. Accept maybe he was treated unfairly but thems the breaks and the project is too important to scupper for the sake of one guy.
fernandopartridge
Well-Known Member
The centre or right of the party has had a non stop paddy for 5 years. They're managing to conveniently take the heat off the government once again. Wankers.
clint van damme
Well-Known Member
8
What project?
What project?
shmmeee
Well-Known Member
They aren’t the ones throwing a fit because Corbyn was expelled. They need to get over Corbyn and work constructively instead of whining that they lost. Yes members of the right did that too. Not going to say center as the soft left generally went along with Corbyn (he wouldn’t have won the leadership elections without them, no one does).
But someone has to stop. And at the moment it’s the left. Again it may not be “fair” but in the words of mothers everywhere “I don’t care who started it”.
Frankly this silly childlike attitude from the left of the party and the conspiracy nonsense really puts me off. I’m someone who voted for Corbyn because he believes in his economics and wants a left wing party. But I’m adult enough to recognise how politics works and that you can’t deselect the electorate.
Left wing thought like you and I see it is 15-20% of the vote max. It isn’t going to get elected on its own. The choice isn’t left wing Labour or left wing other party. The choice is influence Labour as part of a coalition of the left or slide into insignificance.
Starmer is facing the voters for once. It’s time the left did the same. Unless you don’t think left wing ideas can solve voter problems, that shouldn’t be an issue.
shmmeee
Well-Known Member
The Labour project. The progressive project. The make the world a slightly less shit place project. Eyes on the prize.
Corbyn doesn’t matter. What matters is finding a way to get progressive left wing policy enacted.
clint van damme
Well-Known Member
Which given how much time some of the right of the party spent actively working against Corbyn is a ridiculous statement.
Fair enough if they thought he was that bad and thought he was a disaster but don't slate people who are equally unimpressed with Starmer.
Ian1779
Well-Known Member
I feel that Corbyn never got on the front foot and seized control of the narrative on AS. Often he said very little - which allowed others to set the conversation. He should have been assertive to the point of aggressive on this. Call out directly those with exaggerated or inaccurate claims. When he found out that the state of what Ian McNicol had done (or not done) he should have suspended him from the party and looked to sack him for gross misconduct - not give a back door route out. By doing this it would be demonstrating clear action to eradicate it. He should have come out directly with figures, numbers and taken control that way. By trying to appease he let people that wanted to undermine him have all the control - which also actually took away from the process of dealing with the actual issue ‘the anti-semitism issue that DOES exist in the Labour Party - even if it is a relatively small amount’
If by comparison you look at the way Sanders swiftly dealt with similar allegations when he was still running against Biden - he called it out and shut it down pretty quickly.
If by comparison you look at the way Sanders swiftly dealt with similar allegations when he was still running against Biden - he called it out and shut it down pretty quickly.
shmmeee
Well-Known Member
I’m not skating you. I’m saying pick your battles. Some old bloke from Islington doesn’t matter. And right now fighting this fight makes the left look even worse.
Two wrongs don’t make a right. Yeah the right were shit. And now the left are shit. Both are wrong.
The left needs to take reality head on but it won’t. It wants to exist in this hypothetical headspace of “what would be perfect” or as I saw someone on Twitter say “First invent a time machine”. I get it. I like it too. It’s the land of UBI and green energy and a fair media. But that’s not where politics exists.
Oersonally I’m known for being negative at work. In my head I’m identifying issues and solutions to make the company better, but no matter how much I think this that isn’t how it comes across. So I go out of my way to censor myself and be positive even when I wouldn’t because then my words carry more weight.
The left needs to stop asking “what should it be like” and start asking “what is it like and how do we navigate this reality?” Deal with the world as it is not as you wish it to be.
clint van damme
Well-Known Member
My issues with Starmer have nothing to do with Corbyn. I really wish he'd retire personally.
The 'right' need to wake up to the fact that, among other things, supporting the Tories spycop bill and not following up his empty rhetoric against Jenrick are far bigger issues for some of us.
Making out anyone who criticises Starmer is a disgruntled Corbyn supporter is just lazy thinking and won't help build any bridges.
Ian1779
Well-Known Member
IMO the ‘right’ of the party believe that the electorate exist to serve their needs - not the other way round.
shmmeee
Well-Known Member
Sorry it’s being in the Corbyn thread that confused me.
I mean for me (and I didn’t vote Starmer I voted Nandy), he’s ahead in the polls and rebuilding the party image.
Your issue seems to be he doesn’t do performative opposition a la Corbyn. I’m not convinced that works, but doesn’t he have a mandate to try his way?
Unless you think renowned human rights lawyer Keir Starmer is secretly against human rights rather than this being an electoral strategy?
shmmeee
Well-Known Member
Brighton Sky Blue
Well-Known Member
I guess it’s just that charisma/energy is what drives out your base to vote. Starmer seems competent but not yet someone people would want to go into battle for. I don’t want him ranting like a madman either but he could do well to learn from the clown
clint van damme
Well-Known Member
My comments were more a general observation about the right of the party than solely a reply to your comments.
It's not about just doing the opposite, he made 10 pledges, 10 pledges I can get behind, it's about sticking to their core principals as far as I'm concerned.
He's not been in a year and he's already trashing them.
Now I'm not that naive that I thought they'd all be carried through to the letter but hes already strayed too far as far as I'm concerned.
If I wanted to vote for a load of empty rhetoric that looks good on paper but is never going to be implemented I'd get behind Johnson he's the master of it.
Ian1779
Well-Known Member
He doesn’t appear to stand for anything - and you would think the one thing he would stand up against and reject as a human rights lawyer is the spycops bill.
To be honest being electorally savvy would be an improvement as Corbyn was naive here -
but all Starmer appears to be doing is alienating sections of the solid Lab vote. The left, the BAME community for example.
At some point the Press will go after Starmer. You know they will go on the attack line about Starmer ‘letting Saville off’ - whether that’s true or not. The courting of the soft right vote now might be playing out nicely in the polls - but that will evaporate once the media start with this kind of line.
clint van damme
Well-Known Member
The fact Starmer has no charisma is the least of my concerns - as long as I'm never stuck in a lift with him.
Brighton Sky Blue
Well-Known Member
Well I also have a slight issue of being told to unify behind the leader like a good boy but to accept that Corbyn spent most if not all of his term being undermined by the centrist wing of the party.
shmmeee
Well-Known Member
And the attacks won’t land unless the public already sort of believes them. We saw that with Corbyn. He was smeared from day -1 but it didn’t hurt him until he did something in voters eyes (Skripol/Brexit) that confirmed it.
We abstained from spy cops. You can read his reasoning here and why he thinks actually it was the right human rights position:
Starmer defends Labour position on ‘spy cops’ Bill
The Labour leader said the Bill would not give agents the ability to legally torture, murder or rape.
You also can’t ignore the reality that thanks to Corbyn he needs to go hard on anti terror and law and order just to seem normal. My biggest issue with Corbyn was always that what followed him would have to swing too far the other way for my preference, but you can’t cry over spilt milk.
Ian1779
Well-Known Member
I’m not disputing that the left aren’t naive in their ideals sometimes - but at least they have values and believe in something.
Listening to MP’s on the right of Labour remind me of watching the Apprentice. Lots of fancy noise about ‘electability’ and ‘grown ups in charge’ - criticism of the ‘student or protest politics’ of the left. Put them under even the tiniest bit of scrutiny and it falls apart. They don’t have anything to offer other than buzzwords.
Maybe if the 2 halfs managed to co-exist they would get somewhere, but you are asking the left to do that after 5 years of being undermined.
shmmeee
Well-Known Member
Ser this pisses me off “at least they believe something”. Fucking everyone in politics believes something. Even BoZo has principles about liberalism and trade.
This is a disagreement about tactics. How do you get elected when by definition the country don’t all agree with you 100%. Which battles do you pick?
That isn’t an argument to be the right of the party. That’s an argument for the left to answer the fucking question instead of whining about how everything isn’t fair.
The pure fact of the matter in U.K. politics (most politics in fact) is this:
You either slide the economic dial left but need more socially conservative voters on board.
Or you slide it right.
And the left refuses to engage with that reality. It refuses to prioritise. Everything is the most important fundamental issue of principle and it would be unthinkable not to fight this battle.
Fixing the fucking Israel Palestine issue ahead of getting elected. Performatively shouting against the secret service rather than build voter trust.
That doesn’t mean drop all your principles. But maybe pick the three or four that really matter to you and build consensus there and allow dissent elsewhere in your voter coalition.
For Blair that was child poverty and public service reform. For me it would be low wages and the climate.
Once you’ve made that decision be as principled as you like about those things. But make a choice.
clint van damme
Well-Known Member
And the attacks won’t land unless the public already sort of believes them. We saw that with Corbyn. He was smeared from day -1 but it didn’t hurt him until he did something in voters eyes (Skripol/Brexit) that confirmed it.
We abstained from spy cops. You can read his reasoning here and why he thinks actually it was the right human rights position:
Starmer defends Labour position on ‘spy cops’ Bill
The Labour leader said the Bill would not give agents the ability to legally torture, murder or rape.www.shropshirestar.com
You also can’t ignore the reality that thanks to Corbyn he needs to go hard on anti terror and law and order just to seem normal. My biggest issue with Corbyn was always that what followed him would have to swing too far the other way for my preference, but you can’t cry over spilt milk.
That article is sensationist drivel.
Allowing rape and murder hadn't even crossed my mind.
But the bill does allow the continuation.of the underhand surveilance tactics which have been used against the unions in the past.
If that's what he believes in then fine, but reduce your pledges to 8 and get rid of 7 and 10.
shmmeee
Well-Known Member
Again. You say it’s not effective opposition (10), because to you effective opposition means getting shouty at PMQs and voting for the Twitter memes. Not trying to get changes to a law when you’re up against an 80 seat majority. I think you don’t appreciate just how different Corbyns situation was. He had a hung Parliament and if he was competent could have caused chaos. He didn’t because he cares more about “firing up the Base” and appearing to disagree than affecting change.
You’ve clearly got an issue with him. All I’m asking is understand the tactics he’s playing and give him time to pass around the back without everyone screaming “get it forward” at him. If we lose 5-0 I’ll be the first to say he needs to go. But right now we’re a quarter of the way through and he’s kept us in the game. Let’s see how Brexit plays out and if that 40% block of voters starts to break up, but for now he’s doing OK.
clint van damme
Well-Known Member
Im not overly bothered by him not kicking off all the time though I'd prefer it if he was a bit more aggressive but it's not a massive issue.
He was never going to stop the spycop bill but two of his pledges mentioned relationships with the unions, there was his chance to show he meant it and send out a message that he believed in his own charter but he shit all over his own pledges.
If he can do it go two of them he can so it to the other 8 (and plenty of people are making the case that he already has but I'm not going there yet).
You're asking to give him a chance, I have, I'm not impressed.
Ian1779
Well-Known Member
I was happy to see him as a unity candidate - I was happy with the pledges he ran and got elected.
I didn’t expect him to turn his back on them so quickly. I am hugely disappointed in his support for the teaching profession during this pandemic - if he wanted ‘schools back, no ifs, no buts’ why has he not be relentless on pushing for mass testing for teachers and/or students? Why has he not been relentless on pressurising to sorting out track and trace?
Yes he doesn’t have a majority in Parliament but he’d sure as hell have public backing, which as we’ve seen has influenced policy time and again already. Rashford has shown that on his own.
This is the guy you want me to back - but he doesn’t have mine. I know that Corbyn’s Labour would.
I didn’t expect him to turn his back on them so quickly. I am hugely disappointed in his support for the teaching profession during this pandemic - if he wanted ‘schools back, no ifs, no buts’ why has he not be relentless on pushing for mass testing for teachers and/or students? Why has he not been relentless on pressurising to sorting out track and trace?
Yes he doesn’t have a majority in Parliament but he’d sure as hell have public backing, which as we’ve seen has influenced policy time and again already. Rashford has shown that on his own.
This is the guy you want me to back - but he doesn’t have mine. I know that Corbyn’s Labour would.
shmmeee
Well-Known Member
I think this is a fundamental disconnect between activist and parliament. Activists can push boundaries and shout loudly and be effective at it. MPs have to work differently. Corbyn was an outstanding activist and campaigner, but like the Tories found out with Cummings being good at campaigning doesn’t translate to the slow boring process of governing/opposition.
I wish the party has some deniable plausibility like the right so with their activist wings. But the membership model makes that hard to disassociate. The Tories can rise above Toby Young or Brendan O’Neil but the likes of Owen Jones and Ash Sakar are far more tightly knit with the Labour Party itself because their audience can vote.
It’sabatch87
Well-Known Member
Found this interesting to add my bit to the discussion.
www.thesun.co.uk
Keir Starmer's a nice new leader but it's the same nasty old Labour Party
YAY, he’s back! Magic Grandpa has made his return. You can probably hear the cheering from the rooftops. Jeremy Corbyn has, bizarrely, been allowed back into the Labour Party.The party he led to it…
www.thesun.co.uk
Skybluefaz
Well-Known Member
You seem to have shared something from the Sun.Found this interesting to add my bit to the discussion.
Keir Starmer's a nice new leader but it's the same nasty old Labour Party
YAY, he’s back! Magic Grandpa has made his return. You can probably hear the cheering from the rooftops. Jeremy Corbyn has, bizarrely, been allowed back into the Labour Party.The party he led to it…
shmmeee
Well-Known Member
Found this interesting to add my bit to the discussion.
Keir Starmer's a nice new leader but it's the same nasty old Labour Party
YAY, he’s back! Magic Grandpa has made his return. You can probably hear the cheering from the rooftops. Jeremy Corbyn has, bizarrely, been allowed back into the Labour Party.The party he led to it…
Standard attack lines really. Would hold more weight if the Tories had shown any interest whatsoever about dealing with their own Islamophobia and AS issues TBH.
Corbyn handled AS poorly, and the issue with him was it was too rife too close to him, but the idea that Labour is the worst party and has some unique poison it must rid itself of first is pure naked politics. By all measures Labour is one of the least racist memberships around.
This is just the right trying to keep their punching bag relevant a bit longer. Like you’ll see the Democrats try and attach whoever is next to Trump.
Brighton Sky Blue
Well-Known Member
Democrats more busy attacking elements of their own party than Trump tbf.
shmmeee
Well-Known Member
How terrible and totally unique to American left wing politics.
Edit: in seriousness this comes from the activist/electoral split again and has always missed the right because their party can happily ignore its fringes. Farage and the rest take just as many pops at the Tories for the same reasons as the left do at Labour/Democrats, they are just easier to ignore.
The more I think about it the more I think the left needs to have a non-parliamentary unaffiliated network of activist groups it can devote its energy to that can do the dirty work of shifting the Overton window and fighting in the gutter online and the political party needs to be hived off and allowed to triangulate and call on (left wing) think tanks for policy.
Play to people’s strengths. Not sure the left would like it though. I do think they’d find themselves more effective.
Sky_Blue_Dreamer
Well-Known Member
I agree with that, but at the same time when you have Starmer making more of the issue of Corbyn by denying the whip ahead of pointing out the issues those attacking Labour have, which are arguably far broader and larger, it's making it easy for them.
Admittedly it's a damned-if-you-do, damned-if-you-don't issue, because if he goes for the Tories record it's just shouts of "Ignoring anti-semitism in his own party", or 'brushed under the carpet/whitewash' if he lets Corbyn back in without a fuss. I reckon Starmer could take the position he has with Corbyn IF he was also attacking the Tories more vehemently on their track record and the Islamophobia enquiry that still hasn't happened, but at the moment if feels like he's making his own party look more guilty while letting the Tories off.