:labour: Where now for Labour?

Not sure if I agree with this philosophy but it’s got Kylie in it (in HD) so not all bad.

No - more like Len’s threat to cut off the cash put the wind up the hierarchy

Disgraceful. Labour roots getting uppity because Labour’s leadership bleaching them :slight_smile:

Looks like they have played a blinder over this one. Starmer has demonstrated that he is taking the claims of anti-semitism seriously and Corbyn is back. Hopefully now Corbyn will realise that he needs to be more careful about his choice of words. He has been around long enough to know that every word and intonation is scrutinised whenever he talks on the subject. Even his apology didn’t sound convincing to those it was aimed at.

Keir has refused to return the whip to JC

Big scrap between Labour party and PLP on the cards?

What do you think he needs to apologise for?

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Well personally I will be pouring over my contribution to the Sotonian “Israel” thread to see if I have to make any public apologies. Somehow I don’t think I will have to, nor any other contributor.

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Don’t let @Fatso hear you say that.

I think it’s very clear what exactly we are talking about in that thread…no hidden messages going out, purely a secular discussion.

It’s the subject I’m absolutely most careful about, simply because I’ve seen it discussed not so carefully and the consequences meted out to those who cross wherever the line happens to be these days.

Because of that and one other thing, I found @Fatso’s comments very disappointing. I was always very aware of our spiky on site relationship, so I’d PM him, check he was alright with the level of snark.

After @Furball left the coop calling everyone similar things, I specifically contacted Fatso about this issue. His views then were at significant variance with some of his parting comments.

My stance on Israel is still the same. It is a prolific international law breaker, protected from sanction by its chums on the Permanent Security Council. The simple application of international law would do much to normalise its relations with the rest of the world.

The Palestinians are the most ill treated part of the equation, but I feel almost as sorry for Israeli-born kids that have to go through Israeli school indoctrination. They don’t know any better, and in their shoes, I’m not sure I would.

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And how many times does he need to say that he abhors anti-semitism and racism in all its forms? He has been remarkably restrained and composed for somebody who has had to listen to vile lies and slander about him on a daily basis for the past five years. It’s him who should receive an apology.

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You have to ask yourself why he was targeted and it’s very very easy to understand why. If you take away the fact that they targeted the politician who had the longest, most exemploremy record of supporting human rights and racial equality…what do you have left.

A popular left wing Labour Party Leader. So should he have been reinstated?..of course.

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He was targeted for one reason only, because he is, and always has been a vocal supporter of Palestinian human rights, and is not afraid to call out the State of Israel for their despicable war crimes in their treatment of them. In the corridors of power these are views that cannot be allowed to prevail, a potential PM holding them is beyond the pale and had to be stopped at all costs.

Starmer, of course is bought and paid for by the Board of Deputys, JLM etc, as evidenced by the substantial financial support he received from them during his leadership campaign. Support that he went to great lengths to keep hidden, refusing to discuss where his financial backing was coming from even though the other candidates were openly disclosing theirs, and repeatedly calling for him to do the same. Which he resisted right up to the bitter end. And last night there was a chorus from the BOD, JLM, Margaret Hodge, Dame Louise Ellman (Who isn’t even a member of the party anymore), Stephen Pollard et al, all demanding that Starmer deny the whip from Corbyn even though he has been reinstated. Starmer of course immediately obliged.
This is a statement from Jewish Voice For Labour, who represent many many Jewish people, particularly the younger ones. But organizations like this don’t exist if you listen to or read the MSM, they are never given any platform. Apparently they are ‘The wrong kind of Jews’. Oh the irony!

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He shouldn’t be separating them at all.

Just abhor all racism. It’s easier.

Who shouldn’t be separating what? I’m afraid you’ve lost me there.

Racism and antisemitism shouldn’t really be separate things.

Come on Pap. I know that he had a tough job, but he hadn’t handled the situation all the way through particularly well has he? Words are one thing, actions another. Whatever you think of Starmer, he is trying to deal with this and stop it interfering with what should be the main aim, to get the Tories out and to get elected. There was a faction in the Labour Party that was working to sabotage Corbyn and now we see another faction that seems to be working against Starmer. To get elected Labour need to appeal to conservative middle England. The sort of people who are easily persuaded by headlines in The Sun, Mail and Express. His comments after the report was published were extremely naive and gave his enemies a free hit. You said it was politics, of course it is. People make political capital where they can and truth and the facts often get lost in the process. Which is precisely why you need to be very careful they way you respond to situations like this. Labour made an unholy mess of the last election (let’s have no more of this won the argument guff) and of the way that the anti-Semitism claims were handled. It needs to get put to bed once and for all so that the party can get back to focussing on presenting itself as a future credible government.

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Trouble is this is an issue that won’t lie down unless the Labour Party endorse the apartheid state of Israel.

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Sorry mucker, but this is really the work of Starmer and pals. I’ve said throughout that it was largely exaggerated and confected. They scorched the earth. Don’t think for a second I feel sorry for them for having to live on it.

Oh right. Couldn’t agree more.
What really sickens me is the nauseating hypocrisy of people like Hodge, Smeeth and the rest of the Israel Firsters in the PLP who have spent the past few years publicly slandering a good and decent man with false accusations of him being a racist, despite his record of actively fighting all kinds of racism for over forty years. One of only three MPs who has signed every parliamentary motion opposing anti-semitism over the past forty years. They are actually weaponizing anti-semitism in order to achieve their own self interested ends. And doing it in the name of fighting anti-semitism . The wonderful Michael Rosen absolutely nails it.

“If people combatting antisemitism in the Labour Party are not combatting antisemitism in the Tory Party then they’re not combatting antisemitism. They’re combatting the Labour Party.”.

Glenn Greenwald puts it far better than me.

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