Can he do any worse than Corbyn?
The comments he made about the EHRC report being overstated. The general consensus seems to be that it was “damming”. It doesn’t matter what I think of it or the level of anti- semitism in the Labour Party.
When was he supposed to make a statement?
They’re doing another Livingstone on him. No presumption is required.
Never mind the general consensus.
Why not try some evidence?
So according to this BBC article, a quarter of all British people hold antisemitic views.
According to this one, it’s “almost half”.
So how is it that:
0.25%
Constitutes rife antisemitism in the Labour Party?
On the evidence so far? Definitely.
So the report is wrong?
Perhaps after he had read it and fully digested it maybe? His response just made things worse. If he had just said something bland and given himself more time to come out with something more conciliatory perhaps he wouldnt be in this position now?
If it said antisemitism was “rife” in Labour, yes.
Have you read it Pap?
Nope. Not going to either. To answer your follow up question, “why not?”, it’s largely because I saw this sort of shit going on at a ground level, knew some of the people accused and know it’s a load of shite.
It’d be like reading a report on Jimmy Savile’s charity work posr 2012. Yeah, it’s there. It’s also pointless.
Two questions back at you.
Have you read the report?
Can you give me one example of someone that has been accused of antisemitism in Labour of being guilty of racism as part of the same offence?
No I haven’t. I did download it tonight so might give it a try later if I have trouble sleeping. If it is bollocks then it needs to be challenged.
The second question is a lot easier to answer, and it’s one of the reasons that I think a lot of the claims are exaggerated.
Ken Livingstone is a great example of the difference between antisemitism and racism, and why they probably shouldn’t be two different things.
Interviewed on the radio, Livingstone said these words. “Hitler supported Zionism”, a true statement. Hitler wanted the Jews out of the Reich. Zionists wanted Jewish people to move to the Palestinian mandate. There was a scheme set up between the groups to achieve just this.
I think before he’d left the studio, one of the Labour right wing has already misquoted him and the news was leading with the misquote, “Hitler was a zionist”. Jonn Mann doorstepped and heckled him in the street, calling him a Nazi apologist and bizarrely, recommended that Livngstone read Mein Kampf.
Brass tacks. Neither comment, the real one, or the misquote, is racist. It is a deeply embarrassing matter to bring up; the Israeli government fell when this news broke there.
I actually have a much broader sense of racism than most. For me, it’s simply discrimination of anyone based on their racial or cultural identity.
You may not call this racism, but when I took my scouse missus to live down South for a couple of years, there were people that genuinely thought she was about to rob the place or thought they could talk down to her because she was from Liverpool.
Alright, it’s probably not as harrowing as being a black man that owns a lovely car. My point is, pale and ginger as she is, her experiences feel closer to racism, the irrational discrimination against someone based on where they’re from, than Ken Livingstone factually wheeling out proto-Israel’s dirty laundry.
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Wouldn’t say it is racism, more narrow minded bigotry and provincialism of the highest order.
Arguably it would happen anywhere in the UK and dare I say it could happen to people moving to Liverhampton from elsewhere.
Scratch the surface of a lot of people in the UK, the English in particular, and it’s just sitting there.
You get what I’m saying though? That at least comes from the same irrational place as racism, and the outcomes are similar.
I should qualify that by saying that it was the 1990s. Different times. It was only six years after the S*n printed all their Hillsborough shite.
I had the same thing to a lesser extent up here when I first moved here. Most people were cool, but there were some that really didn’t like Southerners.
Doesn’t really happen these days. The people that would have bothered me or my missus 25 years ago are far too busy being racist to bother with the parochial.
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Yep, I get what you’re saying 100%
It all comes from the same place. Fear of anything or anyone that’s different and falls outside of their narrow minded world-view.
But surely that is exactly why Corbyn has to be extra careful about his choice of words? I know it’s it fair but when has politics ever been fair? Trump and Johnson have both proved that you can lie through your teeth all day long but if you give enough of the people what they want, they won’t care.
Thing is, antisemitism used to mean exactly the same thing as racism. Irrational, and in some cases infamously lethal and widespread discrimination.
That’s why I asked @Sadoldgit whether he could point to any instances where someone had actually been racist at the same time.
Having read the transcripts @Goatboy faithfully reproduced, I think he was meticulously careful with his words. Is anything he said racist?
And yet Starmer feels able to breach parts of the EHRC report when it suits him, which lays bare the whole sham. This is, and never has been about whether or not Jeremy Corbyn is an antisemite, his accusers know he isn’t an antisemite FFS. It’s a case of the ends justifying the means to them. Corbyn’s fate was sealed the day he won the first leadership election and made his acceptance speech, ending with the emphatic promise that a Labour Party led by him “Will recognize the Palestinian State”, which was met by the loudest roar of the night. Just imagine the reaction to that in the corridors of power, and especially in the Embassy of a certain Middle Eastern state. Almost immediately a campaign was started by right wing Labour MPs, Friends of Israel, aided by virtually all of the MSM to undermine his election win. At first they tried more conventional methods, refusing to accept the result of the ballot and demanding another one, which, when they got their way he won even more emphatically. Then a drip drip of negative storys started on a daily basis, Corbyn the Czech spy, Corbyn the IRA supporter, Corbyn the Islamic terrorist supporter and all the other vile nonsensical lies, none of which gained any traction. Then they hit on antisemitism and really thought they had struck gold. Large amounts of money and effort was thrown at project ‘Get Corbyn’ by the Israeli embassy,(I’m sure we’ve all seen The Lobby), a relentless daily campaign across the media, it was impossible to get away from it. This continued right up to the 2017 election, when they got the shock of their lives when, despite all polls and forecasts and many in his own party working frantically to undermine him, he ate into the Tory majority closing the gap dramatically in the closing stages of the campaign, many political observers concede that if there had been another week of campaigning he could very likely have won. The look of shock on Stephen Kinnock’s face at his count that night when he realised what had happened summed it up perfectly, i thought he was going to be sick. Once the dust had settled the whole relentless smear campaign campaign resumed, the undermining and sometimes overt sabotage from some on his own side was stepped up, continuing right up until the election last year. Now these people have got their way they are calling for ‘unity in the party’, ‘Get behind the new leader’, ‘no disloyalty from the ranks’ and the rest of the laughable hypocrisy. They’ve got some front, I’ll give them that!
Starmer has appeared from nowhere really, he only became an MP five years ago. He’s certainly been fast tracked through the ranks. No efforts were spared during his leadership campaign, his financial backing dwarfed all other candidates, the sources of which he went to great efforts not to disclose. He is obviously very bright intellectually, but i’m not so sure he is entirely comfortable with the politics side of being leader. He’s shown himself to be a reactionary in the way he is dealing with Corbyn. And stating that he was not restoring the whip was a lie, the whip was automatically restored when Corbyn was reinstated. Starmer took the decision to remove the whip which is another thing entirely, he just didn’t have the balls to admit it.
Last night Margaret Hodge, who leads the charge in parliament, told Starmer that if he didn’t withdraw the whip she would resign. Her commitment to the EHRC ban on political interference in disciplinary processes on display there!
Now Hodge and her gang, the BOD, JVL etc are demanding the suspension of all members who signed the petition condemning Corbyn’s suspension and demanding it be overturned. A lot of people, many of them, let’s face it, enthused by his support for Palestinian rights among other things. There are also calls for the thirty two MP’s who called for the whip to be restored to be suspended. The BOD and the JVL represent a small, portion of Jewish people in this country, yet Starmer has permitted them to oversee Labour’s antisemitism measures and disciplinary processes. They don’t speak for anywhere even close to the entirety of the Jewish community so why is he allowing them to do this? It is a slippery slope.
Soggy seems to imply that none of this should matter, it should be swept under the carpet and made to disappear in the interest of the greater goal, a good man should just swallow having his good name and reputation tarnished and his supporters thrown out,for a Starmer led Labour government, in four years time. Because he couldn’t be as bad as Boris Johnson. I’m sure he couldn’t be as bad as Johnson. who could, but he would have the same established order pulling his strings. Meet the new boss - same as the old boss. That’s why they really feared Corbyn.
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