Seizing back control: The ILX lol brexit is how we're all gonna die thread.

the book of Lammentations

This prompted a further thought: how easy it would be to construct a pretty decent cabinet from Labour’s backbenches: Jess Phillips, Seema Malhotra, Owen Smith, Stephen Kinnock, Gloria De Piero, Angela Eagle and David Lammy for a start. Then add in a handful of existing frontbenchers – Tom Watson, Keir Starmer – and, before you knew it, you’d have the basis of an electable Labour government with a fighting chance of uniting the country and governing it competently.

aren't Kinnock and De Piero both outspoken critics of Labour backing a second referendum? it's difficult to imagine them finding common ground with Lammy, Starmer etc

Tom Watson has been terrible as shadow DCMS for the entire time he’s been prioritising palace coups and the like, he ought to be told to fix up.

Kate Hoey is not standing again, which avoids the need for removing her. idk if the DUP have any vacancies.

Hooray!

(Just wait, Amy Lamé will try to win that seat, having come very close to being selected to replace Tessa Jowell).

Lol wtfffff

Sad to see you leave the Commons. A principled MP.

— John McTernan (@johnmcternan) July 8, 2019

I mean, she is quite principled? Her principles are like "fox hunting and Hard Brexit are good, accountability to your constituents, gay rights and spitting in football are bad", but they're certainly out there

anyway, good riddance, may the good people of Vauxhall never have a headbanger parachuted in as their MP ever again

do any of you have a suggestion of something to read to understand the Labour anti-semitism hullabaloo ? I’ve tried googling around but seem to find only cagey, meta-level commentary: eg “so-and-so said xyz which reignited the abc controversy” and I can’t decipher what the issues are. I was thinking, is this like “is it racist to say Zionism is racist”? but I can’t tell from what I’ve read. And one reads that the issues of Labour with anti-semitism are historic and long-standing: what of that can I read?

Just totally lolled at that piece on Universal Credit scammers on pm. Job centre staff talking about false claims made for peaple with 3 kids called hah, hah and hah! A 19 year old women with 6 blind children. Someones claim made for a landlord called Harry Kane!

Euler this Vox explianer seems decent imo (I favour articles that quote Michael Segalov generally tho)
http://www.vox.com/world/2019/3/8/18249953/

And one reads that the issues of Labour with anti-semitism are historic and long-standing: what of that can I read?

I might be wrong about this, but I think when ppl refer back to "historic" problems with anti-semitism in Labour they're talking about the fact that British society was (is) anti-semitic and Labour failed to deviate from that, not that Labour was more anti-semitic than society at large.

Just totally lolled at that piece on Universal Credit scammers on pm. Job centre staff talking about false claims made for peaple with 3 kids called hah, hah and hah! A 19 year old women with 6 blind children. Someones claim made for a landlord called Harry Kane!

The BBC reporter on this irritatingly kept saying Universial Credit - though, as it appeared as if he might be a member of the BBC Scotland Gaelic Mafia, maybe that's how they pronounce it in Stornoway.

https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/media/2019/07/sir-roger-scruton very good the NS doesn’t have any beef with his comments about Muslims. Can’t wait til they go bankrupt.

Going to bring this up regarding Jason Cowley and his outright veneration of white supremacists and the violent colonial expansion of the British Empire @JasonCowleyNS pic.twitter.com/yo5YFXwrSJ

— Muzakir Ahmed (@MuzakirAhmed) July 8, 2019

was... this not already policy

💥BREAKING: After talks today the unions have agreed a common position on Brexit: whatever deal negotiated by Boris Johnson OR exit date on No Deal should go to a second referendum.
Remain vs that deal should be on ballot paper.
Labour would campaign for Remain.

— Pippa Crerar (@PippaCrerar) July 8, 2019

Yep. Go to @judeinlondon2 for all your FFS FBPE needs.

Not exactly - Len @ Unite was strongly opposed, wasn’t he? And Unite are Labour’s biggest backer.

just reads like a subtle unscrambling of the rorschach to me - will no doubt be interpreted as a continuing fudge

the centrist narrative is "corbyn is swaying leave because he's the puppet of the extremist lexiteers milne, murray, len, and murphy"

💥 In event of general election, Labour’s manifesto position would be:
- negotiate a deal with EU to respect Brexit vote
- any final Labour deal then put back to the people
- ballot paper would have Labour deal vs Remain
CRUCIAL: Labour position would depend on deal negotiated.

— Pippa Crerar (@PippaCrerar) July 8, 2019

stunning stuff

(re: the "reporting" i mean)

Xps
Imagine pissing away tens of millions to ruthless doorstep scammers so easily like that. I can't wait till an audit reveals UC has been a costly mistake and most of those responsible for the travesty get lifetime peerages.

I might be wrong about this, but I think when ppl refer back to "historic" problems with anti-semitism in Labour they're talking about the fact that British society was (is) anti-semitic and Labour failed to deviate from that, not that Labour was more anti-semitic than society at large.

It very much depends on the people you ask. iirc polling over the last twenty years suggests that Labour members are less antisemitic than the baseline British public and about half as antisemitic as a percentage now than they were under Blair (with the caveat that the party is more than twice as large) - but the polling tends to be based on the extent to which members agree with what would generally be considered overtly antisemitic statements.

Segalov, Wolfson, etc, are right to say that 11% of the membership is 11% too much, irrespective of how much worse anyone else might be, and the party should make every effort to root them out / make it clear that they’re not welcome.

Extend that out, in good faith or not, to a broader range of more contentious opinions and it gets a little more hazy. Support for Palestine has traditionally been stronger on the left of the Labour Party than other political movements. If you sincerely believe that criticism of Israel without equal criticism of, idk, Morocco, is likely to be rooted in antisemitism then you’re probably going to think that Labour is more antisemitic than the polling suggests. Extend that even further to the argument, made a number of times over the last few years, that critiques of capitalism are inherently conspiratorial in nature and anti capitalist conspiracies are generally antisemitic, you also bring in more people. As the left has grown in strength, the perception might be that Labour has become a vehicle for antisemitism, irrespective of what any polling says to the contrary.

Inevitably, there is a crossover at times between the 11% of overt antisemites and the proportion of the membership that is vocal about Palestine / the abuses of capitalism, so rarely any shortage of incidents to point to in order to suggest it is all part and parcel.

This is true, I’d also add the low level of political education of older activists and members especially - they share stuff uncritically in Facebook groups that they maybe only partially understand - and you can see this from responses - and get angry when being accused of being racist, because to them racism is conscious.

Eleven percent? That many? I thought the figures were .01%?

I think that's the percentage for "Yes, I'm an antisemite, make sure you spell that correctly, A-N-T-I.."

It’s likely to be the percentage of members reported to a disciplinary committee, rather than the number who will agree with statements anonymously.

has anyone here read shami chakrabarti's report?

If the road to the disciplinary committee goes through Karie Murphy, that's going to be the same thing, so.

The main difference to the conference motion is that in that scenario Labour would campaign for Remain? Whether that happens or how they'd enforce it across the board is open for debate I guess.

Well, all the Leavers in Remain seats are fucking off, which helps.

can't help but hear karie murphy in dave chapelle doing rick james voice

STATEMENT: We call on @UKLabour’s NEC to do the right thing tomorrow. Reinstate Chris Williamson and let’s resume the fight for a Corbyn-led Labour government. pic.twitter.com/BUmo9760AJ

— Campaign for Chris Williamson (@CampaignForCW) July 8, 2019

no

Or they’ll do what, exactly?

also lol seen off by uh raheem kassam

I originally retweeted this but fucked if I'm giving yer man the numbers so screenshot instead. Alex Wickham here being reminded by his former editor at Breitbart of the sort of stuff he used to write about Islam before the media establishment memoryholed it all. pic.twitter.com/bEmKYOgcTP

— Stefano Vozza (@stef_wholemeal) July 8, 2019

lol Roger Waters, Ken Loach, Alexi Sayle, Brian Eno.. they don't need no education.

anti capitalist conspiracies are generally antisemitic

This part, at least, is definitely true, no?

That depends on what you define as a conspiracy theory, though. Believing that the Rothschilds and Goldman Sachs secretly plot out the course of the world economy between them is inseparable from antisemitic tropes. Believing that ‘corrupt politicians’ have ‘rigged the economy’ is a standard Bernie Sanders line. There are people who’ll happily argue that the latter is just as much of a conspiracy theory as the former.

But in all honesty, it's not specifically anti-capitalist? Corruption is a theme all over the world. If you say corrupt bankers have bought all the politicians, then...

bankers is only a synonym for jews if yr antisemitic

in the early 20th century the Judeo-Bolshevik myth wasn't a creation of the nazis, it was a collaborative creation of greater European bigotry and including Great Britain and other capitalist nations and it was still prevalent after the holocaust. just saying.

A lot of those tropes were constructed out of actual bullshit to allow the type of exclusive WASPy firms with more power than most other groups to carry on running things under the radar.

In light of Trump proving the UK Ambassador entirely correct with his latest tweets now would be a great time for May to say the same (wtf does she have to lose) or at least tweet him a link to that video of Johnson criticising him from a few years back.

Or they could all vanish in a puff of clemency.

now would be a great time for May to… wtf does she have to lose

feel you have not quite grasped some key things abt may here nash

Remember the time May wouldn’t speak out for Sadiq Khan when Trump was spotlighting him for all his fash followers? Remember when the US leaked the London Bridge attack details? Like she’ll do anything.

Also re anti capitalism & antisemitism

Saying "anti-capitalism is anti-semitic" is...anti-semitic.

It reinforces the racialisation of Jews as the capitalist class, erases the long and proud history of proletarian struggles by Jewish workers & tbh the people hawking this shit don't even believe it themselves.

— michael (@Sisyphusa) March 4, 2019

just because some people are shit at anti-capitalism & personify capital as Jews, that doesn't mean that the capitalist mode of production isn't objectively the most disastrous human and world-destroying force on earth that has also helped to slaughter millions of Jews ffsaaaaake

— michael (@Sisyphusa) March 4, 2019

Sisyphusa really rolling that ball of straw up the hill