Ne'er get thee stitched til Booris be ditched: UK General Election 2019

fucking hell, this poor family

Goodness, Raab seeking to recoup the govt's legal costs from Harry Dunn's family is so heartlesshttps://t.co/gatkiXJtLe

— Sonia Sodha (@soniasodha) November 20, 2019

Doglatin it is simply untrue that no one has criticised the AS claims or have handwaved them away - we've talked about them extensively often in a spirits of FFS exasperation with Labour's uselessness at dealing with it. Like, probably dozens of times.

xp
quite a villainous and nasty move to pull is that - especially weeks before an election, probably the price they've paid for saying Raab is a dishonest oily twat.

Doglatin it is simply untrue that no one has criticised the AS claims or have handwaved them away - we've talked about them extensively often in a spirits of FFS exasperation with Labour's uselessness at dealing with it. Like, probably dozens of times.

― Matt DC, Wednesday, November 20, 2019 5:50 PM (four minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

Fair dos. I don't really follow this thread regularly and I'm not just talking about ILX, but lefty online spheres in general where any mention of AS is too often shot down with an 'IT'S ALL A SMEAR!' head-burying. Whether Corbyn's Labour is antisemitic or not, I find that very dismaying. But I see it so often, it makes me really disheartened and leads me to think 'no wonder people are put off'.

There is a world outside ILX, Matt ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.

james butler if it hasn't already been posted*: https://www.lrb.co.uk/blog/2019/november/arid-exchanges

*i'm not rereading lol

good article

labour has storied history of racism

Sometimes it just strikes me that Britain helped kill hundreds of thousands of brown people in a famously secular Middle East state because of an ultra-niche hyper-extreme religious terrorist group from other countries, and virtually no-one ever seems to recognise this as racism.

— I (@trevorbastard) November 20, 2019

Oh yeah I don't follow those kinds of discussions - I made the mistake of doing that with something about Chris Williamson once and never again. Don't stick your head in the sewer remains a good rule to live by.

Leaving aside the obvious moral reprehensibleness of that decision from Raab it shows a level of complacency within the Tories at the moment because they clearly believe they can create such clearly emotive bad headlines with impunity. That's the sort of story that stops someone switching from Labour (or even the Brexit Party) to the Tories and Labour should be making a massive deal out of it.

They should be making more out of the Arcuri thing as well - it's not bringing someone's personal life into it, it's a matter of public interest that Johnson appears to have abused his position, misappropriated public funds and then lied about it.

i wonder with someone like Johnson whether people who are going to vote him care.

I mean his racism and mendacity are very much features and not bugs for lots of voters. As long as he’s targeting the Muslims and foreigns, he can do what he likes.

boris fucks. proper lad

I'm sure many don't but by no means all.

tbh boris is a craven dweeb who's had his entire life handed to him on a salver but this alchemises in certain quarters of public perception to boris the alpha sexbeast who'll fuck britain to victory, it is all extremely inaccurate and depressing for all that he wishes it were so

FWIW my gut feel is still that the election will deliver much the same result as last time - I don't see where the extra seats are going to come from for Johnson (there are several knife edge Lab-Con marginals but not enough) but I don't see Labour making sufficient ground even to become the largest party.

The DUP may not be as obliging this time round, assuming they have as many MPs this time round.

on corbyn as Labour leader, as the article ||||||| posted says, no one else would have positioned Labour as a progressive left party (even if i think some of the policies are *regressive*, I’m fundamentally sympathetic to the programme). “i’d love to vote for progressive left policies if it weren’t for corbyn” usually feels strongly disingenuous.

anti-semitism in labour exists. as i said upthread, the palestinian vector has some nasty anti-semitic fellow travellers associated with it. corbyn doesn’t seem to be one of those but has perhaps been a bit dull-witted at times. and for those who say that if it is institutional then it existed under Blair and others have a sort of point, but it ignores the space in which Corbyn exists.

but the anti-semitism argument is thrown around in what is clearly bad faith a lot of the time, to attack Corbyn personally, and that

i really don’t get “Corbyn doesn’t believe in the EU” arguments. The policy has been stated. It’s not flash card clear, but reasonably easy to understand and represent with not much effort. What Corbyn feels personally doesn’t have much meaning in that context, and seems an extension of personality politics at the expense of understanding that parties have or should have policy.

It's not sleeveless, mind you, but this is still amusing from a French pov:

https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/7da7e10054fa41cfedfdd67711799bb8d7ba187e/0_89_5422_3253/master/5422.jpg?width=1920&quality=85&auto=format&fit=max&s=bb4b194c6546b2941bf7c76eb0f30178

xps to Tom D No, definitely not. Yr middle England Tories, like my mother in law, are not really that into the whole package.

tbh boris is a craven dweeb who's had his entire life handed to him on a salver but this alchemises in certain quarters of public perception to boris the alpha sexbeast who'll fuck britain to victory, it is all extremely inaccurate and depressing for all that he wishes it were so

xp to Matt DC

John Curtice said recently that the mathematical probability of Labour getting an outright majority is as close to zero as it can be because of Scotland, which makes sense. A second referendum coalition, which would have to include the SNP I think, is the only option that puts Labour in power, with another general election next year.

Good post Fizzles

(referring to your previous one)

Labour picked up 3.5 million extra votes at the last election and are around 700K short of overtaking both the current Tories (not that this may convert to a FPTP majority but they can win over 60 marginals they created two years ago including the PM's) and '97 Blair's. This is after the antisemitism war and all other criticisms around Corbyn were out there and run into the ground but before the Windrush debacle, Grenfell, the Tories chumming up with Orban in the EU, Johnson's tens of indiscretions and fuck ups since then, women being intimidated out of the Tory party bringing their ratio in it to an appalling 20% and more.

Who voted for Labour in 2017 but now will not be? And who is voting for the first time but not for Labour? These are the only people I wanna argue this much about and even then probably only if they're in a blue-red marginal.

xps to Tom D No, definitely not. Yr middle England Tories, like my mother in law, are not really that into the whole package.

Can we take a moment to wonder if any green party members and supporters are reassessing their party's electoral pact with the lib dems

Minority opinion but Raab is basically right and waiving the possibility of seeking costs on judicial review when it plays badly in the media is the kind of thing that governments shouldn't be in the business of doing.

Good post Fizzles

in my extremely uneducated opinion, Palestine is one of those causes that has been relatively marginal & so it seems that there’s more keenness to embrace and overlook the flaws of any fucker who’ll turn up and beef up the numbers. Which is bad! You always get mad conspiracists around basically anything to do with Jewish people as well.

"but lefty online spheres in general where any mention of AS is too often shot down with an 'IT'S ALL A SMEAR!' head-burying"

So you are not on twitter and you haven't followed ilx threads and you get all this from 'online lefty spheres' not the real world? Ok..

There's definitely a kind of Corbyn paradox at work here - where Labour itself is more popular than Corbyn but the version of Labour that is popular wouldn't have come into existence under any of his leadership rivals. (Having said that I think something similar would have happened eventually as leaders tend to be the product of wider sociohistorical factors that would have put someone like them in charge regardless, but it would have taken longer).

That doesn't mean that elements of Corbyn's base aren't in the process of toxifying the party in their own way - Labour has to come to some way of dealing with that.

I remember getting looks from my friends when I insisted that anti-semitism on the left was A Thing way before this labour thing blew up, so it’s frustrating to see it finally being taken seriously but mainly by people who think it’s all Corbyn’s fault somehow. Matt otm, if the momentum wing is gonna be the driving force (god willing) we need to be better at stamping that shit out

i really don’t get “Corbyn doesn’t believe in the EU” arguments.

I don't believe in the EU and I voted Remain, unlike Corbyn (joek)

I'd just like to announce that after making light of knife crime in regard to Boris Johnson during this thread last night I shall be retiring from public duties.

online lefty spheres

This is a problem. Probably not intentional but phrases like this are so vague and abstract it leaves nowhere to go. Maybe I agree, maybe I disagree but nobody knows, because its left unexplained idea what these spheres are, its left to the readers imagination. This inability or refusal to pin things down leaves the reader second guessing. Coupled with having to second guess what the macro view is because its unclear where your view ends and the macro view starts the reader is left disoriented

Oh fuck it's a Brexit PPB with fucking soldiers in it Where's the kitchen knives?

I honestly do not give two fucks if jemery croy;nob stays neutral in a 2nd ref and if he personally uses his pen to put a big fat X in the leave box on the ballot. The important thing in the event of a 2nd ref is to make and win the arguments that were so lacking last time.

That's about the size of it.

But there are fewer people who need telling what way to vote this time!

The important thing in the event of a 2nd ref is to make and win the arguments that were so lacking last time.

I agree, but I fail to see how Corbyn's official stance doesn't tie into this.

I’m really disappointed my nuclear airplane derail was derailed by dog latin

Have mcdonnell lead the remain campaign, while corbyn supports leave, and basically try and shut tories out of the debate as much as possible, like the 2016 campaign in reverse.

Hopefully the 'leave' option will be soft as baby shit brexit in name only anyway

have JC lead the remain campaign - he’s electorally popular ! this basic truth is so often omitted

labour polled 40% at the last GE. do people not find it suspicious that 40% of the electorate have just been... memoryholed (barely represented in media, rarely vox popped etc)

I agree, but I fail to see how Corbyn's official stance doesn't tie into this.

Because Corbyn is old enough to remember that it worked for Harold Wilson perhaps?

4390859034854d chess, I see.

Have literally ANY labour mp lead the remain campaign under “you’ll never have to hear about this shit again and we will pass a law to memoryhole this waste of time and money”, good Friday agreement style landslide

Corbyn leading either campaign could be counterproductive if people use it as a protest vote against him personally.

true, I just want to boil piss

Can we take a moment to wonder if any green party members and supporters are reassessing their party's electoral pact with the lib dems

hate the glib dems, but if you’re in a constituency where it’s basically a choice of yellow or blue, then I’d probably vote LD. An electoral pact does not mean you support all of their policies, it’s just a way of avoiding the worse of two evils (tight contest though imo). Obviously the green’s preferred solution to this is PR but in the absence of that what are you gonna do?

Jon Lansman comes out swinging

https://www.thejc.com/comment/comment/focusing-only-on-labour-whitewashes-the-antisemitism-and-racism-of-other-parties-1.493397