bojo is king, brexit is on, stuff is fvcked, tomorrow starts here -- new govt new thread new battle

just got to lose the bigots to the tories if you can't win them with policies, this kind of ahistorical and retrogressive claptrap is not doing her rep any favours.

The pitch is to the membership not the country so I'm not too bothered by 1862 and all that.

Progressive patriotism vs solidarity. Comes down to what policy we can have for migrants. The question is how far it's removed is it from Blue Lab.

of course it is directed towards the membership, but jesus wept it's still an awful pitch.

You can't and shouldn't try condescending to or winning over bigots on their own terms. It fell flat on it's arse for Labour in 2015 and will do again, as thick as many of them are - provincial racists can discern between genuine racist pols and a "concerned face of Lisa Nando" faux-racism sham and will vote for the real thing.

Matt is correct that it comes down to policy. As it stands, it’s not substantially different from Corbyn’s position on viewing patriotism as (an inclusive) care for other people in society. If that morphs into a hard line on Legitimate Concerns / tabloid talking points, as per Blue Labour, she won’t win the leadership.

I suppose it might be an attempt to squeeze the Lavery vote? Not that I even know if such a group exists in the membership, but have seen people stanning for him on twitter.

and the Nandy vote as well obv.

Some of us just get a sour taste as soon as talk turns to patriotism

there is something quite Garry Bushell about "progressive patriotism". Even though he'd probably choke on the word progressive!

union flag staircase

Some of us just get a sour taste as soon as talk turns to patriotism

Bingo.

... good old British working class salt-of-the-arse bingo, gorblimey.

between this outrage and her linking MES with Madchester - it's a good the rest of the candidates are absolute garbage!

calz + NV = metropolitan elite, don't understand the English w/c the way Jess Phillips do.

Apologies for tique bleu

“Progressive patriotism” is apt, where not utterly vacuous, to become soft nationalism (sops to migrant bashing at worst): exactly not what is needed. If it’s intended to overcome Labour’s problems with Brexit voters, it won’t. If it’s supposed to stop media attacks, it won’t.

— Richard Seymour (@leninology) December 29, 2019

if these "patriots" who have been spraying anti-Semitic graffiti on synagogues in London become more "progressive" does that mean they start murdering people instead?

Rhys -- single issue poster whose heartfelt 'Who are the Real Fascists?' thread excoriates Gareth Bale for joining Real Madrid. Doxxed by deems as a former Swansea University geography student and editorial board member of UniLad. Unrepentant yet evasive, he advocates 'a properly progressive banter' and leaves the 'embittered and unengaged' ILX to write a series of thoughtful and engaged Comment is Free posts concerning the plague of steroid abuse in the Valleys and the progressive values embodied in the work of Malky Mackay and Biffy Clyro. Later appointed as Andy Burnham's Youth Tsar.

― Semih Semih yam Semih yay Semih Şentürk (Nilmar Honorato da Silva), Wednesday, 28 August 2013 20:32 (six years ago) bookmarkflaglink

There are already existing threads for giving patriotism a kicking but the question is "who are you reclaiming it for?" I feel like anybody whose primary political motivation is patriotism, especially in a state as rotten with murderous colonialism as the UK, is not a cause worth pursuing.

I'd expect someone from RLB's background to balk at that word tbh.

Bladdy politicians, they're all the bleedin' same.

my mum was right all along!

There are already existing threads for giving patriotism a kicking but the question is "who are you reclaiming it for?" I feel like anybody whose primary political motivation is patriotism, especially in a state as rotten with murderous colonialism as the UK, is not a cause worth pursuing.

This is true but I can understand why politicians on the left who are consistently told their policy platform is unpatriotic might want to turn that around and suggest that solidarity, fighting back against atomisation and collective action for the common good are actually much more in line with ‘British values ‘ or whatever, than dismantling society while waving a little flag. I don’t think it’s a great idea or going to be effective but it’s not necessarily evidence she’s triangulating to win over diehard racists, as Nandy is.

it still feels like a blunder to me. You can allude to community cohesion or whatever without playing to whatever shit the right wing media throw at you. You are on a slippery slope when you frame your campaign around whatever shit they are going to throw at you imo

I agree, though I don’t think this was intended to be the main thrust of the campaign and there is some mischief involved on the part of The Guardian and others in framing it that way.

It's going on a drunken rampage when England win in the football, daubing St George's flags on the homes of migrants - but only when the women's team win

— Dan Hancox (@danhancox) December 30, 2019

lool, dan otm!

agree with you SV about the motivation behind this, but it's clumsily done. as comrade alph said that doesn't really matter at this point in the process. gutter press gonna gutter.

it's necessary to have a response to "you hate us for our freedoms" but i wouldn't wrap a flag around policies

My inkling would be to try pushing local, civic or social pride over national pride where pride is something you can elucidate with evidence (positive stories from the area you represent).

The idea of 'Britain' is nonsensical in 2020 anyway.

Apart from the usual Orange headbangers in NI and Scotland no-one knows or cares what it means.

Was just gs-ing it and Biden was hawking about the same expression back in April _(´ཀ`」 ∠)_

municipal pride ftw

The idea of Britain might be nonsensical but the idea of things being ‘un-British’ is still potent. It’s not just (or even particularly) the right-wing conception of Britishness that needs to be addressed, it’s the pervasive idea that the national character is inherently small-c conservative. I think a lot of the centrist hostility to Corbyn, which more than anything else was also reflected in stuff like the BBC coverage, stemmed from the belief that the British have essentially agreed that ideology is dead. The Thatcher / Blair model of neoliberalism (which is not seen as an ideology) fits the national character and attempting to do anything else is somewhere on a spectrum between silly and dangerous. I don’t think RLB has approached it in the right way but whoever wins probably has to do something to situate left-wing politics as congruent with Britishness, however nebulous and dangerous that term might be.

I’m not 100% sure that municipal pride get you over many of the barriers.

maybe not but towns and cities might be the only counterbalance we’ve got to 10 more years of tory policies

clive lewis apparently saying corbyn should have backed remain

Clive Lewis says a lot of things

however we try to reassemble the wreckage i don't think Labour will come out worse from not going full FBPE

Clive Dunn(ce)

I often get strong Lance-Corporal Jones vibes off Clive

municipal pride ftw

The thing fascinating me most about visiting the US last year was the amount of US flags everywhere (homes and businesses alike at least) followed by Packers flags/banners (I was in smalltown Wisconsin) in second. I wanted less of those and more state flags (noticed none).

I think I hate municipal pride more than I hate national pride tbh.

not sure States Pride would be a thing you'd wanna see more of in the US

just wanna see more old fashioned pictures of animals around generally

Is there not an extent to which this is what Billy Bragg's been trying to make happen for a few decades?

England not Britain iirc

pretty explicity stated he wasn't looking for a new England

Whereas William Bennett...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Britain_(album)

pretty sure Bennett now feels comfortable joining the Conservative party

Seems par for the course for a middle aged antique dealer.

I must have got the lyrics wrong - I always thought that Bragg song's narrator was an ageing predatory paedophile complaining that he can't get away with hanging outside schools any more!

ShariVari OTM about the notion of being 'un-British' - although I might expand that to include 'anti-British'. It's one of the right's favoured attack lines and needs to be closed off as much as possible. Corbyn walked straight into that time and time again - we saw that in the Hamas 'friends' interview before he was even elected leader, he had no response other than over-explaining and getting tetchy and he never really managed to counter those kinds of arguments against them. And they were used time and time again - the Salisbury poisonings, oil tankers, Iran - he made it too easy for his opponents to paint him as taking the side of a nefarious foreign power over Britain. It doesn't matter that he was in the right on some of those occasions, as an attack line it worked. One of the issues with Corbyn's Labour was its inability to pick its battles and these were not hills to die on. And when it came to Brexit, too many of the people whose votes and trust he needed weren't prepared to give him the benefit of the doubt.

So there's a question of how Labour is supposed to win an election in *highly* jingoistic times without joining in that jingoism. Which leads me onto RLB...

This isn't a good article, it reads like too many of the vacuous, over-spin doctered pieces from various Labour right figures over the years. It feels like her team felt so confident of winning the membership vote that they could pitch directly to the country before winning the membership round, and I wouldn't be so sure about that. She's presumably had years to hone her leadership pitch and should have had more to offer than this cobblers.