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

The figure I read for new Labour meltbers joining was something like 50/60000.

luv too hate-vote

They've got their own party why don't they stay the fuck out of mine?

Some probably joined to do something anything I wouldn't even say they want to vote for Keir.

I joined the party the day after the election and am not a melt entryist

Remember when Freedland libelled a PPC and got away with it completely? Great times.

On councils this is basically my thinking:

Yep. Of course, the other problem Labour have is that far too many of their councils absolutely refuse to be militant, and often end up willingly accepting the blame by being so fucking incompetent. https://t.co/p9QoMPnlZk

— Labour Towns Source (@judeinlondon2) January 25, 2020

you can only assume the voting intentions of new members until those wizards at YouGov confirm they are 94.7% damnatorum meltus!

What does it mean for councils to be militant in this context? Serious question.

Also how can it be done constructively in the way that actually benefits people in the face of a government that will happily heap all the blame on them before taking an axe to them. I'm not especially familiar with either Islington North or Preston, the two that Jude mentions.

Basically 90% Labour councillors here, and most nominally on the left, but the ingrained institutional misremembering of Militant leaves them shit scared to try anything big beyond ‘invest to earn’ projects that don’t create much in the way of returns

— Grim Royle (@harvey_bone) January 25, 2020

This is one of the replies. And I certainly don't have the answers but there is an unexplored militancy. If we don't tap into it the Tories will always own the narrative.

if they all just refused to reduce services and sell their crown jewels and just went bust (like Tory Northampton did iirc).. wouldn't it bring the government into absolute crisis VONC territory, rather than slowly killing people off over a decade? But of course lots of the most vulnerable could end up dying if they all just went bust. idk the answer to be honest!

There haven't been any 'militant' Labour councils since the 1980s and I don't see them coming back any time soon. Councils, and councillors, just don't have much weight to fling around anymore. Actively not cosying up to property developers et al would help though.

As an aside on Preston, in some ways it functions more like a mini-city than a town. Its proportion of working age people is increasing not declining, its transport links are very strong, solid vocational university. Preston has a lot in its favour. It isn't one of the left behinds

"Actively not cosying up to property developers et al would help though."

That would be attacked as 'militant' btw.

https://t.co/jZUdR7NzGi pic.twitter.com/d1lsTMC29w

— Matt Zarb-Cousin (@mattzarb) January 25, 2020

I've really gone off Rayner. I take back anything positive I said about her before, she's basically just a quite thick and nasty racist who has done a good job of keeping this element to her well out of sight for years.

Clearly what Labour needs right now is more Byzantine policies that no one understands and can't be communicated clearly and easily to anyone other than committed policy wonks.

Yesterday I announced that, as president, I’ll establish a student loan debt forgiveness program for Pell Grant recipients who start a business that operates for three years in disadvantaged communities. https://t.co/ldwuC9RiIE

— Kamala Harris (@KamalaHarris) July 28, 2019

hah!

but even she manged to avoid any absolutely barmy lottery/logan's run elements tbf!

just currently vomiting all over that Catherine Bennett piece that basically says Starmer's feminist credentials are stronger than RLBs. These people will literally make any old shit up to smear a left candidate. Apparently Starmer's record at DPP (with a lol Thornberry quote backing this up) saying he improved their record in domestic violence and rape cases, well I've read the exact opposite of that from very credible people who say he made it much easier for rapists to actually fucking get away with it scot free. And of course RLB must be a pro-lifer as a left footer. oh fuck these jokers.

she also brings up the poor handling of the mass of complaints made against David Prescott. That happened under Corbyn's watch and is nothing to do with RLB.

Starmer, moreover, supports women’s reproductive autonomy. Long-Bailey favours restrictions on abortion (and likewise opposes assisted dying). Both politicians having chosen, like Thornberry, to serve Corbyn, they are contaminated, as Lisa Nandy is not, by the party’s documented misogyny; its ineffectual approach to sexual misconduct.

Honestly the whole column is more of a vague handwavey gesture in the direction of an argument. Even on the assumption that everyone who has served in the Shadow Cabinet recently is "contaminated", it's what they do moving forward that matters.

Contamination cuts both ways, if we are going to accept that serving Corbyn was akin to being in the Iron guard or something then Starmer is also contaminated and also doubly contaminated by his bad voting record and some of the wretched shit that happened at the DPP under his watch, yeah I know he no control and was merely good cop in a bad cop job etc ... blah blah blah!

She is saying that Starmer is also contaminated but doesn't follow the argument through to its conclusion, or indeed any place where it might be interesting.

even the gropey one was calling Starmer a "collaborator" last week, all their brains have melted, you can't expect any kind of consistency even in the space of one opinion piece!

Truth to Power pic.twitter.com/dGPV2SRCqt

— Andrew Bartlett (@AndrewBartletta) January 26, 2020

indeed all these female candidates and Jess backs the balding bollock!

I wonder when she fell out with rayner?

That article is cringe, but what do you expect of someone reduced to churning out stupid pretend diary pieces and “sketches” for money? No shame and no standards. I had to force myself to keep going after the bit about Thatcher.

Starmer, moreover, supports women’s reproductive autonomy. Long-Bailey favours restrictions on abortion (and likewise opposes assisted dying). Both politicians having chosen, like Thornberry, to serve Corbyn, they are contaminated, as Lisa Nandy is not, by the party’s documented misogyny;

She's officially a pro-lifer now, that will be stated as fact in nearly every hatchet job piece from now to April

Compare that with the current Prime Minister, who has shown himself an enthusiastic supporter of women's reproductive autonomy when his mistresses get pregnant.

and another interesting counterpoint* to Starmer's feminist credentials at the DPP; is the current PM's partner was a victim of the 2nd most prolific UK serial rapist of the 21st century - and under his watch they didn't prosecute him.

* it has been mention here before!

Even at it most controversial reading I’m not seeing how RLB’s differ hugely from Mary McAleese’s reported views during the repeal campaign. Both practicising Catholics and yeah their religion may influence their views but I have always drawn a line between “Not for me (in this situation) but I don’t want to push restrictions through in law.” and actual opposition. Weirdly, the Irish Times actually pushed her (McAleese) on the idea that her views were too liberal and that she would not seek to force them on the nation. But I suppose it’s easier for me to take a more nuanced view since none of these people would be terrifying papists to me, and would hold views more in line with that I’d grown up with. Tbh, I would have found it vastly more reassuring if someone with RLB’s views had been in my religion class, as she’d be vastly to the left of all my peers on the issue.

the anti-catholic thing is proxy anti-irish in this instance let's be real. same old immigration mug guardian comment racist nonsense from guardian columnists for whom "being on the left" is their personality rather than implying any actual conviction or real beliefs.

Yeah I agree with you 100% but I’ve seen people who say they’re Catholic saying her views don’t represent them bla bla blah but I just wanted to point out it’s not a super surprising way of thinking.

I did notice that Thornberry, herself an Irish passport holder, was not above this either.

huge difference between how the press will present unreliable irish immigrant papists and JRM-type gentry royalist eccentrics as the part of the next culture war bollocks to discredit the left. Even though it is completely arbitrary and nonsensical it will have momentum and purchase even if little effect.

(many xps) Yes yes, we're in a post-truth paradigm where being factually correct is less important than being on the right side of each little culture war. But this cuts both ways. You can't ride for truth and accuracy on the one hand and, say, dismiss Angela Rayner as a racist on the other - that's just as lazy as the piece dismissing RLB above (and as this will be my only post for a while here, may I reiterate that I will be voting for RLB). But as we all strive for an evidence-based discussion, shall we review the evidence against the nasty racist?

a) A tweet where she compared black female MPs getting confused with each other to her and Jess Phillips getting confused with each other. OK yeah, this was pretty insensitive, and the two things aren't directly equatable - she should have apologised, and did - but I think she was trying, in good faith, albeit cackhandedly, to add to the point that men will lazily lump women with shared racial or regional characteristics together, even when the races or regions aren't the same except very superficially. But racial doesn't equal regional of course, and the effects of anti-regional bias pale in comparison to those of actual racism, hence why it was a bad point, hence why she should have kept quiet. But does it make her racist? I mean, no, obviously. So why then the gleeful and disproportionate rush to cancel her?

b) A tiny snippet from a speech, devoid of context, where she says 'we teach about colonialism in our schools, but what about what's happening right now?' Apparently a dog-whistle to racists and the final death-knell of ultimate cancellation. There are two issues here. Firstly, the apparent downplaying of colonialist crimes. Forgive me for perhaps being obtuse, but wasn't Rayner's point that there are still, in 2020, issues of ingrained social inequality that persist despite common misconceptions that we the UK have 'improved' and atoned for historical injustices? That the UK as administer of geopolitical violence doesn't just belong in the history books but the current conversation? Yes, she could have added that it's a good thing that colonialist history is taught in schools, and that it should probably be taught more, but I really don't think she was dogwhistling racists, at least consciously. I'd need to hear more than just a snippet, at any rate. But the jury of ukpol ILX clearly doesn't. The other issue of course being whether colonialist history even is taught in schools. Well, I can tell you that the GCSE History student I'm tutoring has a textbook that devotes two or three chapters to it, with a detailed case study on the Amistad rebellion and plenty more on the East India Company and the Raj, including accounts of atrocities by the colonisers. So yeah - while it could stand to be a lot more comprehensive, and while shame is clearly not sufficiently ingrained in our national character, and while you'd probably not learn about this stuff if you didn't take GCSE History, and while ultimately the crimes of the UK could and should be covered at primary school level, it IS taught in schools, whereas the chaos in Iraq, arms deals to the Saudis, BP casually soiling the ocean every so often, structural disadvantages to poorer and often racialised communities in the UK, the ongoing post-colonial upheavals of Africa and Asia, the relaxation of regulations affecting multinational corporations as the benefits regulations are tightened...what school is teaching all that? And that's her point, I think. I mean, her history of support for progressive causes would surely indicate that some benefit of the doubt is in order? Or is the fact there was a minor Twitter clusterfuck sufficient evidence in itself that she is Bad Now?

I mean, decide, because it is a choice: do you want a thread that carefully evaluates the available evidence and coolly comes to conclusions, whether they're bitter to swallow or otherwise (this thread could still lean hard to the left, of course, and favour the Momentum wing of Labour as being demonstrably the most progressive, caring and in-tune faction), or do you want to be a fan page, spring-loaded to lash back at any sign of ideological impurity? Because if it's the latter, as this Rayner case-study appears to confirm, then frankly good luck to you all - you succinctly represent the doom the UK left brings upon itself. See you on the other side.

Angel Rayner is a racist, in one of them unguarded moments she revealed more about her mindset than a thousand mealy mouthed bullshit pol soundbytes will ever reveal, and she trashed a policy to teach unvarnished colonial history. And the numbers of right wing PLP backing her backs this up and I yes I can dismiss her as a racist. Not read rest of your essay yet, but getting that in first!

you are giving her way too much credit and have a terrible instinct for politicians, in fact probably the worst I've ever seen on here! She said something about British Political History should be taught first.. the way you've parsed it here makes it sound she was being much more thoughtful than it seemed to me!

an ignorant numpt milking a crowd of bigots is what i saw, and this is still the restrained Rayner. Under a Starmer led Labour she can eventually let her legitimate concerns fly free.

And whatever people say about Starmer's liberal credentials and general voting correctness (apart from when it comes to poor or disabled ppl). His campaign is being partly run by a right wing pressure group led by Luke fucking Akehurst, just let that soak in!

everyone can commit a faux pas or two but butting into a twitter conversation between two black posters talking about racism and saying that you and Jess Phillips have suffered the same for having regional accents says to me she has a terminal problem.

.. and definitely isn't fit for Deputy leadership.

oh christ ... the idea of her stepping into McDs shoes is just fucking awful. At this point I'd give 20 votes for Dawn Butler if I could.

or even Burgon if he had a chance!

Starmer Keirmeleon pic.twitter.com/m4LdS0E4Zu

— Football Manager Hair on Politicians (@visualsatire) January 26, 2020

anyway starmer starmer starmer keirmeleon, not as funny as Robbie Rotten-Warnock but still made me lol earlier!

McDonnell isn’t the deputy leader, that was the late unlamented baggymp. You know, the guy who wrote two books during his tenure.

oh yeah got mixed up there, started supping at 2! remind me why we need a new labour right wrecker with dodgy politics again then? :p

I’d argue that Rayner is several cuts above Watson, as are Butler and Ałlin-Khan.