ForenSix Opposition - Politics in the Soon To Be Former UK in Autumn 2020

Seems to me that Farage has forgotten all the branding lessons of the Brexit Party vs that other little party that launched in a Nando's last year.

his brand is undoubtedly strong and the BBC will give him plenty of free publicity and a million times more respect than he deserves ..again, but vital momentum could be lost if people are like: what's that anti-lockdown party again? reform, deform, death-cult UK ..fuck knows they keep changing their name every week.

I fear it might be structurally flawed given its stance is likely to kill a sizeable proportion of its own voter base.

I mean the boring answer is that Farage is terrified of looming irrelevance, misses the days when he could spook the Tory party into doing things, and has spotted an opportunity for leverage in disgruntled/panicked Red Wall MPs. Probably why he came out in favour of free school meals for one thing.

anyone read andrew rawnsley on corbyn in the observer yesterday? seldom have i seen anyone have such a normal one

It was horrific and i'd hope that the sheer naked hatred would irk even some of the readers broadly unsympathetic to Corbyn but idk.

COVID aside, Farage might be shrewd in his messaging. Going in to the last election, both sides were talking about fundamental reform required to establishment institutions. The Tories and the press have seeded the belief that academia, the BBC, the courts, the immigration system, the HoL, etc, etc are hopelessly antiquated and corrupt but idk, if i was a Daily Mail / Express, reader whether i'd have any faith in Johnson to hammer those changes through. It'll live or die on the amount of airtime the BBC gives him but it doesn't strike me as an inevitable failure out of the gate.

Not really, Corbyn is just a proxy for the young and/or the left in the view of most of the backslappers, a point going largely unnoticed by most of the “he’s just one man!” crowd.

The Tories and the press have seeded the belief that academia, the BBC, the courts, the immigration system, the HoL, etc, etc are hopelessly antiquated and corrupt but idk, if i was a Daily Mail / Express, reader whether i'd have any faith in Johnson to hammer those changes through

It's all a bit dissipated though, it lacks the totemic, simplistic messaging value of 'LEAVE THE EU NOW' and you have to wonder how many people really care that much beyond a vague sense of a way of life being under threat. But if you wanted a big symbol to latch onto then lockdowns are pretty much perfectly designed for that, but it's an issue (hopefully) with a limited shelf life.

Very sorry to be so late to the party with such a long post on the same subject as last night’s exchanges kicked off by Fizzle’s thoughtful and well expressed post. I was reading last night, kindof wanting to respond but this whole episode is basically defined by floating constellations of conflated meanings, where truth and distortion meet failures to understand and bad faith and so its hard to refute one claim without reference to several other issues that should be outside of the frame but for various reasons, unfortunately, aren’t.

I disagree Fizzle’s with your reading of Corbyn’s statement with recourse to the EHRC ruling. I agree that the report is a fairly sober and sensible set of recommendations (although I still find it to be vague to the point of misleading in key places, something that has clearly aided in distorted reporting on its findings). I don’t agree with the claim that Corbyn’s statement is in breach of the act.

The two key parts of Corbyn’s statement that this focusses on are:

“Anyone claiming there is no antisemitism in the Labour Party is wrong. Of course there is, as there is throughout society, and sometimes it is voiced by people who think of themselves as on the left.
“Jewish members of our party and the wider community were right to expect us to deal with it, and I regret that it took longer to deliver that change than it should.”
and

“One antisemite is one too many, but the scale of the problem was also dramatically overstated for political reasons by our opponents inside and outside the party, as well as by much of the media. That combination hurt Jewish people and must never be repeated.”

The line I think you’re referring to is in a section of the report that details antisemitic abuse on social media including comments that

“ described a ‘witch hunt’ in the Labour Party, or said that complaints had been manufactured by the ‘Israel lobby’” or further blamed jews for creating or stoking the crisis. One must be careful to distinguish between claims that accounts of abuse have been fabricated by jews to further political ends and the distinct claim, made by Corbyn that this issue has been inflated in the media and by other political actors, including distorted or inaccurate statements. The commission is grounded in the HRA and its rulings are shaped by article 10 and consequently is quite explicit in making this distinction:

“Article 10 will protect Labour Party members who, for example, make legitimate criticisms of the Israeli government, or express their opinions on internal Party matters, such as the scale of antisemitism within the Party, based on their own experience and within the law. It does not protect criticism of Israel that is antisemitic.”

It seems obvious to me that it is the latter article that is relevant to Corbyn’s statement and not the former.

So it would appear to me that Starmer is, with this action, guilty of breaching two of the reports recommendations: breaching article 10 as discussed above, and political interference in the process as has been discussed at length.

Furthermore, the report seems to corroborate many of the claims made in the leaked report (and in Gabriel Pogrund’s book, where the sources are largely hostile Labour right people bragging!) that McNicol’s HQ staff did much to impede complaints investigation. If this is true, and I believe it is very credible, then Starmer is also guilty of condoning these efforts and intervening to exonerate rather than discipline those responsible.

I’m largely in agreement with Matt DC’s comments above that the report criticises the party and that the actions taken by McNicol’s staff during Corbyn’s reign are ultimately Corbyn’s responsibility, whether that feels fair to him or not. But the same is true of Starmer, and his actions have been far more weaselly in this respect over the last few days where it is obvious that he is attempting to pass off all responsibility to Corbyn while simultaneously guilty of the same breaches.

However, I think what should be obvious is that acting correctly or incorrectly is pretty much irrelevant to the overall narrative. For a long time he was excoriated publicly for not doing the thing (intervening politically) that the report finds him most in breach of (and those headlines had their effect at the time). So I’m pretty reserved in my criticisms of Corbyn in light of this. Not least because of how personally malicious so much coverage has been of him and how it has floated the suggestions of extreme, but unvoiced, allegations as the basis of an ongoing character assassination. The observer piece from yesterday (linked in the guardian thread) was an amazing illustration of just how easily tarred he is after two solid years of this. Starmer will not be made accountable for this, and Corbyn is being made an example of for anyone on the left who would dare to make as convincing a case for real social change in this country as Corbyn managed around 2017.

in South Korea the right-wing parties change their names so often that "how am I meant to know which box to tick" jokes are part of the canon of folk humor. or so I am given to understand

i don't think farage is even trying to be shrewd tbh

xpost

^gigantic truthbomb xp to plaxico

I just also want to say that this

”One antisemite is one too many, but the scale of the problem was also dramatically overstated for political reasons by our opponents inside and outside the party, as well as by much of the media. That combination hurt Jewish people and must never be repeated.”

-- a majority of britons and a plurality of labour '19 voters think suspending corbyn the right decision
-- arguably, on a realpolitik level, that makes it the right decision
-- tho the messaging around it bad; rather than relitigating whether corbyn's speech out of line starmer should be saying 'the important thing is we are going to make good on his failure to deal with the structural problem'
-- why hasn't corbyn been blaming the proddies??
-- was corbyn 'stupid' to make this statement? it really depends on whatever communication he had with starmer, or his team had with starmer's, beforehand
-- seems clear that at least one of them is trying to stitch the other up, if it wasn't mutual
-- still tho i am not sure about the claim that corbyn was out of place mentioning it now -- if not now when?
-- or, kindly provide me directions to the right hill to die on

this is my new posting style, it's like vintage mark s only really dumb

Expresamos nuestra solidaridad con @jeremycorbyn en momentos en que es injustamente suspendido de su partido. Jeremy es un líder político y luchador social que defiende las causa justas en el mundo. #WeStandWithJeremy

— Evo Morales Ayma (@evoespueblo) November 1, 2020

I read it and thought Rawnsley was definitely having a normal one. But a lot of very online centrist dads were LOVING it, because they think Corbyn is arrogant/pass-ag/thick/an antisemite in some combination, if not all four. The propulsive language around Corbyn by liberals who have him down as ‘arrogant’ because he is ignoring their abuse or refused to capitulate during coup time tells me a lot more about them than it does Jeremby Crumlin. One of the people doing it in my TL is the son of the man who brought Tony Blair into the party, so this is the level of privileged person that Corbyn is offending. This person dislikes the idea of Labour led from the left, no matter the personalities involved, so intense dislike of the ex-leader is a big bonus. So much of Rawnsley’s howling is about the left finding him and his type irrelevant.

As to Corbyn’s statement, I see very little to disagree with in its entirety, so it is disheartening to see the stramash around a single sentence that while correct, was impolitic to issue on the day knowing your political enemies are circling and might include the new leader. Although the slant of the coverage would have you think so, the EHRC report was not critical of Corbyn as an individual, but the party as a whole, left AND right, for not dealing with antisemitism cases properly.

-- a majority of britons and a plurality of labour '19 voters think suspending corbyn the right decision
-- arguably, on a realpolitik level, that makes it the right decision

In general I'd hold with the principle that any complaints process needs to be independent of concerns over the kind of headlines it will generate, whether that's possible within any political party, where headlines are usually the overriding concern, I would question.

The issue with Plax's post is that Starmer has only been in charge of the Labour Party for a few months, that his tenure is (afaik) outside of the inquiry period, and that the report contains clear recommendations that he can implement (and, as been pointed out, has to implement in any case). There isn't an especially difficult political call for him to make here, and he looks like the new broom regardless.

So it comes down to the reason for the suspension, which is likely to come down to a vague 'bringing the party into disrepute' line which might also circumnavigate any issues re: clashing with the reports own recommendations. And as NV has pointed out he's got plausible deniability given he was doing his own press conferences at the time. IDK, he's a high-level lawyer, he's not going to get caught out by something this basic.

I mean, want to bet? He’s been getting caught out by the brain geniuses in government and by his own shit decisions for months now.

Arguably there's a difference between making a shit political call and making a bad legal call. He's a highly experienced lawyer and a pretty inexperienced politician.

luchador social, eh

replaced by a social climber :(

The victims are all those who needed an electable challenger to the Tories

from the end of Rawnsley's piece. these lads can't help themselves.

some of that good old condescending paternalism from addled melty old cunts never gets old

Arguably there's a difference between making a shit political call and making a bad legal call. He's a highly experienced lawyer and a pretty inexperienced politician.

i was unsurprised by starmer's 'high-level lawyer'-ish-ness not holding any water at PMQs, but i was fucking disheartened by the idea that he can't make it work in a channel four interview

-

The propulsive language around Corbyn by liberals who have him down as ‘arrogant’ because he is ignoring their abuse or refused to capitulate during coup time tells me a lot more about them than it does Jeremby Crumlin

there was a piece by marina hyde around one of corbyn's earlier failures to be sufficiently contrite that basically came down to 'how dare he act like he has moral convictions! how dare he!!' and on reading that i finally got it. i felt like a veil had been drawn from my sight

A careful lawyer at the top of his game would probably not have been on Radio Four talking about this as evidence of his willingness to make tough decisions.

The victims are all those who needed an electable challenger to the Tories
from the end of Rawnsley's piece. these lads can't help themselves.

― big man on scampus (Noodle Vague), Monday, November 2, 2020 11:40 AM (five minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

pace corbyn the real victims of his media persecution are british jews

pace rawnsley the real victims of antisemitism are blairites

i really can't get any further than 'fuck me' tbh

In general I'd hold with the principle that any complaints process needs to be independent of concerns over the kind of headlines it will generate, whether that's possible within any political party, where headlines are usually the overriding concern, I would question.

The issue with Plax's post is that Starmer has only been in charge of the Labour Party for a few months, that his tenure is (afaik) outside of the inquiry period, and that the report contains clear recommendations that he can implement (and, as been pointed out, has to implement in any case). There isn't an especially difficult political call for him to make here, and he looks like the new broom regardless.

So it comes down to the reason for the suspension, which is likely to come down to a vague 'bringing the party into disrepute' line which might also circumnavigate any issues re: clashing with the reports own recommendations. And as NV has pointed out he's got plausible deniability given he was doing his own press conferences at the time. IDK, he's a high-level lawyer, he's not going to get caught out by something this basic.

― Matt DC, Monday, 2 November 2020 11:26 (nine minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

- Starmer has been most successful as a prosecutor and I think its important to distinguish between knowing how to defend yourself (as a lawyer) and acting within the law, and we shouldn't simply conflate the two.
- His tenure is outside of the period of investigation. However, just as the report criticises the party for not implementing the chakrabarti report, it has now also made more explicit criteria for breaches which did not exist previously (hence the calls in the press for corbyn to intervene etc.). So just as the corbyn-era party is now guilty of failures judged by this interpretation of HRA (this is how legal precedent is basically made) so starmer is bound to principles established by the report and has been since he took over.
- your point that he can play this to 'look decisive' and clean break-ey is true but doesn't contradict the fact that he is playing this to his advantage rather than taking it seriously.

A careful lawyer at the top of his game would probably not have been on Radio Four talking about this as evidence of his willingness to make tough decisions.

― Scampo di tutti i Scampi (ShariVari), Monday, 2 November 2020 11:45 (three minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

otm

back to not being able to keep up with this thread btw

I wouldn’t bother tbh, seems it, like my lifelong practice of voting, has run its course. Truly cannot handle the reasonable critiques from posters I respect that only work if you view people as having the worst possible motives and the people who’d do you harm of having better ones than they’ve previously demonstrated.

luchador social, eh

― the ghost of tom, choad (thomp), Monday, 2 November 2020 bookmarkflaglink

Qué?

It’s his political judgement in question here.

When I said "he's not going to get caught out by something this basic" I was talking about the legal side, whether Starmer was himself guilty of breaching the report's own recommendations. I'm personally unimpressed by his political judgement and suspicious of his motives but that's not what I was talking about.

A careful lawyer at the top of his game would probably not have been on Radio Four talking about this as evidence of his willingness to make tough decisions.

Difficult to know without the exact wording of what he said really. I saw a lot of "the Labour Party I lead" which is pretty borderline. If he's actually taking credit for the decision then that's pretty dumb.

(Or he believes he can take credit for it with impunity)

Keir Starmer took the decision to suspend Jeremy Corbyn. Labour claimed the General Secretary did in a flawed attempt to evade the charge of political interference—the very thing the EHRC condemned. But Keir couldn't resist boasting about his "difficult decision" on the radio. pic.twitter.com/fhkHr40p1u

— Alex Nunns (@alexnunns) November 1, 2020

here's a thread of starmer's dodgy statements where he either takes credit for the decision or was just consulted on it, which still would count as interference

thread

You can call pointing out that bad faith actors do not have the same energy for anti-black racism “whataboutery” I don’t care as it is patently obvious black lives do not matter. See the Windrush scandal not being a major election issue when people are dead.

— marcus (@marcusjdl) November 2, 2020

It’s one of the reasons the legacy of Corbyn’s time at the helm, and the claims made about it, have to be analysed appropriately seriously. Even when sincerely held, I don’t think the belief that, if elected, Labour would have been an existential threat to British Jews can be separated from the presumed hostility of the Muslim / Black members and voters who supported him, the Muslim / Black immigrants he’d have supposedly allowed in to the country, the Muslim countries he wouldn’t have used Trident on, etc. I think for a lot of those voters, running a mile from interrogation of whether that threat was exaggerated it itself extremely loaded.

― Scampo di tutti i Scampi (ShariVari), Sunday, 1 November 2020 19:18 (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

in fact the report suggests that complaints process is in general just as bad for handling all racist allegations and its worth remembering that a key issue in the wadsworth affair was the suggestion that his intervention that he was trying to handwave antisemitism with some 'all lives matters' stuff which was always pretty laughable, borne out in this report and which there has been scarcely a mention of in the press.

SV's point here is impt because it goes beyond simply these 'procedural' questions to the questions of structural inequality that are continually compounded by austerity and the wider culture of policy and governance in this country generally:

Covid brought to light to anyone who wasn't paying attention (which turned out to be almost everyone!) that existing health inequalities hugely disproportionately affected health outcomes for BAME people. Its obvious that policing, housing and benefits, access to education, job prospects are all affected by policies that compound inequality in ways that are, in a word, racist. Its not surprising that the EHRC are never going to investigate the ways in which both parties are responsible for racist laws and policies that effect people much more than labour's failure to deal in a more transparent and efficacious way with antisemtic abuse and language by members. I would struggle to think of ways in which parties could be said to be responsible for similar AS policies etc in the way they have so clearly enacted other racist policies.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/El0iCh5W0AAfTCU?format=jpg&name=900x900

this dirty lying mofo breaks pledges like Lewis Hamilton breaks records

Yeah there's a lot going on here outside the limited scope of the report and the issues of the remit and resourcing of the EHRC more generally. The points in the last few posts are reasonably uncontroversial on this thread (although transparently not in society at large). Maybe the framing and phrasing is wrong here and there should be a move away from discussing whether AS in the Labour Party has been "exaggerated" and towards the fact that other forms of racism are consistently downplayed - I think that's an important distinction and not purely a semantic one.

both things are true though!

And the uses of both are distinct in ways that are consequent of that fact

In the broadest sense, yes, but if one of the other forms of racism involves positioning a political coalition heavily supported by minority voters as endemically hostile to British Jews, and singles out Muslim and Black MPs, councillors, PPCs, etc, for targeted harassment based on this supposed hostility, the two are linked.

xps

Unfortunately there's next to zero chance of British society being able to address the complexities of this in the ways that are required.

(I'm also distinguishing here between the exaggeration of the volume or seriousness of the cases and some of the wilder claims that were made by right-wing commentators fwiw)

The exaggerating of AS situation in the media has been politically expedient for some (most prominently johnson and starmer!) and the vehicle for all kinds of discourses by various bad actors. Many of those discourses are attempts to chill certain leftist statements and themselves highly antisemitic (conflating antisemitism with anticapitalism, anti racism or political sympathies with palestinians).

i don't think its enough to say 'this is too complicated for the british public to get their heads around.' Political cultures are comprised of people existing together in general agreement of highly complex arrangements of political and social norms. And these change, gradually or suddenly. I think the problem is corruption of political and media classes as evidenced in the appalling bad faith which is further evidenced in starmer's behaviour on EHRC day

Yeah I mean less that "this is too complicated for the average person on the street to understand" and more that an even half-way mature discussion about this is too much to hope for given there are people right at the top of government who are heavily invested, for both ideological and tactical reasons, in the country NOT having that discussion. Attempts to open up the debate about the legacy of empire over the summer were met with the full force of the Dominic Cummings Outrage Machine, and if it isn't Cummings doing it then it'll be someone else. These have little to do with the minority groups themselves and more about creating a constant sense of imagined threat to our way of life (and we're back to the Farage thing again). (Also I know everyone here knows this really but it bears repeating).

i agree but jesus you sound defeatist. almost a tacit acceptance that the way we think about things is implicitly governed by those in control and that our imaginations just submit to that.

I am pretty defeatist about it happening in the short term, in the longer term less so. There are plenty of signs of changing attitudes in wider society, particularly among younger people, that will be beneficial in the longer term.

i have questions about how we can sustain those attitudes into the future against the very hardworking fascist media and also whether simple attitude change is going to happen fast enough to deal with the big existential threats like climate change etc but i think "always be challenging the narrative" is pretty key here and of course precisely what the electability wing of the Labour Party want to avoid

The left under Corbyn didn't do enough of that. Ultimately lit's up to groups like BLM and so on to push on the stuff that doesn't translate into what's electable rn to what can perhaps be in future.