have you quit the labour party yet?

voted #1 for them last time but have serious misgivings about how the SD's seem to have sprung up under their noses populated and followed by what wouldve seemed on the face of it to be the next generation of what ought to have been their candidates and people

*blinks*

just cancelled the dd. Didn't bother with the resignation email. They aren't a party of opposition any more and will only get worse once the guileless fuckwit melt of a leader is stabbed in the back.

By the time my trade union processes the necessary paperwork for my subs to be switched to the non-affiliated political fund, the world as we currently understand it won't exist anyway

Did so earlier this week, both dd and through contact form.

does anyone have any hope

I only joined in December.

I'm thinking about it.

I’ve left the party before, when Miliband was tacking to the right, but am not inclined to do it again yet.

I don’t rate Starmer as a leader but I recognise that the shadow cabinet he has put together is an upgrade on the pre-Corbyn one. It’s also the best we are going to get, either within the Labour Party, or electoral politics in general, any time soon. It’s too early to judge how the policy platform will shake out and whether they’ll cross any of my red lines (triangulation on immigration, welfare, military adventurism, etc) - at which point I may give up completely.

The left isn’t going to retake the Labour Party for a while. The right is far more likely to make a concerted attempt to scuttle Starmer first. Unless there is a particularly compelling reason not to, I’d rather stay to oppose that.

I also look at people like Corbyn, McDonnell, the old guard members, etc, who stuck it out through Kinnock and Blair in the belief that there may be something of value to save and were briefly proved right. They’ve put up with worse.

I joined by making a contribution and canvassing at the last electoon. Whether I decide to stay or leave is a decision I will make later in the year and will depend on what contribution I can make with others locally. Difficult to be more specific as I was navigating through the thing and then covid hit.

I don't know if reading lots of stuff since Starmer's victory is good for the soul really (I was going to ask for a few links but thought the better of it). Give yourself a break for a few weeks.

hope these days is getting 4 pints of milk. There isn't an opposition any more. I didn't vote for 20+ years previously and can easily switch back to that mode. I was born poor as fuck and am used to living poor as fuck and with very low expectations of UK governments and the so called opposition. Fuck 'em all! I've got decades of accumulated hatred and class resentments towards wankers like Starmer and would rather die than give him a vote tbh!

I spent most of the 00's working on the poorest social housing of Yorkshire and don't buy any of the crap about the gains of Blairism. I just despise the Labour Party right now.

Hope is not getting 4 pints of milk, we ended up with that this morning. It means we're not getting any on Saturday

Keir Starmer’s reshuffle is impressive - the Marxist nutters are out; moderate left are in. When this crisis is eventually over, and politics is resumed, the Tories are going to find that the 5 years when there was no opposition and no alternative has come to an abrupt end

— George Osborne (@George_Osborne) April 9, 2020

xp
hah!

Good job Osborne, the guy publishing antisemitic cartoons of Starmer’s cabinet yesterday, has no motive for undermining the Labour Party and can be relied on to play with a straight bat or I’d think he’s trolling.

Could look at the way he has treated the even further right Sadiq Khan for evidence of what he thinks of the ‘soft left’.

Re: hope. I think it's pretty much clear that: 1) a lot of stuff is happening and 2) a lot of it is bad (but some is good too)

We should not divorce 1 from 2 (and the item in the bracket) either.

how good that stuff that is happening rn might be depends on how much you believe this will genuinely be a paradigm shift rather than a precursor for more of the same - but worse.

btw if anyone ever falls into food poverty during this lockdown, just remember Mark G doesn't fall into food poverty but he considers that quite a whimsical thing.

wait is this a ukpol thread ffs i wasnt told

Nah, just trying to keep my own spirits up.

soz if I was harsh there Mark!

xp
Get back to your failed melt thread that was like the worst episode of QI ya cunt!

Basically, it was a metaphor for how things seem to get better before they start to get worse.

Nothing to do with the subject in hand, I agree. I'm off to bed anyway, gnight.

goodnight mark, sorry for being a bit shitty. i'm beyond fresh rn!

Jealous of your system where a party is a thing you can “join” in a meaningful sense

Here silby on a semi related note we were discussing you on the main thread and you should post there more in our opinion

I’ll see what I can do. I already disappointed lots of folks by forgetting to become a Crystal Palace supporter, as a bit.

Pretty sure imago would not be disappointed by you forgetting to become a Crystal Palace supporter.

"Jealous of your system where a party is a thing you can “join” in a meaningful sense"

it's no good when most of the members are either voting for an insipid establishment melt or the majority that didn't vote because their own "real opposition" media clown wasn't even close to being up to the job. i really miss Corbyn and McD :(

But at least you can quit it now! What a relief.

when posters badmouth them on here I feel like knifing them for real tbh!

re osborne, this bizarre inversion where opposition means no opposition is totally doing my head in, as is the fact that some non tories seem to genuinely believe this

but i never joined the party anyway so w/e

try telling some of these "non tories" that they aren't tories. You'd need medieval torture tools to make them admit it and they've got a "plurality of voices" on their side !

I wonder if to some extent this idea of 'real opposition' depends on your subconscious conception of what opposition is, whether its something external and existential, a replacement - or whether its more managerial. Almost like the opposition as kind of a wing of the government rather than a replacement for it.

We see this sort of stuff when incoming Labour MPs are asked if they're going to be friendly with Conservatives or not (which is a trick question of course). Was it Pidcock that said she couldn't be? But this then seen as not playing the game, not being respectful to Parliament itself. As somehow ooposed to the concept of parliament and democracy itself

that makes a lot of sense actually

it's supposed to be her majesty's most loyal opposition after all

I think this is part of it but maybe something deeper but its not easy to unpick - and it may be a difficult tightrope for the left in general to walk (oppositional but seen as able to work within whatever power structures are in place). Much of this is presentational rather than substantive, so that path is there.

I even think there's something in this, as I don't really know how much mileage there is in the combative or confrontational approach (QT etc is cringe-worthy with this stuff, and the weird mixture of acquiescence and bluster from the media ineffectual). Or at least it shouldn't be the only or even main instrument. McD maybe the only person that was able to do this. Theoretically it should be easier to play this kind of game of appealing to people who view things through this lens as its really just packaging but its not easy to see who that might be (Ro Khanna in the US seems someone that maybe might have it but don't know in UK)

I think we probably need to distinguish between the people pushing this kind of stuff in a kind of fantasy world of 'opponents shaking hands at the end of the day after a fine battle of wills and wits good show pals" and people subconsciously receiving this narrative as 'now we have someone that takes the job seriously instead of just making cheap points" via the media

Also: how about giving it up for the year and maybe returning to it next year.

Are other people that you know simply quitting and just not engaging in any form of politics? And if they aren't what else are they doing? (I may need some tips lol)

I wonder if to some extent this idea of 'real opposition' depends on your subconscious conception of what opposition is, whether its something external and existential, a replacement - or whether its more managerial. Almost like the opposition as kind of a wing of the government rather than a replacement for it.

We see this sort of stuff when incoming Labour MPs are asked if they're going to be friendly with Conservatives or not (which is a trick question of course). Was it Pidcock that said she couldn't be? But this then seen as not playing the game, not being respectful to Parliament itself. As somehow ooposed to the concept of parliament and democracy itself

I see a lot of ppl fading or quitting who are already busy with jobs and kids. seems like the options are just be casually involved with worthy but isolated small-scale stuff or to attempt to pull everything together yourself. no one ever really worked out what they were doing ofc

my position equates precisely onto SV's; little more to add

the ppl railing against despair, the fragmentation of the movement, or bitterly avoiding electoral politics entirely seem to be doing so out of some sense of moral obligation rather than out of any conviction.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EVO9PXiUcAAQHHY?format=jpg&name=large

I've not seen any signs of buyer's remorse from any Kier voters yet. If *this* is what they actually I'm amazed they stuck with Corbyn for so long. But I suppose that is the nature of apolitical happy clappers.

onboard/contained

I think many of them had contaminated 99's from Owen Smith's Mr Melty ice cream van.

Somewhere between wavering and never - I think it's ony prudent to see how things play out but I don't have high hopes.

Even if you had low hopes they pretty much got dashed yesterday! I thought there might be some Kier voters despairing at a shadow cab with Streeting and JP.

messaging w/ ppl and I can tell they're hoping I'm going to offer some rousing morale-boosting sentiments and I'm just holding off on saying "mb see how it's going in 4-10 years??"

I think that timescale might be oppomistic, but these aren't ordinary times.. You never know.

expects nay demands

i wish i was dead

sometimes I find it hard to comprehend how a liberalism which isn't permanently apologetic and terrified of its own shadow hasn't been able to get itself together yet. then I start thinking that such a thing would probably end up resembling corbynism more than any kind of nu-blairism

In fact we could and should blame Jumps Canbin for frightening the Liberal establishment reluctantly rightwards

even on the day official deaths pass 100k the best he can offer is "we'll have to take a look into this at some point".

christ, even around likely Tories i've been saying "we need to find out exactly what went wrong and why, without necessarily scapegoating", but maybe that's tankie rhetoric idk

No rush lads, not as if anyone’s died

I've had labourites literally telling me the problem was not enough police enforcement of lockdown rules so I have no hope that even a more forthright response from this party would be a good one

if Kieth doesn't want to look like he's point-scoring off death he should still be pressing the "maybe it's important to know why so many people have died" line

my fave part of public inquiries is when they fearlessly point the finger at high profile govt ministers and send them to the gallows rather than finding low-level scapegoats and also the speed at which they erm .. execute them. Just waiting for the Pendle Witch Inquiry to conclude this week.

if Kieth doesn't want to look like he's point-scoring off death he should still be pressing the "maybe it's important to know why so many people have died" line

We (well Pieths Morgan) already established that the official govt response is 'too old and/or fat" iirc

well?

Forde Inquiry report delayed indefinitely, chair tells Labour Party – full story here: https://t.co/LvWwgUzXh4

— Sienna Rodgers (@siennamarla) February 11, 2021

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CMSNVgQgctE

gotta imagine some of those 9 "never!!" votes must have shifted by now

I'd say never! about football club affiliation and all sorts of other inconsequential nonsense, but never about membership to a moribund political party led by a tory cunt with 90% of their MPs being rotten useless garbage that could just have easily joined the LibDems or UKIP

I’d hope at least some of the people taking the EHRC report fallout in good faith would have understood what the rest of us are saying by now.

I almost wish I hadn't quit the party last year so I could tell them I'm leaving tonight.

I wished I'd left sooner after finding out how my monthly subs was being wasted and taken for granted by these worthless scumbags

has a major political party ever destroyed itself so wilfully and methodically like this it's almost impressive

They did it in Scotland first.

The Scottish Labour leader, Anas Sarwar, has promised to offer “credible alternative” to the SNP over the next five years, despite the party’s poorest Scottish results since devolution.

he's only lost two seats I think, give a disreputable millionaire labour candidate a chance!

Love to aspire to be a credible alternative to popularity

Perfectly timed to coincide with Rosie Duffield going off on one again.

This is not a joke, but deadly serious.

The Labour Party have officially placed @YoungLabour chair @JessicaLBarnard under investigation - for opposing transphobia.

Here is her letter sent to NEC members - passed to me - and here are the tweets she’s being investigated for. pic.twitter.com/qnzcC0fLWm

— Owen Jones 🌹 (@OwenJones84) September 10, 2021

Lol how long until LGBT labor becomes a proscribed organisation

Labour now claiming it was “sent in error”, obviously without explanation of how that “error” was made.

It’s completely bizarre:

If they’re very senior, and they remain very senior, it almost doesn’t matter does it pic.twitter.com/F25GLBOV37

— Abi Wilkinson (@AbiWilks) September 10, 2021

Timing also clearly linked to her argument last week with Oliver Kamm about Palestine.

Love having the grownups back in charge

“we apologise unreservedly to Jess for the hurt and upset this has caused”.

lol fuck these people

how many on the left of the party who probably wouldn't disagree too much with Dudfield? Laura Pidcock definitely and I've been reading possibly Burgeon as well.

I was sent an email by the Governance & Legal Unit of the Labour Party that asked why I wasn't on the electoral register, as part of a 'routine review of the membership of your CLP'. This is the CLP, you may remember that has been disallowed from meeting for supposed irregularities in its recruitment and membership. I replied that I wasn't allowed to vote because I'm not a British citizen, and asked, if this was a 'routine review', what was the date of the previous review, and when is the next one scheduled? Two months went by and they replied that 'your inability to register to vote in the UK is noted.' I replied immediately, asking them to reply to my questions about this 'review'. Reader, can you guess how quickly they tripped over themselves to respond?

I look at the case of Jessica Barnard and think why couldn't we bully Luke the nuke like this?

There’s something else circulating today, albeit via Evolve, about someone having been sent a letter accusing them of abuse against a protected belief group - people who don’t think there should be a four day week. I don’t know whether the complaints mechanism itself has been completely hijacked by right-wingers with a grudge or if the process for filtering out transparently vexatious claims has broken down but it amounts to the same thing.

burgon repeatedly defended pidcock against criticisms of transphobia and there was this:

if there’s one thing you should take away from this article it’s what burgon has to say on @Labour_Trans’ pledges 😶 https://t.co/AOmIxf2pDO pic.twitter.com/diHOFrpTTR

— eli 📕 (@elihxrris) February 25, 2020

i don't think he's likely to be actively against trans rights, just very naive & doesn't understand what all the fuss is all about, there are reasonable people on both sides etc. which is enough to mean he can't be trusted at all on the issue

marsha de cordova is apparently in the scg & has been all over the place, rightfully criticising the tories for going back on gra reform etc., but she also tweeted this transphobic nonsense article about how trans people have no right to use the bathroom at work:

Not clear how the Law Society thinks this fits with the Equality Act 2010. @trussliz must ensure all public bodies, incl. the Government Equalities Office and Equality & Human Rights Commission, produce statutory guidance in keeping with the legislation:https://t.co/McVw5ixyxM

— Marsha de Cordova MP (@MarshadeCordova) October 2, 2020

falling for something like that at best shows she clearly doesn't have a clue on the issue, which is even worse bc she's shadow women & equalities secretary

More on the Barnard incident, suggesting the investigation notification was essentially fake and didn’t come via any official governance process:

The real story of what happened with @JessicaLBarnard yesterday is incredible.

The party said she was sent a notice of investigation “in error”. That was mocked—how do you investigate someone & send them an intimidating letter at 1 am by mistake? But it was actually true. >

— Alex Nunns (@alexnunns) September 11, 2021

If this is correct, it seems almost inconceivable that there won’t be repercussions, even in a party as cooked as Labour is.

Reportedly it was sent by one of the insecure & inexperienced agency staff brought in to work on complaints while the party was making permanent staff redundant—a great advert for hiring cheap labour from the party of labour.

🤦🏻 pic.twitter.com/FwoMOSueqQ

— Alex Nunns (@alexnunns) September 12, 2021

Another reset! Those lucky Fabians get first dibs on the massively expanded Snyder cut word salad version of his conference speech - it's everything those cunts deserve tbf!

"opportunity", a classic Tory dogwhistle, translation = "if you're struggling to survive and thrive it's your fault for not seizing your opportunity, don't blame capital"

only "hard-working families" count to Blairite Labour and especially Kieth's ghoulish shadow chancellor, everyone who isn't in that very woolly category - whatever the fuck it means - can die in a pile on the streets.

one of the pro-Starmer comments "the left is obsessed with policy"

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/sep/13/keir-starmer-jeremy-corbyn-suspension

Len McClusky on Corbyn’s suspension and Starmer’s involvement.

Lol @ Margaret Hodge's role in this

maybe she objected to being lumped in with the antiracists

I know they have to sound respectful about party democracy and say "I had no idea Kieth would turn out to be such a cunt and had nothing but goodwill for him at the start" but I never believe a word of it.

Hodge's visceral hatred for Corbyn is actually quite impressive at times! But there is not much else to be impressed with.

Her daughter is deputy editor of the BBC 6pm news broadcast so she is always a phone call away from airing her latest grievances.

Hodge's visceral hatred for Corbyn is actually quite impressive at times!

I'm wondering how much the Islington connection is behind it.

https://www.islingtongazette.co.uk/news/crime/isn-members-confront-margaret-hodge-at-ucl-3827360

A former leader of Islington council and now a devoted Blairite member for Barking, Hodge agreed to debate Clause 4 with hard left MP Jeremy Corbyn in front of an earnest crowd at the Red Rose Centre in Islington.
Corbyn argued to retain the public ownership clause while Hodge said electoral victory must come first. Corbyn won the crowd over completely – at which point Hodge turned from cool pragmatist into fuming maniac. She rose to reply and completely blew her gasket: she called the astonished crowd stupid and accused them of loving being in opposition and of having their heads in the sand. Of the hundred or so present, only two voted in favour of Hodge..

this as well

Anyone going to the Red Rose Club (RIP) to debate with Jeremy Corbyn was on a hiding to nothing tbf!

So in the blue corner, Starmer's team deny a deal, but their arguments are inconsistent, illogical & anonymous.

In the red corner, Len is on the record saying there was a deal, providing uncontested verbatim quotes & showing Starmer to be dishonest.

Who would you believe?

— Alex Nunns (@alexnunns) September 13, 2021

of course a former Corbyn speechwriter would say that but the contradictory and constantly shifting palter from Kieth and his staff doesn't hold together at all. But you are allowed to be a bad liar in UK politics if you are a tory.