have you quit the labour party yet?

I'm going to put a "Post any Labour Campaign leaflets here, please" sign over my garden waste burner on the front path to spare me having to be rude to any nice Labour doorstep canvassers come the GE.

I was almost disappointed when I thought Kendall had said something reasonable, but it was a quote from someone from Mind. Phew! she hasn't lost *it*!

i don't believe this is just rhetoric for the right wing press, which is the usual excuse that the addicts who just can't wean themselves off Labour will give

but even if it was "just rhetoric" what kind of callous shithead would you have to be to threaten the threadbare existing security of some of the most marginalised and anxious people in the country?

It's a lot of "get on with it / sort yourself out / there's nothing wrong with you" from people with the unconscious privilege of not having to expend vast amounts of psychic energy just to hold it together. Which describes increasing amounts of people nowadays!

It's fucking horrific

wonder what percentage of jobs she thinks are 'good work' ? p sure her percentage is a lot higher than mine.

Reeves and Kendall have clearly been itching to implement their Labour version of austerity since like 2011,; imagine their frustration and internal anguish when Miliband and then Corbyn rejected that; Kendall's gnashing of teeth at her 4.5% in 2015; they nursed their secret vendettas and avid desires to socially murder poor and unlucky members of the British public for over a decade, and finally they find themselves closer to the goal, but at almost the worst, most unpropitious time for austerity and benefit hardmanning, when the public is clearly set against it, when even the media is starting to snark about it, when the economy absolutely will not take it, and the party are 25 points up so there's 0 strategic need for it. We are dealing with a personal psychopathy of individuals here, as Reeves' grim and inapposite anecdote about balancing books at the kitchen table illustrates, but they are also neoliberal revenge against the postwar welfare state made flesh.

Workfare returns?

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2024/mar/08/momentum-considers-accepting-members-from-outside-the-labour-party

Insiders say a shift in the group’s membership model will make it a “powerful force” and will ensure its financial sustainability and relevance if Keir Starmer becomes prime minister.

Momentum currently requires supporters to be members of Labour – a rule that is having a knock-on effect on its funding as thousands of leftwingers have deserted the party under Starmer.

wasn't this idea floated shortly after Corbyn stepped down, and there were suggestions that Momentum would be immediately be proscribed if they tried it?

Momentum have been fortunate not to have been proscribed anyway, and seemingly only because they've done fuck all since 2019.

If the motion is passed Momentum would hold the same membership criteria as the leftwing thinktank the Fabian Society, which is still deemed closely associated with the Labour party and has influenced Labour policy.

apparently you don't have to be in the Labour party to join the Fabians, but if you're a member of a party that contests elections against Labour party you can join as an 'associate member' without voting rights. Their website also says that 'around 80%' of Fabian members are also in the Labour party.

you can *only* join as an 'associate member'

the only effective pressure groups on the Labour Party these days are bet365, private healthcare lobbyists, big business donors and various billionaires etc. If anybody truly wants to change the party they have to explain why why nobody should vote Labour because there isn't a popular mandate for austerity and they are fucking garbage. Momentum won't do that, so basically they are absolutely without a reason to exist - other than just ambling on doing nothing.

I'm just trying to process how stupid or disingenuous you'd have to be to call the Fabians left wing

Momentum has been a busted flush since 2019 at the latest if I'm generous

Did anyone else get the begging email from Labour that is fundraising off the back of the racism faced by Diane Abbott, without even once mentioning her by name?

You can respond to it, so I did:

Not a penny from me or anyone I know in Holborn and St Pancras (where I live) until the whip is restored to the Diane Abbott, the victim of this racism, along with an apology. She apologised to you for her poorly expressed letter; how sad it is that it’s taken the whole Hester scandal and the Speaker’s refusal to call her at PMQs to illustrate to the general public that deep within that letter, she may have had a point.

nice

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GIndn4pXYAEYhy2?format=jpg&name=medium

🤢

yeah it's disgraceful all right

Cunts.

JP tweeting up a storm over this when she made her name as a new MP by slagging off Diane frequently hasn’t gone unnoticed

Journalist Robert Peston and Labour MP Jess Philips having a good laugh at someone impersonating Diane Abbott. Racism is not the preserve of any one political party https://t.co/mGmv44zS1U

— Diane Abbott MP (@HackneyAbbott) March 13, 2024

i thought they didn't care about little people's money nowadays

Don’t you know? The only thing they value from little people are their votes - which you should give up without questioning what you’re supporting - or whatever coins the glorious forthcoming Reeves era leaves you with after cutting whatever remains of public services so she can spend money getting her hair cut at Legoland or giving nice contracts to donors.

I should clarify: RR is not spending valuable donor money on getting her hair cut, you just have to clip that stuff on and you’re good to go.
https://i.postimg.cc/ZqRTXSGN/IMG-7071.jpg

i assume Reeves has a big round peg on top of her head so this looks credible

Next ukpol thread title needs to be “short legs, big happy smile”, works for Starmer and Reeves both

Reeves' political hero, Nancy Astor ("our honourable member for Berlin") got sidelined by the Tories, mainly for being a pro Nazi regime nutjob who kept embarrassing them in parliament and she was also loudly anti-Semitic. That's her political hero.

First white antisemitic Nazi female MP >>>>>>>>>> first black female MP

Now the gossip is that she’s been offered the whip back on condition she stands down at the General.

Fuck. That.

Also RR is so clearly cosplaying Gina McKee from Our Friends In The North, along with eg. Bridget Phillipson.

These Labour antisemitism investigations sure do take a long time

right????? scandalous eh

A sham inquiry obviously, because aside from the letter to the Observer there is fuck all else of substance on Abbott to justify a year of *investigation*

they’re really dragging their feet. they must not be serious about tackling the problem. why are these antisemites still in the party. etc

the way they've treated her in comparison to Neil Coyle, who had his whip restored after racial abuse of a journo and harassing an assistant. Well that shows the distinction between politically convenient racism, which is a very grave offense in Diane's case, and the racism they are happy to give a pass to.

Centrists and terfs throwing fits because Owen Jones has left Labour, you love to see it.

Yes, strange, since they were saying they didn’t need him for years

Apparently this also makes him a grifter? Who knew!

Meanwhile I'm thinking the lad might still vote for them even after all this

No, I’m sure a huge part of the reason he’s left is that Emily Thornberry (his MP) has been extremely shifty over Gaza. They have been good friends in the past and often canvassed together. I’m sure people in Labour who are dissatisfied with the direction of the party generally stick around as members if they like their MP.

"We Deserve Better" looks likely to be effective as "Enough is Enough" in terms of results, but fuck it, if it helps to run scum like Starmer and Streeting close in the numbers, it will have ben worth it. And it may help in Bristol West too. I have to say, I do admire Jones' stances lately, and his videos have been very useful in helping to educate my parents. My mum has really changed her opinion of Starmer and Labour because of him. And I really can't see how this is beneficial to his career, despite solidifying his brand. In any case, it's a good brand.

We all remember his video encouraging us to vote Labour last year - it does genuinely seem to be Gaza which has pushed him over the edge, and you have to respect that.

I’m a big football fan, I go to England games, men, women’s games. And the flag is used by everybody, it’s unifying, it doesn’t need to change. We just need to be proud of it. So I think they should just reconsider this and change it back.

hahaha we're back baby pic.twitter.com/z9QG2TFCE5

— Frank Sobotka (@cymrurouge) March 24, 2024

Bring it on.

Lol I thought they were going to to do Euan Blairs ex

This is much funnier

I think Euan Blair’s ex will be running in the constituency where she lives (and ran as a LibDem last time).

i just don't see Mason happening, he's too embarrassing even for Labour 2024 and doesn't seem to be acknowledged by anybody in the party that matters

strongly hoping for him to get a chance tho, it'll surely be the comedy highlight of the election

his main problem is that he isn't even a useful idiot for Starmer Labour. Nobody takes him seriously and he didn't come close in his 3(?) previous attempts at standing in low-key seats. God knows why he thinks he can take on the Jam man, who is popular, respected and is taken seriously - especially on his own patch. If Labour right do run him against Corbyn it would be no-risk for them, because he's certain to lose and none of them really give a shit about him. He was an early Starmer adopter and even he doesn't give a shit about him.