love* in the time of plague (and by love* i mean brexit* and other dreary matters of uk politics)

Which he’s already been weak and shit on. Fuck him, don’t care anymore.

Yes, but again he will need to turn that one around. That's my point.

A huge part of the right-wing motivation for pushing this line is the disengagement of British Muslims from the political process, both in the sense of using past criticism of Israel as a bar on specific Muslims being selected as elected officials (dossiers collated on activists going back to college social media, vast numbers of vexatious complaints designed to hold up / stop appointments, etc) and in the sense of ensuring that ‘courting Muslim votes’, used time and again against the Corbyn wing, is seen as inherently suspicious and disreputable.There’s no way Starmer’s going to square that circle.

been wondering whether active opposition to labour in order to force these ghouls out might not be the best option at this point

Calmly posting as Lab get 30% in four years time

Please. You’re waiting for the full weight of the DPP legacy, real and false, to drop. Interesting Starmzy was soft on actual Tory frontbenchers spreading far right videos about him though, even more so today.

I can’t imagine who they’re going to get in for Education. Anyone from the left is going to be undermined immediately and will know it, anyone from the right is going to be viewed with enormous suspicion by teachers off the bat. They’re going to have to find the most perfectly calibrated nobody.

That's a soft left speciality

about 100 Labour MPs shout "hold my beer" in unison

xxp

someone with J k Rowling energy, but more tory!

I posted the 30% as a joke btw. Given what's coming in terms of covid and Brexit and a potential climate related event thrown in for good measure they could turn to the softest boy in a suit as a last attempt to rescue this sham of a system.

This tweet is still up https://t.co/DKyrZJaxKo

— Your Mum says Black Lives Matter (@judeinlondon2) June 25, 2020

nothing to see like, just a Hitler supporter who refused to employ Jews or Catholics and wished the holocaust had reached Brooklyn. Who got a statue built recently and the current Shadow Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster hasn't yet said this is a bad thing and Starmer hasn't sacked her and there is no shitstorm.

She was that much of a glaring Antisemitic loony the 1940's Conservative party had to get shut of her because she was an embarrassment.

Stafford Cripps on her in the 40's in parliament: Our honourable member for Berlin

late 30's i meant obv!

I think that if you accept the story that Israeli security have trained US police departments the question of whether they taught them that specific move becomes trivial at best - surely no one is suggesting that the current anger at the US police is exclusively, or even mostly, about them using this move? The point is about collaboration between these two organisations, period.

this is extremely otm. none of the ppl commenting on this story know where chauvin learnt abt kneeling on ppls necks (although as mentioned in the middle east eye article plax links above this technique is used in israel/palestine and the minneapolis PD have taken part in this training so for all anyone in this thread knows he might have learned it from there), and it's clear that peake is making a point about the methods and approach of the US police, which have increasingly taken inspiration from counter-insurgency tactics (which obv reveals a lot about the underlying perception of black people in america, at least by the police). the way these methods are imported and exported is worth noting, even if the information is patchy and ppl are waiting to jump on you, and as gyac mentions there's pertinent precedent in the british police's use of torture - "the five techniques" - in NI which became m/l standard procedure in numerous places overseas during 'the war on terror' (including on children, including on british citizens, including ISI collaborating with greater manchester police to come up with questions during interrogation for a british citizen from rochdale during which he had his fingernails ripped out).

we're then left with this issue of daftness, and the argument reminds me of the talk about the relationship between the media and labour during the corbyn years, when ppl wld say "yes the treatment is unfair but what do you expect, this is the situation you have to deal with". as per SV there are dossiers kept on all sorts of ppl in politics and all sorts of ppl combing through things applying a level of scrutiny that has a chilling effect on democracy. being on the left and mentioning israel in a negative context? moronic. who'd get into politics where even your allies will insult and disavow you when you fail to meet absurd, maliciously-set standards?

^booming

"when you fail to meet absurd, maliciously-set standards?"

If the tories and lots of current and ex Labour Right arseholes were themselves judged by these standards, the whole ball of lies might unfurl and reveal them all as the same fraudulent liars, delusional fuckwits, committed to making all our lives worse because they hate the idea of genuine opposition and despise the lower classes. And also might reveal them to be virulently racist and Antisemitic, but just constantly getting away with it because the establishment are allowed to be nazi cunts.

Amazing post ogmor

Lots of allies sharing a story about a 2012 statewide conference convened by FBI, Israeli consulate and Minnetonka PD - that’s not Minneapolis and the story doesn’t show Minneapolis cops were amongst the 100 attendees. British people conflating locations with Minne- (mní in Dakota tribe language) place names ISN’T HELPING.

Ogmor gets it.

To ogmor's question part of the answer lies in direct action. The BLM protests, taking down the statue...the next education secretary won't be working with unions but teachers organising collectively without Labour's voice is still an option.

For the record, from the minute she took on the education brief @RLong_Bailey worked incredibly hard behind the scenes to master the complexities of our system, link up to a wide range of groups, across the political spectrum. She was a listener, and anything but factional.

— Melissa Benn (@Melissa_Benn) June 26, 2020

who'd get into politics where even your allies will insult and disavow you when you fail to meet absurd, maliciously-set standards?

Would really like to see more politicians in general just disavow social media altogether. Shared accounts with thoroughly team-vetted messages now and then if they must.

People might claim it's necessary for both sides to maximise engagement (and show their humanity or whatever) but then how much were Tory MPs ever tweeting simply 'register to vote!' if at all, to the extent that their electoral success can really be credited to their comms conduct.

Her record was being defended by Windmill Jolyon yesterday - pointing out she had done a huge amount behind the scenes, particularly related to legal action taken against the government to force additional COVID support.

He was arguing with Sonia Sodha, who thought she was rubbish and that and Observer editorial (author: S.Sodha) was far more useful in setting out a platform to support young people.

sonia sodha is abysmal

Would really like to see more politicians in general just disavow social media altogether. Shared accounts with thoroughly team-vetted messages now and then if they must.

This is tempting but what sort of reach would politicians like AOC, or the imaginary British AOC everyone wants to will into existence, have without it?

the imaginary British AOC everyone wants to will into existence

egregious jess phillips shade from SV

sultana shows promise; needs to turn the volume up

oh wait i quit labour yesterday i can't like any of them now

layla moran it is ;)

"the imaginary British AOC everyone wants to will into existence"

it would have been Jess Phillips, but alas she told it like it was and we just couldn't handle the truth

Would really like to see more politicians in general just disavow social media altogether. Shared accounts with thoroughly team-vetted messages now and then if they must.

I don't think this is the way to go. Being on social media is fine, just have to bring along a couple of brain cells whenever its time to use it

when you fail to meet absurd, maliciously-set standards?

The problem for Labour under almost any leadership is that it has no control over these - and they've existed in one form or another for a century at least. These are the standards that mean it's not OK for a Labour MP to be at an event with one antisemitic crank among 400 others, but Tory MEPs can vote openly in support of Viktor Orban and no one bats an eyelid. These have existed in one form or another for the best part of a century at least and can't just be wished away, so it's about what you do to change it - and maybe a lot of the heavy lifting for that has to be done outside the Parliamentary Labour Party.

The question then is whether Labour work within these constraints to achieve power and then try and do something about them (or not as the case may be), whether they actively and openly fight against them (and risk being trashed), or whether they try and ignore them and do what they were going to do anyway on the basis that wider public opinion will get you through. Labour under Corbyn generally took the third option, Labour under Starmer appear to have settled on the former and both have obvious flaws.

Without wanting to go back over yesterday's argument again, RLB did not really fall foul of fiendishly difficult terrain here or impossibly attainable standards here, it was a basic error. I think everyone here agrees that you should be able to criticise the actions of the Israeli state/government without being antisemitic and there are ways of doing that that have been widely talked about and widely shared, particularly by Jewish leftists, and plenty of people on the left are still incapable of doing so properly. There was enough grey area in the Peake interview between 'valid political point' and 'antisemitic dogwhistle' to give RLB pause for thought before offering a breathless endorsement that frankly wouldn't have benefited anyone in the first place. (An underrated political skill is knowing when to stay quiet and let other people, non-politicians in particular, make the point for you.)

Not being able to hear a dogwhistle or even consider whether one might exist is not really excusable for a Shadow Cabinet minister right now, and RLB signed up for this alongside all the other leadership candidates. It was a fuck-up, but nothing more sinister than that.

It was also a piece of blatant, cynical, political theatre by Starmer that might work in the short term (he looks decisive, tough on antisemitism, able to fire people unlike Johnson, putting the fear of of missteps into other shadow ministers etc). But it's also playing with fire because, leaving aside the question of alienating the left, once the right work out how to play this to their advantage they'll be digging into everything and daring him to sack half the Shadow Cabinet. As I've said a public apology would have been enough but it might also have been the start of open season on Starmer and RLB in particular.

If you want to get people to engage properly with the way in which approaches to police brutality are exchanged between heavily militarised states then pointing and going "Israeli secret services" is one of the worst ways to go about it, especially if it's only partly true or not true at all. (And I stress the distinction between secret services and other state forces here, trying to erase that distinction does no one any favours).

Always imagined KS as more of a Nicky Butt type tbh

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EbboKCFU8AAFx-V?format=png&name=large

I don't think this is the way to go. Being on social media is fine, just have to bring along a couple of brain cells whenever its time to use it

Not being on it is also fine. Just not convinced it's done a single person in power more good than harm. There's also the abuse and threats problem in general. It is not a safe space nor a healthy way to give or receive messages (the pressure to knock out a banal condemnation or message of solidarity every time something awful happens every hour of the day) and probably never will be.

(Another piece of important context to yesterday is that far-right groups and other antisemitic conspiracists have at various times accused 'the Jews' of attempting to start a race war, or attempting to promote widespread racial mixing. Either way fomenting resentment or distrust of Jewish people within black communities is a key aim of a lot of these cunts, and while I'm 100% sure that neither RLB nor Peake meant that for a second, it was steering very close to another antisemitic trope and would have been heard at least partly in that context).

280 characters is not enough to make any kind of serious political point on difficult terrain, it's an absolute goldmine for anyone wanting to willfully misinterpet any politician they dislike.

excellent posts, Matt.

Surely there's a '140 characters is not enough to make any kind of...' equivalent post from five years ago heh

What I've seen from the far right has been unequivocal support for police brutality in the US, The Jews in their eyes are behind BLM not the cops. But I take your point. xposts

I should also point out that any Labour opposition, particularly one courting authoritarian voters, is going to be blowing plenty of its own dogwhistles in other areas and I'm not excusing that.

Guardian very confident that only left wing MPs could have a problem with RLB's sacking
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/jun/26/keir-starmear-faces-backlash-from-leftwing-mps-over-rebecca-long-bailey-sacking

An alternate view is that cracking down ruthlessly on any negative reference to Israel but giving a pass to European antisemites is the dog-whistle - emphasising for the benefit of white authoritarians that the British political landscape is actively hostile to solidarity with Muslims.

I don't think maintaining a constant state of vigilance abt how everything you say/endorse could be taken as a dogwhistle is 'basic'. the complaints here have been that peake's comments "feed into a soft AS" or "steer very close to another antisemitic trope" which are in that extremely fuzzy "I can imagine an antisemite saying something like this" territory. I do think that's an absurd standard, as you are basically going solely by what makes ppl feel threatened, so its entirely subjective and changeable and rests on the infallibility of victims. it's the same logic of optics and feeling that led to that article about BLM being antisemitic. "it has that vibe", "it's nagl" - this v quickly dissolves into prejudice

"If you want to get people to engage properly with the way in which approaches to police brutality are exchanged between heavily militarised states then pointing and going "Israeli secret services" is one of the worst ways to go about it, especially if it's only partly true or not true at all. (And I stress the distinction between secret services and other state forces here, trying to erase that distinction does no one any favours)."

There is some naivety here. The people calling for RLB's sacking aren't interested to engage with these issues under any circumstances -- unless it's for factional benefit, so they aren't taking it seriously -- and people who like Peake's work and are hearing about it for the first time will do various things with that bit of info that are completely out of her control anyway.

xps

I'm not talking about those people I'm talking about the wider public.

I mean, the Jewish leftists that I follow are between furious and fatalistic about this - none of them consider it antisemitic (and of course it restricts their ability to criticise the IDF if the idea that doing so is automatically antisemitic get further mainstreamed).

The enormous melt on my friendslist who I actually got into a barney with on this was casting it as in a tradition "she didn't have to say Israel, but it's always Israel"

I've noted for months that ILX poster Calzino hates Keir Starmer and calls him a useless Tory bastard at every opportunity.

I always thought that was amusingly excessive - I thought KS was bland, inoffensive, dull, ineffectual, probably quite an effective candidate in pragmatic terms, possibly well-meaning.

Yesterday's actions were the first really to make me see why you might think as Calzino does.

I can't really trust KS on anything after this.

I guess more fundamentally I am concerned by how many ppl will play along w/ enforcing v broad and nebulous standards of who and what doesn't belong in democratic politics. I think the standards for exclusion should be v high. taking structural racism seriously means accepting it's deeply embedded in what we have to work with & trying to improve it, not just a feature of these distinct villains who can be weeded out. the total number/percentage of british ppl who have successfully avoided employing any tropes that a significant number of other ppl wld deem either bigoted or adjacent to bigotry is tiny, and not enough to build an even semi-representative democracy out of, and more and more of ppl's past can be discovered by malicious actors, we need a more honest way of dealing with the gap between where we want to be and where we are. so of matt's options I pick b) fighting against them, seeing as the trashing seems more like an inevitability than a risk