have you quit the labour party yet?

You get thrown out of the party for saying stuff like that nowadays

Full Labour email including the bits about the Panorama settlements (from image 2) and how the leadership expects people to fall in line/not talk about that. Not that shocking, but have a read.

Toxic nonsense about behaving respectful and "comradely" after 4y of wrecking Corbyn. pic.twitter.com/qsQEyOrPFz

— i am looking respectfully 👁️ (@miriksmit) August 12, 2020

Cancel culture out of control

Full credit to @ejhchess for spotting this, but there’s a new ‘grass roots’ crowdfunder in town and it’s got some big supporters. pic.twitter.com/iA5Aeq5WKD

— Elvis Buñuelo (@Mr_Considerate) September 28, 2020

The attempt to start a US-style PAC and Starmer’s recent round of Please Sir May I Have Some More letters to donors makes me wonder what the current state of the membership is. The last update I can find is from April and iirc there’s probably a six month lag between people cancelling their direct debits and officially being taken off the rolls.

NEC elections will be telling I think. Could be the final nail down n the coffin for the left (except it never is, ofc)

This is a positive. I hope the few other left-wing unions stop their contributions too.

if Unite's serious about this, it could be a very good thing. There's no shortage of renters' unions etc that need the money and would no doubt make more effective use of it https://t.co/WL0lcZKdTh

— tom (@malaiseforever) October 7, 2020

some predictably risible responses

centrists: ffs! get behind your club.

Ayesha: it's only because Kieth has stamped out anti-Semitism

Yes lol always another view.

Fuck ‘em. They’re a bloody millstone round Labour’s neck anyway. Less influence they have, the better.
If it weren’t for those puffed up Little-Ponders we’d be in the second term of a David Miliband Labour government right now.

— Mitch Benn🇬🇧🇪🇺 (@MitchBenn) October 6, 2020

i also read a bunch of comments, i'd say it's depressing but idk, let the cunts have their Tories Who Like Nish Kumar Party to themselves

Centrists only respect money even though they all hate the unions, they still want their funding an unconditional support.

it's not like there's a shortage of centrists and assorted Old Lab Trot-haters *in* the unions

Unions fundamentally need influence and know that affiliation to the Labour Party is the primary way to achieve that. They also know that they are better off with Labour - any Labour Party - in power than they are with the Tories, which is why they've backed centrist candidates in the past. If they continued to pay out during the Blair years they're not going to stop now, even Unite's move is predominantly an attempt to gain leverage at a time when the party is hardly flush with money.

There's a double whammy here as well, they know that if they cut off funding then they leave Labour more dependent on wealthy individual donors whose aims may be contradictory to theirs, and ceding the playing field to them in the process.

Well Starmer was already courting wealthy donors and then has gone back to begging members for money/recently departed members to join, so situation might not be as rosy for him as all that.

I suspect the main objection isn't cutting off the money, it's offering a financial lifeline to the kind of grass-roots / youth activism the PLP is absolutely determined to stamp out.

"If they continued to pay out during the Blair years they're not going to stop now"

There is also a before and after Corbyn too and I think it would be good for other left-wing unions that backed RLB to look at reducing or cutting funds to Lab altogether. A lot of the membership that have stopped subs know what that cash is going into now.

Yes, we know

On Unite's decision, Starmer's spokesperson said: "Even before Unite’s decision, we were looking at how we can raise funds to win in 2024 and we’re looking at various different models."

— Sienna Rodgers (@siennamarla) October 7, 2020

He'll do a private table dance for £10k, you make it a monthly direct debit you can own the party.

Are trade unions bad

— Keir Starmer googling (@GooglingKeir) October 7, 2020

Bumping this thread purely to avoid posting this nonsense in the middle of the serious discussion about poverty in the main one. Also very relevant to this thread. Posting here in the hope of drawing calz’s attention to this nonsense:

WORLD CUP OF WORST LABOUR MPs - ROUND OF 100 - GROUP 2

TWENTY-FIVE WINNERS AND SEVEN RUNNERS-UP QUALIFY

— World Cup of Stupid Centrist Hacks (@centristhacks) October 26, 2020

Some absolutely brutal ratios in there - Rachel Reeves on 92% of the vote, J*ss Ph*ll*ps on 97%.

Flawless seeding.

Nia Griffith's lucked out in being drawn against Duffield.

Lloyd Russell-Moyle "Landlord"

lol from that Labour MP Rap Sheet: Barry Sheerwaste entry

"Claimed lowering suffrage to 16 would increase the risk of CSA
Called for a catering company to employ ""English workers"", dismissing criticism as ""pernicious political correctness""
Joked that Richard Desmond & Philip Green, two Jews, being on the original list for House of Lords nominations, would lead to ""a run on silver shekels""
Voted against the Hunting Ban (despite his Huddersfield constituency not even being a historical fox hunting area)
Voted to the right of Labour on asylum
Voted to the right of Labour on House of Lords reform"

there is a whole other Rap Sheet category for Barry, like when he puts out his mini Garden Bridge type follies in the Hudds rag as part of doing his bit as a professional lobbyist for his construction industry pals. One of his ideas was to build cable cars going down Leeds Rd (to breath in the lovely traffic fumes and get good view of the waste incineration plant) or converting the square in front of the station into a covered area for no reason other than to piss off the taxi drivers. yet somehow Reeves is even worse than him.

Nia Griffith's lucked out in being drawn against Duffield.

Anyway it’s a disgrace Sheerman is losing by 4% ffs

Liam Byrne has a lot to answer for tbf, his stupid note was a vital propaganda win in favour of austerity.

I like how the rap sheet runs the full gamut from 'supportive of Saudi intervention in Yemen' to 'attended a Shed Seven gig with Therese Coffey and Michael Dugher'.

https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn%3AANd9GcTVvpfeZ_qq3nCC9VEjsJjs9VjUoXFoX9dC2w&usqp=CAU*

Sheerman would probably have lost his seat in '19 because even dyed in the wool Labour voters have their limits, but the daft fucking Tories ran the *Mekon against him, who is a classic evil Tory baddie who is that reviled in Hudds when kids throw stones at him the parents usually join in rather than scolding them.

my old Labour MP still follows me on twitter. It's amusing sometimes thinking about how she's often RT-ing any positive opinion pieces on Starmer or his own tweets, while I'm clicking like on juvenile photoshops or tweets calling him a "cop wanker" or comparing his complexion to sliced ham!

Liam Byrne has a lot to answer for tbf, his stupid note was a vital propaganda win in favour of austerity.

there was some weird kind of paralysis there, either that or just plain old cowardice and complete lack of conviction. I mean ffs like retorting: we didn't cause the 2007-08 global financial crisis actually. But no they just let the narrative take hold and tamely took their medicine. it was quite pathetic really.

His successor, Lib Dem David Laws, broke with tradition and made the note public, accusing Mr Byrne of flippancy.

Mr Byrne said he had been following a tradition dating back to Churchill.

Not entirely convincing tbh - 'oh well if it's tradition I guess I'll just have to...'

far be it from me to post

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eF8c3BjFWsw

well

i refer the thread to my comment of monday evening

I only regret that there is but one labour party for me to have quit.

I have just finally quit the Labour party.

last one out's a meeeelt

xp to Daniel
Same.

Having said that, Jewdas, who are my heroes atm, present a decent, and inspiring case here:

For everyone tearing their hair out or their membership cards up, we want you to look at this image. The old adage that you get conservative with age only applies to babyboomers and their kids. The rest of us are what Israel might call a "demographic timebomb". pic.twitter.com/fkcoMa9Hem

— jewdⒶs // ייִדהודה (@jewdas) October 29, 2020

that's a nice thread

Definitely feel like if a viable alternative to labour doesn't appear now, it never will

lol @ jewdas quoting the ira tho

"viable" is the big issue isn't it? no left-oriented political party starting from scratch is going to be able to get the access to media and etc to mount a meaningful challenge in parliamentary elections any time soon. and i have to say that any left-oriented party has to run the gauntlet of wresting itself from the usual dipshit Stalinists and etc

well, there you go then

i guess the answer is "never"

I wouldn't say never now tho, UK political processes feel exceptionally broken

Jewdas's graph kind of skipping around the conservatism of Gen X, isn't it?

"their kids"

i'm Gen X don't slander me

#notallboomers

I bet it wasn't all boomers and gen X'ers in the membership that melted like butter over that shitty Starmer vid back in January and voted for the twat.