Jump to content

news & politics:discussion


zahidf
 Share

Recommended Posts

1 minute ago, mattiloy said:

I don’t think any of us on the left, many of whom voted for candidates other than RLB, expected what came next. Its all been fairly shocking and unpleasant. Feels personal. Like the right of the party had been grinding their axes for the last 5 years and were finally able to run amok. And they did. And now the party is a steaming pile of shit.

Apart from booting Corbyn out for the antisemitism, what has starmer done that has upset you so much?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 minutes ago, mattiloy said:


She’s ’soft left’, same as Starmer was supposed to be.
 

At the time I thought Nandy would be a good compromise. A well liked, experienced, female constituency MP in a deprived area who knows the need for the welfare state and nationalised rail etc, who emphasises localism and immediately accepted the brexit result. I still kind of think these things but I just dont trust her anymore.

And whilst at the time I quite liked Starmer’s manifesto, I didn’t think Starmer would be able to shake of his anchor as remainer in chief and I thought it’d be good to have a woman.

RLB was a non runner for me. Not a good speaker and already a big target for the hostile press.

I don’t think any of us on the left, many of whom voted for candidates other than RLB, expected what came next. Its all been fairly shocking and unpleasant. Feels personal. Like the right of the party had been grinding their axes for the last 5 years and were finally able to run amok. And they did. And now the party is a steaming pile of shit.

The party became a steaming pile of shit under the last guy.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

8 minutes ago, steviewevie said:

Apart from booting Corbyn out for the antisemitism, what has starmer done that has upset you so much?


Largely the interfering in internal politics. His appointments internally, changing the rules to fix the national executive elections, overriding the decision to elect the chair and appointing Margaret Beckett as NEC chair, selecting the candidate for hartlepool from a shortlist of one, refusing liverpool labour’s democratic nomination to mayor of liverpool Anne Rothery. Really just undermining party democracy at every turn. Outright banning party meetings from saying anything about Corbyn after he booted him out and suspending any members who did. Abstaining on the bill to legalise war crimes committed by british troops on overseas ops and sacking the last real left wing members of his shadow cabinet for voting against. Sacking Rebecca Long Bailey for retweeting an interview with long time labour activist Maxine Peake which contained a vague spurious reference to something that might have been perceived as antisemitic if you take massive liberties with that term... Shall i go on?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 minute ago, mattiloy said:


Largely the interfering in internal politics. His appointments internally, changing the rules to fix the national executive elections, overriding the decision to elect the chair and appointing Margaret Beckett as NEC chair, selecting the candidate for hartlepool from a shortlist of one, refusing liverpool labour’s democratic nomination to mayor of liverpool Anne Rothery. Really just undermining party democracy at every turn. Outright banning party meetings from saying anything about Corbyn after he booted him out and suspending any members who did. Abstaining on the bill to legalise war crimes committed by british troops on overseas ops and sacking the last real left wing members of his shadow cabinet for voting against. Sacking Rebecca Long Bailey for retweeting an interview with long time labour activist Maxine Peake which contained a vague spurious reference to something that might have been perceived as antisemitic if you take massive liberties with that term... Shall i go on?

Did Corbyn's interference offend you as much

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just now, mattiloy said:


Largely the interfering in internal politics. His appointments internally, changing the rules to fix the national executive elections, overriding the decision to elect the chair and appointing Margaret Beckett as NEC chair, selecting the candidate for hartlepool from a shortlist of one, refusing liverpool labour’s democratic nomination to mayor of liverpool Anne Rothery. Really just undermining party democracy at every turn. Outright banning party meetings from saying anything about Corbyn after he booted him out and suspending any members who did. Abstaining on the bill to legalise war crimes committed by british troops on overseas ops and sacking the last real left wing members of his shadow cabinet for voting against. Sacking Rebecca Long Bailey for retweeting an interview with long time labour activist Maxine Peake which contained a vague spurious reference to something that might have been perceived as antisemitic if you take massive liberties with that term... Shall i go on?

ok, so internal labour stuff...not actual policies.

Corbyn was doing similar wasn't he?

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just now, steviewevie said:

ok, so internal labour stuff...not actual policies.

Corbyn was doing similar wasn't he?


Not even in the slightest. Of course there were changes to internal rules but with Corbyn these made the party more democratic and increased the power of the individual member.

You might say that Thats because he had the membership on side but Yeah, thats democracy, its a weak man who can only maintain his power by doing away with democracy, shutting down his critics.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 minutes ago, mattiloy said:


Not even in the slightest. Of course there were changes to internal rules but with Corbyn these made the party more democratic and increased the power of the individual member.

You might say that Thats because he had the membership on side but Yeah, thats democracy, its a weak man who can only maintain his power by doing away with democracy, shutting down his critics.

Yeah, well...he's gone now...and maybe Starmer will be gone in a year or so too...and then someone else can come in whom some will love and some will hate, and then they'll get kicked out...and then someone else can come in and...etc

Meanwhile Johnson, Raab, Gove and Patel are the ones in power.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

5 minutes ago, mattiloy said:


Not even in the slightest. Of course there were changes to internal rules but with Corbyn these made the party more democratic and increased the power of the individual member.

You might say that Thats because he had the membership on side but Yeah, thats democracy, its a weak man who can only maintain his power by doing away with democracy, shutting down his critics.

No power for the me!bership to discuss brexit at conference.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 minute ago, steviewevie said:

Yeah, well...he's gone now...and maybe Starmer will be gone in a year or so too...and then someone else can come in whom some will love and some will hate, and then they'll get kicked out...and then someone else can come in and...etc

Meanwhile Johnson, Raab, Gove and Patel are the ones in power.

It. Won't be anyone as bad as Corbyn.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

From a non electoral, leftist perspective trying to get a more favourable left wing leader in charge will just leave us with Corbyn 2.0. I think focusing on grassroots organising like what the DSA or Justice Democrats do in the US will give us a better base and more leverage in like 5 years time. Top down politics won't do much, as we're basically up against a billionaire media machine and undemocratic (FPTP) system. Better to try and get more left wing MPs voted in on the local level and organise behind key issues (climate, nationalisation etc). In that regard, I like the new direction Momentum seem to be heading in.

From the electoral perspective... I have no idea, Starmer seems to be doing a bit poorly in the face of 100k dead, free school meals scandal, test and trace, all of which I would have thought would really hurt the Tories. Maybe it is early days and he can focus on better attacks and messaging but I guess we'll wait and see. 

Edited by Haan
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Just now, Haan said:

From a non electoral, leftist perspective trying to get a more favourable left wing leader in charge will just leave us with Corbyn 2.0. I think focusing on grassroots organising like what the DSA or Justice Democrats do in the US will give us a better base and more leverage in like 5 years time. Top down politics won't do much, as we're basically up against a billionaire media machine and undemocratic (FPTP) system. Better to try and get more left wing MPs voted in on the local level and organise behind key issues (climate, nationalisation etc). In that regard, I like the new direction Momentum seem to be heading in.

From the electoral perspective... I have no idea, Starmer seems to be doing a bit poorly in the face of 100k dead, free school meals scandal, test and trace, all of which I would have thought would really hurt the Tories. Maybe it is early days and he can focus on better attacks and messaging but I guess we'll wait and see. 

All those embers didn't bring victory.maybenit was the type of members ",fuck off and vote Tory then,"

Link to comment
Share on other sites

3 minutes ago, eFestivals said:

All those embers didn't bring victory.maybenit was the type of members ",fuck off and vote Tory then,"

I don't understand what that's got to do with anything I've said

Link to comment
Share on other sites

4 minutes ago, eFestivals said:

Grassroots of weeds.

Having a whole bunch of labour members is different to actual grassroots organising though, what I meant is actual strategy to help build more left wing ideas in local communities, then after building a strong base like that being able to push for a left wing gov at an election 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

7 minutes ago, Haan said:

Having a whole bunch of labour members is different to actual grassroots organising though, what I meant is actual strategy to help build more left wing ideas in local communities, then after building a strong base like that being able to push for a left wing gov at an election 

When thehrassroots are toxic how do you think it will go.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

44 minutes ago, Barry Fish said:

Reading the lefties in this thread perfectly highlights just how far Labour is from power.  I don't think I will ever see again in my lifetime another Labour government.  Specially given the situation in Wales and Scotland.

You must be loving it over here in the Glastonbury section rather than your old haunt in the discussions.

It used to be a you, Neil & Feral trying to wind each other up,  now you have a bigger captive audience at your fingertips and they seem to love you 🤯

What happened? back to home working or you got your ass sacked when they discovered you were THE @Barry Fish

Link to comment
Share on other sites

11 hours ago, mattiloy said:


Largely the interfering in internal politics.

This is what leaders do though - they shape their parties how they see fit to best operate and win. Every leader in LP history has done this and in my view it's the representative part of a representative democracy, you elect the people you believe will make the right decisions.

My biggest beef with KS is he's so reactive not proactive - Labour need to start putting forward more of a vision but it's obviously difficult in current circumstances and whenever they do put forward anything (Dodd at Mais lecture for instance) it gets absolutely 0 coverage because all anyone cares about at the moment is CV19. Feels a bit like judging Attlee in 43 not 45. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

 

13 hours ago, steviewevie said:

Apart from booting Corbyn out for the antisemitism, what has starmer done that has upset you so much?

For me the answer is "nothing" and that's the problem. Plenty of us backed Starmer because RLB was a non-starter. We accepted Corbyn had become toxic and although many of us believe it wasn't his fault, most actual Corbynites aren't so divorced from reality to not see something new was needed.

It felt like when Starmer came in he had a shot at uniting the party. He's a centrist but he has some left wing ideals. We knew there's no chance we'll get the sort of radical stuff Corbyn (and we) wanted but we still hoped to see some proper far-reaching changes in some areas. 

What's actually happened is Starmer has pandered to the Blairists and give the left of the party nothing. The Corbyn thing is a non-issue as far as I'm concerned - he had no choice to suspend him after what Corbyn himself said. It wasn't pleasant or right but had to be done. But we've not see a single piece of properly progressive thinking from him. Every policy announcement has been rearranging the deckchairs. 

It could still change, I'll wait until the manifesto as that's what will matter, but I'm not optimistic given he's made no effort whatsoever to appeal to the left - and I'd argue the pandemic has provided ample opportunity.

(I do think he's maybe worried about announcing any sort of specific investment proposals out of fear that Johnson is going to go on an investment splurge post-COVID - which would be a good call - and he's look bad if he had proposed *less* than what Johnson actually does)

12 hours ago, eFestivals said:

It. Won't be anyone as bad as Corbyn.

Great news! So at minimum hung parliament next election!

Link to comment
Share on other sites

1 hour ago, DeanoL said:

 

For me the answer is "nothing" and that's the problem. Plenty of us backed Starmer because RLB was a non-starter. We accepted Corbyn had become toxic and although many of us believe it wasn't his fault, most actual Corbynites aren't so divorced from reality to not see something new was needed.

It felt like when Starmer came in he had a shot at uniting the party. He's a centrist but he has some left wing ideals. We knew there's no chance we'll get the sort of radical stuff Corbyn (and we) wanted but we still hoped to see some proper far-reaching changes in some areas. 

What's actually happened is Starmer has pandered to the Blairists and give the left of the party nothing. The Corbyn thing is a non-issue as far as I'm concerned - he had no choice to suspend him after what Corbyn himself said. It wasn't pleasant or right but had to be done. But we've not see a single piece of properly progressive thinking from him. Every policy announcement has been rearranging the deckchairs. 

It could still change, I'll wait until the manifesto as that's what will matter, but I'm not optimistic given he's made no effort whatsoever to appeal to the left - and I'd argue the pandemic has provided ample opportunity.

(I do think he's maybe worried about announcing any sort of specific investment proposals out of fear that Johnson is going to go on an investment splurge post-COVID - which would be a good call - and he's look bad if he had proposed *less* than what Johnson actually does)

 

yeah, I feel same actually...but it's only his first year as leader and I think main intention was to get noticed which wasn't easy with this pandemic thing on. Anyway, I always vote labour whoever their leader is... blind loyalty. I just want them to get the tories out.

  • Upvote 2
  • Downvote 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
 Share

  • Recently Browsing   0 members

    • No registered users viewing this page.



×
×
  • Create New...