The Bishop
Labour
Down With Factionalism!
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Post by The Bishop on Mar 15, 2023 11:28:01 GMT
I didn't vote for him, needed no advice on his faults and shared my views freely. However I think a careful reflection on the tactics used, candidates fielded and the lacklustre offerings of the alternatives will also tell you much about why he had such appeal to people who hadn't been close observers (and that's most of the Labour membership, let alone others allowed to vote). I think the learning should be pretty evenly shared among the various mainstream factions. And I'd imagine the hard left has learned a few things too, one of which is, should they ever get near to control of the party machine, be more ruthless if they can. . Much of that is now looking like deep cathartic gut revulsion at the imperfections of normality and the safe pair of hands approach. The great white hopes of Blair and Cameron were shown to have serious flaws from which many inferred there to be serial flaws in the system itself and in the establishment, as perceived. Of course, whatever is done becomes the new orthodoxy and the new men become the new establishment, and the distrust and dislike feeds upon itself. We have bred ourselves into a near incohate state of affairs from which it is hardly surprising that a Sunak and a Starmer emerge to restore all that had been rejected in the dull safe pair of hands again. The real canary in the coal mine for all this was 2014 - UKIP winning the European elections then the status quo only narrowly triumphing in the 2014 Scottish independence referendum, with the subsequent historic political realignment there. Interestingly the resulting period of SNP dominance now seems under genuine threat as well? |
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Post by carlton43 on Mar 15, 2023 11:33:45 GMT
We have lived through the shared experience of what amounts to a communal political nervous breakdown that resulted in Brexit, Corbyn, Johnson and Truss. Much of that is now looking like deep cathartic gut revulsion at the imperfections of normality and the safe pair of hands approach. The great white hopes of Blair and Cameron were shown to have serious flaws from which many inferred there to be serial flaws in the system itself and in the establishment, as perceived. Of course, whatever is done becomes the new orthodoxy and the new men become the new establishment, and the distrust and dislike feeds upon itself. We have bred ourselves into a near incohate state of affairs from which it is hardly surprising that a Sunak and a Starmer emerge to restore all that had been rejected in the dull safe pair of hands again. The real canary in the coal mine for all this was 2014 - UKIP winning the European elections then the status quo only narrowly triumphing in the 2014 Scottish independence referendum, with the subsequent historic political realignment there. Interestingly the resulting period of SNP dominance now seems under genuine threat as well? I agree. The SNP wipe-out was quite as much a system revolt as it was a desire for independence. The victory was too sudden to be conversion to a cause, it had mindless revolt written all over it. And of course I should have alluded to the Scottish situation in my post as well. The UKIP 'warning' was inherent in my use of Brexit, but again you are correct to indicate it as such a warning. |
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Sandy
Forum Regular
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Post by Sandy on Mar 15, 2023 15:46:40 GMT
Perhaps you sense the frustration of the decent wing of the Labour Party who had assumed in 2015 that all this was perfectly manifest (or would be once anyone actually looked at Corbyn's record) only to find so many people so willing to deceive themselves. Listen to us next time, OK? I am a Registered Supporter of the Labour Party. |
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batman
Labour
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Post by batman on Mar 15, 2023 16:14:04 GMT
I do not think that either wing of the Labour Party has a monopoly on decency. There are decent people on both wings. I think that's always been the case.
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Post by mattbewilson on Mar 15, 2023 16:21:31 GMT
Perhaps you sense the frustration of the decent wing of the Labour Party who had assumed in 2015 that all this was perfectly manifest (or would be once anyone actually looked at Corbyn's record) only to find so many people so willing to deceive themselves. Listen to us next time, OK? I am a Registered Supporter of the Labour Party. didn't conference get rid of those |
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Post by Davıd Boothroyd on Mar 15, 2023 16:37:29 GMT
I am a Registered Supporter of the Labour Party. didn't conference get rid of those Shh, don't tell him. |
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Sandy
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Post by Sandy on Mar 15, 2023 16:37:41 GMT
I am a Registered Supporter of the Labour Party. didn't conference get rid of those No idea, I only voted in the 2015 election as a mischief making Tory supporter and the local Labour Party stopped attempting to contact me when I gave them the silent treatment. |
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Sandy
Forum Regular
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Post by Sandy on Mar 15, 2023 16:39:45 GMT
didn't conference get rid of those Shh, don't tell him. Channelling LBJ here are we? 😆 |
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batman
Labour
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Post by batman on Mar 15, 2023 16:46:02 GMT
My cousin used the 2015 leadership election to cause mischief when he was (he still is) a Conservative Party member. However, he did it as an affiliated member and did not pretend to be a supporter. I am no longer on good terms with that particular cousin.
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Sibboleth
Labour
'Sit on my finger, sing in my ear, O littleblood.'
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Post by Sibboleth on Mar 15, 2023 16:54:37 GMT
I do not think that either wing of the Labour Party has a monopoly on decency. There are decent people on both wings. I think that's always been the case. One thing that I'm increasingly sure of is that the real internal divisions in the Labour Party are much more complex than a Left/Right binary and that insisting that there are these eternal camps that fight each other in The Forever War is not only wrong but is functionally little more than a means of excusing bad behaviour. |
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Sibboleth
Labour
'Sit on my finger, sing in my ear, O littleblood.'
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Post by Sibboleth on Mar 15, 2023 17:08:09 GMT
Perhaps you sense the frustration of the decent wing of the Labour Party who had assumed in 2015 that all this was perfectly manifest (or would be once anyone actually looked at Corbyn's record) only to find so many people so willing to deceive themselves. Listen to us next time, OK? The "decent" wing - it's really laughable. Decent to who? Your arrogance is truly astounding. It's not a framing that I would endorse, but it does need to be seen in the context of a very long period in which anyone associated with the Campaign Group and the wider Labour Hard Left was automatically assumed (unless there were extremely obvious reasons to think otherwise) by many people in/associated with the Party to be of upright moral character simply because they were associated with the Hard Left, which was indulged in for essentially sentimental reasons during the New Labour period even if it was kept away from any actual influence. This turned out to be unhealthy for everyone concerned. |
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Post by No Offence Alan on Mar 15, 2023 17:38:28 GMT
I do not think that either wing of the Labour Party has a monopoly on decency. There are decent people on both wings. I think that's always been the case. One thing that I'm increasingly sure of is that the real internal divisions in the Labour Party are much more complex than a Left/Right binary and that insisting that there are these eternal camps that fight each other in The Forever War is not only wrong but is functionally little more than a means of excusing bad behaviour. I am a total outsider but I get an impression that, if 2 Labour members were asked 100 policy questions, and agreed on 99 of them, if the question they disagreed on was Palestine/Israel, one would get classified as "right-wing" and the other "left-wing". |
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Post by mattbewilson on Mar 15, 2023 17:46:31 GMT
One thing that I'm increasingly sure of is that the real internal divisions in the Labour Party are much more complex than a Left/Right binary and that insisting that there are these eternal camps that fight each other in The Forever War is not only wrong but is functionally little more than a means of excusing bad behaviour. I am a total outsider but I get an impression that, if 2 Labour members were asked 100 policy questions, and agreed on 99 of them, if the question they disagreed on was Palestine/Israel, one would get classified as "right-wing" and the other "left-wing". I feel like that a deep misconception, one of our candidates this May election is anti Zionist but very much on the right of the party |
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Post by No Offence Alan on Mar 15, 2023 19:03:00 GMT
I am a total outsider but I get an impression that, if 2 Labour members were asked 100 policy questions, and agreed on 99 of them, if the question they disagreed on was Palestine/Israel, one would get classified as "right-wing" and the other "left-wing". I feel like that a deep misconception, one of our candidates this May election is anti Zionist but very much on the right of the party Can you give me a counter-example from the left of the party? If you can then, as I said after visiting the orthopedist, I stand corrected. |
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Post by John Chanin on Mar 15, 2023 19:41:55 GMT
This is all old news, but perhaps relevant to the present discussion. Jeremy Corbyn is a nice bloke, very sincere, not at all motivated by power. I knew him as we were both active as young men in the London Labour Party of the 1970s and 1980s. I would perhaps be considered as "left" although this signifier is in my view is largely obsolete. I had no time at all for "new Labour" and left the party in the 1990s. However I did not vote for Corbyn in 2015 (as a registered supporter, having respect for Miliband, and voted Labour in 2015 for the first time in over 20 years). This was because he was not leadership material, and probably never really wanted to be leader. However I was hopeful afterwards, not that Corbyn himself had new ideas, but that a change in direction for the Labour Party would generate them. And it did, but slowly, and around McDonnell mostly.
The attacks on Corbyn were mostly unfair, and there is of course nothing unusual in that. It is in the nature of the coarse politics that we have and which turn so many people off. However his particular take on international affairs had nothing to commend it, and I can agree this was a significant negative. It also was not representative of the Labour Party in general or the "left" in particular. The idea that he was anti-semitic is ridiculous. He is in some ways too unworldly to recognise hate, and like many young people blind to historically anti-semitic tropes, which are irrelevant to modern Britain, where the level of anti-semitism outside parts of the Muslim community is effectively zero.
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Post by owainsutton on Mar 15, 2023 19:49:10 GMT
This is all old news, but perhaps relevant to the present discussion. Jeremy Corbyn is a nice bloke, very sincere, not at all motivated by power. I knew him as we were both active as young men in the London Labour Party of the 1970s and 1980s. I would perhaps be considered as "left" although this signifier is in my view is largely obsolete. I had no time at all for "new Labour" and left the party in the 1990s. However I did not vote for Corbyn in 2015 (as a registered supporter, having respect for Miliband, and voted Labour in 2015 for the first time in over 20 years). This was because he was not leadership material, and probably never really wanted to be leader. However I was hopeful afterwards, not that Corbyn himself had new ideas, but that a change in direction for the Labour Party would generate them. And it did, but slowly, and around McDonnell mostly. The attacks on Corbyn were mostly unfair, and there is of course nothing unusual in that. It is in the nature of the coarse politics that we have and which turn so many people off. However his particular take on international affairs had nothing to commend it, and I can agree this was a significant negative. It also was not representative of the Labour Party in general or the "left" in particular. The idea that he was anti-semitic is ridiculous. He is in some ways too unworldly to recognise hate, and like many young people blind to historically anti-semitic tropes, which are irrelevant to modern Britain, where the level of anti-semitism outside parts of the Muslim community is effectively zero. That gap. 1990s, to 2015. Quite a big one. |
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Post by mattbewilson on Mar 15, 2023 19:49:53 GMT
I feel like that a deep misconception, one of our candidates this May election is anti Zionist but very much on the right of the party Can you give me a counter-example from the left of the party? If you can then, as I said after visiting the orthopedist, I stand corrected. Barnaby is a left winger and a Zionist. Ian Mikardo occurs to me as the most famous left wing Zionist in the labour party. |
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Post by John Chanin on Mar 15, 2023 19:59:03 GMT
However I did not vote for Corbyn in 2015 (as a registered supporter, having respect for Miliband, and voted Labour in 2015 for the first time in over 20 years). This was because he was not leadership material, and probably never really wanted to be leader. However I was hopeful afterwards, not that Corbyn himself had new ideas, but that a change in direction for the Labour Party would generate them. And it did, but slowly, and around McDonnell mostly. That gap. 1990s, to 2015. Quite a big one. Quite. There's a reason I'm grey. |
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batman
Labour
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Post by batman on Mar 15, 2023 20:02:08 GMT
I feel like that a deep misconception, one of our candidates this May election is anti Zionist but very much on the right of the party Can you give me a counter-example from the left of the party? If you can then, as I said after visiting the orthopedist, I stand corrected. yes, Nadia Whittome does not have an anti-Israel outlook but she is ideologically as left as there is in the PLP. Perhaps a better example still is Rhea Wolfson, former Momentumite NEC member. |
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Post by mattbewilson on Mar 15, 2023 20:22:11 GMT
Can you give me a counter-example from the left of the party? If you can then, as I said after visiting the orthopedist, I stand corrected. yes, Nadia Whittome does not have an anti-Israel outlook but she is ideologically as left as there is in the PLP. Perhaps a better example still is Rhea Wolfson, former Momentumite NEC member. I really like Rhea and it's ashame she didn't have a longer stint on the NEC. |
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