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Keir Starmer sacks RL-B

Didn’t Francis Gay produce a series of books, I think they were popular among church goers of a certain age?

Mebbe. There was considerable overlap between the Sunday Post and The People's Friend, a Reader's Digest-sized magazine/book. My parents never bought that, but our next-door neighbour used to pass her copy on to them when she'd finished with it. That certainly featured a lot of Francis Gay's stuff.
 
I have to say I didn't notice any. I do remember someone saying on pfm before the leadership election that the next Labour leader would 'almost certainly be a woman', and thinking that this was a highly unlikely outcome.

But surely a person's religion is relevant in discussions about subjects where religion is, or may be, a factor, such as faith schools, or abortion? Or maybe we shouldn't be told anything about anyone's religious beliefs in case we knowingly or unknowingly reveal our prejudices.
Google it Joe.

I think the important thing here is just to acknowledge how prejudice works, in society and in yourself. That would be better, on the whole, than protecting you from knowledge of difference in case you inadvertently make a ____ of yourself.
 
I didn't even know R-LB was Catholic till I read it on this thread, but my point still stands. If a political issue also has religious connotations (eg faith schools) then a politician's own religious beliefs are relevant. That is why 'conscience' votes are allowed, whereby individual MPs are not obliged to vote along party lines. I don't know R-LB's position on faith schools, or indeed whether she has a position on them, but it seems bizarre to say that her religion is irrelevant in that context, and/or that raising the issue of her religion betrays some kind of prejudice.
 
Yes I have my opinion, but I’ve set out very clearly the external evidence basis of my opinion that RLB is very far from being a lightweight politician. Your opinion appears to be based on nothing but internal prejudice.

A rushed judgement based on an assumption.
 
Mebbe. There was considerable overlap between the Sunday Post and The People's Friend, a Reader's Digest-sized magazine/book. My parents never bought that, but our next-door neighbour used to pass her copy on to them when she'd finished with it. That certainly featured a lot of Francis Gay's stuff.
I’ve just looked it up, it was a ‘Friendship Book’, published annually. He was a methodist who wrote under a pseudonym, lived in Bridlington.
 
Some may find it's couthiness hard to take, but it's a richt bright tonic wi' a' the misery there is in the world.

In particular, I was taken by last week's leader "no one is saying it will be easy to get Scotland’s children back to school. It will be the opposite of easy but, look, let’s be clear, it has to be done." There you are the epitome of good, down to earth, common sense that your granny would appreciate, well when she has time to read papers with all the housework there is to be done!
Under that veneer of couthiness the publishers have historic issues which a little delving can reveal.
 
I didn't even know R-LB was Catholic till I read it on this thread, but my point still stands. If a political issue also has religious connotations (eg faith schools) then a politician's own religious beliefs are relevant. That is why 'conscience' votes are allowed, whereby individual MPs are not obliged to vote along party lines. I don't know R-LB's position on faith schools, or indeed whether she has a position on them, but it seems bizarre to say that her religion is irrelevant in that context, and/or that raising the issue of her religion betrays some kind of prejudice.
A person's political position may follow from her religious affiliation but it needn't, and to assume it does betrays a prejudice, yes, obviously.

That's logic. But as you suggest, context's everything. The English have a long history of being complete ___s. As a result they've built up an enormous repertoire of racism, sectarianism, bigotry that is never very far from the surface and can be reactivated very easily. As I say you're welcome to inform yourself how all this played out recently in the specific case of RLB, rather than have people explain things to you.

I have worked the Google for you and found this:

https://www.jacobinmag.com/2020/01/rebecca-long-bailey-anti-catholicism-abortion-labour-uk

I'll leave it there before I'm accused of whataboutery, I'm aware this thread is about antisemitism and not English anti-Catholicism. But, you know, all part of the UK's rich cultural tapestry isn't it.
 
It’s all become rather aggressive.

Says he. I object to your bullying too, you chime in whenever you think you're at an advantage. It's easy to play to the gallery it's much more difficult to argue principled positions
 
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Says he. I object to your bullying too, you chime in whenever you think you're at an advantage
I refute that. There is a group of about 5-6 of you who gang up on anyone who dares say something different. I am not a bully & never have been.

I have been accused of effectively being a bigot on here by your mate so I am not having that.

I am allowed to give an opinion. I object to much of your ‘analysis’ but mostly ignore it.
 
A person's political position may follow from her religious affiliation but it needn't, and to assume it does betrays a prejudice, yes, obviously.

That's logic. But as you suggest, context's everything. The English have a long history of being complete ___s. As a result they've built up an enormous repertoire of racism, sectarianism, bigotry that is never very far from the surface and can be reactivated very easily. As I say you're welcome to inform yourself how all this played out recently in the specific case of RLB, rather than have people explain things to you.

I have worked the Google for you and found this:

https://www.jacobinmag.com/2020/01/rebecca-long-bailey-anti-catholicism-abortion-labour-uk

I'll leave it there before I'm accused of whataboutery, I'm aware this thread is about antisemitism and not English anti-Catholicism. But, you know, all part of the UK's rich cultural tapestry isn't it.

I did Google it myself (then went off to do some more gardening). Most of the articles I found were in The Tablet (basically the intellectual voice of the Catholic Church in the UK) and the Daily Telegraph.

So the spat was essentially about abortion; a very emotive issue and one where a person's religious beliefs will almost certainly influence their stance. An actual leader of a UK political party got into difficulties over the disparity between his views (which stemmed from his religious beliefs) and those of his party on LGBT rights, and ended up resigning. Given the conflict between R-LB's views on abortion and those of many in the party she sought to lead, a similar situation may well have arisen over abortion legislation, whereas as a backbench MP, there would almost certainly be no problem.

I don't see any of this as anti-Catholic, or anti-religion, but the working-out of inevitable clashes between personal beliefs and party politics. And, in any case, I never thought R-LB had any chance in the leadership election, regardless of her religion. There was, as usual, a fair amount of wishful thinking here on pfm and elsewhere about the likelihood of R-LB winning.
 
I asked a friend in the Labour Party about this and the reply was ******** momentum commies...... and nothing about anti semitism, so I am putting this one down to factional infighting.
 
I asked a friend in the Labour Party about this and the reply was ******** momentum commies...... and nothing about anti semitism, so I am putting this one down to factional infighting.

you're mixing in the wrong circles - remember Unite members (inc my partner) paid the full election bills (what was it £17m in 2017) from their own pockets on behalf of these pillocks
 
I did Google it myself (then went off to do some more gardening). Most of the articles I found were in The Tablet (basically the intellectual voice of the Catholic Church in the UK) and the Daily Telegraph.

So the spat was essentially about abortion; a very emotive issue and one where a person's religious beliefs will almost certainly influence their stance. An actual leader of a UK political party got into difficulties over the disparity between his views (which stemmed from his religious beliefs) and those of his party on LGBT rights, and ended up resigning. Given the conflict between R-LB's views on abortion and those of many in the party she sought to lead, a similar situation may well have arisen over abortion legislation, whereas as a backbench MP, there would almost certainly be no problem.

I don't see any of this as anti-Catholic, or anti-religion, but the working-out of inevitable clashes between personal beliefs and party politics. And, in any case, I never thought R-LB had any chance in the leadership election, regardless of her religion. There was, as usual, a fair amount of wishful thinking here on pfm and elsewhere about the likelihood of R-LB winning.
But RLB's views on abortion don't contradict those of the party. Her Catholicism was used by her opponents to suggest that they did, because everyone knows that abortion is "a very emotive issue and one where a person's religious beliefs will almost certainly influence their stance." You are still using it in this way. That's the prejudice.
 
But RLB's views on abortion don't contradict those of the party.

I didn't say they did; I said 'Given the conflict between R-LB's views on abortion and those of many in the party she sought to lead' there were likely to be difficulties. That was exactly the problem with Tim Farron's views when he was LibDem leader; his views on LGBT issues may well have been unproblematic had he been leader of the Tories.
 
Weekender didn't "put 'Catholic' in a sentence", he said that RLB would probably take a position he disapproves of, because she's a Catholic. It's prejudice pure and simple, and a trope, and it repeats the anti-Irish smears that did the rounds during the leadership contest.

I should maybe leave this alone, but something makes me want to prod it with a stick as I’m an atheist, and that’s kind of what we do. First off I’m just not buying the ‘Irish thing’, and it’s not the first time you’ve tried to attack someone here with that (Andrew P the other week where you managed to read something into his username that was clearly not there). Ireland, like much of the world, is blighted by religious division, but so what? What is unique about that? It is not a one-religion dictatorship, and one would sincerely hope atheism/agnosticism was well on the rise now anyway. Also this is just religion, a belief set, it is not racism the way anti-Semitism is. A Catholic is not a race.

Now, if we have an MP who aligns firmly with a given religion (I’ve no idea if RL-B does or not, and I don’t want this to be about her) it is fair to question them on some of the beliefs and behaviours of that religion and how their beliefs relate to their ministerial role. As stated upthread Tim Farron, an otherwise highly likeable chap, was found wanting here. The Catholic Church stands very firmly against woman’s rights, it is anti-contraception, it is anti-abortion, and it has a longstanding reputation of covering up the most hideous institutional child abuse going back pretty much forever. It was endemic. It is also a hugely wealthy and elitist institution that I’d have expected those on the far-left to be rather critical of, especially given the way it uses that wealth to conceal and buy-out its abuse victims.

To be honest I want to take RL-B out of this particular post as I actually had no idea she was a Catholic or even religious, and it certainly doesn’t make me dislike her, though I would like to see her answer a few of the above questions. This is not about her, it is about your reaction to what I read as a benign comment.

My point is really what your issue is as a) Ireland/NI is a multi-faith country, and b) the Catholic Church is a bit whiffy by most left/liberal/civil-rights standards. What exactly did I get wrong here? Genuinely curious. If I’m out of line I’ll happily apologise.
 


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