Labour Leader: Keir Starmer VII

[Spraggons Den]

There has been a lot of chat on here about the LP management not been keen on letting locally grown propper left wing candidates being selected as prospective Labour party candidates for the GE.

I am sure there is more than a grain of truth in the sentiments about how orrible and controlling they are so I just wanted to share this story about the possibility of a by-election in Blackpoll South , from the Graun:

"Labour has selected the leftwing trade unionist Chris Webb as its prospective parliamentary candidate for the seat, which Keir Starmer’s party believes it can win.
...
“This is yet another byelection caused by Tory scandal. Britain deserves better than this carousel of Conservative chaos.

“Labour’s Chris Webb is Blackpool born and bred, and ready to deliver a fresh start for Blackpool South.”

 

[gavreid]

Chris Webb worked for Tony Lloyd - which makes him one of the centre left.

 

[Finnegan]

"The better of two evils is still evil"

Lynch was a refreshingly class act when he was dancing rings around Tories and the right wing media. But he is, at heart, part of old Labour who cannot bring themselves to break ideologically or politically with reformism as the only game in town. They are like the partner in an abusive relationship who puts up with being knocked around because they have nowhere else to go. Lynch was central to the ‘Enough is Enough’ movement that had the potential to coalesce opposition; but this was dropped like hot cakes when it looked as if it could develop into a pole of attraction that was not the Parliamentary Labour Party.

Labour has, since the day of its inception, functioned to channel any potential for meaningful change into putting a cross next to some insipid mediocrity on a ballot paper. Every single test put to it, from WW1, to the General Strike, to WW2, to The Falklands, to the Miners Strike, to the Poll Tax to the most recent round of public sector strikes, it has sided with the bosses against the workers. Starmer simply carries on this shameful tradition, albeit from a position that is not even old fashioned Labour social democracy.

Labour has dined out on the Attlee administration for 80 years. Tory MP Quentin Hogg (later Lord Hailsham) said “if you do not give the people reform, they will give you revolution.” Hogg had the foresight to recognise that, in the wake of the sacrifices of WW2, people will only be pushed so far. The Tories would have initiated the welfare state; perhaps not as rapidly, as extensively or as enthusiastically, but initiate it they would have; because they may be nasty but they’re not entirely stupid. Eden’s Tory Government built more council houses than Attlee ever did.

Attlee’s first achievement as PM was not the welfare state, but sending in troops against striking workers. He was an abysmal anti semite who whinged about “too many Jews in the Labour Party.” His administration turned away boatloads of Jewish refugees displaced by the Holocaust but allowed a division of Ukranian SS to resettle in Bradford.

I had 30 years as part of a right wing union branch who maintained that, as ineffective as Labour may sometimes be, it was important to remain onside so we could collect any crumbs that fell from the table. Well, some of us want more than crumbs.

 

[Seanm]

Be very careful.

I have no wish to defend senior Labour figures such as Reeves, but what you’re “quoting” from here is not a neutral news source.

She is not unhinged in this clip, and while she does conflate the terms, what in the clip she urges for stopping is a list which includes anti-semitism, ie racism as well as the political element. The tweet is propagandistic.

She and Labour figures in general should be on the hook when they surely knowingly do this kind of tendentious conflation, but the type of tweet you have shared is often a tool of the hard right.

A fuller version of the speech, filmed from a different angle, is also circulating online. The conflation between antisemitism and antizionism is Reeves’, as is the attribution of antisemitism to “some communities in Britain”. She is not being misrepresented. She said it, she did it, it’s on her, and sharing it as propaganda is fine and good.

 

[droodzilla]

Reeves is the only one spreading propaganda here. Far-right propaganda, at that.

 

[gavreid]

Nothing's changed in the past 100 years @Finnegan nevermind since the war. My Grannie was a member of the ILP Guild of Youth in Glasgow in the early 30s when there was still some sizeable opposition to Labour in places. The Labour position on the Spanish Civil War was the example in those days.

 

[ks.234]

Be very careful.

I have no wish to defend senior Labour figures such as Reeves, but what you’re “quoting” from here is not a neutral news source.

She is not unhinged in this clip, and while she does conflate the terms, what in the clip she urges for stopping is a list which includes anti-semitism, ie racism as well as the political element. The tweet is propagandistic.

She and Labour figures in general should be on the hook when they surely knowingly do this kind of tendentious conflation, but the type of tweet you have shared is often a tool of the hard right.

It is Reeves herself who is conflating antisemitism with anti Israel protests, her purpose is very clear it is to call on the police to suppress anti Israeli protests

 

[Spraggons Den]

Chris Webb worked for Tony Lloyd - which makes him one of the centre left.

Lloyd was a Brownite and voted for quite a few things of which you might approve (from wiki):

Lloyd voted for Bryan Gould and John Prescott respectively in the Labour Party leadership elections of 1992 and 1994.Although the TheyWorkForYou political activities website declares that Lloyd "hardly ever rebels",he voted against Labour's national agenda in key areas while an MP. He joined rebel Labour MPs by voting against government policy regarding the Iraq War, and rebelled against government policy to detain terror suspects for 90 days without trial. He voted against government policy to introduce student tuition fees,and as an "anti-nuclear and anti-war campaigner".

Unfortunately, Che Guevara and Lenin were not offering employment opportunities at the time Webb was looking for career advancement.

 

[Seanm]

Yes, Lee Anderson has only said clearly what Reeves really thinks.

Lee Anderson has more despicable integrity than Reeves.

I doubt she *thinks* it in any meaningful sense, anymore that ChatGPT thinks the stuff it says. These guys have no political commitments or understanding. She just won't get that she's conflated antizionism and antisemitism, or that she's attributed antisemitism to Muslims, and she won't care. She's just saying the stuff you say to this particular audience to get this particular result, same as the Rochdale guy was: talking to Muslims: do antisemitism. Talking to Jews: do Islamophobia. There's a basic racism underlying it of course but really it's the same as the racism underlying Google's algorithms.

 

[gavreid]

Lloyd was a Brownite and voted for quite a few things of which you might approve (from wiki):

Lloyd voted for Bryan Gould and John Prescott respectively in the Labour Party leadership elections of 1992 and 1994.Although the TheyWorkForYou political activities website declares that Lloyd "hardly ever rebels",he voted against Labour's national agenda in key areas while an MP. He joined rebel Labour MPs by voting against government policy regarding the Iraq War, and rebelled against government policy to detain terror suspects for 90 days without trial. He voted against government policy to introduce student tuition fees,and as an "anti-nuclear and anti-war campaigner".

Unfortunately, Che Guevara and Lenin were not offering employment opportunities at the time Webb was looking for career advancement.

I'm not sure what your point is here. You quote Wiki and these are absolutely typical of the centre-left as was supporting Brown over Blair. Like all Labour MPs he was full of contradictions.

"He joined rebel Labour MPs by voting against government policy regarding the Iraq War,[13] and rebelled against government policy to detain terror suspects for 90 days without trial.[13] He voted against government policy to introduce student tuition fees,[13] and as an "anti-nuclear and anti-war campaigner",[11][16] voted against the renewal or replacement of the UK Trident programme in 2007.[13]

 

[Seanm]

Lloyd was a Brownite and voted for quite a few things of which you might approve (from wiki):

Lloyd voted for Bryan Gould and John Prescott respectively in the Labour Party leadership elections of 1992 and 1994.Although the TheyWorkForYou political activities website declares that Lloyd "hardly ever rebels",he voted against Labour's national agenda in key areas while an MP. He joined rebel Labour MPs by voting against government policy regarding the Iraq War, and rebelled against government policy to detain terror suspects for 90 days without trial. He voted against government policy to introduce student tuition fees,and as an "anti-nuclear and anti-war campaigner".

Unfortunately, Che Guevara and Lenin were not offering employment opportunities at the time Webb was looking for career advancement.

Just say, "Oh yeah, I was wrong, forget my last point". You don't need to double down like this and start going on about Che Guevara, it makes you look like a troll.

Just sayin'.

 

[Finnegan]

I doubt she *thinks* it in any meaningful sense, anymore that ChatGPT thinks the stuff it says. These guys have no political commitments or understanding. She just won't get that she's conflated antizionism and antisemitism, or that she's attributed antisemitism to Muslims, and she won't care. She's just saying the stuff you say to this particular audience to get this particular result, same as the Rochdale guy was: talking to Muslims: do antisemitism. Talking to Jews: do Islamophobia. There's a basic racism underlying it of course but really it's the same as the racism underlying Google's algorithms.

I reckon she is fully aware of what she’s doing. Her and Starmer have been really wrong footed by the scale of support for Palestine and the revulsion at the actions of Israel. Galloway (for better or worse) is odds on to win in Rochdale on Thursday. Swathes of councillors have resigned. Labour front benchers have resigned. Noises about Corbyn standing as an independent, which could open the floodgates, are giving Keir & Rachael squeaky bums.

Of course, they will never abandon either their ideological support for Zionism, or their supplicant position as junior partner to US imperialism, so their response will be to crack down on support for Palestine which they see as a growing threat to their nice, cosy relationship with the bosses.

 

[Tony L]

Of course, they will never abandon either their ideological support for Zionism, or their supplicant position as junior partner to US imperialism, so their response will be to crack down on support for Palestine which they see as a growing threat to their nice, cosy relationship with the bosses.

This is the key IMHO. Antisemitism is a smokescreen. Labour are very actively in favour of violent Zionist expansionism as that is where they see the money, influence and future benefits for a Labour government. If they can smear every last one of us standing against Netanyahu’s genocide as antisemites all the better. It simplifies their narrative and route to power. Who cares if human rights and civil liberties get trampled and they end up being elected on a mountain of child corpses? Labour’s gonna Labour.

PS Excellent new Shaun video just dropped, a personal but very well researched viewpoint:

 

[Dave H.]

It is Reeves herself who is conflating antisemitism with anti Israel protests, her purpose is very clear it is to call on the police to suppress anti Israeli protests

And for the conflation she should be on the hook - I said that.

But to say that she is unhinged is a distortion of the truth and is exactly the way that algorithms on youtube, twitter etc drag discourse and create the poisonous climate we all suffer under nowadays.

The same goes for the partial misrepresentation of what she says in the video - though I accept that this may well not be a misrepresentation of what she deliberately says more widely.

 

[Spraggons Den]

Just say, "Oh yeah, I was wrong, forget my last point". You don't need to double down like this and start going on about Che Guevara, it makes you look like a troll.

Just sayin'.

Look!

 

[Locheeboy]

She has the cold, expressionless eyes of a shark. She reminds me of Keith Joseph…”the mad monk” …another fanatic…he was unhinged as well .

 

[Woodface]

Ok the Tom Allen ditt may have been a diversion but my asking how you rated the Liberal party was genuine. The reason I brought the LDs up is quite a few on here, including yourself maybe amongst your pages of repetitive drivel, have argued that the only reason Labour have held a 20 point lead in the polls for two years now is the fact that they are not the Tories. I am not disputing the lead is in large part due to Partygate and Trussgate but, and here is the big but, the LDs are also NOT the Tories and if Starmer is neither social nor democratic, why haven’t we seen a surge in support for the LDs as the natural refuge for disaffected centrists.One could also make the same argument for the Green Party but they too are languishing in the polls a bit. Just sayin.

The Lib Dems are the Tories though

 

[Woodface]

Some interesting reviews of the Starmer biography. Perhaps some of you should read it?

 

[Jim Audiomisc]

That said, in the last few days Starmer has demonstrated the extent that he is a supporter of the killing of thousands and thousands of civilians and children, many more being starved to death and a so far uncounted number having legs removed without anaesthetic every single day.

To be fair (sic) I think it is more of a case of being prepared to turn a blind eye for what he feels the sake of getting into Office. Not, of course, actually in Power as that is reserved for those who steer and fund neoliberal 'economics' (sic again).

The idea that we can't find the money for our social needs whilst we allow international corporations and *other* Governments to suck 'world price' profits out of our own energy sources is insane. But down to neoliberate free-market economics which the main parties genuflect before to get the 'support' of the wealthy and their propagada sheets, etc. This is where 'religious' power went when it was moved away from the Church. Follow the wealth.

 

[Spraggons Den]

A

She has the cold, expressionless eyes of a shark. She reminds me of Keith Joseph…”the mad monk” …another fanatic…he was unhinged as well .

A Keith Joseph - shark (I am going to go with Great White as they are the meanest and you didn't stipulate) hybrid no less. Yikes and just when I thought it was safe to go back in the water.