This Once Great Movement Of Ours

[Zinneke]

The EP's power and role has expanded significantly, and actually is deserving of more technical MEPs who understand trade, logistics and other EU competences where they have influence.

The NL is indeed a good student in this respect, even their Eurosceptic MPs know their brief. Belgium, even though we have a horrible political class, tends to send decent MEPs too. And some Eastern European countries also show clearly that there is value having a career in Brussels. Italy is a mixed bag but Brussels is considered an El Dorado for many who want to be involved (they also dominate the consultancies and lobbies, more than French and Germans even...).

France is genuinely pathetic - MEPs have notoriously terrible attendance rates - and Macron;'s half arsed attempt to form a coherent political block with Renew Europe was undermined by Loiseau being a gossipy arrogant cow and LREM still lacking depth in numbers. But then even though backroom processes are imposed by Macron, he still loses a lot by not having the network that the EPP grouping for example gives you. I obviously dislike the EPP but its an example of how to control the right levers of power in the EU, and obviously the French dislike it calling it the EPP deep state : https://www.liberation.fr/international/europe/la-cour-des-comptes-europeenne-debloque-les-conservateurs-font-bloc-20211201_AD6TVYAVXFBD3GZWINUZNZS3GE/

But all I have to say to the French whinging is : get your act together as coherent force and stop thinking Macron appearing on TV with hard words helps in any way. I want to say that to the European Left as a whole too - the EPP model is the one to follow. Cohesion at Council, EP and national level, and it makes things far more effecient anyway.  

[Zinneke]

When is the EP ever going to be moved to a single permanent location? That's what I want to know.

(and the fact it moves around the place like it does was a gift to pro-Brexit people here)

Oh yeah that's also scandalous but again its French petty symbolic nationalism that means every final week of the legislative mini-cycle the MEPs are in Strasbourg to vote on texts the committees worked on in Brussels. The French still promote the idea that Strasbourg is the real capital of Europe and the official Parliament so it encourages the lazy feckless MEPs they elect to set up an office in Strasbourg and only attend the general plenary debates there so that they can get their 5 minute youtube clip up (since that is where the likes of Farage cut their cloth in the media sphere, with the big speeches in Strasbourg, not on the small details that are worked on in Brussels). The French chauvinists like Jean Quatremer argue we are only the EU capital by accident anyway and that technically we were a temporary solution, but they are just sour individuals who remind us all why the guillotine was invented.

The weird thing is I am in favor of decentralizing EU institutions from Brussels, I actually think we are logistically a terrible choice to start hosting a lot of EU institutions and agencies. I want the German model of making every city (and not just capitals!) have a specialization in a policy sphere with universities alongside them pooling from that policy bubble. I think the Hague for example would be a better candidate for EU diplomacy and foreign policy formation - also because Dutch counter-intelligence is better. I also think things like IT and technology need to be allocated somewhere else than Brussels which has the worst internet connections per euro in the West. But don't implement these pipe-dreams in a way that makes one entire institution (that while is undeserving of its tag of powerless and useless, is definitely over-bloated!) have to move every 3 weeks down to a place that has notoriously bad train connections from Brussels.

Anyway we are going ferociously off topic.

[Zinneke]

I thought he had links to the Indian establishment?

[Zinneke]

We should not forget that Barry was very nearly the UNITE backed left candidate for the leadership in 2020 too!

didnt he drop out via a phone call from a dodgy conference in Qatar or the UAE?


He is playing all these regimes like spinning tops.

[Zinneke]

Wouldn't Balls and Starmer essentially come from the same faction? Or is this going to be another personality war?

[Zinneke]

Duffield might face problems too - she mostly uses her public platform for transphobia, has a bad relationship with a lot of people in the CLP and she's rumoured not to be particularly active in the constituency. That said, the trigger ballot there is being run by wards rather than branches, some of the wards are rather small and this will make it harder for those wards to run a quorate ballot (and if it's inquorate then it's effectively a vote against holding a full re-selection.)

As far as I can tell, that CLP would be okay if she just focused on a different kind of bigotry.

What kind of bigotry?

[Zinneke]

Apparently Paul Mason (the New Statesman’s resident prick’s prick for those who haven’t had the pleasure of being acquainted with his output) is running for the Labour nomination in Mid & South Pembrokeshire.

Why is he a prick? His foreign policy stances and criticism of the tankies is admirable and I've found him at least able to balance a strong anticapitalist stance while not sucking up to any regime with a nominally socialist name?

[Zinneke]

It's hardly a fun job but I do wonder why candidates such as him (those who are high profile enough to be known but not liked by any faction/influential selection players) didn't try and become ward councillors- even in safe seats it's relatively easy and allows you to build up a powerbase.

They think it’s beneath them usually, and it would distract him from things he actually likes like writing & appearing on TV.

I'm in 2 minds about this. On the one hand I do like the idea of my politicians getting their hands dirty at local level and moving up the ranks that way. On the other, does it not impact the quality of elected official? I don't expect an expert in international relations or competition law for example to be able to be a good urban planner. I think specialised elected officials can be a good thing. And also local to national transition often involves heavy doses of clientelism, at least in my country.

[Zinneke]

So it seems like I've seen a lot of news about Labour attempting to triangulate on a variety of issues, most recently with its refusal to support self-ID for trans people but also with the two-child cap, Starmer attempting to get Khan to back off on ULEZ, etc. However, being American, I'm sure that my news is likely to skew more left-leaning and more outrage-filled. I wanted to ask those more knowledgeable than my ITT 1. is my perception warranted and 2. if so, why Labour is moving so far to the right when it's so far ahead anyway? It seems to me that, if there is a time for triangulation, the time for it would be in the face of a close election and certainly not when you're likely to win in a blowout.

I think you’ve gotten a fair impression. The past couple of elections have seen a pretty left wing platform (more in rhetoric than policy it should be said) and Starmer promised to keep pretty much all of it during his leadership campaign. He made some further big spending commitments earlier in his leadership, but for maybe the past year it’s become much more moderate (albeit with some stumbles eg; the trans issue), especially the past few weeks or so. It’s still not clear how triangulated they will be by the election and once in government.

Interesting that you mention this, yesterday saw Anneliese Dodds issuing a Labour statement on the vexed issue of trans rights. It no longer supports self-ID for all, most notably, but could still be seen as a trans-positive offering overall - especially compared to what most Tories now think.

Predictably it has thus been condemned by both extremes in the "debate". In particular it is becoming ever more obvious that the most militant on the GC wing will settle for nothing less than "trans people do not exist and it is all nothing more than a mental illness that should be cured".

(comparisons with attitudes to homosexuality back in the day are available)

Even if you accept the premise that you shouldn't be allowed to get a gender recognition certificate without a formal diagnosis of gender dysphoria, the fact is that trans healthcare in the UK is considered a dysfunctional joke by most people who've ever needed to interact with it. A grim joke I hear quite often is that the present woes of the NHS under the Tories are just everyone's healthcare becoming more like trans people's. A policy of 'you need a doctor to diagnose you' that doesn't properly engage with how unreasonably difficult it is to see that doctor in the first place isn't serious, and Dodds' piece does not. It just restates what has been Labour's policy on trans rights since Starmer took over - 'we won't do what the most extreme GCs (which is more and more of a tautology by the day, but whatever) want, but please stop asking us about any of this'.

Comparisons with attitudes to homosexuality back in the day are, indeed, available. After all, no Labour manifesto ever promised to repeal Section 28, it was pressure from Labour backbenchers and the Lib Dems that made that happen.

What are GCs?

[Zinneke]

As a PhD student at a UK uni working on queer media representation I have seen first hand how much more hostile things have gotten surrounding LGBTQ matters with trans issues and self-ID at the centre, and Labour seem unable to deal with this. I frankly do not trust them to follow through even on what they are now offering. Internal divisions may be a big reason for the present policy shift, but colour me sceptical that these won't resurface the moment Labour attempt to reform the GRA in any way if they win the next election.

Of course the question asked was absurd to begin with. Any normal person asked the "penis question" repeatedly for the last few years would have snapped by now. The phrasing Starmer used today, "adult female" rather than "adult human female," is also the same as Australian PM Albanese's wording and I can't imagine that is just a coincidence. Not that it really makes it less of a transphobic dogwhistle in my opinion.

I spend my time between both the UK and Japan and while it gets worse every year in both countries on trans coverage, it has gotten especially bad in the UK. My department has advised me to self-censor my work in fear of the media climate around trans and queer issues - we already have had a media storm in my exact, fairly small, sub-field and another may cause funding issues for the entire field. Labour being in power would never have caused that to change overnight, of course, but I have seen the effect that years of the horrible media coverage of trans issues has had on my field and it feels like Labour have just given up and bowed down to it.

Welcome to the forum

[Zinneke]

If Starmer and Reeves tackled the real issue of land reform and insisted on taxing that form of wealth rather than income, I'd be sympathetic. I think I speak for many progressives when I say I have no issue with a CEO who gets up early in the morning not being overtaxed but I do have issue with property developers, speculators and lords using sitting capital to deform markets. The real inequality in Britain is land-based. Weirdly enough Theresa May was the only to be honest about that, because she is fundamentally more of a ln honest person. But the real elites at the Telegraph and co that Reeves sucks up to now just labelled it a "dementia tax" and the spin was enough to force a humiliation.

They won't because they want to be part of the toff elite, not deconstruct it. And luckily they have enablers on line giving convaluted explanations for them.

A sad opportunity missed unless the Labour opposition immediately convert to a Georgist platform. A couple of planning permission relaxations won't solve real wealth inequality in a society like the UK where very few people own a huge amount of land.

[Zinneke]

He did blatantly lie - during his leadership campaign.

[Zinneke]

I have been approached about standing for a role on the CLP exec. Does anyone with any experience of such matters have any advice?

Put on a proper suit, do up your tie and sing the national anthem.

[Zinneke]

As I said, now starting to suspect it is one (fanatically obsessed) person. Who, for whatever reason, has regular access to the Murdoch press.

[Zinneke]

Starmer being a human rights lawyer (barrister) type and not being able to both explain and defend basic IHL and why Israel must apply it in its operations is the reason. Just utterly pathetic display even if understandable politically as he tried to contrast himself as much as possible with Corbyn.

[Zinneke]

He's what Scottish people call a sleekit, but regardless it's even more embarrassing for Labour that this is such a huge issue among the activist base when the Ethiopian Civil War alone in the last 5 years has caused potentially more casualties. The European Left need to get over their obsession with this conflict, we know why the Right wants to peddle it : the Clash of Civilisations is their textbook narrative to distract from any issue now.

[Zinneke]

Purely as a matter of record, a large part of those crowds were Labour party staffers and workers.

Why don't the Tory staffers do those kind of gathering when they win elections though?

And you have to admit the scenes of celebration on the street were something. I wasn't there though so maybe I'm having some sort of Mandela effect.

Also, I think it's a testament to how Starmer's brand has changed in that nobody is really expecting that kind of euphoria when he wins.

[Zinneke]

It's telling that Mr D'Arcy can't even articulate a nuanced position that defends International Humanitarian Law and a throwback to the 90s and Responsibility to protect, all because he just wants to be seen as a contrast to his predecessor, or suck up to the weirdo neo -con Blairite cult that is slowly taking over his party.


It's also embarrassing that it's this issue that has caused a rebellion and not his backtracking over a range of domestic issues that showed himself as a bit of a wimp who ran a leadership campaign on radical reform without the Corbynite 80s third worldist bollox and instead the British electorate are getting the same Late New Labour Blairite sociopaths (TristaM Hunt, Ummuna the change UK hold of Streatham) with the likes of Reeves, Streeting, etc.

[Zinneke]

If you are writing for the Telegraph, you aren't going to say "Thatcher was an evil hag" are you.

Why give a rag like the Telegraph the time of day anyway? Most of their subscribers should be put on the same watchlist as Anjem Choudary.

[Zinneke]

I'll propose the following hypothesis: He's getting worse at interviews because he no longer believes in the bullsh**t his Spads are telling him to say to attract Johnson 2019 voters, whereas before he did believe in what he was saying. But it works because it generates the right headlines.

[Zinneke]

Starmer is still a poor media performer because he rarely displays iotas of sincerety, it all feels scripted and designed rather than off the cuff, which whether you like it or not, is what electorates are looking for over cookie cutter types. I've no doubt Starmer is a competent administrator,, but he's rolled back on radical institutional reform and gives extremely bland opinions and sometimes slips up because they are so rehearsed. That's why when he was asked about Gaza he sounded like a heartless freak when he said it was ok to starve Gaza to death.

[Zinneke]

Posters on TwitterX dot com have been ridiculing Reeves for saying Labour is ”now the pro-worker, pro-business party.”

It seems a disportioncate number of Very Online left-wingers are LARPing as Communists, because “pro-worker, pro-business” just sounds like social democracy? What am I missing?

You're missing that Reeves seems to care more about what the Telegraph think of her via soundbites than actually designing policies that will boost productivity without destroying workers rights. That's what I want a social democratic shadow chancellor to actually discuss and debate. It can even be wacky ideas like e-ink screens instead of the dopamine-destroying devices we've let control us or acid binges in Milton Keynes listening to drill n bass to figure out new ways of being, it would still be more worthwhile policy than what she is proposing, which is just Continuity Conservatism.

[Zinneke]

Who is likeliest to succeed Starmer if by some black swan event he steps down

[Zinneke]

OCTOGON

[Zinneke]

Guys I know internecine fighting is a Labour rite of passage but this has to stop.