This Once Great Movement Of Ours

[DaWN]

To be frank, if Starmer doesn't nip this sh!t in the bud right now, this movement of yours is going to stay 'Once Great'. Umming and ahhing and ifs and buts will continue to make things worse.

[CumbrianLefty]

Well, you take that outlook as someone who thinks the Corbyn years were wholly bad and happened for no good reason. The majority of the party, almost certainly including most who actually voted for Starmer, takes a somewhat more nuanced view of things.

[morgieb]

This is a no win situation for Starmer, alas. If he nips it in the bud, it reeks of a potential final straw for the Left and would make it nigh on impossible for Labour to win an election for the forseeable future. Yet if he doesn't, it makes claims of detoxicifying the party look very hollow and just emboldens the anti-Semitism calls.

[CumbrianLefty]

This is a no win situation for Starmer, alas. If he nips it in the bud, it reeks of a potential final straw for the Left and would make it nigh on impossible for Labour to win an election for the forseeable future. Yet if he doesn't, it makes claims of detoxicifying the party look very hollow and just emboldens the anti-Semitism calls.

What does that phrase actually mean in practice, though? Mass expulsions of the left (from Corbyn downwards) are basically a non-starter and only the most boneheaded ultra-factionalists and ignorant centrist newspaper hacks are pretending otherwise.

[Blair]

Shouldn't be a surprise as Starmer said during the election he would settle.

Momentum are calling for the legal advice to be released.  I think it would be brave of a party to publish legal advice from a libel action; and frankly if we want to go down that route there's a lot of internal documents from the Corbyn era that could be published too...

As I said on a previous page everyone claims that they have legal advice that supports them; if Momentum want to spend more time talking about internal rules & legal advice feel free- I remember cringing in 2016 when Owen Smith banged on about AWL taking over the party.

Ordinary members most likely didn't know about this news until yesterday when it was very nicely on the bulletins as Labour apologies to anti-semitism whistleblowers.

But some of the left appeared to be happy spending time whipping themselves up over this.

Predictably, many on the left aren't happy over the party's decision to reach a settlement with its former employees in the libel case resulting from *that* Panorama programme.

Pragmatically, the leadership had little alternative really - the main worry outside the "headbanger" Corbyn ultras is that it points to the ongoing Forde inquiry being something of a whitewash. Though there is still no reason why that *has* to be the case.

The thing I don't understand about this is that on a practical case the Forde inquiry is a party commissioned internal review whereas this was a libel case in the courts bought by the whistleblowers; you can't turn up to the court and say 'oh please your honour can we wait for 7 months so we can do this review'.

Which means the only alternative would have been for the party to fight this case purely to save face for an internal review; it feels like an argument being made to cover for the fact that some people believe the party are wrong to settle.

It's easy for people (and this has been true of the right before) to forget that there's bigger things than the Party in play during situations like this.

To be frank, if Starmer doesn't nip this sh!t in the bud right now, this movement of yours is going to stay 'Once Great'. Umming and ahhing and ifs and buts will continue to make things worse.

Starmer has provided extremely happy to nip it in the bud on something which needs immediate action & is in his power; aka sacking Rebecca Long-Bailey. The fact that he didn't appoint Shadow Cabinet members like Dawn Butler was a sign of his seriousness on this issue (she refused to sign the BOD pledges)

Other actions such as yesterdays apology have to be planned in advance around events & done within the appropriate channels; even something hypothetical like the suspending of certain MPs can't just be done overnight.

Starmers plan has always been quite clear; an NEC majority, an indepedent complaints process, a settlements with the whistleblowers & a proactive responce to the EHCR report. And regular re-engagement with both the Jewish community press & JLM.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Predictably, many on the left aren't happy over the party's decision to reach a settlement with its former employees in the libel case resulting from *that* Panorama programme.

Which is extremely silly as not only had Starmer pledged to do this during the leadership election, but so had Nandy and Long Bailey. Even if we ignore any other considerations,* the financial case for settlements with apologies was overwhelming: it would certainly have cost the party even more had it not settled and won, and it is better to not think about the costs had it not settled and lost.

_{*Which we should not! I don't just mean the moral ones or the standard political ones and so on... the reality is that no political party in its right mind should ever submit itself to a libel case involving its internal operations because of the disclosure process. An awful lot of things that are best to be left as private information would become public knowledge.}

[CumbrianLefty]

Predictably, many on the left aren't happy over the party's decision to reach a settlement with its former employees in the libel case resulting from *that* Panorama programme.

Which is extremely silly as not only had Starmer pledged to do this during the leadership election, but so had Nandy and Long Bailey. Even if we ignore any other considerations,* the financial case for settlements with apologies was overwhelming: it would certainly have cost the party even more had it not settled and won, and it is better to not think about the costs had it not settled and lost.

_{*Which we should not! I don't just mean the moral ones or the standard political ones and so on... the reality is that no political party in its right mind should ever submit itself to a libel case involving its internal operations because of the disclosure process. An awful lot of things that are best to be left as private information would become public knowledge.}

Yes, your latter point is one a few level headed people were drawing attention to yesterday.

Political parties *generally* tend to settle things like this out of court for a reason.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Meanwhile, the outcome of the Unite Left endorsement has been confirmed. The levels of #banter in the details are... unreal...

Former Labour general secretary Jennie Formby – who had supported Beckett – was barred from voting as her subscription to the union was not up to date, sources have said.

on brand

Some 230 of Beckett’s 367 votes came from Scotland, where the union had launched a big recruitment drive at the Grangemouth oil refinery run by INEOS, whereas Turner’s were spread over the whole of the UK and Ireland.

FALKIRK!!!!!!

[Blair]

Ah so to quote Emily Thornberry it appears some people were 'making up sh**t' about the result.

It's good to see that UNITE's internal election can now actually be about industrial policy, rather than vicious personal attacks & who hates Keir Starmer the most.

[morgieb]

This is a no win situation for Starmer, alas. If he nips it in the bud, it reeks of a potential final straw for the Left and would make it nigh on impossible for Labour to win an election for the forseeable future. Yet if he doesn't, it makes claims of detoxicifying the party look very hollow and just emboldens the anti-Semitism calls.

What does that phrase actually mean in practice, though? Mass expulsions of the left (from Corbyn downwards) are basically a non-starter and only the most boneheaded ultra-factionalists and ignorant centrist newspaper hacks are pretending otherwise.

It probably means expelling Corbyn. Which o/c I would not advocate for and would likely feel peeved as well if it happened. Even censuring Corbyn would be dangerous.

[CumbrianLefty]

I think that most people in Labour don't want it to happen, which is why it won't unless something significant changes. That could always be when EHRC finally goes public, but probably not.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

There's no point in picking a fight with someone who is already finished. Looks like a vendetta, and you want to avoid that. Better to use the forthcoming report* as the foundations for wider (necessary) changes to party structures and culture, and enforce matters rigorously and consistently.

A greater problem than former leaders would be quite how toxic many constituency and branch parties have become. It would not be an exaggeration to suggest that some are now quite dangerous spaces: I am aware of cases where what has been euphemistically described as 'physical intimidation' occurring at meetings. I don't know whether the solution is to go down the route of research, special measures and the targeted expulsion of sociopathic monsters, or whether a wholesale reorganisation might be more effective and less painful. But it's a topic that needs discussion.

_{*Note that whatever it recommends will be compulsory anyway.}

[Blair]

There's no point in picking a fight with someone who is already finished. Looks like a vendetta, and you want to avoid that. Better to use the forthcoming report* as the foundations for wider (necessary) changes to party structures and culture, and enforce matters rigorously and consistently.

A greater problem than former leaders would be quite how toxic many constituency and branch parties have become. It would not be an exaggeration to suggest that some are now quite dangerous spaces: I am aware of cases where what has been euphemistically described as 'physical intimidation' occurring at meetings. I don't know whether the solution is to go down the route of research, special measures and the targeted expulsion of sociopathic monsters, or whether a wholesale reorganisation might be more effective and less painful. But it's a topic that needs discussion.

_{*Note that whatever it recommends will be compulsory anyway.}

On a side note I'm always curious which CLPs are the worse; those in Tory shire safe seats where 15 people turn up, those in now Tory held seats in the North-East where 10 people turned up or the huge urban ones where you can reliably get 20-30 people from one faction to turn up to wreck meetings.

My experience of my own CLP in South London is that the larger meetings where always much better & it was much better when an effort was made to avoid talking about things that would actively slander certain individuals or groups within the party.

Of course even though the exec has changed hand we still have the problem that one branch acts like a feeder for hilarity & chaos.

I really don't know the answer; I just come from the conclusion that if you were designing a system to run local parties the current system is the absolute worse for a whole host of reasons.

I'm as much a Labour obsessive as anyone but even I find going to my CLP as fun as getting my teeth pulled

[CumbrianLefty]

https://twitter.com/Gabriel_Pogrund/status/1286668239242698752

So, what did it say?

[Blair]

https://twitter.com/Gabriel_Pogrund/status/1286720085080645632

Well someone did say the problem with this whole saga is that a lot of journalists are limited in what they can so because this is or is about become wrapped up in legal proceedings! I think this might have been part of the it but it wasn't retracted when I saw it & there was a lot more than the above posted.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

In essence (and we should probably not go further than that), this is likely to shift attention back towards the personal liability of those responsible for the creation and/or dissemination of the document. Complete mess.

[CumbrianLefty]

Chris Williamson (remember him?) apparently confirming he has been named in the EHRC report.

[Blair]

You can tell I've had a week off from obsessively following the Labour Party as I haven't posted all week.

In non litigious news Bob Kerslake is doing a review of the Labour Party's structures; he did a review of Corbyn's office last year which had the sole purpose of reviewing the purpose of Karie Murphy.... it was then seen as a power coup by McDonnell (don't sue me for libel but I assume they crossed paths at the GLC) I expect there will be much more about this in the book coming out in September.

This very much looks like a pre-ordained review & one that is badly needed; I have never worked for the party but I know that there's a whole host of problems- I read this week that Scottish Labour has one press officer.

A big problem is the exodus of talent after every defeat or campaign; this might be a wider problem with politics (which either burns people out or convinces them to do a nicer job) but seems very much so a Labour party one.

[Blair]

In North of the Border news Jackson Carlaw (who?) quitting as Scottish Tory leader surely puts some pressure on Richad Leonard to be ditched before the Scottish Parliament Elections.

Carlaw was forced out by the Tory suits because he was seen as bland with no public profile & had no chance in hell of winning- sound familar?

I don't pretend that there's someone in Scottish Labour who will reverse our fortunes overnight, or even get us to 2nd place but surely it's at least worth a shot?

Doing some reading let me to the below... thoughts as always much welcomed as I don't know a lot about it & no-one even bothers to discuss it anymore

https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/13213159.scottish-labour-inside-the-campaign-from-hell/

[EastAnglianLefty]

Getting rid of Leonard strikes me as a waste of time, because all the possible replacements are approximately mediocre as he is and spending time drawing attention to this doesn't seem like a great way to win support.

To the extent there is a viable electoral niche for Scottish Labour, it involves attacking the SNP from the left - it's notable that on a lot of the coronavirus relief measures, especially the ones relating to housing, the SNP and the Tories voted in lockstep, whereas the Greens tended to line up with Labour. Leonard is better placed to sell that attack line - not enough to keep his job, but enough that it might at least keep Scottish Labour relevant enough for a new generation of politicians to come through and spare us from the 1999 vintage.

[Zinneke]

Who are the rising stars in the Scottish Labour and Tory parties?

[DaWN]

Getting rid of Leonard strikes me as a waste of time, because all the possible replacements are approximately mediocre as he is and spending time drawing attention to this doesn't seem like a great way to win support.

To the extent there is a viable electoral niche for Scottish Labour, it involves attacking the SNP from the left - it's notable that on a lot of the coronavirus relief measures, especially the ones relating to housing, the SNP and the Tories voted in lockstep, whereas the Greens tended to line up with Labour. Leonard is better placed to sell that attack line - not enough to keep his job, but enough that it might at least keep Scottish Labour relevant enough for a new generation of politicians to come through and spare us from the 1999 vintage.

The problem is not Leonard's positioning though - I think most accept SLab's only niche is to attack the SNP from the left, and there is far more potential there than Twitter cybernats would have us believe. The problem is that he is f!cking useless at it.

[CumbrianLefty]

In North of the Border news Jackson Carlaw (who?) quitting as Scottish Tory leader surely puts some pressure on Richad Leonard to be ditched before the Scottish Parliament Elections.

Carlaw was forced out by the Tory suits because he was seen as bland with no public profile & had no chance in hell of winning- sound familar?

I don't pretend that there's someone in Scottish Labour who will reverse our fortunes overnight, or even get us to 2nd place but surely it's at least worth a shot?

Doing some reading let me to the below... thoughts as always much welcomed as I don't know a lot about it & no-one even bothers to discuss it anymore

https://www.heraldscotland.com/news/13213159.scottish-labour-inside-the-campaign-from-hell/

Recall reading that at the time. It makes pretty clear how absolutely awful Murphy was (is) both as a person and politician, and the utter cluelessness of several others in the party at that time.

Which of course helps explain why what happened that summer, happened.

[Cassius]

Who are the rising stars in the Scottish Labour and Tory parties?

Can’t speak for SLab, but Douglas Ross, the youngish MP for Moray and slayer of Angus Robertson, appears to be the odds on favourite to succeed Carlaw. Was a junior minister at the Scottish Office until he resigned due over the Cummings affair, which may do him a bit of credit. Other than that I don’t know much about him other than that he’s a qualified football ref.

[DaWN]

Can't imagine the national Tories are too thrilled about the prospect of a by-election in Moray though