This Once Great Movement Of Ours

[Filuwaúrdjan]

In other news, R*s*e D*f*i*l* is doing transphobia again

Is there some kind of correlation between TERFery and left/right position, or are those people everywhere?

Essentially none in terms of factional alignment, but there are some patterns:

Positions within the Labour Party on these issues to do not correlate with factional alignment at all: there are people who take quite hardline 'gender critical' positions in the hardest parts of the Labour Left and there are people who are extremely sympathetic towards Trans people in the most right-wing sections of the party. If there's a pattern it is that old line Feminists are the most likely to take 'gender critical' positions, and those people can be found in nearly all of the party's many factions, subfactions and tendencies.

[Conservatopia]

Rosie Duffield is rapidly becoming my favourite Labour MP.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

One talking point on both the right and Corbynite left, btw, is that the Tories have a blitz prepared on his time as DPP (you know, "he let Savile go free" and similar) if they ever felt really under threat by him. Even were such a plan to exist, it would surely be high risk tho.

I'm not familiar with Starmer's record as DPP. Did he (or could he reasonably be framed as having) let Savile go free? I know Savile's behavior was widely known in, and covered up by, the BBC and NHS, but I hadn't heard about figures like Starmer being in a position to know about it.

Not personally- but he was the head when the decision was made. I’m not an expert in these things but it seems to largely be a case of the police not doing as much as they should and then the CPS just rubber stamped this decision. Saville was never arrested let alone charged in 2008

Yes, the CPS can't prosecute if there's no arrest and no charge (the whole point, of course, is to have the decision whether or not to prosecute be entirely separated from that process) and decisions they do make about whether to prosecute or not are actually highly technical: there are a series of 'tests' that have to be met. The post of DPP is really nothing like an American-style public prosecutor, it's really more of a civil service job.

[CumbrianLefty]

Which doesn't stop the usual nonsense online about both Savile and "grooming gangs".

[Filuwaúrdjan]

It doesn't, but it puts a hard limit on the sort of people who see it and on the ability of political actors to try to play that card themselves. Well unless very stupid, I suppose. We can never entirely rule that out.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

This was always inevitable

The 2015-20 period (particularly the last half) will be a nasty lightening rod as far as Labour Party discussions go for quite a while, yes.

But my point was about the perception of plausibility. Attacks that work best are the ones that people think sound as if they must be true, that chime with existing preconceptions, biases and prejudices. Attempts to claim or imply links to the KGB or other Warsaw Pact agencies never flew and were never going to, but 'he supported the IRA!'... ah.

Though the latter reminds us of a further caveat: a poorly chosen tone can wreck (temporarily) an attack that, in theory, should be effective. Attempts by the Conservatives to bring up Corbyn's Northern Irish baggage in 2017 failed as they made the completely insane decision to argue them from a Unionist perspective, a huge mistake given the unpopularity of Irish Unionism in Great Britain.

[CumbrianLefty]

Apsana Begum MP found not guilty of serious fraud offences.

Restoration of the Labour whip will presumably follow.

[Blair]

Apsana Begum MP found not guilty of serious fraud offences.

Restoration of the Labour whip will presumably follow.

Don’t think she’s lost it?

[Blair]

The way I spend my Fridays- can anyone remember who leaked this? I was going through it with a friend laughing at mostly how inaccurate it was even for 2015!


https://labourlist.org/2016/03/leaked-list-ranks-labour-mps-by-hostility-to-corbyn/

[GoTfan]

I broadly categorise myself as someone on the Labour right who supports trans right and find it rather depressing how many LGBT politicians on the right of the party are overlooking this case because of personal friendships, or factional issues. But more broadly it’s not a left right issue

In other news the below has caused some rather hilarious Twitter rebuttal from Mac the Knife… it’s an interesting read even if like most Labour books it is done by people pushing a certain view.

https://novaramedia.com/2021/07/27/heres-what-really-happened-when-starmer-suspended-corbyn/

Regardless of whether pushing an agenda or not, it seems that Starmer and his group are strangely obsessive with purging any left-wing influence within the Labour Party. Question is, how far can they push it before the left just revolts en masse?

[Blair]

I broadly categorise myself as someone on the Labour right who supports trans right and find it rather depressing how many LGBT politicians on the right of the party are overlooking this case because of personal friendships, or factional issues. But more broadly it’s not a left right issue

In other news the below has caused some rather hilarious Twitter rebuttal from Mac the Knife… it’s an interesting read even if like most Labour books it is done by people pushing a certain view.

https://novaramedia.com/2021/07/27/heres-what-really-happened-when-starmer-suspended-corbyn/

Regardless of whether pushing an agenda or not, it seems that Starmer and his group are strangely obsessive with purging any left-wing influence within the Labour Party. Question is, how far can they push it before the left just revolts en masse?

Would come as a shock to the members of the Socialist Campaign Group who are in the Shadow Cabinet!

[GoTfan]

I broadly categorise myself as someone on the Labour right who supports trans right and find it rather depressing how many LGBT politicians on the right of the party are overlooking this case because of personal friendships, or factional issues. But more broadly it’s not a left right issue

In other news the below has caused some rather hilarious Twitter rebuttal from Mac the Knife… it’s an interesting read even if like most Labour books it is done by people pushing a certain view.

https://novaramedia.com/2021/07/27/heres-what-really-happened-when-starmer-suspended-corbyn/

Regardless of whether pushing an agenda or not, it seems that Starmer and his group are strangely obsessive with purging any left-wing influence within the Labour Party. Question is, how far can they push it before the left just revolts en masse?

Would come as a shock to the members of the Socialist Campaign Group who are in the Shadow Cabinet!

My point still stands. He seems overly obsessed with purging their influence within the party.

[CumbrianLefty]

I don't think its quite as simple as that, but yes there *is* an element close to the leadership who seem addicted to cosplaying Neil Kinnock "heroically facing down the left" in the 1980s.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

There has never been a significant 'purge' of the Left (however defined) in the entire history of the Labour Party, which has always made the persecution complex of the post-1970 Left deeply perplexing.* What has just happened is that a number of tiny and very unpleasant organisations have been placed on the proscribed list. Two of these are entirely comprised of geriatric racists who seem to define 'socialism' as 'ranting incoherently about the Rothschilds', and the other is a deeply nasty organisation that churns out extreme pro-Assad propaganda, amongst other things. This is genuinely not a hill worth dying on.

_{*In fact the only significant purge in Labour's history was of MacDonald and his supporters during the 1931 crisis. And while most of them (MacDonald included) had been on the left-wing of the party only a few years earlier, they were clearly not by then.}

[cp]

This was always inevitable

The 2015-20 period (particularly the last half) will be a nasty lightening rod as far as Labour Party discussions go for quite a while, yes.

But my point was about the perception of plausibility. Attacks that work best are the ones that people think sound as if they must be true, that chime with existing preconceptions, biases and prejudices. Attempts to claim or imply links to the KGB or other Warsaw Pact agencies never flew and were never going to, but 'he supported the IRA!'... ah.

Though the latter reminds us of a further caveat: a poorly chosen tone can wreck (temporarily) an attack that, in theory, should be effective. Attempts by the Conservatives to bring up Corbyn's Northern Irish baggage in 2017 failed as they made the completely insane decision to argue them from a Unionist perspective, a huge mistake given the unpopularity of Irish Unionism in Great Britain.

Isn't this entirely circular logic? The attacks that land are only deemed plausible - that's to say, in accord with people's prejudices - after they've landed, no matter how hyperbolic or disingenuous the accusations were to begin with. A better indicator of which smears against Corbyn cut through is how well coordinated the guilty parties generating the smears happened to be.  

[Blair]

Ah the usual briefing to the Observer. Who could that be?

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/jul/31/keir-starmers-aide-warns-labour-has-lost-touch-with-target-voters

This can only be done if Labour adopts clearer, sharper, more uplifting messaging about the party’s values and Starmer’s vision, rather than throwing too many policy commitments at voter

I do not understand how this can be done without policy commitments; this is peak Labour waffle, which means absolutely nothing. I saw the below recently as well- which suggested Labour should be credible and optimistic!

https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/yvette-cooper-labour-optimism_uk_60fa9e47e4b09f2b238cf255

[Conservatopia]

Good to see the Observer got their rubbish in on time.

All we are waiting for now is the weekly Sunday Times hot-take article and then we should be all set.

[CumbrianLefty]

Ah the usual briefing to the Observer. Who could that be?

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2021/jul/31/keir-starmers-aide-warns-labour-has-lost-touch-with-target-voters

This can only be done if Labour adopts clearer, sharper, more uplifting messaging about the party’s values and Starmer’s vision, rather than throwing too many policy commitments at voter

Contains the choice claim by an unidentified "source" that "millions of Labour voters went Tory" at the last GE - I hope that Starmer's strategists are at least better informed than that.

[Blair]

How many times has Labour had the ‘don’t write in the sun’ argument- I first remember it when Ed Miliband apologised for doing so!

[CumbrianLefty]

Its circulation figures have dropped so low that they are no longer officially released, but.....

[Blair]

For those who don’t follow the movement as obsessively as others this is a rather good guide for the state of Labour factions.

The point about the tribune MPs group is very good. There are MPs more right wing than me who sit in it! 

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/aug/03/labours-factions-keir-starmer-left-party-right

[Zinneke]

For those who don’t follow the movement as obsessively as others this is a rather good guide for the state of Labour factions.

The point about the tribune MPs group is very good. There are MPs more right wing than me who sit in it! 

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2021/aug/03/labours-factions-keir-starmer-left-party-right

Interesting, and at the same time BTL...

4 hours ago
187

99% of the voting public couldn’t give two sh**ts about this People’s Front if Judea bs.

and he's spot on

[CumbrianLefty]

The point about the tribune MPs group is very good. There are MPs more right wing than me who sit in it! 

This was to a degree true in the "good old days", but its de facto relaunch a few years ago was as an explicitly anti-Corbyn operation - so the above really shouldn't be surprising.

[Blair]

I see the TBGBs is set to be aired again in a new BBC documentary this autumn.

Wonder how on earth they’ll find something new to say…

[CumbrianLefty]

I see the TBGBs is set to be aired again in a new BBC documentary this autumn.

Wonder how on earth they’ll find something new to say…

I'm sure there will be some hyped up "revelations".