This Once Great Movement Of Ours

[Blair]

I did wonder if with events we’d start seeing a similar internal split as we did in 2006 with the Lebanon war…

[CumbrianLefty]

High handedness from party HQ hasn't helped regarding this one.

[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.

[CumbrianLefty]

It was both that, and much of the media he is so keen to impress being institutionally Islamophobic.

Corbyn hasn't distinguished himself during this either, btw.

And his former pal Chris Williamson has pretty much gone full "genocide the Jews".

[afleitch]

https://twitter.com/Taj_Ali1/status/1714983337343803630

This is quite a gutting in one of Scotland's most active branches. There's a 'legacy' here given their long standing activism going back decades, but it does show the effect this sort of thing can have.

They have lost the Chair, two Vice Chairs, the Secretary, Treasurer and other senior roles.

[Blair]

I say this to make no comment on current events but it is always mildly interesting when labour members who stayed under the Blair Government resign- I don’t know how they got through Iraq, PFI, ‘tag a hoodie’, pet ASBOs and other policies that even I consider right wing and reactionary.

I was not political in the 2000s but re-reading parts of new labour history, government policies and the stuff that Labour campaigns in 2005 put out really shocks me and makes me realise how much the gravity of the party has moved even now.

It does seem a wire quirk of long Labour Governments is that they end up adopting some really right wing policies often around immigration and law and order.

I guess a lot of it is is because a large part of the membership (and this has grown in the past 30 years) are socially liberal progressives who in another party system would not be members of the legacy socialist party.

[icc]

I say this to make no comment on current events but it is always mildly interesting when labour members who stayed under the Blair Government resign- I don’t know how they got through Iraq, PFI, ‘tag a hoodie’, pet ASBOs and other policies that even I consider right wing and reactionary.

I was not political in the 2000s but re-reading parts of new labour history, government policies and the stuff that Labour campaigns in 2005 put out really shocks me and makes me realise how much the gravity of the party has moved even now.

It does seem a wire quirk of long Labour Governments is that they end up adopting some really right wing policies often around immigration and law and order.

I guess a lot of it is is because a large part of the membership (and this has grown in the past 30 years) are socially liberal progressives who in another party system would not be members of the legacy socialist party.

Labour has always been very authoritarian when it comes to law and order (and almost always on immigration). The flag of opposition to 'law and order' policies has basically been flown by the Liberals / Lib Dems and the liberal wing of the Conservatives, who unfortunately only tend to find their voice when not in government. Some on the far left of Labour (such, tbf, as Corbyn) have also been generally against state overeach, but they are a minority of even their small faction, never mind the party as a whole

[Filuwaúrdjan]

The archetypal Labour Home Secretary remains Chuter Ede (1945-51). Of course he was actually a former Liberal, but that was back when the word had different political associations to today.

[afleitch]

It does seem a wire quirk of long Labour Governments is that they end up adopting some really right wing policies often around immigration and law and order.

I guess a lot of it is is because a large part of the membership (and this has grown in the past 30 years) are socially liberal progressives who in another party system would not be members of the legacy socialist party.

With a volatile electorate and 'young' voters aging up, Labour's pursuit of a second term, when the oldest millennials are in their mid 40's and if there is no urgency about addressing their concerns is where Labour will be vulnerable. Either to a damascene Tory party, but more likely to a left wing bloc of some sort .

I don't think a left wing interventionist party, if it cannot factually compete within Labour, is an impossibility in the short term.

[CumbrianLefty]

Its a possibility, but not sure about the timescale.

Not impossible the Greens might make significant gains if a Labour government really does alienate much of its base in government (think of the LibDems at the 2005 GE)

[Wiswylfen]

Its a possibility, but not sure about the timescale.

Not impossible the Greens might make significant gains if a Labour government really does alienate much of its base in government (think of the LibDems at the 2005 GE)

They're not our base; they're nice-to-haves.

[CumbrianLefty]

On that note, why are none of these defecting Labour councillors going over to the Greens? They are quite a bit more anti-Israel than the three "big" parties, after all.

Or is this really about something else - a pretext (in some cases anyway, I don't doubt that many of the resignations are sincere) for some sort of breakaway left grouping - Respect mark 2 even??

[Blair]

On that note, why are none of these defecting Labour councillors going over to the Greens? They are quite a bit more anti-Israel than the three "big" parties, after all.

Or is this really about something else - a pretext (in some cases anyway, I don't doubt that many of the resignations are sincere) for some sort of breakaway left grouping - Respect mark 2 even??

I think, in the cases I have seen, it was the case of the final straw and in this case it was one where the emotional impact of the past few days/week meant that it triggered it; I guess in a similar sense to how corbynsceptics often had more than one complaint but it was either anti-semitism or Brexit that triggered it.

On the FT podcast they actually mentioned the risk of a party that basically took elements of the muslim working class vote & (I'm paraphrasing) the urban progressive activist base in certain seats

[Estrella]

The archetypal Labour Home Secretary remains Chuter Ede (1945-51). Of course he was actually a former Liberal, but that was back when the word had different political associations to today.

Out of curiosity: if you asked an average person back then to place the Liberals on a left-right axis, what would they say?

[MaxQue]

Its a possibility, but not sure about the timescale.

Not impossible the Greens might make significant gains if a Labour government really does alienate much of its base in government (think of the LibDems at the 2005 GE)

They're not our base; they're nice-to-haves.

Let's get rid of the myth of Labour base being union members, most of them are retired and vote Conservative and they're not coming back.

[Blair]

Its a possibility, but not sure about the timescale.

Not impossible the Greens might make significant gains if a Labour government really does alienate much of its base in government (think of the LibDems at the 2005 GE)

They're not our base; they're nice-to-haves.

Let's get rid of the myth of Labour base being union members, most of them are retired and vote Conservative and they're not coming back.

Well this is wrong on several accounts.

[CumbrianLefty]

Its a possibility, but not sure about the timescale.

Not impossible the Greens might make significant gains if a Labour government really does alienate much of its base in government (think of the LibDems at the 2005 GE)

They're not our base; they're nice-to-haves.

Let's get rid of the myth of Labour base being union members, most of them are retired and vote Conservative and they're not coming back.

Well this is wrong on several accounts.

It really is isn't it

[Filuwaúrdjan]

The archetypal Labour Home Secretary remains Chuter Ede (1945-51). Of course he was actually a former Liberal, but that was back when the word had different political associations to today.

Out of curiosity: if you asked an average person back then to place the Liberals on a left-right axis, what would they say?

When Ede was a member - before the First World War - unquestionably on the left. By the time Ede was a nationally prominent Labour politician, unquestionably in the middle. The thing about British Liberalism by the Edwardian era is that it was a coalition of out groups; people who did not feel comfortable with this or that element of the social order and wished to make changes to it as a result. Ede was the son of a Nonconformist grocer (quite the Liberal-voting cliché there) and was devoted to the Unitarian Church for his entire life. One reason why Ede was the archetypal Labour Home Secretary was that he combined a hardline and authoritarian approach to his office with liberalizing instincts in the more traditional sense (e.g. abolishing penal servitude, hard-labour and corporal punishment in the Criminal Justice system) and saw absolutely no contradiction between the two.

[CumbrianLefty]

This is quite a gutting in one of Scotland's most active branches. There's a 'legacy' here given their long standing activism going back decades, but it does show the effect this sort of thing can have.

They have lost the Chair, two Vice Chairs, the Secretary, Treasurer and other senior roles.

Further investigation reveals that quite a few of the same people resigned their positions previously in 2021, when they didn't get the Holyrood candidate they wanted on the shortlist.

[afleitch]

I think Starmer's reputation as a bare faced liar is probably going to smack him in the face. Either before or after the GE.

https://twitter.com/ITVNewsPolitics/status/1715309817110110433

https://twitter.com/MuslimWales/status/1716911395294621879

[CumbrianLefty]

That "context" is itself disputable.

Anyway, some may believe the fact he no longer thinks that (if he ever did) matters more - but not those who are determined to be upset regardless. Another example - the incredibly bad faith claim that during the visit to the mosque he "demanded" they release the hostages.

Very obviously, he did absolutely no such thing.

[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.

[OSR stands with Israel]

Was Tony Blair like the most hyped up PM in recent memory

Like it’s insane to see how large the crowds are given how Inauguration Day is not a formal date like it is here and how quickly it takes place after an election

[CumbrianLefty]

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

[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.