This Once Great Movement Of Ours

[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.

[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.

[morgieb]

As I do not want to go anywhere remotely near to Corbynite Twitter, can someone explain to me what Starmer has done wrong this time?

Written an article for the Mail on Sunday in which he attacks the mess that the government has made over A levels, says that the government is failing children because it has not taken seriously the problems caused to education by the pandemic (points out that more attention appears to have been given to how to re-open bowling alleys safely than schools), and says that there cannot be any more excuses and that they must re-open schools next month.

I gather that this is bad because 'never opening schools again' is praxis, or something.

Seriously, as someone with links to Corbynite Twitter (well the Australian equivalent thereof - and who most of my friends were having a stroke over), this is a pretty weird thing to attack. Of course the government should be looking into how to reopen schools safely, especially given Covid in the UK doesn't seem to be anywhere near as extreme as in the US.

[morgieb]

Yeah if Burnham showed the same kind of political skill for the 2015 leadership race as he is now as the Mayor of Manchester he'd be the current PM.

[morgieb]

Corbyn has the whip removed

Party split incoming?

This is I feel not an issue that a lot of people in the party will want to fight over; aka an internal party investigation on anti-semitism. I expect the Socialist Campaign Group will put out a statement & but the lesson from the last parliament is that resigning the whip & splitting just lets the leaders office or one of the major unions fill your seat with someone else.

The Corbyn faction surely can’t soldier on here. And there’s enough MPs to desert the PLP

Except there were probably even more MP's willing to desert the PLP over Corbyn's leadership, and that didn't go anywhere because most Labour people were smart enough to understand that it was better to remain in the tent than start a fringe party and have zero influence. RLB/Burgon got like what, 20-25% of membership vote? And Labour members are more left wing as a whole than Labour voters. Optically it would be a terrible look to try and challenge Starmer over it too - either the challenge fails and the Left looks silly, or a challenge succeeds and there's a split the other way and the UK have 20 years of unchecked Tory rule.

This is still a very brave decision though. I hope Starmer knows what he's doing. And personally I do sincerely hope Corbyn gets let back in in due course.

[morgieb]

https://twitter.com/OwenJones84/status/1327959368034299906
I'm not a huge fan of Owen Jones but he is spot on here - it seems the Labour Left aren't allowed to support regimes such as Venezuela and China but Blair and his acolytes do...

The majority of the Labour party isn't exactly willing to defend Blair now, though. Nor does he have any real influence left over.

[morgieb]

It's probably a good thing that this happened now rather than in three years time. I think this will be mostly forgotten from all but the biggest Corbyn diehards.

Still I don't think Starmer's handled this well at all.

[morgieb]

The one thing that I think will save Starmer is that I don't think there's an alternate leader that would be better. Most of the Left Cadre have too much baggage at this point to cut through; Nandy and Rayner don't feel like they have it either. Starmer's frontbench feels very meh. Someone like Cooper or Miliband's far too much of a retread, someone of the right could destroy the party. Burnham probably makes the most sense in theory but he's not in the House so......

[morgieb]

Who is the most likely alternative leader if Starmer's "leadership" proves untenable?

[morgieb]

Who is the most likely alternative leader if Starmer's "leadership" proves untenable?

1) Rayner
2) a relative "dark horse" currently.

To go back to the above posts, it *won't* be Cooper.

Yeah Rayner would probably make the most sense from a unity POV. I'm assuming most of the "Corbyn wing" is unelectable at this point and going for another right candidate would cause large chunks of the party to have a stroke. Not sure she'd be a particularly good OL though.

[morgieb]

This is commiting seppuku at its finest. Fairly ashamed I was duped.

[morgieb]

For those unaware, why is Tarry under so much strife for preselection? Especially given more controversial Corbynites (e.g. Sultana) look fine?

[morgieb]

I regret to inform you Neal Lawson from Compass has thoughts on the Labour Party selections.

Is he attacking Starmer from the left or the right? Because Compass's politics from what I can tell seem all over the shop.

[morgieb]

Personally, I'd be very reluctant to want DMilliband back given he did a runner and only seems to show interest now Labour look like winning the next election. At least Balls lost his seat and needed time to rehabilitate his image.

A bit disappointing they couldn't get Burnham back as well, though I guess he would only be interested in one position, and dumping Starmer would be very, very silly.

[morgieb]

The dark art of toadying to Starmer

The self-proclaimed Key to Canterbury is mad about not getting anything. Hope McFadden enjoys this one after all the toadying to Duffield he's done!

Interesting to see how the anti-Starmer brigade act, lol.

[morgieb]

‘Blairites’ don’t exist anymore beyond (a) a handful of pathetic, bitter MPs who still bear grudges over Gordon Brown and (b) LARPers on Twitter with a tendency to support Andrew Tate.

I think the way the internet uses the term Blairite seems like it’s basically a slur for anyone to the right of Jeremy Corbyn.

[morgieb]

A trio of Corbynistas - Anas Sarwar, Andy Burnham and Sadiq Khan - have called for a ceasefire.

None of them are Corbynites.

Isn't that the joke?

[morgieb]

Is there a legitimate chance someone tries to pass a VoNC against Starmer over this? It would potentially be suicidal, but I can see a number of the Corbynites thinking that there are no other options.

[morgieb]

The praise is also relatively mild IMO, but yeah it's not the sort of thing I would say.

[morgieb]

I’m probably being too cynical here, but Reeves feels worryingly like Roger Douglas.