Change UK: Chuka Umunna resigns from Labour party and launches Independent Group

[mx wcfc]

This is shit. Icba to read 25 pages, but here's my view.

The 7 are traitors. We have the Tories on the rack and they run away. Scum.

There is far more racism in the tory party than in Labour.

Being critical of Israel is not anti-semitism.

Fuck it if I'm wrong.

 

[Wookey]

Yep:

You clever lad butchersapron !

As we discovered, it depends on the definition of racism.

I said she wasn't racist, in a hating of differently-coloured people kind of way. I still don't think she is.

But she is racist, in the same way I am, you are, almost everybody is to some degree, at some time. In that wider sense, I imagine she carries a lot of ingrained prejudices that were in her mind before she was allowed to walk to school on her own.

But if we're all products of a racist society, and all inherited social and personal racism should be undermined and challenged, then being able to distinguish in a nuanced way between a passive and recognised racist inheritance and an active racist hate crime is crucial.

 

[butchersapron]

I wonder though wookey, is it first necessary to defend a racist mindset as actually being non-racist - anti-racist even - before admitting racism. Ta for any help.

 

[Idris2002]

Wookey is the best flipper.

"Harpo, get the seal".

 

[Wookey]

I only hope Wookey doesn't start posting and referring to himself in the third person.

He would never do that.

 

[Wookey]

I wonder though wookey, is it first necessary to defend a racist mindset as actually being non-racist - anti-racist even - before admitting racism. Ta for any help.

My primary aim was not to defend Angela Whatsit, it was to re-direct attention to the far more worrying systemic racism and Jew-hating that has infected the Labour party, according to both Jews and people of colour close to the aforementioned party.

Do you think Luciana Berger got out of bed on the wrong side or something?

 

[butchersapron]

My primary aim was not to defend Angela Whatsit, it was to re-direct attention to the far more worrying systemic racism and Jew-hating that has infected the Labour party, according to both Jews and people of colour close to the aforementioned party.

Do you think Luciana Berger got out of bed on the wrong side or something?

I don't care what your primary aim was. What I ridiculed above is what you did.

 

[Sprocket.]

He would never do that.

Sprocket. Yes that racist, Yorkshire bastard says he is glad to hear that.

 

[Shechemite]

My primary aim was not to defend Angela Whatsit, it was to re-direct attention to the far more worrying systemic racism and Jew-hating that has infected the Labour party, according to both Jews and people of colour close to the aforementioned party.

Do you think Luciana Berger got out of bed on the wrong side or something?

This is shit. Icba to read 25 pages, but here's my view.

The 7 are traitors. We have the Tories on the rack and they run away. Scum.

There is far more racism in the tory party than in Labour.

Being critical of Israel is not anti-semitism.

Fuck it if I'm wrong.

The politics of hope

 

[Wookey]

I ain’t touching wookey’s baton, ta very much.

You always say that, and half a lager later you're giving it the eyelashes and touching my collar.

 

[butchersapron]

This strange and wondrous news wookey brings of anti-semitism in labour - blimey. I wonder what would have happened if people he's speaking to had noted and been fighting against for, i don't know, fucking years, before it fitted in with his busy and, no doubt, glamorous schedule.

 

[Treacle Toes]

Well, sarcastically speaking, you have definitely shed some light on the nuanced issue of racism today, and given me a lot to think about. Thanks for sharing all that hard-won insight in such an affecting way. With allies like you I barely need enemies.

You can call racism wherever you see it, fill your boots; no-one is telling you what to say, so do stop repeatedly accusing me of that. And "gaslighting" is a cheap accusation, made glibly. Sad you would hijack that term when I'm doing no such thing, you really just reduce your own credibility with shit like that.

You can shout Racist at a woman who just resigned because of her party's bigotry and intolerance, you go! Good for you.

I'm not saying she isn't racist. I'm saying she's almost certainly as casually racist as almost every other middle aged Northern working class woman I have ever met. It's hardly news. She will see Black and Brown people as different to her, we should assume that as a given.

What's news is the institutional racism and anti-Semitism from the very top to the very bottom of the Labour party that has caused donkey's years of Labour experience to walk out of the party.

That bit seems not to animate you quite as much, or is that a misperception?

You had the opportunity of having the last word and this flip-flopping word and opinion salad is what you choose to do with it?

You don't care about racism, you only care about the racism that you think is important.

Another racist left the Labour party today so you should be celebrating but you aren't. It doesn't seem to animate you because her racism isn't the kind you see fit to challenge.

The joke is if she were a Tory MP at the time of saying what she did you'd not be offering her an inch of 'oh, just like all other Middle aged northern women, product of her environment, we're all racist anyway' nonsense.

 

[SpackleFrog]

I said she wasn't racist, in a hating of differently-coloured people kind of way. I still don't think she is.

Didn't you say you thought she was probably 7 kinds of racist?

But if we're all products of a racist society, and all inherited social and personal racism should be undermined and challenged, then being able to distinguish in a nuanced way between a passive and recognised racist inheritance and an active racist hate crime is crucial.

So racism is ok, but racist hate crime is the bad thing?

 

[Gramsci]

Something that Chuka might have taken interest in if thinking of standing as independent is recent Council by election in Thorton. A Council Ward in his constituency. Due to Labour Cllr standing down due to work commitments.

There was big swing to the LDs. Likely due to the LD position on opposing Brexit. Lambeth as a whole is one of the strongest Remain areas in the country.

So Chuka might think he could stand a chance as he has always been stongly Remain and wants a peoples vote.

The Labour candidate who won the Council seat was the new young New Labour side of party. But still the Labour percentage sent down. Looks like those who voted on a low turnout wanted to send national party a message.

Yesterday’s by-election was a test of how well Labour’s metropolitan voting coalition is holding together. The answer was “not very well”. On a turnout of 27 per cent, the party’s share of the vote fell from 63 per cent in May 2018 to 45 per cent. The Liberal Democrats recovered their position as the main challengers following their coalition-era slump, rising from 10 per cent last year to 33 per cent. Their candidate, retired NHS worker Rebecca Macnair re-established Thornton’s status as a marginal ward with a hefty swing of 21 per cent from Labour. She was still 309 votes short of the winning candidate Stephen Donnelly, a young LGBT Labour activist who contested St Leonard’s ward in Streatham in 2018 where he lost to the Green Party.

Even though Donnelly himself is a pro-European, according to local MP Chuka Umunna he suffered from Labour’s “incoherent Brexit policy which constantly came up on the doorstep”. The national polls have not picked up much movement from Labour to Liberal Democrat or Green among Remain voters, but the Thornton result – in a ward that was probably over 80 per cent Remain in 2016 – is sobering nonetheless. In a divided ward like this, it is reasonable to conclude that there must have been an enormous swing in the middle-class areas.

Lambeth: Labour wins Thornton by-election, but Lib Dem comeback bodes ill for Corbyn Brexit strategy - OnLondon

 

[neonwilderness]

Didn't you say you thought she was probably 7 kinds of racist?

7 funny tinges of racist?

 

[SpookyFrank]

Well this thread took slightly longer than usual to go to shit at least.

 

[belboid]

the far more worrying systemic racism and Jew-hating that has infected the Labour party, according to both Jews and people of colour close to the aforementioned party

We all know about the supposed ‘Jew-hating’, but do tell us about this other racism you claim is ‘systemic’

 

[Sprocket.]

Well this thread took slightly longer than usual to go to shit at least.

I blame the young uns today, MPs can’t even be racist these days!

 

[butchersapron]

My primary aim was not to defend Angela Whatsit, it was to re-direct attention to the far more worrying systemic racism and Jew-hating that has infected the Labour party, according to both Jews and people of colour close to the aforementioned party.

Saying jew-hating means that you can't work out how to spell or whether to say anti-semitism or anti-semetism. Which means you ain't been typing it that much.

I wonder why.

 

[danny la rouge]

My primary aim was not to defend Angela Whatsit, it was to re-direct attention to the far more worrying systemic racism and Jew-hating that has infected the Labour party, according to both Jews and people of colour close to the aforementioned party.

Do you think Luciana Berger got out of bed on the wrong side or something?

Do you think nobody has noticed the anti semitism stories? We’ve had prolonged discussion of them here. (For example, there’s this, which, to some degree, sums up my views on the matter: Jeremy Corbyn's time is up ).

The thing is, though, that we can have views on more than one thing at a time. And it is also possible to take a view on the way that a group of 7 MPs handle themselves the very day they say they’re leaving Labour in large part over racism.

“I am leaving behind a culture of bigotry” said one of them.

We are entitled to ask: “are you sure?”

 

[butchersapron]

“I am leaving behind a culture of bigotry” said one of them.

Not much of a legacy to boast of is it?

 

[killer b]

Do you think nobody has noticed the anti semitism stories? We’ve had prolonged discussion of them here. (For example, there’s this, which, to some degree, sums up my views on the matter: Jeremy Corbyn's time is up ).

The thing is, though, that we can have views on more than one thing at a time. And it is also possible to take a view on the way that a group of 7 MPs handle themselves the very day they say they’re leaving Labour in large part over racism.

“I am leaving behind a culture of bigotry” said one of them.

We are entitled to ask: “are you sure?”

62 pages on a dedicated thread here too: Labour + Anti Semitism

 

[ska invita]

If she’s got wind of this and her small majority, no wonder she walked.

The question is how many more Lab MPs might jump before being pushed when that times comes for them?
And if there is a brexit deal on the table that the Labour front bench can support then plenty more will jump at that point too. Other Brexit eventualities might bring others to jump. Some Tories might even go.
Damp, unappealing squib as today appears to be, this isnt necessarily the end. Over 170 Labour MPs voted against Corbyn in the coup of 2016. There are sure to be some more that peel off, and plenty of triggers and moments at which to do so. I hope.

 

[Treacle Toes]

We all know about the supposed ‘Jew-hating’, but do tell us about this other racism you claim is ‘systemic’

It would also be interesting to know how he thinks systemic or institutionalised racism comes about if not through 'inherited' and 'internalised' opinions and values being unchallenged.

 

[Gramsci]

As I'm Lambeth interesting to see Steve Reed MP in Croydon not supporting Chuka.

Those of us in Lambeth will remember Steve as the Blairite leader of Lambeth Council. He was genuine believer of the Third Way and set up the "Cooperative Council" idea.

When the Streatham constituency came up he tried to get chosen for the seat.

It appeared to be his for the taking as successful leader of the Council. The local party went for Chuka. Then seen as left alternative to a Blairite Steve Reed. Local party membership were becoming tired of Blairism.

Understandably Reed wasn't happy.

Back in 2009, Reed, as leader of Lambeth Council, had expected to be selected as the prospective Labour candidate for his then home constituency of Streatham. But Umunna came along with a more radical, left-wing prospectus than his Blairite rival, and won over local party members who had tired of the party’s dalliance with neo-liberalism.

And:

This time, Reed – himself a People’s Vote supporter – was having no truck with the undermining of the party.

On Twitter, Reed wrote, “I’m watching the seven MPs quitting the party on TV and I’m more convinced than ever that Labour, the greatest force for social change this country’s ever known, can lead Britain forward if we now come together as a party to shape the future.”

Reed unlke Chuka is Labour and will stay Labour. He worked his way up the hard way through local politics. Not as charismatic as Chuka but a hard worker for the party.

Croydon Labour MP Reed is quick to reject Umunna’s splitters

 

[Shechemite]

Reed also was the MP who put forward Seni’s Law.

 

[SpackleFrog]

The question is how many more Lab MPs might jump before being pushed when that times comes for them?
And if there is a brexit deal on the table that the Labour front bench can support then plenty more will jump at that point too. Other Brexit eventualities might bring others to jump. Some Tories might even go.
Damp, unappealing squib as today appears to be, this isnt necessarily the end. Over 170 Labour MPs voted against Corbyn in the coup of 2016. There are sure to be some more that peel off, and plenty of triggers and moments at which to do so. I hope.

Liked for the hope

 

[SpackleFrog]

I suppose I hadn't considered that some of them aren't interested in standing again, and just want to damage Corbyn/stop Brexit. Hopefully more will follow.

 

[SpackleFrog]

Saying jew-hating means that you can't work out how to spell or whether to say anti-semitism or anti-semetism. Which means you ain't been typing it that much.

I wonder why.

I always have to type that twice to be fair. And I know I type it quite a bit cos I can remember being really annoyed bit for years.

 

[Shechemite]

My phone always autocorrects to antisemtism