I joined the Labour Party...

[andysays]

Yes, it's not like we've seen any changes lately

Is there any chance of you detailing specifically what changes there have been that you think are actually significant, and why and how they are (or even might be) significant to oridinary working class people, rather than the small clique of labour lefties currently congratulating themselves?

 

[killer b]

does he have to? I think these threads are massively improved without his input tbh.

 

[Chilli.s]

you want to live surrounded by shit just to keep the posh out?
yes, a great answer to gentrification. let's just chuck our rubbish in the street. that'll keep 'em out. a big rat filled mountain of shit. that's where we'll live.

Finally, a tactic that could work.

 

[andysays]

does he have to? I think these threads are massively improved without his input tbh.

No, he doesn't have to, I was just wondering if he wanted to have a crack at it.

On past performance I'm not that hopeful, but you never know...

 

[ice-is-forming]

I've just been talking to my Dad, hes 86 today & been a LP member all his life. Hes pretty happy with the whole Jeremy thing.

 

[malatesta32]

Pity barbiturates like Mandrax are no longer available.

now that requires a new thread! barbs - where are they now?

 

[discokermit]

Is there any chance of you detailing specifically what changes there have been that you think are actually significant, and why and how they are (or even might be) significant to oridinary working class people, rather than the small clique of labour lefties currently congratulating themselves?

how about tens of thousands of people joining? lots and lots of them ordinary working class people.
small clique? lol.

 

[andysays]

how about tens of thousands of people joining? lots and lots of them ordinary working class people.
small clique? lol.

Granted many of those joining are ordinary wc people, but what I'm hoping for is some substantive argument as to why and how this will make a significant difference to people's lives, beyond their actual membership of the LP.

And because it probably wasn't altogether clear, the "small clique of labour lefties currently congratulating themselves" I referred to is not people joining or rejoining the LP, but those long term members who are now saying things like

It's a vindication of the arguments that people like me have been making, that the Labour left is not dead and irrelevant.

Maybe it is a vindication, but I'd like to hear how and why, rather than simply being told it is.

 

[newbie]

you want to live surrounded by shit just to keep the posh out?
yes, a great answer to gentrification. let's just chuck our rubbish in the street. that'll keep 'em out. a big rat filled mountain of shit. that's where we'll live.


edit: move to tipton. it's all shit with no chance of gentrification.

well having a corner for crap worked well enough for 29 of the 30 years I've lived here, but for the last 5 or so the proper posh have been pouring in and now it's been eradicated. By 'crap' I mean packaging (eg telly boxes), broken furniture and other stuff too big to go in the chute or bins. Not food waste, so nothing to encourage rats. People round here are civilised, and anyway latterly the council had mostly cleared it by mid-moring.

 

[butchersapron]

Just to make it clear, i'm not sneering at anyone who has joined/rejoined. The only people i'm sneering at is those who stuck in and defended them when they invaded iraq, attacked single mothers, attacked the class as a whole etc who now think the cavalry has arrived. Cunts. Parasites.

 

[discokermit]

Not adding another ten years to that with this idiotic mania to Corbyn and Labour. Start with developing an analysis of the need for change constitutionally while developing something credible that could be backed by real working class people, rank and file workers in trades unions and out of them, developing politics in communities where Labour weighs the vote while neglecting those same communities over generations. Plenty more of course, but why do that when it's hard work and there's Jeremy and the mythical party of the workers to get excited about before reality intrudes in the dream.

ten years? don't think so.
okay, i'll develop my analysis of the need to change constitutionally. should i do that smoking a pipe in my back garden? can't i do that in the labour party? how long is that gonna take cos i've been watching videos and reading books on the subject for years and in thirty years of this things have just got shitter. not a bit but a fucking lot.
develop something credible backed by real working people. this is a bit harder than it sounds. the only thing in the last thirty years i've seen taken on board by my workmates are ukip and ''british jobs for british workers''.
maybe i will work in my neglected community (that all live in nice houses built by the council, four hundred quid a month for a three bed semi). maybe between us we can rustle up a few thousand decent well paying jobs?

 

[discokermit]

well having a corner for crap worked well enough for 29 of the 30 years I've lived here, but for the last 5 or so the proper posh have been pouring in and now it's been eradicated. By 'crap' I mean packaging (eg telly boxes), broken furniture and other stuff too big to go in the chute or bins. Not food waste, so nothing to encourage rats. People round here are civilised, and anyway latterly the council had mostly cleared it by mid-moring.

there's a fucking tip for that shit.
that isn't a sign of working class pride, it's just fucking degradation.

 

[fiannanahalba]

ten years? don't think so.
okay, i'll develop my analysis of the need to change constitutionally. should i do that smoking a pipe in my back garden? can't i do that in the labour party? how long is that gonna take cos i've been watching videos and reading books on the subject for years and in thirty years of this things have just got shitter. not a bit but a fucking lot.
develop something credible backed by real working people. this is a bit harder than it sounds. the only thing in the last thirty years i've seen taken on board by my workmates are ukip and ''british jobs for british workers''.
maybe i will work in my neglected community (that all live in nice houses built by the council, four hundred quid a month for a three bed semi). maybe between us we can rustle up a few thousand decent well paying jobs?

You need to tackle the democratic deficit in this undemocratic state. Will Labour and Corbyn be doing that? Whose talking about sitting on their arse smoking a fucking pipe? I'm an SNP member, not Tory Benn or some fucking beard stroking middle class leftie intellectual. Let's see whose right and whose wrong as Corbyn fails to build anything that will actually win and importantly change life positively for millions like me at the bottom of the pile.

 

[newbie]

there's a fucking tip for that shit.
that isn't a sign of working class pride, it's just fucking degradation.

suit yourself, but fwiw, 'pride' isn't anything to do with what I'm saying. Not everyone has a car to get to the tip.

 

[YouSir]

You need to tackle the democratic deficit in this undemocratic state. Will Labour and Corbyn be doing that? Whose talking about sitting on their arse smoking a fucking pipe? I'm an SNP member, not Tory Benn or some fucking beard stroking middle class leftie intellectual. Let's see whose right and whose wrong as Corbyn fails to build anything that will actually win and importantly change life positively for millions like me at the bottom of the pile.

Do the SNP do all that ground level hard work then? Not an argument, just a question, I'm not Scottish so don't know. Also you have the SNP, a big party you can join who, you say, will make a difference. You're berating people south of the border who don't have that option for thinking they might do with Corbyn.

 

[belboid]

You need to tackle the democratic deficit in this undemocratic state. Will Labour and Corbyn be doing that? Whose talking about sitting on their arse smoking a fucking pipe? I'm an SNP member, not Tory Benn or some fucking beard stroking middle class leftie intellectual. Let's see whose right and whose wrong as Corbyn fails to build anything that will actually win and importantly change life positively for millions like me at the bottom of the pile.

ohh, the SNP. No rampant hypocrisy in them talking left but doing fuck all about it then. lol

 

[discokermit]

You need to tackle the democratic deficit in this undemocratic state. Will Labour and Corbyn be doing that? Whose talking about sitting on their arse smoking a fucking pipe? I'm an SNP member, not Tory Benn or some fucking beard stroking middle class leftie intellectual. Let's see whose right and whose wrong as Corbyn fails to build anything that will actually win and importantly change life positively for millions like me at the bottom of the pile.

snp? righto. i'll join tomorra. have they got a branch in bilston?

 

[discokermit]

suit yourself, but fwiw, 'pride' isn't anything to do with what I'm saying. Not everyone has a car to get to the tip.

yes it is. when you have no pride in yourself or where you live and are powerless you put up with small builders dumping their shit on your street. it's not something to strive for.

 

[belboid]

suit yourself, but fwiw, 'pride' isn't anything to do with what I'm saying. Not everyone has a car to get to the tip.

most councils provide a phone number for the collection of larger items

 

[articul8]

Is there any chance of you detailing specifically what changes there have been that you think are actually significant, and why and how they are (or even might be) significant to oridinary working class people, rather than the small clique of labour lefties currently congratulating themselves?

We now have her maj's official opposition rejecting austerity and openly supporting direct action - the scope for mobilising mass popular opposition to the neoliberal agenda is there. Just look at the victory of the PCS strikers at the National Gallery. That was a product of the combination of their own sacrifice and solidarity, together with (what they acknowledge has been) the shift in the political mood born out of the scale of Corbyn's support.

 

[agricola]

You need to tackle the democratic deficit in this undemocratic state. Will Labour and Corbyn be doing that? Whose talking about sitting on their arse smoking a fucking pipe? I'm an SNP member, not Tory Benn or some fucking beard stroking middle class leftie intellectual. Let's see whose right and whose wrong as Corbyn fails to build anything that will actually win and importantly change life positively for millions like me at the bottom of the pile.

 

[articul8]

does he have to? I think these threads are massively improved without his input tbh.

you don't like being reminded that arguments you pooh-poohed for years have been vindicated.

 

[belboid]

 

[YouSir]

you don't like being reminded that arguments you pooh-poohed for years have been vindicated.

What did you do to bring about the shift to Corbyn?

 

[killer b]

you don't like being reminded that arguments you pooh-poohed for years have been vindicated.

Not at all: I'm delighted I was wrong.

 

[discokermit]

you don't like being reminded that arguments you pooh-poohed for years have been vindicated.

no they haven't. you never saw this coming.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Depends on what you mean by from within. Trying to get anything done within the LP as it has been clearly isn't going anywhere. But I really do want to know what happens when a fuck load of people who don't want Blairite bollocks join en mass.

As I've been sayIng for years, the hardest part of changing the Labour Party is the absence of internal democracy. Corbyn MAY be able to change that enough that the Blairite bollocks is wiped away like the shit-smear it always was. Re-empower the wards and constituencies so that they're not just rubber-stamping diktat from above, and returning a bunch of Progressive arseholes, give them a chance to enforce local needs on local issues, and Labour might win back mass trust nationally.

 

[Smokeandsteam]

no they haven't. you never saw this coming.

None of them did. Corbyn and McDonnell included.

 

[discokermit]

None of them did. Corbyn and McDonnell included.

exactly. so for articul8 to congratulate himself on his foresight is bollocks.

 

[ViolentPanda]

dunno really.

many labour members / activists (as the recent result has shown) are to the left of the parliamentary party - although in some areas, the blairites now outnumber the more 'traditional' labour types.

it's a bit unclear just what power JC is going to give to local parties - he's said there won't be mass re-selection votes. May be more chance of influencing future candidates in a seat that doesn't currently have a labour MP.

although just how blairite MPs will react if the 'sod off' message from their CLP is loud enough remains to be seen.

not sure that many CLPs are big enough to have meetings at ward level any more.

If they are deselected, then the "sod off" message is enforced by national bodies. MPs have the alternative of standing as independents or "crossing the floor", but they would need to be very sure of constituent support to risk that, and most of the Blairites don't have the bottle.