Jeremy Corbyn's time is up

[binka]

Just seems like a really stupid thing to do, if he's really deleted his facebook at this particular moment and with no explanation, like something you'd do in a huff as a teenager. Especially after explicitly saying he wouldn't, last week.

That article says 'our account' so not his personal one

 

[bimble]

That article says 'our account' so not his personal one

True. Still think its a pretty stupid moment to do this, with no explanation. As you say maybe he should've done it ages ago.

 

[binka]

True. Still think its a pretty stupid moment to do this, with no explanation. As you say maybe he should've done it ages ago.

Can't see any benefit to any high profile politician have a personal FB account, just asking for trouble

 

[rekil]

Hell Urban75 has a large, experienced mod and admin team who aren't shy with the thread lock and a fairly stable, large community of people who enforce a culture of making bigots feel unwelcome, but it still has its moments. If you took a few months to go through its back catalogue for dodgy comments you could find all sorts of quotes.

This thread from a while back, a mish mash of anti-semitic tropes, scientific racism and anti-Irish weirdness which gets duly ripped apart by posters. Jewish Intellectualism

The OP featured a link from a loon site which contains stories like this



and videos like this on its yt channel.

 

[bimble]

I think this place is very unusual in the way people here don’t give conspiracists a chance. Most of the internet (seems to me) you’re only ever two clicks away from full on holocaust denier level loons.

 

[Wilf]

I don't really see it as that big a thing. In fact I'm surprised he didn't do it on becoming leader and just having an official one run by someone who knows what they're doing.

It's a big thing in a general sense as it looks like he's doing the same thing idiots/sexists/racists and the rest do, at the point they are caught out. As Bimble said above his timing is crass - it adds to the story.

 

[J Ed]

Chris Williamson defending out and out anti-Semite @SocialistVoice



Depressing.

 

[binka]

It's a big thing in a general sense as it looks like he's doing the same thing idiots/sexists/racists and the rest do, at the point they are caught out. As Bimble said above his timing is crass - it adds to the story.

I just don't see this being see as a big story by anyone, most will just see it as a sensible step. Even the mail in their main labour anti-semitism story only give it a passing mention at the very end

 

[Wilf]

I've only skimmed the reports Bimble posted up, so I'm still not quite sure 'how bad' some of stuff he has fellow travelled with/sat on a facebook page with/not challenged/whatever. Equally, I'm not a fan of parliamentary politics or for that matter the 'rules' you have to play by in that game. Same time, whilst I'm also not an actual Corbyn fan, one of the things I've been mildly impressed with is that he hasn't gone into full on low risk politics + high and mighty 'leader mode', since he won the leadership. But this is part of the downside of that. I'm sure he's been told that it would be best to sort out his social media history and he's had plenty of warning about how these stories play out (all the linkages to 'terrorism' the press have tried to make for example). He must have known for what, 18 months that he was vulnerable over his apparent membership of these facebook groups. At the very least he should have chosen a quiet moment to delete his personal account, wrapped up in perhaps some attempt to say he was relaunching the party's social media presence. A mixture of naivety and principal? But maybe another reminder that if you want to play the parliamentary leader game, you can't actually do it as you would when a backbench rebel.

 

[Wilf]

I just don't see this being see as a big story by anyone, most will just see it as a sensible step. Even the mail in their main labour anti-semitism story only give it a passing mention at the very end

Ignoring the substance of the issue and just focusing on it as an unfolding issue - something he/the party has to deal with: I don't think it reduces down to how long the story runs and with how many e-column inches, it's about the extent to which it emboldens the Labour right to kick the whole civil war off again.

 

[binka]

Ignoring the substance of the issue and just focusing on it as an unfolding issue - something he/the party has to deal with: I don't think it reduces down to how long the story runs and with how many e-column inches, it's about the extent to which it emboldens the Labour right to kick the whole civil war off again.

I know what you're getting at but while stuff like the Chris Williamson tweet above is going on then Corbyn deleting his private Facebook is pretty irrelevant to keeping the story going

 

[bimble]

Chris Williamson MP, what a mess, when proved totally wrong he had a chance to say oh I didn't know that instead goes for 'but he apologised give him a chance'.

 

[Vintage Paw]

Chris Williamson MP, what a mess, when proved totally wrong he had a chance to say oh I didn't know that instead goes for 'but he apologised give him a chance'.

He's got the potential to be a great MP but he's far too deep into that conspiratorial left mindset. What a fucking twat.

And today, when Momentum have put out a good statement - he should take their fucking lead.

 

[bimble]

that's really good.

 

[Knotted]

Just what's needed, I think. I do like the bit about exploring partnerships with external organisations for training and awareness. No JLM instruction classes.

 

[Smokeandsteam]

Chris Williamson MP, what a mess, when proved totally wrong he had a chance to say oh I didn't know that instead goes for 'but he apologised give him a chance'.

And relies on meaningless tropes ‘for the many not the few’ ‘the Tories are evil’ as the justification for his apologia for anti semites

 

[mojo pixy]

Just had a conversation with a work colleague who I know is an old-fashioned lefty and quite active politically, he brought up this antisemitism row as evidence that to him Corbyn is being unfairly attacked by all and sundry. I tried to get him to see twhat the actual problem is, he claimed he has never seen any evidence of antisemitism in his experience of The Left. Literally never seen any. I left it at, Well perhaps you haven't been looking, because I like the guy and I have to work with him. But ffs

 

[kenny g]

That momentum statement does the job. Antisemitism is a pernicious prejudice - the nile is not just a river in Africa.

 

[Bernie Gunther]

What’s the vector for this antisemitism?

I can see an obvious one via the conspiraloon milieu that fucked Occupy.

There’s another via some elements of Palestinian solidarity.

Is there anything organic to Labour itself?

 

[Vintage Paw]

I understand the defensive attitude, the batten-down-the-hatches stance. It's perfectly understandable. Corbyn has been relentlessly attacked, every single member who supports him has been branded as this or that, and the distinctly lukewarm social democracy that represents the best chance at moving discourse leftwards has been undermined and attacked at every turn. So I understand the defensiveness.

But it's not good enough. I don't know how you break through that mindset to make people realise that yes, the attacks happen towards the left and yes the right is scared and yes there are smears and outright lies in some instances, BUT none of that is an excuse for legitimising bigotry of any kind and for absolute fuck's sake get your head out of your arse.

The only thing that can be done is what's happening now: the leadership make it clear, Momentum make it clear, the 'leading voices' make it clear, and individual activists keep making the point in online and offline spaces even if there's pushback. It's not going to suddenly click with everyone all at once, it's a long fucking job and no, it isn't helped by the fact that there are smear jobs and there is constant undermining of Corbyn and the left more generally and it does feel like you're endlessly with your back against the wall flailing outwards at the undending barrage of shit they keep flinging. If the right of the party were actually intelligent I'd say this is the sort of situation they were engineering from the beginning. Certainly they want to demoralise as many activists as possible so they can slowly exert control again. I'm not sure that you can fashion a membership that is entirely free of this conspiranoid thinking, but you make it clear, every day, every time you encounter it, that not only is it counter-productive it's actually the antithesis of everything the left (as such as there is a 'left') is meant to be.

It is fucking demoralising, but if you give up what's the point in any of it?

 

[Bernie Gunther]

As an attack line, I think the entire point is to make principled activists give up.

 

[Corax]

At the very least he should have chosen a quiet moment to delete his personal account, wrapped up in perhaps some attempt to say he was relaunching the party's social media presence.

I disagree.

If I was a politician, no matter how advised, I would refuse to do so. If there was anything that needed to be apologised for, I would (at least be ready to) do so. To delete it would be an act of dishonesty though.

I want to see that kind of behaviour in my representatives too.

 

[Corax]

He's got the potential to be a great MP but he's far too deep into that conspiratorial left mindset. What a fucking twat.

And today, when Momentum have put out a good statement - he should take their fucking lead.

I really rather like that statement.

I just haven't made my mind up about 'Momentum' at this point - I don't know enough to do so.

 

[Corax]

There’s another via some elements of Palestinian solidarity.

Rather than just elements within Palestinian Solidarity, I would imagine that some of it comes about by the reaction to Palestinian Solidarity.

x - Free Palestine!
y - You're an anti-semite!
x - What? No I'm not.
y - Yes you are, this is the stuff you lot believe [see attached]
x - No I don't! (Although actually, some of that kinda makes some sense...)

And so on.

Pure speculation of course, but I can imagine myself as x and getting suckered down that road.

 

[Vintage Paw]

I really rather like that statement.

I just haven't made my mind up about 'Momentum' at this point - I don't know enough to do so.

Momentum is a great idea in terms of mobilising and coordinating campaigning and holding training sessions - all of which it has done and continues to do. Its membership are almost as diverse as that of the LP in general ('almost' because you're not going to find Progress arseholes there, but neither is it the preserve of the farthest left alone), so you'll have some cranks, but you'll have a majority of regular LP members of all ages. The best way to think of it is as a base of operations for getting activists out. If you think of all the enthusiasm you see online from people who support the current direction of the LP, Momentum helps harness that in ways that your average CLP hasn't been able to do. I'm sure on a local case-by-case basis many branches of it are empty, don't do much, or are holding pens for the more annoying elements out there (frankly like some CLPs), but nationally its organisational ability is a boon for the party and the new ways successful campaigns have to operate these days.

 

[Knotted]

What’s the vector for this antisemitism?

I can see an obvious one via the conspiraloon milieu that fucked Occupy.

There’s another via some elements of Palestinian solidarity.

Is there anything organic to Labour itself?

The nationalism inherent in social democracy.

 

[Vintage Paw]

Labour MPs are currently retweeting Guido Fawkes, in a massive self-own exercise. GF had a 'scoop' that Corbyn spent yesterday evening with Jewdas, the evil leftwing group (no mention that they are a Jewish group) that hates capitalism and criticises Israel. Further evidence that Corbyn is the actual worst.

In fact, Corbyn was invited to join the group - who are his constituents - for their seder, and reports from those there said it was a beautiful evening.

Cue Labour MPs jumping straight on the bandwagon (retweeting Guido for absolute fuck's sake), Luke Akhurst suggesting there are good jews and bad jews and Corbyn chose to spend time with the bad ones, Oakeshot on the news saying "you only have to see their name, Jewdas" ...

They've jumped the shark this time.

 

[Vintage Paw]

Short thread on the debacle:

 

[Bernie Gunther]

The nationalism inherent in social democracy.

How does that work then?

 

[andysays]

Labour MPs are currently retweeting Guido Fawkes, in a massive self-own exercise. GF had a 'scoop' that Corbyn spent yesterday evening with Jewdas, the evil leftwing group (no mention that they are a Jewish group) that hates capitalism and criticises Israel. Further evidence that Corbyn is the actual worst.

In fact, Corbyn was invited to join the group - who are his constituents - for their seder, and reports from those there said it was a beautiful evening.

Cue Labour MPs jumping straight on the bandwagon (retweeting Guido for absolute fuck's sake), Luke Akhurst suggesting there are good jews and bad jews and Corbyn chose to spend time with the bad ones, Oakeshot on the news saying "you only have to see their name, Jewdas" ...

They've jumped the shark this time.

This is now the lead story on the BBC website.

Whatever the rights and wrongs of it, Corbyn might have done better to politely refuse the invitation. If he goes to dinner with the Chief Rabbi right now he'll be attacked for using the wrong fork to eat his smoked salmon.