Jeremy Corbyn's time is up

[SpackleFrog]

I agree that many on the Left are obsessed with Israel/Palestine. I know the AWL is unpopular - and for good reason, their M.O. had always been to be as insulting as possible and then bleat about 'Unity' but their take on this has been shown to be correct.

The PLP were groping around for a stick to beat Corbyn with and they've found it in AS. This is failure of the Left ecosystem, both within and outside the Labour party.

Are you sure they're correct? They have an article this week claiming that "The Corbyn surge was an anti-semitic purge"; as in the hundreds of thousands of people who joined the Labour party to support Corbyn represented an anti-Semitic purge of the party.

I think you're completely right that the PLP have found a stick to beat Corbyn with in the failings of the left on anti-semitism. I'm just not sure that the AWL are particularly on the money in any of this.

 

[SpackleFrog]

I don't know why the Left need to go on about Palestine & Israel so much anyway.

Yes it's a shit situation.

But it's one of many. Many.

The apparent focus, and it's been one for decades, leaves them wide open for accusations, smears, infiltration and the last as if perspective.

All of which are front and centre right now.

I think trendies like issues that are far away they can moralise about and organise boycotts of fruit. It's one of those issues where you can get away with not talking about class at all.

 

[killer b]

Depends if they can get the boots on the ground again, that made a big difference last time, and Corbyn was a good motivator for this. Round my way they had lots of willing volunteers flyering at rail stations about nationalisation, or outside the school gates with targeted stuff about local effects of cuts on education. I think this was very effective, and the tories simply don’t have the numbers to match this.

I dunno how much difference boots on the ground did make tbh - it was impressive, but the vote went up in places where they did no campaigning too. In Preston (where I am) it went up around 5% with no work at all. In Lancaster (just to the north) they carpet bombed it with flyers and doorknockers - they had hundreds out on the streets on polling day - and it went up... around 5%.

 

[Shechemite]

Fair play to Burgon on this Labour pledges legal aid for inquests into state-related deaths

 

[greenfield]

Are you sure they're correct? They have an article this week claiming that "The Corbyn surge was an anti-semitic purge"; as in the hundreds of thousands of people who joined the Labour party to support Corbyn represented an anti-Semitic purge of the party.

I think you're completely right that the PLP have found a stick to beat Corbyn with in the failings of the left on anti-semitism. I'm just not sure that the AWL are particularly on the money in any of this.

I'm not in AWL (I was, a long time ago). I think that article is written by Martin Smith It's certainly got his slightly idiosyncratic use of language and syntax.

ETA: The article as a whole is pretty good I think, if you can wade through AWL-isms like "kitch left" and also read it knowing that they're fighting for insider status with the leader's office. Because Corbyn and McDonnell used to write for socialist organiser they were sure they'd be involved but they've been left on the outside by people with Tankie politics like Seamus Milne and they're seething.

I still think AWL were right to say there was anti-Semitism on the Left at a time when no one was prepared to talk about it. I remember the StWC, and the fucked up politics as the SWP got chewed up chasing the big time. I also remember the obsession with Israel and everyone wearing black and white interfada scarves.

The sentence you highlighted only makes sense with the rest of the article. The anti-Semitic 'purge' they are talking about is a necessary and inevitable consequence of people joining Labour who were educated in that millieu and before.

 

[SpackleFrog]

I'm not in AWL (I was, a long time ago). I think that article is written by Martin Smith It's certainly got his slightly idiosyncratic use of language and syntax.

ETA: The article as a whole is pretty good I think, if you can wade through AWL-isms like "kitch left" and also read it knowing that they're fighting for insider status with the leader's office. Because Corbyn and McDonnell used to write for socialist organiser they were sure they'd be involved but they've been left on the outside by people with Tankie politics like Seamus Milne and they're seething.

I still think AWL were right to say there was anti-Semitism on the Left at a time when no one was prepared to talk about it. I remember the StWC, and the fucked up politics as the SWP got chewed up chasing the big time. I also remember the obsession with Israel and everyone wearing black and white interfada scarves.

The sentence you highlighted only makes sense with the rest of the article. The anti-Semitic 'purge' they are talking about is a necessary and inevitable consequence of people joining Labour who were educated in that millieu and before.

I think it was an OTT article. I do take your point on that period though, I'm in the SP now and before that I can remember finding it really weird - cut my teeth in Stop the War and was totally bemused by all the pro-Hezbollah chants etc. Have often been accused of being an agent of the Israeli state for refusing to chant "From the river to the sea" and such. But I don't think the AWL have a monopoly on realising that or that their comments on this stuff are particularly measured. Some of the points in that article are correct of course, I just think they see a need to over dramatise which is unfortunate - mirror image of the SWP.

 

[SpineyNorman]

The main thing I've noticed about the AWL is how fucking obnoxious all their members are without exception. It's like they have an antisocial wanker test and you need to score at least 90 percent to join.

 

[greenfield]

I definitely remember that. I was on the NUS NEC and I got bullied by other student officers and also bullied relentlessly by the AWL. I developed mental health issues and that was also taken the piss out of by the then student organiser. It was a horrible time.
On paper their version of democraticd centralismc is more democratic than other left groups, but the internal regime is really bitter. They take pride in being as rude as possible.

 

[LDC]

I don't know why the Left need to go on about Palestine & Israel so much anyway.

Yes it's a shit situation.

But it's one of many. Many.

The apparent focus, and it's been one for decades, leaves them wide open for accusations, smears, infiltration and the last as if perspective.

All of which are front and centre right now.

Halle-fucking-lujah, exactly. Some of the left does have an obsession with it, and this totally breeds all sorts of dodgy politics.

 

[Patteran]

I don't know why the Left need to go on about Palestine & Israel so much anyway.

Yes it's a shit situation.

But it's one of many. Many.

The apparent focus, and it's been one for decades, leaves them wide open for accusations, smears, infiltration and the last as if perspective.

All of which are front and centre right now.

It's a madness. They have been instrumentalised, no doubt, but the truth is the anti-semitism accusations have cut through, & need addressing, need sorting. Just belt up about Palestine for five minutes. Libraries, schools, leisure centres closing all over & the RCG are in town again shouting at Barclays Bank & demanding Saturday shoppers 'Defend Palestine & Fight Imperialism!' Online, that monomaniacal electronic intifada crowd keep typing 'Palestine Lives!' & 'Israel funded' at every defecting Labour MP, doing nothing material for Palestine, but feeding the right wing narrative. Mcr Momentum could do some proper political work around this. Come to Prestwich & set up an open meeting, talk to people who are feeling targeted rightly or wrongly. Do something.

The new membership, the wider left, were supposed to turn Corbyn (plus Abbott & McDonnell) into Corbynism - a wider movement that would protect a vulnerable left leadership from the PLP/media/vested class interests & turn that rare, brief burst of invigorating energy into something tangible, something potentially transformative. Turn the vertical horizontal. Instead, Corbynism & Corbynists seem to have sunk Corbyn. All these members & money could have been running Momentum-branded foodbanks, creches, rights shops, football teams, what have you - instead, to quote an EP Thompson piece that butchersapron posted recently, too many seem keen 'to perform imaginary revolutionary psycho-dramas in which each outbids the other in adopting ferocious verbal postures.' I guess this was always the most likely outcome within the context & confines of the Labour party, but it's still pretty depressing.

 

[butchersapron]

Bang on the money.

 

[Smokeandsteam]

Got a link to the EP Thompson piece please Patteran

 

[butchersapron]

Got a link to the EP Thompson piece please Patteran

It's from The Poverty of Theory

 

[Smokeandsteam]

Ta

 

[Wilf]

It's a madness. They have been instrumentalised, no doubt, but the truth is the anti-semitism accusations have cut through, & need addressing, need sorting. Just belt up about Palestine for five minutes. Libraries, schools, leisure centres closing all over & the RCG are in town again shouting at Barclays Bank & demanding Saturday shoppers 'Defend Palestine & Fight Imperialism!' Online, that monomaniacal electronic intifada crowd keep typing 'Palestine Lives!' & 'Israel funded' at every defecting Labour MP, doing nothing material for Palestine, but feeding the right wing narrative. Mcr Momentum could do some proper political work around this. Come to Prestwich & set up an open meeting, talk to people who are feeling targeted rightly or wrongly. Do something.

The new membership, the wider left, were supposed to turn Corbyn (plus Abbott & McDonnell) into Corbynism - a wider movement that would protect a vulnerable left leadership from the PLP/media/vested class interests & turn that rare, brief burst of invigorating energy into something tangible, something potentially transformative. Turn the vertical horizontal. Instead, Corbynism & Corbynists seem to have sunk Corbyn. All these members & money could have been running Momentum-branded foodbanks, creches, rights shops, football teams, what have you - instead, to quote an EP Thompson piece that butchersapron posted recently, too many seem keen 'to perform imaginary revolutionary psycho-dramas in which each outbids the other in adopting ferocious verbal postures.' I guess this was always the most likely outcome within the context & confines of the Labour party, but it's still pretty depressing.

You put it better, but that's been exactly my take on the failure of Corbyn(ism), particularly the underlined. At one level what you suggest would require them to acquire some new instincts, to become less labourist, less procedural, less bound by the organisation of the party, less social democratic even. But then it also seems so obvious, so much an obvious way of building a movement, a new set of relationships, a way of exceeding the limits of the Labour left from Benn onwards. It's also the most obvious concrete response to the Brexit vote and the reasons for it. Labour would still need to respond to Brexit at the Parliamentary level, but the approach you suggest would transform what and who Labour were responding to/for.

 

[greenfield]

Bang on point

 

[greenfield]

I remember in StWC when I complained about what was going on - in particular the capitulation to homophobia - I was screamed at as "racist". It was very sad really. I think the SWP thought they could use Galloway, the Tankies and Islamists but they ended up warping their own politics and submissively defending the indefensible

 

[Wilf]

I remember in StWC when I complained about what was going on - in particular the capitulation to homophobia - I was screamed at as "racist". It was very sad really. I think the SWP thought they could use Galloway, the Tankies and Islamists but they ended up warping their own politics and submissively defending the indefensible

Bang on too.

 

[butchersapron]

...and you know what, many of the remnant of the chest prodders we had to fight at that time are now in labour via momentum. Doing much the same thing.

 

[Shechemite]

And in a context of (even more) utter despair, misery and fear. Fucking vultures

 

[cantsin]

...and you know what, many of the remnant of the chest prodders we had to fight at that time are now in labour via momentum. Doing much the same thing.

If yr taking about that Galloway ish , pro terf , socially conservative etc element , have seen none of it in Mom- can you point to any examples / links ?

 

[butchersapron]

If yr taking about that Galloway ish , pro terf , socially conservative etc element , have seen none of it in Mom- can you point to any examples / links ?

Less strict on the jew hating.

terf is not even in the fucking game. The socially Conservative part melted away.

The ex-swp, the SP.

You keep asking for stuff over and over - from the start of this beeley stuff and keep saying that you've not seen it. Then it's shown and you say that they need to deal with it, then more happens, then over and over you ask for more evidence etc. You are part of the problem now. You need to wake up.

 

[miktheword]

I think trendies like issues that are far away they can moralise about and organise boycotts of fruit. It's one of those issues where you can get away with not talking about class at all.

I reckon It's also because Lefties can get away with not endangering their own health and safety...you can wear a sandinista scarf all day long and allow all to know about it with no bother; in the working class post industrial area of west London I lived, your politics on Ireland were known and you'd have to defend yourself sometimes against someone who'd grabbed a kitchen knife at a party due to his brother being involved in a nail bomb attack in the 6 counties. A mate with similar politics on Ireland, in Liverpool, owned a bar, knew that every year he'd have to call on serious scouse doormen help whilst the annual Orange parade went past his business on Lord Street, Southport.
Reminds me of my brief foray into student politics and getting ejected after a vote at a university AGM for intimidating a meeting for daring to suggest that those two undercovers who drove into a funeral of Republicans killed by Stoner at a previous funeral, deserved to die. I had to say to the meeting, if you support mandela, Allende, che etc, then you must support Irish liberation. The revolutionary left abstained from the vote to eject me.
Was obviously too close to home for our erstwhile lefties to support, how would they explain that at work or deal with the threat to their health?
It probably wasn't a pre-planned tactic of RA to send potential new recruits to the north of Ireland, but it was certainly effective in sorting the wheat from the chaff the litmus test.

 

[butchersapron]

None of the above has anything at all to with modern uk politics. The idea - - true they through fear of the real life w/c become supporters of the Palestinians as a surrogate w/c as the real one ain't good enough and they are scared of them.

To make clear -this stuff though

 

[cantsin]

Less strict on the jew hating.

terf is not even in the fucking game. The socially Conservative part melted away.

The ex-swp, the SP.

You keep asking for stuff over and over - from the start of this beeley stuff and keep saying that you've not seen it. Then it's shown and you say that they need to deal with it, then more happens, then over and over you ask for more evidence etc. You are part of the problem now. You need to wake up

Less strict on the jew hating.

terf is not even in the fucking game. The socially Conservative part melted away.

The ex-swp, the SP.

You keep asking for stuff over and over - from the start of this beeley stuff and keep saying that you've not seen it. Then it's shown and you say that they need to deal with it, then more happens, then over and over you ask for more evidence etc. You are part of the problem now. You need to wake up.

Yeh, sorry to ask for actual evidence to back up any of the unending torrent of accusations coming from you Tory / Centrist / Anarcho / whatever the fuck anti Lab Left alliance ultras, but if you can just point towards any evidence of these ‘ chest prodders’you’ve decided are now all over Momentum, wld be great, thnx in advance xxx

 

[Shechemite]

Tory / Centrist / Anarcho / whatever the fuck anti Lab Left alliance ultras

Alliance?

 

[cantsin]

It's a madness. They have been instrumentalised, no doubt, but the truth is the anti-semitism accusations have cut through, & need addressing, need sorting. Just belt up about Palestine for five minutes. Libraries, schools, leisure centres closing all over & the RCG are in town again shouting at Barclays Bank & demanding Saturday shoppers 'Defend Palestine & Fight Imperialism!' Online, that monomaniacal electronic intifada crowd keep typing 'Palestine Lives!' & 'Israel funded' at every defecting Labour MP, doing nothing material for Palestine, but feeding the right wing narrative. Mcr Momentum could do some proper political work around this. Come to Prestwich & set up an open meeting, talk to people who are feeling targeted rightly or wrongly. Do something.

The new membership, the wider left, were supposed to turn Corbyn (plus Abbott & McDonnell) into Corbynism - a wider movement that would protect a vulnerable left leadership from the PLP/media/vested class interests & turn that rare, brief burst of invigorating energy into something tangible, something potentially transformative. Turn the vertical horizontal. Instead, Corbynism & Corbynists seem to have sunk Corbyn. All these members & money could have been running Momentum-branded foodbanks, creches, rights shops, football teams, what have you - instead, to quote an EP Thompson piece that butchersapron posted recently, too many seem keen 'to perform imaginary revolutionary psycho-dramas in which each outbids the other in adopting ferocious verbal postures.' I guess this was always the most likely outcome within the context & confines of the Labour party, but it's still pretty depressing.

All perfectly sensible /insightful stuff ( though not particularly accurate IRl terms - eg : have literally never heard of a local Momentum branch doing any public facing Palestinian campaigning - just lots of targettrd campaigning for Lab candidates / MPs in marginal seats etc ) but quick question : what do you do, week to week, yr to yr, in political terms ?

Fair play if IWCA style /community activism involving " foodbanks, creches, rights shops, football teams, what have you" is yr bag , but it wasn't what Momentum was supposed to be about , and no one ever pretended it was.

Building ' a movement' outside of the narrow confines of the parliamentary dumpster fire , in workplaces / communities / the streets, should have been a main focus for Momentum ... but can't see that happening for now, with hnhngs as a they are.

but also can't see anyone else getting near to helping build such ' a movement ' at the moment, despite lots of talk, and a fertile political landscape : so not sure this is just about Momentum / Corbynista shortcomings ( of which there are many, no doubt )

 

[cantsin]

Alliance?

Fucking feels like it recently

 

[HoratioCuthbert]

I think trendies like issues that are far away they can moralise about and organise boycotts of fruit. It's one of those issues where you can get away with not talking about class at all.

Its shit that it’s like that because many of us (working class people) get involved because, though we may be shit at *talking* confidently about class politics ourselves, we recognise a shared struggle with Palestinians, and realise that what is happening to them could happen anywhere. And yeah, we don’t have many avenues locally to express stuff like this- at least not ones that are led by people we can trust. What’s even more annoying is that seasoned activists- and it’s happened to me on here just for supporting trans folks- write us off as middle class just for putting a word wrong. If class politics is fucked in this country, many here are a part of that by relying of daft stereotypes of the WC as well. So threads like this piss me off cause they think by saying oh Palestine is hardly important will instantly win WC people over. Nah, we don’t all think how you think we do.

 

[sunnysidedown]

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