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Labour & Anti-Semitism.

Bernie Gunther said:
Sure. No doubt at all they made a complete hash of dealing with the genuine antisemitism present in their ranks, but now their chances of addressing it are severely hampered by a sort of siege mentality that almost inevitably arises from being dog-piled by all and sundry on the issue.

Clearly many on Labour's left perceive that there is sponsorship or exploitation of the actual attacks along these lines by different groups who are hostile to left politics; whether in support of the Israeli government, or from power struggles with the Labour right, or just from capital doing what it does e.g. via the corporate media.

The lack of any real analytical framework for attribution of such exploitation / sponsorship though, appears to cause any attempt to discuss that wider context to tend to devolve quickly into a binary choice between e.g. "Mossad disinformation op" vs "Antisemitic conspiraloonery"

Hence the stuff from the professional cybersecurity world I was posting a page or two back, where I think there might be some of the tools for a pragmatic analysis of the apparent exploitation and/or sponsorship of this attack line by various groups.

I think that being able to have a sensible conversation about that stuff (or at least not having to pretend that it isn't happening for fear of being called an "antisemitic conspiraloon") is likely to be a critical success factor for dealing with actual anti-semitism.

If they leave a gap there, it will almost certainly get filled by exactly the sort of gibberish that would exacerbate the problem.
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I’m not sure what you would need to prove to put it back in its box. It doesn’t really matter what mischief is afoot if Jewish people are getting abused by Labour supporters as a consequence then the Labour Party has those members who are prone to doing that abusing.
 
Mr Moose said:
I’m not sure what you would need to prove to put it back in its box. It doesn’t really matter what mischief is afoot if Jewish people are getting abused by Labour supporters as a consequence then the Labour Party has those members who are prone to doing that abusing.
Click to expand...

Not really about proving things. Technical attribution of the primary actors in an online influence campaign is really only something that the relevant teams at Twitter, Facebook et. al. the internet infrastructure orgs, the NSA/GCHQ/NCSC and various law enforcement groups have the capability to do with any kind of depth.

It is interesting though, that e.g. in the cases of two Nazis and a professional troll who were done for abusing Luciana Berger online, while technical evidence got these online actors prosecuted, their actual affiliations tended not to support the media narrative claiming that she was being abused by Labour supporters.

So what should we make of media organisations who still talk about that as though they didn't know that half the population of the Daily Stormer was involved via Helm, Bonehill et. al. in a coordinated antisemitic trolling campaign against her and attribute it all to 'Corbyn supporters' and keep repeating that until it becomes the accepted reality?

It makes sense then to separate the primary actors online on both sides of the issue, from the political groups and other organisations who exploit and/or sponsor them.

There are a whole zoo of different primary actors, with different motives and capabilities, on both sides of this issue from what we can see, and from what we can reasonably assume based on other online influence operations, trolling campaigns etc that have been studied.

What I'm talking about above then, and what the papers and interviews with professionals in the field I quoted down-thread is more about, is having an analytical framework for understanding the evidence in the public domain of states, factions within Labour, hostile political and media organisations etc. exploiting Labour's weaknesses in this area and the activities of those primary actors online, in terms a little more nuanced than - Either it's a 'Mossad Op' or it's 'Antisemite conspiraloonery" - like those are the only two possibilities.
 
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butchersapron said:
'Ed' actually set this up btw with his opening up of the leadership votes and membership rules.
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Pure myth.

The stats tell an entirely different story -

In 2015 225k members voted compared with 121k in 2010.

The Affiliate (ie trade union) vote fell from 200k to 71k

The Registered Supporters acounted for only 105k

Corbyn had 49.6% of the existing membership vote on the first round and 57.6% of the Affiliate vote. The Registered Supporters vote merely confirmed the result.

If anyone set this up it was those MPs who decided to nominate a no-hope left candidate as a ploy to tie the not so neoliberal membership to their neoliberal project.
 
19force8 said:
Pure myth.

The stats tell an entirely different story -

In 2015 225k members voted compared with 121k in 2010.

The Affiliate (ie trade union) vote fell from 200k to 71k

The Registered Supporters acounted for only 105k

Corbyn had 49.6% of the existing membership vote on the first round and 57.6% of the Affiliate vote. The Registered Supporters vote merely confirmed the result.

If anyone set this up it was those MPs who decided to nominate a no-hope left candidate as a ploy to tie the not so neoliberal membership to their neoliberal project.
Click to expand...
I know a bit about the actual machinations. Happy to rabbit over a pint but not hear.
 
19force8 said:
Pure myth.

The stats tell an entirely different story -

In 2015 225k members voted compared with 121k in 2010.

The Affiliate (ie trade union) vote fell from 200k to 71k

The Registered Supporters acounted for only 105k

Corbyn had 49.6% of the existing membership vote on the first round and 57.6% of the Affiliate vote. The Registered Supporters vote merely confirmed the result.

If anyone set this up it was those MPs who decided to nominate a no-hope left candidate as a ploy to tie the not so neoliberal membership to their neoliberal project.
Click to expand...
What exactly did you think that i was arguing? What is the myth? What on earth could you challenge about the claim that the collins review took place and the reforms that it it proposed were accepted and put in place under ed milband's leadership? I mean this literally how it starts:

In July of last year following Ed Miliband’s St. Bride’s speech he asked me to conduct a review on how to take forward his aspirations and proposals on further Labour Party reform.
Click to expand...

Where is the myth here?
 
butchersapron said:
What exactly did you think that i was arguing? What is the myth? What on earth could you challenge about the claim that the collins review took place and the reforms that it it proposed were accepted and put in place under ed milband's leadership? I mean this literally how it starts:



Where is the myth here?
Click to expand...
But you didn't just "claim that the collins review took place and the reforms that it it proposed were accepted and put in place under ed milband's leadership" did you?

What you actually said was:
butchersapron said:
'Ed' actually set this up btw with his opening up of the leadership votes and membership rules.
Click to expand...

What are we to understand by "Ed' actually set this up"?

That he somehow foresaw the changes to the leadership election rules would result in the election of the first leftist leader since Michael Foot?

Probably not.

That those changes "actually" lead to the election of Corbyn?

Yeah, I think that's a reasonable interpretation. And that is a myth.

So how could the "opening up of the leadership votes and membership rules" haven resulted in the majority vote for Corbyn on the first round among members and affiliated supporters?

Well the membership rules weren't "opened up." Members joined in 2015 on the same basis as they had before the Collins Review.

The voting rules for affiliated supporters weren't "opened up," they were made considerably tighter by Collins. Hence the 65% reduction in votes.

The only "opening up" was in respect of registered supporters. But since Corbyn already had a majority of members and affiliates it's a bit of a stretch to ascribe his overall victory to registered supporters.

To repeat:

The myth is that the opening up of the voting system resulted in Corbyn's victory. It didn't, but if you go on Facebook or Twitter it's a commonly expressed view that the £3 Tories/Trots/Tankies/Greens/etc were wot won it for Corbyn. They didn't.

The ending of the electoral college did set up a situation where it was possible for a left candidate to win a leadership vote. Because previously the PLP had represented a guaranteed 30% deficit for any left candidate. However, I don't think anybody could have predicted in 2014 what happened in 2015.
 
19force8 said:
But you didn't just "claim that the collins review took place and the reforms that it it proposed were accepted and put in place under ed milband's leadership" did you?

What you actually said was:


What are we to understand by "Ed' actually set this up"?

That he somehow foresaw the changes to the leadership election rules would result in the election of the first leftist leader since Michael Foot?

Probably not.

That those changes "actually" lead to the election of Corbyn?

Yeah, I think that's a reasonable interpretation. And that is a myth.

So how could the "opening up of the leadership votes and membership rules" haven resulted in the majority vote for Corbyn on the first round among members and affiliated supporters?

Well the membership rules weren't "opened up." Members joined in 2015 on the same basis as they had before the Collins Review.

The voting rules for affiliated supporters weren't "opened up," they were made considerably tighter by Collins. Hence the 65% reduction in votes.

The only "opening up" was in respect of registered supporters. But since Corbyn already had a majority of members and affiliates it's a bit of a stretch to ascribe his overall victory to registered supporters.

To repeat:

The myth is that the opening up of the voting system resulted in Corbyn's victory. It didn't, but if you go on Facebook or Twitter it's a commonly expressed view that the £3 Tories/Trots/Tankies/Greens/etc were wot won it for Corbyn. They didn't.

The ending of the electoral college did set up a situation where it was possible for a left candidate to win a leadership vote. Because previously the PLP had represented a guaranteed 30% deficit for any left candidate. However, I don't think anybody could have predicted in 2014 what happened in 2015.
Click to expand...

It still did though because under old system it wasnt one member one vote even ignoring supporters or whatever they called them. It was three constituencies of equal share and that impacted on where support fell.
 
19force8 said:
But you didn't just "claim that the collins review took place and the reforms that it it proposed were accepted and put in place under ed milband's leadership" did you?

What you actually said was:


What are we to understand by "Ed' actually set this up"?

That he somehow foresaw the changes to the leadership election rules would result in the election of the first leftist leader since Michael Foot?

Probably not.

That those changes "actually" lead to the election of Corbyn?

Yeah, I think that's a reasonable interpretation. And that is a myth.

So how could the "opening up of the leadership votes and membership rules" haven resulted in the majority vote for Corbyn on the first round among members and affiliated supporters?

Well the membership rules weren't "opened up." Members joined in 2015 on the same basis as they had before the Collins Review.

The voting rules for affiliated supporters weren't "opened up," they were made considerably tighter by Collins. Hence the 65% reduction in votes.

The only "opening up" was in respect of registered supporters. But since Corbyn already had a majority of members and affiliates it's a bit of a stretch to ascribe his overall victory to registered supporters.

To repeat:

The myth is that the opening up of the voting system resulted in Corbyn's victory. It didn't, but if you go on Facebook or Twitter it's a commonly expressed view that the £3 Tories/Trots/Tankies/Greens/etc were wot won it for Corbyn. They didn't.

The ending of the electoral college did set up a situation where it was possible for a left candidate to win a leadership vote. Because previously the PLP had represented a guaranteed 30% deficit for any left candidate. However, I don't think anybody could have predicted in 2014 what happened in 2015.
Click to expand...

Good lord. 96% of this post is you trying to establish that what my one line throwaway said is 'a myth', then we get to the final 4% and we discover you saying that the reality is exactly what i was suggesting - that voting reforms that took place under ed miliband set up a situation where it was possible for corbyn to win.

I wonder what branch and CLP attendances are like now.
 
butchersapron said:
Good lord. 96% of this post is you trying to establish that what my one line throwaway said is 'a myth', then we get to the final 4% and we discover you saying that the reality is exactly what i was suggesting - that voting reforms that took place under ed miliband set up a situation where it was possible for corbyn to win.

I wonder what branch and CLP attendances are like now.
Click to expand...

our CLP has remained pretty steady - not too many lost to your Black - Orange alliance yet it seems ;)
 
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