Corbyn and Labour - what next?

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

When you have a distinct number of Labour MPs, allied to just about every political commentator / journalist just brazenly making shit up without question then it will never be anything but ashow.

This is a direct exchange on the radio last week between a proper journalist and Luciana Berger, one of the leading campaigners against Corbyn

This is the sort of thing that every leader of the Labour party is going to be confronted with. The Only way to get around it is to have a strong, clear, reasoned and logical position, that you express forcefully. This is the sort of bullshit that thrives in a vacuum. For Instance we had three or four days of nonsense about adopting in total that set of anti-semitism guidelines, before anyone pointed out that the reason that things were omitted was that parts of it weren't legally tight enough to expel someone, and would be open to legal challenge, and that this was made clear in the definition itself. That was a really good reason, but it took ages to explain, and allowed people run riot for ages.

The People who lead the Labour Party have simply got to take for granted that the Media are going to come up with this sort of bullshit all the time. They need to be prepared, and be capable of immediately dealing with the situation. It should not be hard for a political party that had a jewish leader until 2015 to show that it is obviously opposed to Anti-Semitism. The whole fiasco left me with the impression not that the Labour party was a party uniquely ridden with Anti-Semites, but that they were incompetent.

[The Awesome Berbaslug!!!]

This is why Labour are fucking idiotic. Why? Because ultimately, the majoritan push for a majority labour government which underpins the deeply conservative constitutional politics Labour have hamstrung themselves with for nearly 100 years.

Yeah, it's just a meaningless mush, that shifts rightwards with the political centre ground, to the point where maoist-leninist labour wind up promising to only raises income taxes on the top 5%.

[Moonlight Shadow]

The problem is that Labour has policies which are tame enough to seduce the public at large, nothing particularly new but the majority of their core policies poll very well. This should be what the media should be made to concentrate on, alas Labour has also all kinds of fringe players going all "The revolution is coming" in particular attention-seeking chancers like Bastani and they end up being portrayed as the true face of Labour thus scaring away all kind of potential voters.

[johnr]

When you have a distinct number of Labour MPs, allied to just about every political commentator / journalist just brazenly making shit up without question then it will never be anything but ashow.

This is a direct exchange on the radio last week between a proper journalist and Luciana Berger, one of the leading campaigners against Corbyn

This is the sort of thing that every leader of the Labour party is going to be confronted with. The Only way to get around it is to have a strong, clear, reasoned and logical position, that you express forcefully. This is the sort of bullshit that thrives in a vacuum. For Instance we had three or four days of nonsense about adopting in total that set of anti-semitism guidelines, before anyone pointed out that the reason that things were omitted was that parts of it weren't legally tight enough to expel someone, and would be open to legal challenge, and that this was made clear in the definition itself. That was a really good reason, but it took ages to explain, and allowed people run riot for ages.

The People who lead the Labour Party have simply got to take for granted that the Media are going to come up with this sort of bullshit all the time. They need to be prepared, and be capable of immediately dealing with the situation. It should not be hard for a political party that had a jewish leader until 2015 to show that it is obviously opposed to Anti-Semitism. The whole fiasco left me with the impression not that the Labour party was a party uniquely ridden with Anti-Semites, but that they were incompetent.

There was indeed a lot of incompetence around. A part of that - and here, I'm afraid, is where 'leadership' can exist in the staff as well as the MPs - was that the previous General Secretary and his team seemed to dislike much of the new influx of members/ideas. That's fair enough, of course, but it does mean that lines of accountability/explanation have tended to be slow, particularly in the midst of a whole bunch of elections. It's messy, this democracy stuff.

[johnr]

This is why Labour are fucking idiotic. Why? Because ultimately, the majoritan push for a majority labour government which underpins the deeply conservative constitutional politics Labour have hamstrung themselves with for nearly 100 years.

I get your point - one of the reasons I voted for Lucas in 2010 was her support for PR, and fwiw I've tried to push for discussions on it locally and via the Democracy Review. My caveat is that I'm still not sure whether PR is as 'progressive' as its supporters like to think. I want a radical political change (far greater than Labour are proposing) and I'm not sure PR could/would deliver that. However, there's probably another thread for that in the back end of OTF for that debate.

[ad hoc]

This: https://www.theguardian.com/commenti...-labour-brexit

[johnr]

He's right, though worth noting that it'd be the same position that Corbyn/Labour took last time. (As a BTW, I think the article is presuming that there will be a Ref where the question would be May's deal versus Remain, which is no means certain)

[E10 Rifle]

Well, that's the thing. There's a whole lot about a second referendum (its timescale, its ballot questions, its consequences) that don't get discussed much by those shouting most loudly for a second referendum, which I wouldn't be averse to – it's just that it's a whole lot riskier than a lot of people are making out. How I envy some people their certainty.

[anton pulisov]

Surely the main reason to support PR is not because of the political change it might deliver, but simply because it is more democratic

[ad hoc]

Woohoo, E10 is back!