I’m not convinced. He has form.
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He's a deep-rooted misogynist, a Saudi apologist, a creep, and a lickspittle - but surely he's not stupid or reckless enough to do that after he has been selected. Surely.
By the way, this fella should never got to be a candidate in 2017 either.Comment
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Fuck it, I know we're meant to be supporting Labour in the by-election, but do we really want him as a Labour MP?Comment
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No to both as far as I'm concerned.Comment
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If you don't support the direction Starmer is taking Labour in, your best option is not to vote Labour. The Tory right got what they wanted when they voted for the Brexit party en masse.Comment
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They won't even get a reply, will they?Comment
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Is there any prospect of a, dunno what really, some alternative left-wing party being set up? Or is this fantasy/pie in the sky thinking?Comment
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Not in the short to medium term, as far as I can see. Lots of reasons people will give you. It's not that no-one has tried. But in the end everyone collapses back into the shitheap that is Labour.Comment
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Is there evidence that it is Starmer himself who is taking the party in this direction?
From this distance, he looks much more like flotsam being carried on a centrist wave rather than someone seeking to mould the party in his imageComment
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He seems to be carefully trying to cultivate an impression of himself as not having any politics. I can imagine that looking, from afar, as if he is some hapless fool carried on the tide of events. I'm not sure how true or otherwise that is.Comment
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His permanently startled expression and rather wooden delivery do make him look like he's the passenger in the car rather than the driver, but he must have some idea of where he wants to go. He doesn't strike me as stupid or without a strategic brain but he's definitely hard to read.Comment
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For the purposes of voting in May, I don't think it matters whether Labour's current positioning is that of Starmer personally, or those who he is listening to. I guess if it's the latter, there may be even more reason not to vote for Labour as it might get him to stop listening to them. Getting rid of him as leader would be more difficult.Comment
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Well I'd not be giving Labour any votes in May. Makes no odds whatever, except in the list vote for the GLA (the last time we'll have that, if the Tories get their way). So I'll need to check out the Greens list, see if their likely winner candidates are supportable.Comment
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Well our old friend Sharar Ali is fifth on the list sadly. The first four are excellent though, and I'd be very surprised if we get more than 3 to be honest.Comment
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Can I vote for a party that has that filth on its list? Yeah he won't win a seat, but.Comment
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Getting rid of Starmer at the moment would probably usher in someone who's much more of a True Believer of the Labour right rather than the weather-vane that is the current leader. The left's still reasonably strong numerically in the party but it has little toehold in the key parts of the bureaucracyComment
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What is the plan, now?Comment
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They may want David miliband but they need to hold onto the youth vote- which is being targeted by the fash-adjacent cultural dogwhistle stuff
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So anyway, here's a small story from close to (well, actually from) home that illustrates where things are.
There's a council by-election due on 6 May in a nearby ward, at which my other half stood in 2018, upping the Labour vote but not doing enough to topple the Tory incumbents (who also upped their vote due to the colllapsed centre of the Corbyn years).
Well placed and sufficiently experienced to have a crack at the seat again when the by-election came up, she duly tossed her name in again, but - despite already having been admitted to the local government candidate panel three years ago (and also having stood for Labour back in 2008) - they made her reapply, go through an interview process before rejecting her. The regional panel - which, against all procedure, included the actual leader of the local Labour group and council - cited a couple of retweets in supporting of a local Special Educational Needs campaign that had been mildly at odds with the council as an example of "lack of judgment".
She duly appealed, citing the various procedural failings of the process (such as the fact that the CLP's women's officer was supposed to be on her interview panel but hadn't even been told about it), and a fairer, more pluralistic appeal panel reinstated her.
So she went forward for the selection meeting before ward members last week, but lost by one vote to a less experienced but more amenable-to-the-leadership candidate. Fair and square and all the rest of it, although the fact that three people who would have voted for her in the ward are currently suspended on spurious grounds also proved decisive.
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They really want to burn it all down
https://twitter.com/annaturley/status/1373606566084153344?s=21
Labour is now more dependent on union funding than under Corbyn.
the trouble with the likes of the shenanigans above is that those amenable to the leadership are generally terrible representatives yseful only for some Southwark type corruption.
apologies to your partner. What a wasteComment
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It also flags up a weakness of the Corbyn years. Too much of the left didn't think local government was an area worth bothering with, whereas in reality it's absolutely key, enabling the Right to retain control of much of the local authority machinery across the country, and giving them a power base that's proved ever more useful to them.
Winning Party Conference votes and GC delegates and CLP motions wasn't as important, but it's where a lot of the energy wentComment
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Really I saw great initiatives- like the preston model -but as far as i could see most Labour councils represented the worst of the anti-Corbyn opposistionComment
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