Jeremy Corbyn - Not Not Labour Party(?), not a Communist (BBC)

It's cognitive dissonance.

Terrible government, unpopular PM, country divided, party even more divided. Public services on their knees, absolutely no Brexit plan and stumbling between one day to the next like a drunk on a stag to. 39% in the polls. "Look at this shower, they're a disgrace"

Opposition leader against a terrible government, an unpopular PM, country divided and party of government even more divided. Public services on their knees, government with absolutely no Brexit plana nd stumbling between one day to the next like a drunk on a pub crawl. 39% in the polls. "Objectively they're doing quite well"

That's the Corbyn paradox in a nutshell.

My fear is that not only is there a lack of interest in Labour ever really becoming a credible alternative government, but that we're slowly moving to a place where we're told that we're being stupid if we even expect them to try. And we've come close. The whole 'losing an election is the same as winning and election' and 'opposition parties are supposed to only make tiny incremental gains in mid-term council elections, dummy!' things we've been spoon-fed and accused of being "Tories" and "traitors" if we question it.
 
Oscie said:
It's cognitive dissonance.

Terrible government, unpopular PM, country divided, party even more divided. Public services on their knees, absolutely no Brexit plan and stumbling between one day to the next like a drunk on a stag to. 39% in the polls. "Look at this shower, they'e a disgrace"

Opposition leader against a terrible government, an unpopular PM, country divided and party of government even more divided. Public services on their knees, government with absolutely no Brexit plana nd stumbling between one day to the next like a drunk on a pub crawl. 39% in the polls. "Objectively they're doing quite well"

That's the Corbyn paradox in a nutshell.
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Do you actually read any posts you respond to? I don't mean this to come across as obtuse or as a dick - I'm genuinely asking because I'm literally outlining reasons as to why the polls are as they are right now, and why it's not so simple for Labour to move ahead in them.

I want Corbyn to take a more pro-Europe stance. Indeed I don't think it helps that even if he's privately for a soft Brexit that he's publicly evasive about what he really thinks. But the general public support for Brexit demonstrates that taking a stance which supports freedom of movement and close association with the EU is controversial and divisive. I'd like the opposition leader to try and turn the tide against that, but it's not particularly simple, or as easy as you suggest.

I'm genuinely interested in what your approach would be? And how that would avoid alienating Labour supporters who voted for Brexit?
 
Cheesy said:
I didn't say they're doing brilliantly - just that they aren't in a 'diabolical' situation. Which is objective fact. Certainly they've been in much worse situations under Corbyn early on in his tenure.

Ideally they'd be ahead of the Tories but part of the problem with the current political climate of the country is that with anti-immigration and pro-Brexit sentiment being overtly against Brexit and for immigration isn't going to lead to a massive boost in the polls. Of course, ideally Labour would be helping to go against the tide of Brexit with the aim of swaying those sentiments, but it's not a particularly easy task and even with the unpopularity of this government, winning against them isn't necessarily easy while they placate the hard-right.
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doesn't make sense in any way
 
Trending on Twitter or being an "absolute boi" isn't the definition of a politician doing well. He doesn't win elections, he isn't capable of landing a single blow on the worst PM in living memory, yet we're told that he's an "absolute boi" because he's currently trending on social media just beneath people talking about capes. He's not Dave from the chippy getting on the background of a Sky Sports News report on transfer deadline day. He's the leader of the Labour party.

And here's the point where everyone accuses me of being condescending but it's for these reasons that I don't think his supporters fully realise what politics is or understand what it's supposed to be.

It isn't this:

B8n5Z56IAAAcWJb.jpg:large
 
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Synco said:
I have no problem with that perception when it comes to that type of anti-Zionism.

I'm well aware Clarke and Meyer have very different backgrounds. I was comparing the strategy of saying "It can't be antisemitic because a Jew said it too" to the strategy of "It can't be racist because black people are saying it too." That claim was the gist of the posts I quoted.

I also can't see that holding what's essentially a counter-protest to Holocaust Memorial Day, including comparisons of Zionist Jews to Nazis*, is "fighting against oppression". We're at a point where even the admission something like this is at least problematic - basically what Corbyn has done in his apology, regardless if honest or just PR - seems too much to ask from some.


*assuming Meyer has done this there, as it has been one of his main points for years
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You're still equivalating a man who fought against oppression and is currently being proven even more right by the way with these new racist laws Israel is bringing in to someone who does the opposite. It's problematic trying to shut people like Meyer up and using his supposed racism as an excuse.
 
Shamwow said:
You're still equivalating a man who fought against oppression and is currently being proven even more right by the way with these new racist laws Israel is bringing in to someone who does the opposite.
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Their cases are comparable insofar as their public activism includes propagating harmful inaccuracies, giving fuel to the enemies of Afro-Americans/Jews, and that their activism is rightfully rejected by the vast majority of people of the group they are associated with.* The supposed credibility of their content is crucially based on their ethnicity by their endorsers (and, in Meyer's case, his history as a Holocaust survivor), which is used as a reversed ad hominem argument, so to say. Clarke's popularity and reach has been way higher, of course. As for their respective personal reasons (they likely differ), it's impossible to say from the outside, and I won't engage in speculation.

*I'm aware Meyer has died in 2014, present tense is for readability
Shamwow said:
It's problematic trying to shut people like Meyer up and using his supposed racism as an excuse.
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There's an important difference between not promoting someone's views (in British Parliament, on Holocaust Memorial Day) and shutting someone up.

As for the notion that event is correctly characterized with "fighting oppression", I have already written something in the post you quoted, perhaps you could address it:
I also can't see that holding what's essentially a counter-protest to Holocaust Memorial Day, including comparisons of Zionist Jews to Nazis, is "fighting against oppression". We're at a point where even the admission something like this is at least problematic - basically what Corbyn has done in his apology, regardless if honest or just PR - seems too much to ask from some.
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Synco said:
As for the notion that event is correctly characterized with "fighting oppression", I have already written something in the post you quoted, perhaps you could address it:
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What is Holocaust memorial day for if not to learn the lessons of the holocaust? These have sadly been forgotten by much of Israel and it's supporters, so this was the perfect day to hold the talk.
 
Mozza said:
What is Holocaust memorial day for if not to learn the lessons of the holocaust? These have sadly been forgotten by much of Israel and it's supporters, so this was the perfect day to hold the talk.
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One lesson would be not to misuse the remembrance of the Holocaust, of all things, for an anti-Zionist agenda like yours. If you don't understand what's the basic problem with that, then I can't help you.
 
Synco said:
One lesson would be not to misuse the remembrance of the Holocaust, of all things, for an anti-Zionist agenda like yours. If you don't understand what's the basic problem with that, then I can't help you.
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Why's it an 'agenda' to criticise Israel for their actions?
 
Synco said:
One lesson would be not to misuse the remembrance of the Holocaust, of all things, for an anti-Zionist agenda like yours. If you don't understand what's the basic problem with that, then I can't help you.
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I'm pretty sure you already know that Meyer was in a concentration camp(I think it might have been two camps), he's had every right to talk about the holocaust in whatever context he wanted to and it's the duty of idiots like us to listen to him.
 
Synco said:
I wrote "anti-Zionist agenda", which is something else. Criticism can be fair and justified or based on distortions.
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Surely anti-Zionism is, generally speaking, going to correlate with criticism of Israel?
 
This might be the one of the worst goverments but they still have considerable backing by brexit voters, backing that has little to nothing to do with their performance.

It's amusing to read complaints that a slim lead isn't enough from those who at the same time want Labour to go full on anti-brexit. You can care about one or the other but noth both.
 
Cheesy said:
Surely anti-Zionism is, generally speaking, going to correlate with criticism of Israel?
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It is the idea that Israel should not exist as a Jewish state. Which under any realistic premise means: not exist at all.
Sweet Square said:
I'm pretty sure you already know that Meyer was in a concentration camp(I think it might have been two camps), he's has every right to talk about the holocaust in whatever context he wanted to. And really it's the duty of idiots like us to listen to him.
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No dissent in general, but it's more complicated than that: It's safe to say Meyer was an absolute outlier among Holocaust survivors with his views, but when it's only him that draws interest of a group of non-Jews there is something more afoot.

So it's what he said that made him interesting to the organizers, not the will to give Holocaust survivors a platform and just listen. If that would have been the aspiration that day, the panel could have been more, erm, representative of what Jews who survived the Holocaust have to say in 2010. I'm sure there would have been plenty of possibilities to find people who'd like to speak. But that was obviously not the purpose.
 
Synco said:
It is the idea that Israel should not exist as a Jewish state. Which under any realistic premise means: not exist at all.

No dissent in general, but it's more complicated than that: It's safe to say Meyer was an absolute outlier among Holocaust survivors with his views, but when it's only him that draws interest of a group of non-Jews there is something more afoot.

So it's what he said that made him interesting to the organizers, not the will to give Holocaust survivors a platform and just listen. If that would have been the aspiration that day, the panel could have been more, erm, representative of what Jews who survived the Holocaust have to say in 2010. I'm sure there would have been plenty of possibilities to find people who'd like to speak. But that was obviously not the purpose.
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Holocaust Survivors Condemn Israel for 'Gaza Massacre,' Call for Boycott

https://www.haaretz.com/holocaust-survivors-condemn-israel-for-gaza-massacre-1.5260588

In response to Elie Wiesel advertisement comparing Hamas to Nazis, 327 Jewish Holocaust survivors and descendants publish New York Times ad accusing Israel of 'ongoing massacre of the Palestinian people.'
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Sweet Square said:
Holocaust Survivors Condemn Israel for 'Gaza Massacre,' Call for Boycott

https://www.haaretz.com/holocaust-survivors-condemn-israel-for-gaza-massacre-1.5260588
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One remark: The actual number of signatories of that latter who survived the Holocaust is 44. I don't know how many survivors were still alive in 2014, but I'm sure that group was indeed a small minority. The number of 327 adds them and hundreds of descendants together. It was often reported falsely back then (although Haaretz didn't do that).

(Here's the list from the organizers: http://www.ijan.org/projects-campaigns/nafa/survivors-and-descendants-letter/ )

If you read "an absolute outlier among Holocaust survivors" as "there was no one else", that's of course not what I meant.
 
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Silva said:
What percentage of holocaust survivors have to agree before something stops being antisemitic?
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Read the original post from @Sweet Square (#10555) and my response (#10559) that started this particular discussion. Then you'll know why your question has little to do with what we talked about.

To answer it anyway: There is no quantifiable correlation, but you know that.
 
I know that there are strong concerns about Labour’s new code on antisemitism. We embraced the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition in 2016. Many Jewish organisations and others believe the Labour party should also reproduce in our code all 11 examples appended to it.

Our code is a good faith attempt to contextualise those examples and make them legally watertight for use as part of our disciplinary procedures, as well as to draw on additional instances of antisemitism.

Seven of the IHRA examples were incorporated word-for-word. And I believe the essence of the other four have also been captured.

But I acknowledge that most of the Jewish community, including many Labour supporters, take a different view. The community should have been consulted more extensively at an earlier stage – which is why our executive decided last month to reopen the development of the code in consultation with Jewish community organisations and others to address their concerns.

Our actual differences are in fact very small – they really amount to half of one example out of 11, touching on free speech in relation to Israel. It is unfortunately the case that this particular example, dealing with Israel and racism, has sometimes been used by those wanting to restrict criticism of Israel that is not antisemitic. The Commons home affairs committee acknowledged this risk when it looked at the IHRA examples.

But I feel confident that this outstanding issue can be resolved through dialogue with community organisations, including the Jewish Labour Movement, during this month’s consultation.
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https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/aug/03/jeremy-corbyn-antisemitism-labour-party

It is quite meaningless (I don't believe a dialogue is going to resolve anything between 2 very fixed and opposed views) but a good statement (this part and the rest) nonetheless.
 
Synco said:
One lesson would be not to misuse the remembrance of the Holocaust, of all things, for an anti-Zionist agenda like yours. If you don't understand what's the basic problem with that, then I can't help you.
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Because of WW2 I'm an anti facist, therefore I am an anti zionist.
 
If David Duke endorses something a mainstream political leader says, or something Duke believes he's said or stands for, etc - it's surely obvious why that's more of interest than David Duke condemning or refusing to condone what a mainstream political leader says, or something Duke believe's that he's said. Isn't it?

Or do we expect the media to report on an hourly basis the things racists dislike and politicians they're not endorsing that day?

Probably the most interesting time for the Labour party probably since the mid 1990s, yet this is like a dank corner where 3 old men sit folded arms and anything that isn't praise of the Leader, an irrelevant Tweet or an argument of false equivalence isn't welcome. Where nothing interesting really is ever said because nothing than a mutual understanding that there's nothing to say except to reiterate how great Jezza is, is ever welcome.

Really anyone who long gave up on this thread because of how utterly suffocating "debate" on the subject matter here is, will still be taking an interest in the story, just not really wanting to come in here and discuss it.

It's really bizarre to see other threads in this politics section quite alive with discussion, occasional bickering, but generally an open exchange of views. Then you've this thread, the 'League of Gentlemen shop' thread, the Jeremy Corbyn thread for Jeremy Corbyn supporters. Similar to my contributions to it, it sticks out like a sore thumb here. Like those satellite images of the Korean peninsula and the top bit occupied by complete darkness when there's light all around it.

Struggling vs the worst govt in history and mired in a debate over whether the party, the leader and his supporters are systemically antisemitic. Yet nothing can ever shake from this thread the determination to believe that for Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour party things are going quite well.
 
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Oscie said:
Struggling vs the worst govt in history and mired in a debate over whether the party, the leader and his supporters are systemically antisemitic. Yet nothing can ever shake from this thread the determination to believe that for Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour party things are going quite well.
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Indeed... When he somehow contrives to gash up and loose the Next election the meltdown in here is going to be Epic... Though ultimately overshadowed by the blaming of anybody but Corbyn... My bet is it will be Blair's fault
 
Oscie you manage to offer less than feck all to the thread, you're like a washed up actor who appears at conventions to say his old catchphrase and waits for the applause, which gets shorter and quieter each time. The second someone points out your hypocrisy on an issue you disappear and then return to begin the 'cult' bollocks all over again before crying about how politics is becoming tribal.
 
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sun_tzu said:
Indeed... When he somehow contrives to gash up and loose the Next election the meltdown in here is going to be Epic... Though ultimately overshadowed by the blaming of anybody but Corbyn... My bet is it will be Blair's fault
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He won't lose the next election though. He'll get fewer votes and win fewer seats than the party who wins but he'll achieve the highest % share of young voters and his rallies will be attended by more people than other people's rallies.

That's what winning really looks like. Not the neoliberal, Blairite 'wins' that weren't really wins at all but merely getting more votes and winning more seats than any other party.

And also....something about Iraq.
 
Oscie said:
He won't lose the next election though. He'll get fewer votes and win fewer seats than the party who wins but he'll achieve the highest % share of young voters and his rallies will be attended by more people than other people's rallies.

That's what winning really looks like. Not the neoliberal, Blairite 'wins' that weren't really wins at all but merely getting more votes and winning more seats than any other party.

And also....something about Iraq.
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Yes, imagining discussing a widespread, chaotic war which devastated an entire region and caused a significant number of deaths.
 


Just in regards to this Tweet, it's something I've always wondered. Why Corbyn supporters see him as somehow the heir to Attlee, returning the party to some kind of Attlee-like utopia of left-wing socialism. When in fact everything I know of Attlee (though I won't confess to be an expert) would suggest Blair's government was more in his image if anything than Corbyn's Labour party and that Attlee himself was quite a 'Blairite' for his day.

Indeed from Attlee onwards, with the possible exception of Foot, I can't remember any Labour leader that wasn't from the right or centre of the party. Yet to hear Corbyn supporters speak they believe being led from the hard left is somehow returning it's party to some kind of pre-Blair heritage.

It seems to be either utterly delusional or completely ignorant about who the Labour party have been fo 70 years.

If the level of political discourse was low then as it is now, the people pretending that Corbyn represents a return to Attlee-like socialism would, at the time, be calling Attlee a war criminal, traitor, Zionist scum and a Tory. Anyone who wanted to look at the good things his government did, such as the foundation of the NHS would be told "tell that to the dying children in Dresden that he was in the Tory war cabinet to oversee!" - a point hammered home by a Telegram by Owen Jones' great grandfather making the same point.
 
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For three years there’s been incident after incident involving Corbyn followed by a litany of ridiculous excuses. “I didn’t see”, “I didn’t look closely enough”, “it was just diplomacy, I didn’t mean it”, “I shared a platform but I rejected the view without actually rejecting it”, “I don’t recall”, “I wasn’t aware of his past”, “I wasn’t chairing the meeting”. Again and again. Over and over. Not a single one of these excuses would be granted to any one of Jones’ political enemies but a torrent of them all added together are declared reasonable when it comes to Corbyn. According to Jones, Corbyn is just the unluckiest man in the world.
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This is just 'some guys' blog, an article about Owen Jones, but it seemed pertinent.
 
Oscie said:


Just in regards to this Tweet, it's something I've always wondered. Why Corbyn supporters see him as somehow the heir to Attlee, returning the party to some kind of Attlee-like utopia of left-wing socialism. When in fact everything I know of Attlee (though I won't confess to be an expert) would suggest Blair's government was more in his image if anything than Corbyn's Labour party and that Attlee himself was quite a 'Blairite' for his day.

Indeed from Attlee onwards, with the possible exception of Foot, I can't remember any Labour leader that wasn't from the right or centre of the party. Yet to hear Corbyn supporters speak they believe being led from the hard left is somehow returning it's party to some kind of pre-Blair heritage.

It seems to be either utterly delusional or completely ignorant about who the Labour party have been fo 70 years.

If the level of political discourse was low then as it is now, the people pretending that Corbyn represents a return to Attlee-like socialism would, at the time, be calling Attlee a war criminal, traitor, Zionist scum and a Tory. Anyone who wanted to look at the good things his government did, such as the foundation of the NHS would be told "tell that to the dying children in Dresden that he was in the Tory war cabinet to oversee!" - a point hammered home by a Telegram by Owen Jones' great grandfather making the same point.
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If we're talking actual policy on economic issues, Attlee's far closer to Corbyn than Blair was. Even those on the right of Attlee's cabinet still mostly classed themselves as socialists. And remember this is literally the government that came up with the NHS. As always Labour were a broad church and there were far-left mentalists looking to unseat Attlee the moment the party took power, but you're either being disingenuous or ignorant if you think Blair's closer to Attlee economically than Corbyn on economic issues.

You seem to ignore completely that the paradigm shifted massively to the right during the Thatcher years. Plenty of Tories from before her years would've been a lot closer to Blair/Brown than her on economics.
 
There's no modern analogue to Attlee as a politician, and late 20th/early 21st century Britain is so different to wartime Britain that comparison of policy is just about meaningless.
 
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