There will be those who will expect me to comment in the sacking of Rebecca Long-Bailey by Keir Starmer, so I will.
Was her action anti-Semitic? Others more expert than me can decide on that.
Was it unwise? Undoubtedly.
Will Keir Starmer be happy to be rid of an MP whose ability I could never identify (and I have met her a few times)? I suspect so.
Has Starmer played straight to the Machiavellian rule book? Yes.
Is that likely to work for him? Yes.
Will the public like this? Yes.
Will he regret this then? No.
Does that mean this increases the chance of a Labour government, even if in coalition? Yes.
Will it alienate the left? Of course.
Were they already alienated? Yes.
Does it change Starmer's lower base on the left then? No, not at all.
Could he, therefore, afford this risk? Yes.
By already being so openly hostile to Starmer, so often, the left empowered him to do this in that case. He has thrown down the gauntlet. And he will survive any resulting challenge.
I'm not in Labour. Commenting on his political tactics alone, Starmer got this right. The left have themselves to blame for being so openly hostile. This gave him the chance he probably wanted.
That does not mean I support all Starmer will do. I suspect I will be deeply frustrated by much of it. But if the left wants to progress it has to play a much better political game. It has not learned how to do that. They'll have to live with Starmer or leave in that case.
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It’s great news. Starmer needs to purge the hard left and rid the Party of the momentum influence. In fact nothing could make the Party more electable if the hard left/ momentum element split to forms new Party. Only then would it re engage and get the core working class vote on board. So yes it is great news and hopefully more of this to follow.
IT’S NOT ABOUT LEFT AND RIGHT, IT’S ABOUT RIGHT AND WRONG.
I’d like to say something in response to fellow social-media commentators who have, in my opinion, over-reacted to the standing down of Rebecca Long-Bailey by Keir Starmer. She’s still an MP, she’s just not in the shadow cabinet anymore. She’s been removed from her brief as a senior shadow cabinet member. She’s not been removed from the party or as a Member of Parliament ( unless I’ve missed something huge, which is entirely possible ). We know that, in the past, people were removed for similar breaches. Rebecca has fared far better, for example than some others I could, but won’t, name.
First of all, there shouldn’t be any ‘factions’ in the party anyway. The Labour party is a democratic socialist party. Jeremy Corbyn is a democratic socialist, so is Rebecca and so is Keir. So too is Ed Milliband, so too Gordon Brown. It’s important I think to frame this incident within those parameters, within that context, because to frame it as anything else is to betray the party by betraying the majority of it’s members, since all of them are represented in whole or in part by the names I’ve deliberately chosen here.
I’ve said many times that politics is not an exact science any more than science is an exact science. It’s fluid and meandering and it takes several voices dissenting and agreeing to make a choral sound that gets heard and to make a progressive song that gets into the charts, gets things done, facilitates change. Jeremy Corbyn was a stepping stone across an anti-progressive river and so is Keir Starmer.
When Jeremy made what I personally believed to be mistakes, I called him on it. It took nothing nothing away from my enduring respect for him and for my absolute conviction that he would have made a fine PM and was, overall, a fine Labour leader. I do the same with Keir, I agree with some things he says and does and not others. Equally though, that does not detract from my over-arching conviction that by and large he too has been to date, and will continue to be, a fine Labour leader and one day, hopefully, a fine, progressive PM. I am not an idolater and neither man would want any of us to be.
The leadership contest was run by the Labour party in democratic terms and Keir Starmer won it by two to one. This alone should imbue his dissenters and detractors with a sense that whilst they are, of course, perfectly entitled to their doubts and negative distrust of him…they are not entitled to claim their feelings as absolute fact, anymore than it was okay to claim as absolute fact unproved and slanderous opinion of Jeremy. Feelings and instinct are no match for empirical evidence, articles and video with multiple sources.
For me, it is not okay to claim that the leadership election was “rigged” without evidence to support the claim, for example. So, if we want to believe that the Labour party, at it’s core, is a force for good, then we should recognise that the people in it, at their core, are a force for good. People get things wrong all the time, they’re people. No one is right about everything all the time. No one. That doesn’t mean that they’re wrong all the time either.
A lot of the party’s problems stem from this notion that…to respect and admire one person or one person’s opinion on one topic is tantamount to disrespecting another’s. I never wanted to be in a massive club, I want to be in the big choir. It’s never been the case that if you like Corbyn and his ideology, or Rebecca’s, then you must automatically dislike Keir and his ideology, his ideas, his way of doing things, particularly since there is only a cigarette paper between them on so many things.
No, this situation is not about ‘left and right’, it’s about right and wrong. There is no debate to be had about whether or not Mossad or the IDF trained the officers who killed George Floyd. They didn’t. To claim otherwise is to repeat an anti-semitic trope, one which infers that Jews are “running the world” or that Jews are ” disingenuous, calculating, maleficent “, both statements I’ve been horrified to read over the past days.
When challenged on these things one person doubled down on it by saying ” well, the Labour party is run by the B.O.D “. That’s anti-semitic for the same reasons I’ve mentioned above. Another is that Starmer is “in the pocket of Israel”. When asked to prove that assertion, they could not. Of course they couldn’t, because it’s absurd. How can you be in the pocket of a country? How can one man be in the pocket of a country? Again, the assumption, the trope is that Starmer, in taking a donation of 50000 pounds from someone who lobbies for Israel, whatever that means, that he must be anti-Palestinian rights and that wealthy Jews control the world. Nonsense.
That’s a double-whammy btw because it infers that Israel is ‘buying’ the Labour party or buying Starmer ( to what end ), it repeats the earlier trope. Not so, or if it is so, bloody prove it. Prove the accusation. I iterate, prove it with video, with empirical evidence, with articles from multiple sources. If you can’t, don’t tell me “wait and see” when you’re palpably doing neither. Just shut up. Don’t comment. Wait….and …see. The Israeli military train people all over the world, as do the Russians, the Americans and the British. The trope is to suggest that it’s worse when the Israeli’s do it. Clearly the tweet shared by Maxine Peake was not only stained with an Anti-semitic trope but it was also reductive to the BLM movement. Think about it.
Rebecca either didn’t read the whole thing before sharing it OR she agreed with it. If it’s the former, which she has not claimed, then she deserves to be let go for being incompetent. If it is the latter, which she hasn’t denied, then she deserved to be let go for being incompetent, for being anti-semitic and frankly, for being a bit of an idiot. She was in a position of authority within the party, an elevated position, a position that Keir didn’t have to give her. She let him and herself and us down badly. Keir didn’t sack her when he saw the tweet. He said she should remove it because it contained an anti-semitic trope. He was calm. He had set his stall out early on and whether you agree with his methods or not, he’s the boss. Instead of just doing as she was told, she doubled down on it and refused to apologise. Starmer then spent 4 hours trying to call her, trying to save her job and save his party from the incoming media onslaught, those who, until Rebecca’s faux pas, had been silent on the matter….only then, when he got absolutely nowhere with her, did he sack her.
Do we deserve a Labour government? This is what I’m currently asking myself and you. If we can’t, after 40 years, stop arguing among ourselves about minutia and method when all around us the environment that the majority live in gets more and more dark, more and more dystopic, then no….I’m afraid the answer is no. It’s clearly not enough to say, well I don’t like Keir but I’ll still vote Labour. We need you to convince others to vote for him and to do that you yourself have to believe, you have to put aside your petty differences, roll your sleeves up, dump the factionalism, dump the cognitive dissonance and confirmation bias and get the hell on with it. All this smear, all this division, all this side-picking and talk of forming new parties has only one end….further misery under future toryism on top of current misery under present toryism.
That last sentence in the last paragraph has, by the way, been uttered, in some form or another by Nye Bevan, Tony Blair, Jeremy Corbyn, Tony Benn, Dennis Healey and Keir Starmer.
The Left & Right of the Labour Party deserve each other.
We progressives and much of the voting public however deserve much better.
Ed note: comment deleted as I considered it anti-Semitic
Please do not try to post anti-Semitic comment again
A clear accurate assessment.
I’m afraid Starmer will frustrate you because he’ll never say the things you want him to say. I’ve resigned from the Labour Party now before I get kicked out for being antisemitic. I think the Labour Party is finished now and the PLP has won. You won’t get MMT mentioned by them. The simply do what the establishment want them to do. The war Starmer has won will come at a very high cost despite all your ticks of approval.
I have been told throughout my career I will never get what I want
Right now the success rate is getting on for 100% – allowing for time lag
I’ll quote confidently say you’re wrong
Your success rate is getting on for 100%. So you’re the one that’s been working towards a fascist state. Richard, it’s called delusional behaviour.
Rod
Candidly, this blog can do without any more of your stupidity of which we have read plenty enough
You have just opted to join the banned list
Richard
As a simple man I keep asking what is a Semite?
No doubt one or more of your very intellectual followers can clarify this.
If people mean Jew why don’t they say so?
As I said, there are many better qualified than me to answer this
Richard, you should delete that comment – pedantic questioning of the term “antisemitism” is a classic trope of the far right. It’s also historically ignorant – the term “antisemitism” was coined by the deeply racist German nationalist Wilhelm Marr, as a way to put a scientific veneer on hatred of Jews.
Peake’s comment was clearly antisemitic. In isolation it was just a provably false claim about Israeli “secret services”. But nobody ever makes such claims about Belgians or Canadians – the idea that all bad things that happen over the world are the fault of Jews is classic antisemitism, and putting Israel rather than Jews in the frame should fool nobody.
I am trying very hard to find a line here – and have deleted some comments that have in my opinion gone over lines of acceptability
To which one are you referring?
See the comment I have just made
Technically it is someone who speaks a semitic language like Arabic or Hebrew. I don’t know how it became synonymous with Jew.
On the basis of that definition, the Conservative Party is antisemitic due to the significant level of islamophobia within the party. Good luck with getting that recognised in th epress however.
I make no personal claims to wisdom or expertise in this area, but rather call on a much greater mind than I pretend; the outstanding and original Victorian orientalist, theologian, Old Testament scholar, and innovator of anthropology, William Robertson Smith (1846-94). One of his seminal works was ‘Lectures on the Religion of the Semites’ (1894) in which he opins Lecture I as follows:
“The subject before us is the religion of the Semitic peoples, that is, of the group of kindred nations, including the Arabs, the Hebrews and Phoenicians, the Ajramseans, the Babylonians and Assyrians, which in ancient times occupied the great Arabian Peninsula, with the more fertile lands of Syria Mesopotamia and Irac, from the Mediterranean coast to the base of the mountains of Iran and Armenia.”
Some of the geographical terminology has certainly changed since Robertson Smith, and I may of course be quite out of touch with what is now considered accurate scholarship. I suspect this comment may be met with derision, for excessive antiquarianism.
I’m surprised you aren’t a little sad to have lost one of the biggest proponents of a GND on the Labour front bench Richard.
It saddens me to say it, as a ‘lefty’, I do think it was an extremely politically savvy move on his behalf. Couldn’t have been timed any better given the PM’s dithering over the Jenrick affair.
Starmer has to thread a needle here though. His gamble being that the bleeding of left voters to The Greens or disinterest is electorally made up by centrists who voted Tory or Lib Dem last time and that working class Brexit voters returning once Brexit is done (I’m not sure they ever will personally)
He also has to be aware that ‘The Left’ skews young and energised and that is not really a part of the party you want to alienate if you’re thinking long term. I assume he’s taking the Blair approach with who else are they going to vote for. They might vote for him, but one wonders if they are going to WORK for him on campaigns and the like.
She wouldn’t say Green New Deal
No one knew what she was talking about
My feedback suggests many young voters will be happy with this – I have asked
Agree largely, a bit of a storm in a tea cup really. A smart move by Starmer would be to appoint someone like Clive Lewis or Dawn Butler to fill the post as shadow education secretary.
Agreed – especially about Clive Lewis – although I have seen a lot of Dawn Butler I don’t really know her. She seems very quiet – more so that RLB.
Yes, Bill, I agree.
Labour, however has a major problem in it’s failure to organise itself outside parliament. Many constituency parties are virtually private fiefdoms for factions within the party, generally on the right, and as a consequence, they lose traction in their local communities, and, as they generally have nothing to offer, start to lose council seats and then the constituency.
It helps to remember that a good number of the “left behind” constituencies that Labour lost last December, had, during the Blair years, been represented by cabinet ministers, who, aware of the problems their seats had, did nothing of permanent good for them.
Until the left wake up, organise themselves to reconnect with people’s real concerns – which are now racing down the track towards us – and start showing up rather than playing the Greek chorus at the side, then the neoliberal continuity band will play on.
The BLM came into existence primarily as I understand it because of the unwarranted police violence if not exclusively. If American police forces and maybe others in the world have been receiving training in asphyxiation methods from Israeli police or army forces then Rebecca Long-Bailey needed to obtain concrete proof this is the case. Why so? Because clearly anti-semitism is something the right-wing media and politicians have used as an attack dog on the Labour Party. I don’t think Rebecca Long-Bailey has obtained this concrete proof. I may be proved wrong but so far she has got any legs to complain about her sacking from a Labour Party leader who’s former job involved over-seeing that evidence in cases stacked up!
Of course, being an MMT supporter I tend to see that much of the problem with the Labour Party Left is that they won’t actually go to the trouble of first investigating how things work, on what’s going on, before they start talking about it, even making policy on issues. It’s usually over-emotional bias that rules the day. This has to change! The Chinese Communist Party did after the huge number of starvation deaths from Mao’s Great Leap Forward.
There is no evidence of the ink Peake referred to – in fairness the article was corrected
But why did it ever need to be said is the question?
Unwise of Rebecca Long-Bailey to give Keir Starmer the excuse he needed to make an example of her. It could easily have been another member of the shadow cabinet. (And it is also unfortunate that the Labour party seems prone to tearing itself apart along pro- and anti-Israel lines.)
That said, it is demonstrably the case that (i) the Israeli police and army have on occasion used heavy-handed tactics against Palestinians, (ii) US police forces have on occasion used heavy-handed tactics against African Americans (and indeed others), and (iii) police officers from the US and Israeli have attended training events together. But I’m not aware that this specific allegation about this specific tactic is true, and I think Maxine Peake has admitted she was mistaken.
It is also unfortunate that seemingly almost criticism of the actions of the Israeli government and its state organs can be labelled as anti-Semitic, and thus dismissed and ignored. For sure, some of the criticism is motivated by religious or racial prejudice, but much of it is about what the Israeli government does and not who it comprises.
As a ‘young’ Labour member who voted for RLB in the leadership contest, I wouldn’t say I’m happy. She just reconfirmed she’s not very politically astute.
It was clear to me she didn’t read the article, as she talked about “the thrust of it” being about anger at the Tories and calling for party unity. What it was was a Corbynite rant with plenty in there to piss Starmer and his team off, regardless of the “Israeli secret services” comment.
If you retweet something you are implicitly saying “I agree with this”. So she has no excuse. If he’d followed party guidance on whether it was anti Semitic did it warrant disciplinary action – probably not, but Starmer quite rightly didn’t want all the media baggage and used it as an opportunity to remove someone who clearly hadn’t had the nouse to move on (at least publicly) from Corbynism.
“Right now the success rate is getting on for 100% — allowing for time lag”
Really!! ..How come You are out of work and just writing a blog living on handouts and charity?.. or maybe your aspirations aren’t particularly high
Funding and success need not be correlated
You have a very odd criteria for campaigning wins if you think they are
‘Was her action anti-semitic? Others more expert than me can decide on that. Identification of antisemitism or racism is not rocket science. It is something in which we should all seek proficiency. Claiming that any behavior is a causal function of race, religion, or ethnicity is racist and if the targets are Jews also anti-Semitic. Identifying particular governments behavior as requiring criticism – is not IMO. We who oppose all forms of racism, including antisemitism, have to be brave and clear on this issue.
Whatever criticism can be levied at RLB her tweet contained no reference to race, religion or ethnicity; therefore IMO was not racist or anti-Semitic. So are you asking ‘Was she unwise’ to take action that was neither racist nor anti-Semitic? Strange position to take.
Governments and states are neither racial, religious or ethnic entities. That such entities necessarily happen to contain members of a particular racial, religious or ethnic group is merely coincidental.
I notice that some on this thread are very happy to see the left put back in its box and therefore support Keir Starmer’s action for that reason. Perhaps AS real or imagined is not the issue.
I have discussed with those more expert and they would disagree with you: they think it was very definitely anti-Semitic, whether intentional or not, and that’s the risk here
FWIW I agree with John – I don’t really see RLB as having done anything clearly looking like Jew-baiting here at all. I think Jewish orgs now have some leverage over Labour and will use it. So Labour will oblige of course.
I recall some Jewish representative bodies naming Corbyn as an ‘existential threat’ to Jews. Whilst I can acknowledge the unacceptable existence of anti-Semitism in our society and wish it to be gone, that was a step too far for me and I remain disgusted by that over -reaction to this day.
However, I think that what Labour politicians must learn from this, is that the whole issue of Israel and antisemitism is deadly toxic and they must all (Right and Left) keep away from it. I think that that is the Machiavellian motivation here. Keep away from it.
Labour are not going to be allowed to get away with for example how the Tory party treats Muslims because unlike Jews, Muslims are seen more as threat by our society. Sorry for the cynicism there……………….
This is also about discipline, and getting MPs to open their mouths in Parliament and not social media where it is too easy to come a cropper.
And why tweet and get involved with Jewish affairs, when this damned country needs Labour to get a grip of its ideas and its vision for our future. Don’t tweet you idiots!! Read Kelton instead!
I’d welcome that immensely as I welcome a proper and sane debate and recognition that anti-Semitism is NOT the same as disagreeing with and taking Israel to task about how it manages it presence in Palestine, and also for the conduct of its own extremists in its society – conduct that many Israeli’s themselves (Jews) find abhorrent and shameful.
Two years ago I was in Berlin for a holiday, looking at the brass plaques on the cobbles outside what were former Jewish homes, looking at the names of babies and the elderly commemorated there who were carted off to their deaths by the Nazis; wondering why police were stationed outside the main synagogue 24/7 and feeling this evil veil over the holocaust memorial at Wansee where the final solution was agreed. We know what happened and that it must never be allowed to happen again.
But this does not excuse bad behaviour on behalf of any side at all or the use of history in bad faith . I’m seeing too much of it and its got to stop.
Ask yourself a simple question
Why was it ever necessary to mention Israel in this context?
It was not
But it was mentioned to make a link that did not, as a matter of fact, exist and was pretty remote even if it had
Why was it mentioned then?
Try answering that without reference to anti-Semitism
Sorry, your experts are not experts then. They are wrong. There is nothing antisemitic in pointing out facts about Israel. Please read the definitely not antisemitic Tony greenstein if you want to know something about this subject.
I hate having to do the “as a” but I am a person born of Jewish parents, my grandparents survived Nazi Germany by escaping just before the rest of my forebears were exterminated. I am an Israeli citizen.
Conflating criticism of Israel with antisemitism is antisemitic.
https://azvsas.blogspot.com/2020/06/its-time-for-starmer-to-go-israels-use.html
The experts in question are Jewish
You disagree with them
Others disagree with you
I am going by their opinion
WHy? Because of my own insight on being racially discriminated against for being Irish
Many Irish were indifferent to it
Thankfully some were not
Thanks for clearing that up Richard. I will have to watch my step. Passing by a branch of Greggs I could accidentally glance at a bacon sandwich. I wouldn’t want to be accused of AS.
If you want to be crass, feel free, but not here
Some of us take the issue a lot more seriously than you clearly do
It does you no credit
I have reconsidered my position on this comment
It is deeply anti-semitic
You have now been banned from this blog
I agree with John Adams and Andrew above. Those who are “more expert” need to explain in detail. I read both the Maxine Peak piece and the Independent before the correction and also some of the Amnesty stuff which was used to imply a connection was not made by Amnesty (which they have recently made very clear), and could not see how it could be considered anti-semitic unless one attributes motivations to those making the statement, which by their nature we are not privy to.
Noam Chomsky, has frequently been accused of anti-semitism because of his opposition to US policy and its action in the ME and the way Israel, which he describes as the US Client, has behaved towards the Palestinians. He has some interesting things to say in this interview, including how the Israeli Foreign Minister in 1973 deliberately set out to conflate the criticism of the Israeli State and anti-semitism and some comments about Corbyn. https://www.jacobinmag.com/2019/07/noam-chomsky-interview-climate-change-imperialism
It seems to me that Starmer is following a similar path and has greatly lowered the bar, so that it will be even more difficult for Labour politicians to criticise the State of Israel and its government.
Ask a simple question, which is why was the reference ever needed?
It wasn’t
So why as it made?
I’m just so surprised that a senior politician such as RLB would allow herself to be caught out in this toxic issue —- especially at the moment when we really need a joined-up opposition
“….a senior politician such as RLB” – Rob Gray. For most of us who are not party members and who are preipheral to politics, for the great mass of voters in this country, Rebecca Long-Bailey was a totally unknown entity that had suddenly emerged into the headlines at the time when a successor to Mr Corbyn was being sought. We saw an apparently young, inexperienced unknown, utterly lacking the charisma, the oratorical abilities, the personality, and the ideas to unite a shattered, divided, demoralised and defeated party and lead it against the blustering bombastic oaf who has tricked his way into 10 Downing Street. We did not see a “senior politician”, but a junior tyro suddenly thrust onto the bright lit stage, told to perform blinking in the spotlights by denialists evading the truth of their disastrous failure and desperate for something that they might be present to a doubting nation as truth and victory. I do not think Rebecca Long-Bailey was being anti-Semitic: merely naive.
Listening to the report on Radio 4 yesterday it rather sounded like she was given a way out, withdrawing the tweet, but choose not to take it.
I wonder if there was an element of goading him, or an attempt by the left to see how far he might go?
Seeing how a lot of the people on the so called left of the labour party reacted to this – McDonnel, Lansman, Novara Media, and Bailey for me is really telling. We can debate endlessly whether it was or was not A/S but there wasn’t even the humility or ability to see from an alternative perspective that it might be problematic and might be problematic for the Jewish community (of which I am a member). For instance, RLB hasn’t even apologised (even though Maxine Peake has distanced herself) . What is also telling is that if the issue was a politician from a different party or overseas who had done something similar with respect to another minority group they would be the first to be highlighting how problematic the behaviour of the other side is. Which I also find telling that they don’t even have the integrity to apply their own principles to themselves. Sorry for the rant but after not having to hear about any of this for a few months it just becomes more obvious than ever how much they are gaslighters and aren’t fit to be leaders of a progressive political party.
OK – but I think the general point is this – check your facts first and be careful what you agree with. What ever it is you are getting behind.
I’m ginger and have been made to feel different and inferior all my life (thankfully things don’t seem to be as bad for us red heads these days – mind you I’m more grey now than ginger) so I have an inkling about what racism, discrimination and prejudice feels like too.
Was RLB’s reference aimed at Jews or was it aimed at the conduct of the country called Israel that just so happens to be a Jewish state and is known for its unfortunate treatment of Palestinians?
The suicide bombings in Israel by Islamic extremists are truly repugnant. But shooting unarmed protestors in the legs with live ammunition? Being caught on camera deliberately shelling Palestinian hamlets to get them to move out so that you can claim the territory as I once saw on a Panorama documentary once?
RLBs second mistake was not to check her facts before she committed in my view because the facts seem to be just plain wrong.
But her first mistake was to get involved at all.
Palestine? Israel? Hezbollah? Israel’s own Donald Trump in the form of Benjamin Netanyahu? What a mess!!!! What a mess. Any politician who goes near it on social media is playing with fire.
The message is this: Don’t!! Keep away! Please!
You miss the point
The point was why was criticism of Israel added where it was not needed and had no place?
There are many reasons to criticise the actions of the Israeli government
But appropriately
And not Israel
They’re different
I think her use of the word ‘secret’ and linking it specifically to the death of George Floyd connotes conspiracy, and therefore tips it over into anti semitism for me. Although it is not black and white.
If she’d said “we know that similar techniques are used by Israeli security forces in Gaza and the West Bank, and that there are training links between the Israel and the US”
Is that anti Semitic? I don’t see how it is, given there are no factual inaccuracies in that statement.
But you still have to ask one simple question
Why did it need to be said?
What does it add to the argument?
Nothing – so why say it? Unless there is another reason. And then it anti-Semitic
Whilst everyone runs round in circles about a play on words..there have been more stabbings in Glasgow..maybe we should reflect on real loss of life
Sorry, I can’t reply in line.
I am not denying the existence of racism including antisemitism. I am saying that there is no antisemitism here. The entire story about antisemitism in the Labour party is primarily being told to protect the interests of Israel and the right wing of the party.
To point that out is not denial that any antisemitism exists. Growing up Jewish means learning all about antisemitism. I am fully aware of antisemitism and racism in general.
Saying you believe your experts on this matter because you have been the viction of racist abuse is not logical. I’m sorry that you experienced this but what’s the connection?
I have already explained the issue
Peake made a wholly extraneous and as it turned out factually wrong link to Israel oppressing black lives
It was not necessary to the argument
Its inclusion was anti-Semitic
I can see no other explanation
Denial of that is anti-Semitic
And I think your claim in your comment is also anti-Semitic
You can withdraw it or join the banned list
The choice is yours
Tell me by 10 tomorrow
I note you choose the RLB option
I think you’ve got yourself and some of the commenters into a bit of a mess with this one. Perhaps it would have been better not to have started a blog on a topic that was bound to create tensions. But you don’t seem able to resist. And I thought your reply to Joe at 4.25 was, to say the least, unhelpful if not actually patronising. Then you ban someone for making a crass remark without, it seems, giving him a chance to retract. But then humility isn’t your strongest suite, and I say that as an admirer, in general, of your work on economics.
If people want to make anti-Semitic remarks they should expect to be banned
Even if they have offered hundreds of comments here
And I started a blog on Starmer not anti-Semitism
It’s just some on the left really can’t resist their inner urge to be as racist as those on the right
Quite agree on the uncertain abilities of long bailey.
She just looked stroppy all the time to me. Starmer’s starting to give me hope that we may be able to eject the conservatives at some point in the future.
Good morning Richard. Goodness! Reading these comments of people who are far more learned than I, I can only say, how can everyone miss the point so wide of the mark? I really agree with your Blog – Starmer was Machiavellian. I said as much myself when this story broke.
But, RLB was not fired for anti-semitism per se. She was fired for insubordination. She made a mistake in sharing something (the thing that was shared is obscuring the act) and was asked to remove it. She refused. Instead she posted a non apology. That wasn’t naivete. Starmer’s office tried to ring her for 4 hours and she wouldn’t even answer the phone. She was given many chances to take down the original tweet and she didn’t.
Now, who among us who have managed staff would tolerate that behaviour of an employee?
This is exactly what happened under Corbyn’s leadership, He “allowed” the “chicken coup” and the subsequent reelection to unfold. Furthermore, I believe that Emily Thornberry totally undermined Corbyn. He should have sacked her, but he didn’t and came across as weak. This set in train a series of events that ultimately lost Labour the election.
I don’t belong to the Labour party either but I have to say I have despaired at the weakness of the leadership of the party for a while now. Starmer’s decision WAS controversial for those on the left of the party but it was right for the whole party and the country as a whole, as he showed he is a strong manager and has real leadership skills.
Well, that’s my two-penn’orth. Coffee anyone?
I struggle to understand what people mean by ‘left’ or ‘hard left’. Would I consider New Labour left – not at all. And my personal views are borne out by an analysis based on political science. (politicalcompass.org). I wish more people took their test – we’ve run it as an educational tool, and students generally fall into the left quadrant on economics, and middlish on the authoritarian/libertarian dimension. LIbDems, Labour and Conservative parties have all sat on the right top most quadrant vying for who is the most authoritarian over the past 30 years (analysis based on speeches, policies). But change happened. Over the last 4 years, Labour moved to the left on economics and dipped into the libertarian quadrant on social policies (where most young people are).
I think we use the term left/right, far left, hard left, centrist, right, far right to categorize people we don’t like, rather than their actual political views and policy leanings. By we, I mean all sides. (including me,) Richard, your views on the Green New Deal, your emphasis on supporting workers, the productive economy and fair taxation are completely consistent with the self-identifying socialist group I hang out with on Twitter. A group consisting of academics, nurses, doctors, retired, students, shop workers, charity worker etc. . Yet it appears the group here could dismiss them with the label ‘hard left’.
As a now ex-Labour member, my sense of the direction of the party is back to that right top most quadrant. (Articles on ‘deserving’ benefits, medals for nurses, rather than improvements to working conditions etc.) We will see when the next manifesto comes out. I hope I am wrong, and I really could be, because I don’t think the British Establishment have grasped the extent of the social and economic chaos that Covid 19 and Brexit will unleash. And behind it all the devastation of climate change. Labour MPs may grasp it, and at least the last 4 years has given them some tools to deal with it if they care to look past the ‘hard left’ source of those ideas.
I think the terms make little sense
I am on some scores quite left
I am a social libertarian
I am also pro-business
And I believe that privet enterprise is a fundamental part of our future
Just not in the form we have it now
What I dislike is blind dogma
“Was her action anti-Semitic? Others more expert than me can decide on that.”
Cop-out.
I was discussing a different issue then
Read my posts since then
And welcome to the banned list
One of the most striking aspects of this debacle is that Peake chose to say that her ‘assumption’ was wrong. The assumption in question was that notwithstanding the centuries of dreadful treatment of black Americans by white Americans the death of a black man in the United States must be the fault of Israel. Keir Starmer has quite rightly identified this as a blatantly antisemitic conspiracy theory: what he could have said, and didn’t, was that it was also profoundly racist towards black people in the US. He may have thought that it was so blindingly obvious that it didn’t need saying, but reading the comments on your post it appears not to have registered.
In choosing to ignore the centuries of the most appalling mistreatment by white people in the US, the slavery, the lynch mobs, the deprivation of civil rights, the prejudice, the deliberately inflicted poverty, the whole dreadful history is wiped out; instead Peake provided the white supremacists in the US with a get out of jail free card.
And RLB thinks that’s diamond.
@ Nell
I agree. I often signpost people to Political Compass around election time. The problem is, whilst most people I’ve come across, fall as Richard does; and I do; and you yourself; I suspect (but I won’t assume); in the “bottom left quadrant”, we have a peculiar political dichotomy in this country where those same people go and vote for those in the top right quadrant.
I can only assume it is because most British people are (and I say this in the kindest way possible) “politically illiterate” and are voting in a “reactionary” way (based on the zeitgeist of the moment – “Get Brexit done” sound familiar?) and not based on any real understanding of the issues of the parties that are standing (or the candidates). Maybe that’s the failure of all politicians – they need to “undo political tribalism” and start educating people of what the issues REALLY are. They need to find a way to break through the cognitive dissonance.
But that’s a whole new conversation – and not really economics.