UK Politics Mega-thread - Page 589

On October 20 2020 20:42 WombaT wrote:

It’s strange to me as well, specifically the lack of blowback from their own base on not delivering what they promised said base.

The Conservatives will always piss people like me off. but it’s not me voting for them or having certain expectations of them to deliver.

On October 21 2020 02:16 Kipsate wrote:
Like regardless of the media in UK, that party is some self-destructive shit if I ever saw one.

On October 21 2020 18:05 Sirion wrote:


But the media has a huge influence on what kind of politicians rise to prominence inside a party. If a Labour party leader (Ed Miliband) is brought down because he ate a bacon sandwich in a funny way, but a vacuous lazy person like Johnson is successful because he can present himself in a funny way, that says a lot. It means that political reporting is totally without substance (or very biased, take your pick). Optics are of course always a part of politics, but governing competence should also be part of the mix (and in my opinion be more important), and the journalistic class is completely failing its job here. Anybody can make a funny meme, it takes time and effort to do proper reporting.

Just to give an example, "If there were a real threat of ‘No Deal’ around the corner, Brussels would be behaving very differently" is a quote from a Telegraph article. This is a completely delusional stance. The EU simply cannot move many of its red lines because those are essential for the single market, and the EU is the single market. Not understanding this is normal for a random guy on the street, but inexcusable for a journalist after 4 years of Brexit negotiations.

Jeremy Corbyn has rejected the overall conclusions of a report on antisemitism in Labour, saying the problem was “dramatically overstated for political reasons” by opponents and the media – a statement that sets him at odds with Keir Starmer.

In a Facebook post responding to the Equality and Human Rights Commission report, which found Labour responsible for unlawful acts of harassment and discrimination over antisemitism, the former Labour leader said he had been obstructed by party officials in trying to tackle the issue. However, he expressed regret that “it took longer to deliver that change than it should”.

The report does not lay blame directly with Corbyn but the EHRC’s lead investigator, Alasdair Henderson, said the failure of leadership must ultimately stop with him.

In light of his comments made today and his failure to retract them subsequently, the Labour Party has suspended Jeremy Corbyn pending investigation. He has also had the whip removed from the Parliamentary Labour Party.

The Labour Antisemitism Report Has Always Been a Politically Motivated Travesty
[...]
In 2016, the Labour politician Harriet Harman, chair of the joint committee on human rights at Westminster, criticized the appointment of David Isaac as the new EHRC chair. As Harman noted, Isaac’s legal firm Pinsent Masons did “significant work” for the British government: “The lion’s share of his income will be coming from an organization that has a vested interest. As they say, ‘he who pays the piper calls the tune.’”
In November 2019, BBC’s Newsnight reported the contents of a leaked letter from the EHRC’s chief executive Rebecca Hilsenrath, in which she accused Isaac of being too close to the Conservative government: Isaac, Hilsenrath wrote, “regularly declines to take public positions” on issues that might prove troublesome for the ruling party.
[...]
In truth, there is no evidence of any substantial increase in antisemitism under Corbyn’s leadership; nor is there any evidence that antisemitic views were more common in Labour than in the other major parties; nor is there any evidence that Labour members were more likely to be antisemitic than a random cross-section of the British public (in fact, they appeared to be considerably less so). What changed after 2015 was the massively increased level of scrutiny from the national media and various campaigning groups seeking proof of “Labour antisemitism.” It was fundamentally a question of demand rather than supply.
[...]
The same media outlets enabled a concerted effort to redefine “antisemitism” so that it no longer had much to do with prejudice against Jewish people and chiefly concerned attitudes toward Israel. In a final twist, they denounced anyone who questioned this rickety construct as an “antisemitism denier.”

On October 30 2020 01:14 RvB wrote:

I find the defense that it's just critique of Israel and not anti semitism rather weak. It's the same as the far right claiming they're only against Islamic terrorists and not Islamophobic. There's truth in both claims but at the extremes the criticism often turns into racism.
I've only read the summary of the report but I find it pretty damning. Not because there's anti-semitism (racism can happen in any party or organization) but because the fact there was a lot of political interference and an ineffective complaints process (while they had a perfectly good one against sexism). It shows to me the party did not take it as seriously as it should have.

On October 30 2020 03:01 LegalLord wrote:
What does it mean to be "suspended" in this context? Kicked from the party?

On October 30 2020 04:46 Gorsameth wrote:
Considering he is the party leader (atleast publicly) the most obvious results of being suspended would probably be not having a voice in party meetings and discussions.