Next Leader of the Opposition

[Buce]

I can understand that..its a new concept for you.. being stuck dumb does not exclude you from the thread.

The irony of what you said escapes you then?

[Carl the Llama]

Quite a thought provoking article from Nick Cohen on why he's given up on the British left.

 

Left-wing thought has shifted towards movements it would once have denounced as racist, imperialist and fascistic. It is insupportable.

 

                                                                                                               Too long...

It's a very long and eloquent throwing of one's toys out of one's pram I'll give you that.  Thought has to be present in the piece to provoke it in the reader though.

 

Somebody who sees a genuinely left-of centre politician as too radical for them and likens their election as party leader to the sewing of fascist seeds clearly has no need to send a self-important resignation letter to left wing politics.  

 

Genuine question here, has anybody who isn't considerably well off by national standards come out against this nasty Britain hater?

[Guest]

Do you have to resort to this ridiculous hyperbole everytime someone pulls you up on a point?

 

You tried to explain his comments away by saying young people think differently, I said he was 55 when he made them, that doesn't mean I think older people are not allowed to say silly things.

 

I use hyperbole because you seem to either miss the "subtle" points I make or you ignore them because you don't want to answer them.

 

The point is everybody says silly things. got it?

[The Railway Man]

Corbyn is totally useless but the real reason he won is because the other three were even more hopeless.

 

Cooper and Kendall are both centre or right wing anyway and Burnham is further to the right than Thatcher.

 

The Labour party brand is a strong one but it's hard to see them surviving this as any sort of electable force though if he has too long at the helm, the polls already look grim for them.

[The Railway Man]

As for the "apology" from McDonnell, I can't believe anyone has fallen for it.

 

He's tried to dress it up as asking people to lay down their arms, he made these comments in 2003, the Belfast agreement was signed in 1998. Why someone didn't mention that to him I have no idea.

 

People apologise because they get caught most of them time, he's apologised because he now wants to be seen as electable, pathetic.

[Benji]

As for the "apology" from McDonnell, I can't believe anyone has fallen for it.

 

He's tried to dress it up as asking people to lay down their arms, he made these comments in 2003, the Belfast agreement was signed in 1998. Why someone didn't mention that to him I have no idea.

 

People apologise because they get caught most of them time, he's apologised because he now wants to be seen as electable, pathetic.

 

My take as well.  Would be amusing if there was a backlash from Ireland - came across to me as him spinning it into taking credit for tricking parties into peace.  We shall see how long he remains a "friend of Ireland".  That said, he's probably using a similar elaborate excuse behind closed doors with his mates in Ireland; "I have to say this if I want to be taken seriously and get into power".

 

I should add that I'm completely ignoring all the Corbyn attacks.  It's complete nonsense and I think he's handling it all pretty well.  I'll reserve judgment for when he actually gets to talking policy.  With McDonnell, however, IMO it's deeper than just a media smear.

[Guest MattP]

Spot on regarding the apology.

Dimbleby should have done his job and stepped in to mention after he had made it that these comments were years after the peace agreement had been signed.

Watching the far left who took the position that Ireland was occupied and wanted the IRA to succeed now trying to claim credit for peace and stability makes me want to vomit.

[johnny the fox]

The irony of what you said escapes you then?

yes my son.. please explain in very great detail.. take as many pages as you like .

[Captain...]

Quite a thought provoking article from Nick Cohen on why he's given up on the British left.

 

Left-wing thought has shifted towards movements it would once have denounced as racist, imperialist and fascistic. It is insupportable.

 

‘Tory, Tory, Tory. You’re a Tory.’ The level of hatred directed by the Corbyn left at Labour people who have fought Tories all their lives is as menacing as it is ridiculous. If you are a woman, you face misogyny. Kate Godfrey, the centrist Labour candidate in Stafford, told the Times she had received death threats and pornographic hate mail after challenging her local left. If you are a man, you are condemned in language not heard since the fall of Marxist Leninism. ‘This pathetic small-minded jealousy of the anti-democratic bourgeois shows them up for the reactionary neocons they really are,’ a Guardian commenter told its columnist Rafael Behr after he had criticised Corbyn.

 

Not that they are careful about anything, or that they will take advice from me, but the left should be careful of what it wishes for. Its accusations won’t seem ridiculous soon. The one prophesy I can make with certainty amid today’s chaos is that many on the left will head for the right. When they arrive, they will be greeted with bogus explanations for their ‘betrayal’.

 

Conservatives will talk as if there is a right-wing gene which, like male-pattern baldness, manifests itself with age. The US leftist-turned-neocon Irving Kristol set the pattern for the pattern-baldness theory of politics when he opined that a conservative is a liberal who has been ‘mugged by reality’. He did not understand that the effects of reality’s many muggings are never predictable, or that facts of life are not always, as Margaret Thatcher claimed, conservative. If they were, we would still have feudalism.

The standard explanation from left-wingers is equally self-serving. Turncoats are like prostitutes, they say, who sell their virtue for money. They are pure; those who disagree with them are corrupt; and that is all there is to it.

 

Owen Jones, who seems to have abandoned journalism to become Jeremy Corbyn’s PR man, offers an equally thoughtless argument. ‘Swimming against a strong tide is exhausting,’ he sighed recently. Leftists who stray from virtue are defeated dissidents, who bend under the pressure to conform.

 

It won’t wash, particularly as Jones cannot break with the pressures that enforce conformity in his left-wing world and accept the real reason why many leave the left. It ought to be obvious. The left is why they leave the left. Never more so than today.

In the past, people would head to the exits saying, ‘Better the centre right than the far left.’ Now they can say ‘better the centre right than the far right’. The shift of left-wing thought towards movements it would once have denounced as racist, imperialist and fascistic has been building for years. I come from a left-wing family, marched against Margaret Thatcher and was one of the first journalists to denounce New Labour’s embrace of corporate capitalism — and I don’t regret any of it. But slowly, too slowly I am ashamed to say, I began to notice that left-wing politics had turned rancid.

 

In 2007 I tried to make amends, and published What’s Left. If they were true to their professed principles, my book argued, modern leftists would search out secular forces in the Muslim world — Iranian and Arab feminists, say, Kurdish socialists or Muslim liberals struggling against reactionary clerics here in Britain — and embrace them as comrades. Instead, they preferred to excuse half the anti-western theocrats and dictators on the planet. As, in their quiet way, did many in the liberal mainstream. Throughout that period, I never heard the BBC demanding of ‘progressives’ how they could call themselves left-wing when they had not a word of comfort for the Iraqi and Afghan liberals al-Qaeda was slaughtering.

 

The triumph of Jeremy Corbyn has led to What’s Left sales picking up, and readers acclaiming my alleged prescience. Grateful though I am, I cannot accept the compliment. I never imagined that left-wing politics would get as bad as they have become. I assumed that when the criminally irresponsible Blair flew off in his Learjet, the better angels of the left’s nature would re-assert themselves.

 

What a fool I was.

 

Jeremy Corbyn did not become Labour leader because his friends in the Socialist Workers party organised a Leninist coup. Nor did the £3 click-activist day-trippers hand him victory. He won with the hearty and freely given support of ‘decent’ Labour members.

And yes, thank you, I know all about the feebleness of Corbyn’s opponents. But the fact remains that the Labour party has just endorsed an apologist for Putin’s imperial aggression; a man who did not just appear on the propaganda channel of Russia, which invades its neighbours and persecutes gays, but also of Iran, whose hangmen actually execute gays. Labour’s new leader sees a moral equivalence between 9/11 and the assassination of bin Laden, and associates with every variety of women-hating, queer-bashing, Jew-baiting jihadi, holocaust denier and 9/11 truther. His supporters know it, but they don’t care.

 

They don’t put it like that, naturally. Their first response is to cry ‘smear’. When I show that it is nothing of the sort, they say that he was ‘engaging in dialogue’, even though Corbyn only ever has a ‘dialogue’ with one side and his ‘engagement’ never involves anything so principled as robust criticism.

 

A few on the British left are beginning to realise what they have done. Feminists were the first to stir from their slumber. They were outraged this week when Corbyn gave all his top jobs to men. I have every sympathy. But really, what did they expect from a man who never challenged the oppression of women in Iran when he was a guest on the state propaganda channel? You cannot promote equality at home while defending subjugation abroad and it was naive to imagine that Corbyn would try.

The women’s issue nicely illustrates the damage he can do, even if he never becomes prime minister. When Labour shows by its actions that it doesn’t believe in women’s equality, the pressure on other institutions diminishes. Secularists and liberal Muslims will feel a different kind of prejudice. They will no longer get a hearing for their campaigns against forced marriage and sharia law from a Labour party that counts the Muslim Brotherhood among his allies.

 

The position of the Jews is grimmer still. To be blunt, the new leader of the opposition is ‘friends’ with men who want them dead. One Jewish Labour supporter told me, ‘I feel like a gay man in the Tory party just after they’ve passed Section 28.’ Another described his position as ‘incredibly exposed’. He had ‘come to understand in the last few weeks, quite how shallow the attachment of the left is to principles which I thought defined it.’

 

And yes, thank you again, I know at this point I am meant to say that Corbyn isn’t an anti-Semite. Maybe he isn’t, but some of his best friends are, and the record shows that out of cynicism or conviction he will engage in the left’s version of ‘dog-whistle’ race politics.

 

I am middle-class and won’t suffer under the coming decade of majority Tory rule. Millions need a centre-left alternative, but I cannot see them being attracted by the revival of lumpen leftism either. Unlike their Scottish and French counterparts, the English intelligentsia has always had a problem with patriotism. Whenever this trend has manifested itself, voters have turned away, reasoning that politicians who appear to hate England are likely to have little time for the English.

 

By electing Corbyn, Labour has chosen a man who fits every cliché the right has used to mobilise working-class conservatism. In the 1790s, George Canning described the typical English supporter of the French Revolution ‘as a friend of every country but his own’. Today’s Tories can, with justice, say the same about Corbyn. George Orwell wrote of the ‘English intellectual [who] would feel more ashamed of standing to attention during “God Save the King” than of stealing from a poor box’. That came to mind on Tuesday when Corbyn declined to sing ‘God Save the Queen’ at the Battle of Britain remembrance service.

 

I opened What’s Left with a quote by Norman Cohn, from Warrant for Genocide, his history of how the conspiracy theories that ended in fascism began in the dark, neglected corners of 19th-century Europe:

In the years since What’s Left was published, I have argued that the likes of Corbyn do not represent the true left; that there are other worthier traditions opposed to oppression whether the oppressors are pro-western or anti-western. I can’t be bothered any more. Cries of ‘I’m the real left!’, ‘No I’m the real left!’ are always silly. And in any case, there is no doubt which ‘real left’ has won.

 

The half-educated fanatics are in control now. I do not see how in conscience I can stay with their movement or vote for their party. I am not going to pretend the next time I meet Owen Jones or those Labour politicians who serve in Corbyn’s shadow cabinet that we are still members of the same happy family. There are differences that cannot and should not be smoothed over.

I realise now what I should have known years ago. The causes I most care about — secularism, freedom of speech, universal human rights — are not their causes. Whatever they pretend, when the crunch comes, they will always put sectarian unity first, and find reasons to be elsewhere.

 

So, for what it is worth, this is my resignation letter from the left. I have no idea who I should send it to or if there are forms to fill in. But I do know this: like so many before me, I can claim constructive dismissal.

 

That is an appalling article, trotting the same crap that has been shown to be false, cosying up to Russia, the death of bin Laden being a tragedy and pretty much everything else he has said. He is using a sensationalist piece full of lies to promote his book, I didn't think you were so gullible Matt.

[Guest MattP]

No offence but I didn't really expect it to appeal to you.

You are pretty much the example of everything he speaks about, people who are prepared to turn a blind eye to anything providing the perpetrators are on their side politically (Rotherham springs to mind) or an outright refusal to condemn extreme opinions from them.

[Captain...]

No offence but I didn't really expect it to appeal to you.

You are pretty much the example of everything he speaks about, people who are prepared to turn a blind eye to anything providing the perpetrators are on their side politically (Rotherham springs to mind) or an outright refusal to condemn extreme opinions from them.

 

Read this bit again:

 

"And yes, thank you, I know all about the feebleness of Corbyn’s opponents. But the fact remains that the Labour party has just endorsed an apologist for Putin’s imperial aggression; a man who did not just appear on the propaganda channel of Russia, which invades its neighbours and persecutes gays, but also of Iran, whose hangmen actually execute gays. Labour’s new leader sees a moral equivalence between 9/11 and the assassination of bin Laden, and associates with every variety of women-hating, queer-bashing, Jew-baiting jihadi, holocaust denier and 9/11 truther. His supporters know it, but they don’t care."

 

Does that really sound like a balanced and fair argument.

 

As for Rotherham, bringing that up every time there is a left/right debate is bordering on obsessive, what happened there was disgusting and must never be allowed to happen again, but that was down to criminal failings of the police and those politicians in charge, and not some leftist child abuse conspiracy that you seem to believe, and not an excuse to persecute all muslims. It also has nothing to do with the blatant lies that are being used to attack Corbyn (or in this case promote a book).

[Guest MattP]

Why would it be balanced? It's an attack on him and his supporters.

And he has and does associate with those people, that's not really up for debate is it?

[Guest]

Why would it be balanced? It's an attack on him and his supporters.

And he has and does associate with those people, that's not really up for debate is it?

 

Balanced?

 

It's raving!

[David Guiza]

Read this bit again:

 

"And yes, thank you, I know all about the feebleness of Corbyn’s opponents. But the fact remains that the Labour party has just endorsed an apologist for Putin’s imperial aggression; a man who did not just appear on the propaganda channel of Russia, which invades its neighbours and persecutes gays, but also of Iran, whose hangmen actually execute gays. Labour’s new leader sees a moral equivalence between 9/11 and the assassination of bin Laden, and associates with every variety of women-hating, queer-bashing, Jew-baiting jihadi, holocaust denier and 9/11 truther. His supporters know it, but they don’t care."

 

Does that really sound like a balanced and fair argument.

 

As for Rotherham, bringing that up every time there is a left/right debate is bordering on obsessive, what happened there was disgusting and must never be allowed to happen again, but that was down to criminal failings of the police and those politicians in charge, and not some leftist child abuse conspiracy that you seem to believe, and not an excuse to persecute all muslims. It also has nothing to do with the blatant lies that are being used to attack Corbyn (or in this case promote a book).

 

That bit stood out to me too, although I do agree with some of what he says, that part is just laughable. How on earth you can translate Corbyn saying that he considers the killing of a man (regardless of his past and demonic nature) without taking him to trial is a tragedy, into likening Bin Laden's assassination to the one of the worst terrorist attacks on the west is beyond me!  

 

Also, 'queer bashing', really? Or is that a desperate journalistic attempt for a socialist 'bite' to give credence to his tripe?

[Guest MattP]

Queer bashing was too moderate in my opinion, the Iranian government still executes people for homosexuality.

[David Guiza]

Queer bashing was too moderate in my opinion, the Iranian government still executes people for homosexuality.

Not that I'd ever condone that kind of link to a nation, but If we're talking about links with countries with somewhat questionable morals and laws - look no further than Cameron's links to Saudi Arabia and the deceased King and his defence of a man who the majority of people wouldn't p*** on if he was on fire. Blair's links with Gadaffi, etc etc.

 

Backing a man because you believe in the majority, or large parts of what he says, doesn't mean you agree or accept with everything they represent/say or do though. I'd much rather have a squeaky clean leader with no such relations or links, but that seems to verging on the impossible in modern politics.

[Guest MattP]

This is the problem with Corbynistas. They seem to try and defend any link he has by saying someone else is doing worse.

Problem with this attitude is fairly obvious though.

Cameron actually HAS to meet these people and speak with them, it's his job being the British Prime minister, Corbyn has actually sought these people out himself from a position on the backbenches.

Had Cameron been trying to cosy up to the Saudi as a backbencher from Witney you would be correct to point out the hypocrisy.

[Captain...]

Why would it be balanced? It's an attack on him and his supporters.

And he has and does associate with those people, that's not really up for debate is it?

 

Well it is up for debate, as the majority of those things are taken out of context or just outright lies, or very loose definitions of "associates" and "every type of".

 

You could say we all associate with a holocaust denier (Bonedog) or a 9/11 truther (Zingari) Queer basher (Dangerous Tiger - no evidence of any actual bashing but he isn't a fan) woman hating misogynists (the whole tinder thread).

 

Yes he said it was a tragedy Bin Laden was executed, when he should have stood trial.

Yes he has been heavily involved in middle eastern politics and may have given a donation to a pressure group that later turned out to be lead by a holocaust denier

Yes he has also dealt with people on middle eastern issues that have very strong anti-gay issues

Yes he defended a vicar for posting a link on facebook to a 9/11 conspiracy page and said "makes you think".

Yes he appeared on RT, but at not point supported Russian Imperialism, he made some comments about political means to resolve the dispute to avoid further bloodshed.

 

There are more but I can't be arsed, every accusation can be quickly explained or rebuffed with a quick google, I'm sure if JC is any of things he is accused of being it will be apparent over the next 5 years, but at the moment it just seems one smear after another and it is getting tiring.

 

I hope Corbyn succeeds in delivering a new style of politics based on substance and action rather than personality and soundbites, and that his new more civil approach at PMQs catches on, but really all I see at the moment is a decent man being dragged down and torn to shreds by the media.

[leicsmac]

This is the problem with Corbynistas. They seem to try and defend any link he has by saying someone else is doing worse.

Problem with this attitude is fairly obvious though.

Cameron actually HAS to meet these people and speak with them, it's his job being the British Prime minister, Corbyn has actually sought these people out himself from a position on the backbenches.

Had Cameron been trying to cosy up to the Saudi as a backbencher from Witney you would be correct to point out the hypocrisy.

Really? Is it obligatory for our leader (whoever they may be) to meet with heads of countries with grotesque human rights records while saying nothing about them in protest?

I thought you weren't much for all this diplomacy lark anyway...? Or is that situation dependent?

Incidentally, that kind of international hypocrisy (not from you, obviously, from many world leaders) is another reason I utterly despise realpolitik.

[Guest MattP]

Well not obligatory of course, but our Prime Minister is going to have to speak to leaders of others if he wants to have dialogue.

That's a million miles away from a backbencher inviting members of a group who want Israel wiped off the planet to the house of commons for a personal rendezvous or shouting to thousands on a protest that they are his friends.

[leicsmac]

Well not obligatory of course, but our Prime Minister is going to have to speak to leaders of others if he wants to have dialogue.

That's a million miles away from a backbencher inviting members of a group who want Israel wiped off the planet to the house of commons for a personal rendezvous or shouting to thousands on a protest that they are his friends.

 

Fair enough. I honestly think that you could level claims of hypocrisy against all comers in this situation which is why I don't get the attempted moralising taking place on both sides in the media and on here.

[Guest MattP]

Whinging about hypocrisy is overrated anyway, every person on the planet is probably one in some shape or form.

Hopefully Corbyn will start showing us some policy soon and we can get down to scrutinising that rather than identity politics.

[leicsmac]

Whinging about hypocrisy is overrated anyway, every person on the planet is probably one in some shape or form.

Hopefully Corbyn will start showing us some policy soon and we can get down to scrutinising that rather than identity politics.

 

Now that I can certainly agree with.

[Guest]

This is the problem with Corbynistas. They seem to try and defend any link he has by saying someone else is doing worse.

Problem with this attitude is fairly obvious though.

Cameron actually HAS to meet these people and speak with them, it's his job being the British Prime minister, Corbyn has actually sought these people out himself from a position on the backbenches.

Had Cameron been trying to cosy up to the Saudi as a backbencher from Witney you would be correct to point out the hypocrisy.

 

You seem to be arguing for one stance here and another over there.

 

Here you're saying that it's alright for Cameron to say one thing when not leader and then go against everything he believes when he is PM - that's hypocrisy, but that's what you're criticising Corbyn for.

 

Shouldn't Cameron be saying to these murderers and "evil" men I'm now the leader of a great country and we don't agree with your wicked ways Saudi leader?

[Captain...]

Politics isn't easy, and in many ways it is about putting aside your personal views for the good of the country. Whether that is singing the national anthem and paying respect to a queen you don't believe we should have, or dealing with rich and powerful countries whose views you don't agree with, but have significant investments in this country or control certain resources that we rely on.

 

This is why I am pretty sick of these attacks on Corbyn, he has not been elected to lead the labour party because of his own personal views, but on how he can lead the labour party forward in a way that better represents the people they want to represent. He was elected because of his principles and ideals resonated with the labour party members more so than the established Blairite/centrist candidates. People want a clear opposition to the Tories and their austerity measures. He has his own views, such as abolishing the monarchy increasing the higher rate of tax to 60 or even 70% but that is his view and not the labour party manifesto. Their budgets will be set by the party and they have said that they will reinstate the 50% rate tax reduced to 45% by the Tories, and that they will chase the corporations for the tax they owe. No more than that.

 

I do think that he could very easily be hounded out of office very quickly with the constant attacks, I don't know whether that will be a good thing for the labour party or not, it may be that Corbyn will push them further to the left, then a new leader will moderate things slightly for the election but still maintain the ground swell of support for Corbyn whilst winning back those that have been alienated. Or it could be a shambles.

 

Either way I don't like to see this kind of character assassination, one he doesn't deserve it, two it will put many good people off going in to politics and we will get stuck with more career politicians (I know that Corbyn can be classed as a career politician before anyone points that out.)