Rebecca Long Bailey sacked by Keir Starmer

Things certainly move fast in politics don’t they?

Barmeyoldbat You would think it should be possible wouldn't you? But apparently not on GN and not if you are in the Labour Party.

barmey of course you can. I criticise the Israeli government frequently as I would any state I disagreed with over their policies.

But what RLB did was not quite so simple. She has been around long enough to know that.

Urmstongran his statement says "he told her to step down". If that isn't sacking then I don't know what is.

It said ‘asked’ not ‘told’ Mamie - subtle difference right there.

Maxine Peak may be right anyway-but I don't suppose that matters-https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/06/palestinians-deadly-police-tactics-200611004902866.html

www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/06/palestinians-deadly-police-tactics-200611004902866.html

Not so subtle here Urm.
"I’m not going into the ins and outs of the various conversations I may have had, interesting though they would be. I’m just very clear about my focus and that is rebuilding trust with the Jewish community. I do not consider sharing that article furthered the course of rebuilding trust with the Jewish community and that’s why I stood Rebecca Long-Bailey down."
Ask does not always mean ask. ?

Fair comment Mamie ?

Thank you Whitewave and Trisher for making it a lot clearer. So if we think like this, hating the government do you think its possible that what JC and the Labour party are doing the same, hating the government but not the people?

Support from Labour Jews

RLB has been giving the Labour front bench a lot of concern for a while now over her handling of the teachers unions.

She was continually playing into the governments hands without support from the labour leadership.

She has been a disappointment .

Kier Starmer had no choice. He has to take a clear lead on the issue. Fumbling about over it got them into too much rouble before.

Good. The woman was trouble with too much to say.

if she had refused to step down when asked she would have been sacked of course!!

She was incredibly stupid to retweet anything that went anywhere near the possibility of being judged anti-semetic. It’s also been clear that her heart has not been in education and she’s performed badly against Williamson which frankly takes some doing. I think he was right to appoint her and give her a chance and she’s blown it.

Meanwhile of course, Jenrick retains his Cabinet post but I expect most right wingers on here think that’s absolutely fine. Only Corbyn supporting MPs can be criticised and all Johnson supporting MPs are Mr/ Ms/ Mrs Beyond Reproach. Most of those on the left have the intelligence to criticise our own ‘side’

Urmstongran

Was it AS ? it's not

But it flirts with it, and given RLB's connections to Corbyn and Labour's image of AS, it was breathtakingly stupid.

Starmer had to get rid of RLB

If it makes you feel better, Starmer sacked her for being stupid, not for being Anti-semitic.

Any politician, let alone one who is in the Shadow Cabinet, who re-tweets the words of a tv actor with such extreme views has got to be stupid.

It says just now on SKY news that KS ‘has asked RLB to step down from the Shadow Cabinet. …. Not quite the same as being sacked then?
Yes, it amounts to the same. She's sacked.

She can't be sacked as an MP, of course! But she could be de-selected as so many were threatened with when she was a Corbyn supporter.

Meanwhile of course, Jenrick retains his Cabinet post but I expect most right wingers on here think that’s absolutely fine. Only Corbyn supporting MPs can be criticised and all Johnson supporting MPs are Mr/ Ms/ Mrs Beyond Reproach. Most of those on the left have the intelligence to criticise our own ‘side’

That's a different matter about a different MP - is there a thread?
He's a liability too.

suziewoozie

She was incredibly stupid to retweet anything that went anywhere near the possibility of being judged anti-semetic. It’s also been clear that her heart has not been in education and she’s performed badly against Williamson which frankly takes some doing. I think he was right to appoint her and give her a chance and she’s blown it.

Meanwhile of course, Jenrick retains his Cabinet post but I expect most right wingers on here think that’s absolutely fine. Only Corbyn supporting MPs can be criticised and all Johnson supporting MPs are Mr/ Ms/ Mrs Beyond Reproach. Most of those on the left have the intelligence to criticise our own ‘side’

I voted Conservative, I think Jenrick should go!!

He most probably did the best thing for the party.

Keir Starmer, that is.

If anyone is interested, and a bit puzzled over the sacking I have copied and pasted an explanation below, which as I hinted above is more complicated that it first appears and with which I agree. This person is doing my job for me?

This is a classic situation where someone has, on the surface of things, criticised the actions of the Israeli state. That in itself is not antisemitic, of course. It is also something where a bit of it is true & a bit of it isn’t. The important bit isn’t.
Now - is it inherently antisemitic to say something untrue about the state of Israel? By my measure, no. I feel where criticism of Israel becomes antisemitic is a) where they are held to a higher standard than other countries, probably not the case here and B) where falsehoods about the state of Israel are rooted in long-held antisemitic tropes. Still with me? OK so here’s where we need some more context. There is an age-old blood libel trope where historically Jews have been accused of secretly orchestrating disasters

I think, given that the accusation is demonstrably false, given that there is a widespread far-right conspiracy theory that Jews are trying to start a race war & given that there have been multiple incidents of Jews as a collective being blamed for anti-Black racism..

...that the surrounding context makes a conspiracy theory which is on the surface of it about Israel much more likely to be rooted in antisemitic sentiment. Phew. So given that I just had to explain all of this, could RLB have been expected to know this? 6

Well... yes, frankly. She has just experienced four years of people painstakingly explaining to her what antisemitic tropes look like. She was closely involved with a leadership that ultimately failed in part because of their poor record on antisemitism

At this point, there is no excuse for her not to know better. And yes, this decision is partly political, but it’s also of her own making. RLB was closely tied to the Corbyn project, which caused so much pain for so many Jewish people across the political spectrum 8/

She should have known that a whiff of antisemitic conspiracy thinking would put Starmer in a very difficult position. He campaigned on a promise to stamp out antisemitism in the party. He can’t, in his first few months, have his front bench tainted with it.
So in short, I think RLB demonstrated, sadly, that she had learned nothing from the mistakes of the last four years & that she is unable to hear the dog whistles that maybe ordinary people can’t be expected to detect, but at this point, she should. 10/
To summarise - criticising Israel = absolutely legitimate. Probably helpful if what you’re saying is true. Probably also helpful if what you’re saying doesn’t echo millennia of antisemitic tropes & current active antisemitic conspiracy theories. 11
I can understand why someone looking at this with no other information might wonder what she did wrong, but the point is she had that information & still isn’t able to deploy it successfully. I think he had no choice but to let her go or be tainted by mistakes of the past.
Replying to
@Sara_Rose_G
This is also a really salient point - RLB should have understood the sensitivities around why Jewish people didn’t vote Labour. I myself have been very hurt by comments like this. I voted Lib Dem in a Tory safe seat.

WhitewaveMk2 good explanation

`So what people are saying is that if something is true but it might be considered anti-semitic (even if it isn't) it should be kept quiet. Isn't that really dangerous for free speech and information? If anyone bothered to look atthe link this was really interesting Among the thousands of US law enforcement officers who have reportedly participated in the exchange over the years was Anoka County (North Minneapolis) Sherrif James Stuart, who travelled to Israel in December.
But of course there is no connection.