Policing the party

GagaJo

JC was not at all an embarrassement lemongrove (21.06). He was a good, honorable Labour member and still is. I supported him for PM and think it is sad he didn't get in. Far from ruining Labour, he hugely increased party numbers, as you know.

However, life moves on swiftly and none of the LPM on here are mired in the past. You'd do well to do the same and look to the bag of snakes you voted in.

I would happily vote for a new left wing Labour leader. My allegiance wasn't to an individual, it was to the party. But I won't vote for a right wing Labour party.

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MaizieD In parliament Starmer failed to support human rights when he allowed a bill which will effectively allow investigators to commit crimes without fear of prosecution.
He has suspended left wing members like Naomi Wimbourne Idrissi.
He suggested a 2% rise for NHS staff.
Ken Loach has complained that Regional officers are closing down local parties where anything contraversial might be discussed
He paid compensation and reinstated right wing office workers accused of working against the party without any proper investigation.
Is that enough? I'm sure there's more.

But I won't vote for a right wing Labour party.

Can someone please provide the evidence that the LP has become right wing? Good, concrete evidence, please, (and not using internal LP politics as evidence.)

I just can't see it.

JC was not at all an embarrassement lemongrove (21.06). He was a good, honorable Labour member and still is. I supported him for PM and think it is sad he didn't get in. Far from ruining Labour, he hugely increased party numbers, as you know.

However, life moves on swiftly and none of the LPM on here are mired in the past. You'd do well to do the same and look to the bag of snakes you voted in.

I would happily vote for a new left wing Labour leader. My allegiance wasn't to an individual, it was to the party. But I won't vote for a right wing Labour party.

The 2017 election was also predominantly about 'Leave v Remain' and a high proportion of the young wanted to Remain, or at least have a say on how we left. They believed Labour would give them that. As Casdon posts, they were also caught up with the idea of changing the established order. They are also five years on in maturity and age since then and have different priorities and networking groups. Those at University will be encountering other political ideas. Those in work will also be influenced by the people they work with. The 2019 election was heavily influenced by the 'let's get Brexit done' mentality, engineered by BJ and the Blessed DC. It is the next general election which will be interesting, as Brexit is done and people will be looking forward now to how society will shape up after the pandemic. I will repeat what I have said on earlier threads, that BJ cannot dine out on Brexit, the Pandemic and the Vaccine forever. The honeymoon period is well and truly over. In 2023/24, when it is called, BJ will be up against a much heavier political weight.

not a leader who was capable of convincing anybody but true left devotees that he had the ability to put together a team that could lead the country effectively.
That's funny because in 2017 12,874,985 voted Labour. so some thought he could do it.

You’ve distorted what I said trisher. The ‘glamour’ attached to the 2017 election was never real, young people were swept up with wanting to change the established order, but even before the election some of them were beginning to realise that, to quote my mum, Corbyn was all mouth and no trousers - not a leader who was capable of convincing anybody but true left devotees that he had the ability to put together a team that could lead the country effectively. They are disillusioned, but Starmer isn’t the reason, most have now matured enough since 2017 to recognise that he has a huge mountain to climb, and will continue to vote Labour because they realise that it’s as important to take the electorate with you as it is to make changes. As I’ve said before, I’m in Wales, and that’s exactly what’s happening here.

trisher

MaizieD some people have short memories. Here's some of the media coverage just before the 2017 election www.theguardian.com/media/2017/jun/07/daily-mail-devotes-13-pages-to-attack-on-labour-apologists-for-terror
And
www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/jeremy-corbyn-theresa-may-reporting-bias-general-election-2017-labour-conservative-a7745401.html

So were any of the allegations true, taken from the comments and actions of those three. Why was there no defence from those three, perhaps because they had non.

So all those headlines didn't influence the election in 2017 at all Casdon The election the LP almost won, while the right wingers in head office undermined the party.
And yes I would imagine young people are disillusioned. The party that promised so much has a leader that doesn't care for democracy, doesn't support human rights, doesn't seem to have principles and is ready to bankrupt the party. After Corbyn he's a complete disillusion.

Going back a few posts to this one from Grany:

Contrast this with party leader Starmer’s response, which was to say he agreed with what Ms Butler had said – but then to insist that Acting Deputy Speaker Judith Cummins was right to order the Labour MP to leave:

That was absolutely the correct response. I'm sick of these bordering on hysterical misunderstandings of the Deputy Speaker's action. She was obliged under standing orders, i.e the rules, to order Ms Butler to leave the chamber.

We're all complaining furiously that Johnson and his government aren't following the rules so it is a tad ironic if Starmer gets criticised for acknowledging that the correct procedure was followed. But all grist to the anti-Starmerite's mill, I suppose.

FGS, Starmer said that he agreed with Butler. He calls the PM a liar, in Parliamentary language, at every opportunity he can during PMQs. Objecting to the proper implementation of the rules makes him vulnerable to having accusations of hypocrisy levelled against him in future. He is not stupid.

Not a short memory on my part. The electorate was sold a pup, and after the event reality set in. I know so many younger people in particular who were swept away by Corbyn mania, only to feel now that it was all an illusion. Sad.

MaizieD some people have short memories. Here's some of the media coverage just before the 2017 election www.theguardian.com/media/2017/jun/07/daily-mail-devotes-13-pages-to-attack-on-labour-apologists-for-terror
And
www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/jeremy-corbyn-theresa-may-reporting-bias-general-election-2017-labour-conservative-a7745401.html

. People in 2017 voted massively for a left wing party, only the DUP kept the Tories in power. And that with someone as leader vilified in the media and on GN.

I don't agree with your concluding sentence, trisher. There was surprise, amusement, scepticism, in fact a whole lot of reactions to the election of Corbyn as LP leader, but the real, vicious, well orchestrated and relentless vilification came after the 'establishment' was scared witless at how closely the LP came to power in 2017. I actually think that the driving force of the electorate in 2017 was, after 7 years of their austerity and a badly run referendum, 'anything but the tories'. After all, the LP hadn't even frightened the horses by being a 'Remain' party (much to the annoyance of many LP supporters).

Having said that, I think that, for the time being, the moment has passed for the LP to overtly be very left wing. Whatever the strong opponents of Starmer might say about his leadership I'm not getting 'tory-lite' vibes from it. What I am getting is that it doesn't scare people.

It is interesting that the media and the populace have, during covid, accepted economic policies from the tories that would have been excoriated had they been introduced, or even suggested, by Labour. So it seems to me that it's the manufactured illusion of left wing economic policies being damaging that scares the electorate, not the implementation of them.

The views of Tory voters are important in my opinion, because they can offer a critique that those within the Labour Party can’t - exactly the same as Labour voters offer a critique on the Government, so I’m quite surprised that you would be amused at their contribution?
I’ve given my views on what needs to change in the Labour Party on numerous occasions before trisher, so I don’t believe the assertion that you would listen - your analysis of what went wrong in 2019 is so different to mine that as I said yesterday we are never going to agree on the way forward.

Look Starmer is proscribing groups, bankrupting the party many leaving, what does he stand for. Policing the party. Got rid of a socialist Labour Party member Ken Loach his films speak for themselves And you wonder why people are distrustful

A Labour Party should stand for something people want him to fight for their rights.

Just the polices and pledges he was elected on that most people wanted. That's not hard left or pure.

Okay if you think Starmer is ok your choice but you can't blame people who think Starmer is not living up to what he promised and to be a party of unity.

It always amuses me when Tories tell the LP what it should be doing.
Casdon if someone from the centre could explain to me exactly what they would remove from the LP to make it more centrist I'm quite willing to listen, but they never do. They simply have some imaginary party with unspecified policies which apparently everyone will vote for. Now I may be left wing and I may not post other points of view but I'm quite clear about the policies I support and they are there in the manifesto. The one which attracted so many votes 2017.

lemongrove spot on, I didn’t think for a minute you had changed your allegiance, but your response to what Grany said was the same as mine.

trisher judging by your comments on this thread and lots of others, you are in fact a lot more left than most Labour supporters, not just those on here. The fact that you don’t see a different future doesn’t mean there isn’t one, because you’re only talking to people who share your particular views, and seeing it from your perspective - as you said yourself you never post more varied views, only those that support the left.

trisher

lemon it's a debate I've had many times I don't think there is any support (or only very little) for a Tory -lite party. There is absolutely no evidence for it. Few people in the last years of Blair's government bothered to vote. They couldn't see the difference. People in 2017 voted massively for a left wing party, only the DUP kept the Tories in power. And that with someone as leader vilified in the media and on GN.
The idea that I am somehow far left is ludicrous. Far left would include the return of Clause 4 and mass nationalisation. No one's asking for that. But moving a party further to the right when it has already shifted massively isn't a good idea. And the idea that Starmer is going to restore the LP is ludicrous. There's little support in the party for him. Only the PLP and the people he reinstated at Head Office are behind him, and they will dump. him once they realise how useless he really is.

Very well Said trisher

I think you make a very good point Devorgilla

lemon it's a debate I've had many times I don't think there is any support (or only very little) for a Tory -lite party. There is absolutely no evidence for it. Few people in the last years of Blair's government bothered to vote. They couldn't see the difference. People in 2017 voted massively for a left wing party, only the DUP kept the Tories in power. And that with someone as leader vilified in the media and on GN.
The idea that I am somehow far left is ludicrous. Far left would include the return of Clause 4 and mass nationalisation. No one's asking for that. But moving a party further to the right when it has already shifted massively isn't a good idea. And the idea that Starmer is going to restore the LP is ludicrous. There's little support in the party for him. Only the PLP and the people he reinstated at Head Office are behind him, and they will dump. him once they realise how useless he really is.

Surely if we change the rules to allow MPs to call one another 'a liar' at will, the rare occasion when it does happen would lose its impact and shock value. It was the 'shock' value of DB using the term that gave it impact in the news, and well done to her. It meant Labour was on the front page for a bit longer. If all MPs call one another liars because they disagree with them it loses all value. I seem to remember Yvette Cooper using an obscure procedure to great effect, including having DC scamper back from the Mansion House in full regalia. I rather imagine many of these obscure rules come from a time when swords and duels were still in play. By all means get rid of ones that are really irrelevant because of the passage of time, but not those which can be used, rarely, for political effect. I want serious debate in Parliament, not a 'liarfest' like ping pong between the benches.
Keir Starmer calls BJ out on his lies in PMQs in just as effective a way, using BJ's own utterances to point out his many inconsistencies. The wider public notices, hence his slippage in the ratings.

Get not bet.?

trisher I very much doubt that Casdon imagines that I have been a LP supporter ......
Just because I have a good grasp of what the LP needs to become ( more centre ground) to get into power.
If you prefer them to be very left wing and somehow ‘pure’ they will never bet into Number Ten. You must see that as an intelligent person.

Casdon

lemongrove .
It’s a cold and lonely place to be on the right of the left - or it would be if it wasn’t so crowded here.

Casdon if you imagine lemon is in any way a LP supporter it just shows how blurred the line between the Tories, and those who say they are Labour, but hold right wing views, is.

But don't worry the LP has a leader who is going to unite the party. Quite what it will stand for, or who will support it is an unknown.
Doesn't it worry you though that a leader of the LP should promise one thing and do another? Shouldn't that be left to the Tories?

Keir Starmer has been trumped in the row over Boris Johnson repeatedly lying to Parliament – by the new recruit he so warmly welcomed only recently.

John Bercow, the former Commons Speaker, said Labour backbencher Dawn Butler was right to claim the prime minister had lied – and called for “absurd” parliamentary rules to be changed so MPs can accuse one another of lying in the chamber.

In a joint article, written with Ms Butler for The Times, he wrote:

“The glaring weakness of the system is that someone lying to tens of millions of citizens knows he or she is protected by an ancient rule.

“They face no sanction. By contrast, an MP with the guts to tell the truth is judged to be in disgrace. It is absurd.”
Contrast this with party leader Starmer’s response, which was to say he agreed with what Ms Butler had said – but then to insist that Acting Deputy Speaker Judith Cummins was right to order the Labour MP to leave:

And not a word of support for changing the system.

This is just more evidence that Starmer is not fit to lead the Labour Party.

He simply doesn’t have the imagination to realise that rules are not immutable and may be changed – despite the fact that he works in a place where the rules that govern the whole of the UK are changed on a daily basis.

Ms Butler’s claims were factually accurate, by the way – the organisation Full Fact has checked them and supported them.