Do the Labour Party have Communist policies?

I like biblical quotes the best of all Whitewavemark2 so thanks for that 🥂

Indeed.

I also like the saying those with no guilt should caste the first stones.

It seems you have problems researching nanna8 I'm sorry about that but I'm not sure how your post is supposed to be helpful.
How patronising 😟
A poster’s opinion is just that and she has every right to express it without “teacher” grading her researching ability.
Voltaire probably never actually said the following words attributed to him, but they encapsulate his attitude to free speech and say it so well when much of his writing attacked the Catholic Church’s attempts to restrict people’s liberty at the time.
I disapprove of what you say, but I will defend to the death your right to say it
Some people would do well to think on.

No I have a life to live. I also only read The Times because we have plenty of our own papers . I certainly wouldn’t be described as right wing ,just saying. My studying days are over now, too many years of it.

It seems you have problems researching nanna8. I'm sorry about that but I'm not sure how your post is supposed to be helpful.

Going right back to the Zinoviev letter in 1924 and the Daily Mails reporting of what turned out to be a fake, the accusations about the Labour Party and Communism have raised their heads regularly.

Various individuals such as Corbyn and Bernie Sanders have been the object of similar right-wing attempts to paint Labour as Communist in the past. Every so often there is another attempt at this - it really is quite easy to find if you want to.

But you don't want to, do you "Nanna8*?

Did anyone actually say / think the British Labour Party are communist ? I’d be surprised if if they did. I can’t prove that. Individual members, perhaps, would like to be. I can’t prove that . To be a Marxist means something different. I can’t prove that.

Allira

Casdon

I know, but if you can name a political thread that has ever been just chatting I’d be surprised, it’s just not the nature of them - wishing things were different won’t change it I don’t think.

Some chat, others don't want to and want serious in-depth discussion, but I don't think trying to order the threads to be one or the other would work.

The issue I raised wasn't that offering opinions that mustn't be disagreed with (chat) shouldn't happen, but that we had just seen yet another onslaught on those who wanted to participate in a debate. We also see people getting upset because they are asked for evidence when they post. Personally, I thought the way the OP was written suggested a debate but others took swift umbridge at any attempt to make it that.

The easiest way might be to use N & P for both but preface the title with either "Chat" or Debate". For example:

Debate: Do the Labour Party have Communist policies?
Chat: Do the Labour Party have Communist policies?

I am not a supporter of Labour but of course they are not communist, that's ridiculous. The one to watch was Corbyn.

No, I agree.

Casdon

I know, but if you can name a political thread that has ever been just chatting I’d be surprised, it’s just not the nature of them - wishing things were different won’t change it I don’t think.

Some chat, others don't want to and want serious in-depth discussion, but I don't think trying to order the threads to be one or the other would work.

I know, but if you can name a political thread that has ever been just chatting I’d be surprised, it’s just not the nature of them - wishing things were different won’t change it I don’t think.

Chatting is not the same as agreeing, and threads do wander off in many directions.

Allira

Casdon

I really don’t think a N&P chat thread would work. Even threads about much frothier subjects stray into heated discussion, and people can’t resist joining in, with ensuing conflict.

I don't know why News and Politics should exclude chatting about those subjects.

I’m not saying it shouldn’t, but I am sure in reality it won’t happen like that. It’s the nature of the forum for disagreement to be part of every discussion, and for the discussion to go in unplanned directions.

Casdon

I really don’t think a N&P chat thread would work. Even threads about much frothier subjects stray into heated discussion, and people can’t resist joining in, with ensuing conflict.

I don't know why News and Politics should exclude chatting about those subjects.

Betony

I'm not sure what what Communism/Marxism/Trotskyism/Stalinism are (nor ever have been, to be honest). Am currently reading Sarah Rainsford's eye opening book Goodbye to Russia. If you want a good grounding in how socialist systems can be corrupted and end in disaster do read this by the BBC's former Russian correspondent, who, along with her husband were deported by the Putin government. Truly horrifying and to my mind getting all too close.

You are so right. It's appalling in Russia now: is Putin better than Mikhail Gorbachev would have been?

butterandjam yes!
You only have to look at the total paranoia of the MCarthy witch hunts in the USA of the late 1940's well into the 1950's, echoed by the hunting out of people who do have a right to remain in the USA right now, and ignorance is rife - lets not let it happen here.

No, it doesn't.

Labour/ Communist/Socialist confusion is actively spread by ignorant factions in USA ( including Trump).

Spite and malice seem rife to me on this forum on just about any thread and any subject.
A more chatty news thread would be a good idea, separate from politics where frivolous comments are not frowned on and there are no demands for links.

I'm not sure what what Communism/Marxism/Trotskyism/Stalinism are (nor ever have been, to be honest). Am currently reading Sarah Rainsford's eye opening book Goodbye to Russia. If you want a good grounding in how socialist systems can be corrupted and end in disaster do read this by the BBC's former Russian correspondent, who, along with her husband were deported by the Putin government. Truly horrifying and to my mind getting all too close.

I think there is room in N and P for the whole gamut of types of discussion, from the never to be forgotten "The Trouser" thread to detailed informed discussions - and everything in between.

I don't like it when spite or malice appear, game playing, is all, really.

Spinnaker

fancythat

If it helps, I would join it.
It could be an ongoing, if sporadic, long running thread over time.
For whatever the politics of the day are.

Go for it fancythat - I'd join it too

Well I would let nanna8 do it.
It was her idea.

Ah, so you have experienced just how corrupt yet poignant that man was Petra - think of those awful those orphanages were:

Yet Czechoslovakia was on the whole a benign society, many people just waiting to tip over into democracy. (After the invasion by the Russians in 1968, no surprise - the "Prague Spring")

It's a total illustration of how very different the societies people think of as "Communist" actually were!

Wyllow3
We owned a rental property in Transylvania. Stunningly beautiful region.
I have been inside that building 😱
I once had a Romanian traffic cop kiss my hand. We exceeded the speed limit. In Romania they take your license there and then so my partner offered him €50. Of course he took it with a big smile on his face.
He came over to our car and kept thanking us and kissed my hand.

Maremia

According to Lady Google,

Communism is a social organisation in which all property is owned by the community, and each person contributes according to their ability and needs

Hope this helps

In theory, in practice it’s much different, an authoritarian command economy is more accurate.

The Labour Party now seems to be a directionless mix if socialism and liberalism, the prospects for the economy is poor so will resort to higher taxation to balance the books, that going to loose them a lot of votes in the next GE

There is a far left party that are basically Trotskyist - they are the Socialist Workers Party.

You will find them practicing "entryism" where they join a more mainstream group - for example the Unions, or other organisations, the Gaza issues, some strikes, to forward their aims.

If you look up "Socialist Workers Party" and see their campaigns then it's fairly clear.

I experienced them for example in the "Black Lives Matter" campaign locally and I have no doubt nationally. In this small organising group if you didn't follow "the line" you were gaslighted or quietly not informed of this or that.

I know this is tedious unless you are interested, but it does throw light on how careless accusations of "Communism" or "Marxism" are short on knowledge in making those same accusations.

Ie, they make the terms meaningless.

Whitewavemark2

What you are describing wyllow3 though bears no relation to the Marx description of communism.

Yes, Marx was a theoretician: (like others here, I've read and discussed him as in his original books)

He described what he saw as an inevitable end of Capitalism and a rising up of the working classes to demand what I laid out in the first part of the O/P ie pure "Communism" as in totalled mutual communality.

It was Lenin who came around to writing about the practicalities of building a Communist Society. ie "Marxist Leninism".

Other leaders in the early days of the Russian Revolution were for example Trotsky, who tended towards Anarchism (tho not an anarchist) : he was defeated by Lenin and left Russia): the other major example is of course Stalin, who was a pretty horrific hardliner and of course had the Gulags: he took advantage of Lenin dying fairly young.

So describing someone as a "Marxist" doesn't really work too well as it covers a rather wide range of ideologies.