Jeremy Corbyn

IdleRich

IdleRich
It's a thing that has really become apparent to me since I started on going on twitter a fair bit lately - the sheer amount of infighting on the left. It's probably old news to you guys but to me it's been a big shock to see the sheer scale of it. I scroll through comments and see attack after sarcastic attack... arguments I can't even follow and which refer to old grievances and people I don't know. I've no idea of the rights and wrongs of it but it seems clear that there is no way that Labour can ever get back into power when they see their main enemies as other factions in the party rather than the completely incompetent and vicious arseholes who are actually running the country.
 

DannyL

Wild Horses
I'd agree. It's a shame in some ways that the party didn't split at some point over the last couple of years. You can see a similar dynamic on the American left (around Bernie). "The perfect is always the enemy of the good" (good doing some heavy lifting there but bear with me).

It's one reason why I've ending up cutting down in Twitter. The infighting does my head in and the mode of discourse that's mostly about directing anger at "the enemy" is kinda stale.
 

DannyL

Wild Horses
And Labour's been at it since forever - the 70s with Tony Benn et al, the SDP leaving when it wasn't left enough, Kinnock throwing Militant out in the mid 80s etc. Corbyn was in a lot of ways the comeback tour of all this stuff. Hywel (Baboon) talked a bit about meeting ageing activists who were still nursing greivancies from this period. I'm sure that these tendency goes back further. Orwell lays into bearded, orange juice drinking vegetarians at some point in his works. My point is it seems somehow baked into the party.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
It's one reason why I've ending up cutting down in Twitter. The infighting does my head in and the mode of discourse that's mostly about directing anger at "the enemy" is kinda stale.
Well, it's not like I'm getting caught up in these arguments... it's just an eye-opener to me the extent to which they persist, rumbling along in the background (well foreground almost) for years. If I shut down twitter or just got to the music bits they will still go on - they're happening right now no doubt.
But yeah, I totally agree with you about "making perfect the enemy of good". There's a girl I'm friends with on fb and all I see is her attacking Starmer, Philips, Lammy etc etc often on good grounds, some times cos they voted on the wrong side of some vote that lost by 250 votes anyway in 1994 or whatever. And it's factually true I'm sure and often even morally correct, the main point to me, is that none of this lot are anywhere near as bad as the actual Tory government that is in power and which is the most evil, incompetent and destructive I've ever known.
To a point, a huge amount of damage has already been done and it will take ages to put right, basically the non-Tories couldn't organise and be ruthless when they needed to and that has allowed the infliction of horrendous body blows to the country so in a sense anything they do achieve now is too late.. but still, I see little point on continuous attacks on what is nominally your own side.
I mean, it's tricky, I'm not saying turn a blind eye to everything of course, so there is a balance to be found. I just feel that at the moment the balance is not right and it feels that a large (too large) part of the left is constantly looking for more failings on their own side and more justifications to attack them.
 

DannyL

Wild Horses
I would agree. There's an enormous amount of bitterness 'cos Corbyn lost and therefore blew the Left's one big chance. The centre also hate the Left tbf. I'm always reminded of a Frankie Boyle quote from a few years ago "The Labour Party, they really are just like one big family.... they really fucking hate one another".
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
I would agree. There's an enormous amount of bitterness 'cos Corbyn lost and therefore blew the Left's one big chance. The centre also hate the Left tbf. I'm always reminded of a Frankie Boyle quote from a few years ago "The Labour Party, they really are just like one big family.... they really fucking hate one another".
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IdleRich

IdleRich
I would agree. There's an enormous amount of bitterness 'cos Corbyn lost and therefore blew the Left's one big chance. The centre also hate the Left tbf. I'm always reminded of a Frankie Boyle quote from a few years ago "The Labour Party, they really are just like one big family.... they really fucking hate one another".
For me - I've said this several times I know - there was a moment, where there was a non-Tory or Remain majority in parliament and they could have formed a unity government and delayed or stopped Brexit, or put in stronger controls against no deal. There would have been howls of rage and outrage from the Tories and the press and so on... but they could have done it. They had the numbers to do it.
And at that moment when we all KNEW that the Leave campaign had cheated, and we KNEW that the fudge we were gonna end up with had never been voted for by a majority of the country and - with the Tories trying their dodgy porogue to get round their lack of majority - it was very clear that the other side was perfectly prepared to ignore conventions and the spirit of the law and so on and would fight dirty to get what they wanted. If the situation had been reversed then of course Johnson and Mogg and their evil allies would't have hesitated to take advantage of the situation and force through what they wanted.
That was the chance, and they didn't take it. I don't know if they lacked the political will to push through something so controversial - but that's no excuse, any grown-up analysis should have shown them that they had to ignore that as their enemies would. At the time it was reported that Corbyn and Swinton couldn't agree as to who should be the leader of the interim government. If that's it - and sadly I suspect it was - then that is just completely pathetic. What was so weird is you would see the arguments online that were exactly the same "Corbyn is the leader of the opposition, he MUST lead any interim government" and vice versa of course from Libtards - I honestly think that they were so hung up on who would lead a TEMPORARY government that they put their demands for a month or two in power above the entire future of the whole country.
And then the Libs had the extraordinary hubris to vote for an election and destroy the delicate balance of a situation in which, somehow, the goodies just about had the upper hand.
So... regardless of what else Corbyn did and didn't do, I'll feel angry about the lack of political sure-footedness... not even that, just the lack of fucking working out the right thing to do at the right time and doing it. Along with Swinton he had the chance to prevent this fucking fiasco and they blew it and that I won't forget or forgive.
 

IdleRich

IdleRich
So yeah.... I go on twitter and this is the first thing i see

Will the Corbynites ever realise that it’s literally impossible for Labour to gain power without persuading a large number of Tory voters to vote Labour?

It's not that it's necessarily wrong as a statement, it's just that, you know that thing about generals planning for the last battle rather than the one that's coming? Well these guys it' kinda feels that they want to be fighting the wrong battle now but the are fighting the last wrong battle again, not the one they think they want to.
 

subvert47

I don't fight, I run away
the fact remains that there has been significant cross-training and cooperation between American cops and Israeli security forces, including in the realms of public order and protest and this has been an issue of concern (for obvious reasons) thats been highlighted for years.

Now I'm getting nostalgic for the days when it was the UK exporting all over the world techniques developed in Northern Ireland.

(PS I'm not really.)
 

craner

Beast of Burden
He was never interested in preventing a fucking fiasco. I mean, he wasn't actively working for a fucking fiasco, like some claimed, but his primary interest and motivation was not in preventing the fiasco either. If anything, the fiasco was an opportunity, and there were aspects of it he liked anyway. (When I saw "he" I also mean his core team.)
 

luka

Well-known member
all parties are riven with infighting arent they? for the same reason dissensus is riven with infighting. every group is a war for control of that group. every individual is trying to impose their own will on it, imprint it with their own temprement and consciousness. how can there be peace? particualrly in a coalition as large as the labour party
 

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
He was never interested in preventing a fucking fiasco. I mean, he wasn't actively working for a fucking fiasco, like some claimed, but his primary interest and motivation was not in preventing the fiasco either. If anything, the fiasco was an opportunity, and there were aspects of it he liked anyway. (When I saw "he" I also mean his core team.)
Yeah. I think part of the core problem Rich has described - the inability of non-Tories to agree over leadership of a temporary coalition government (other than sheer clash of egos) - was that, by rights, it should have been Cornyn because he was the de-jure Leader of the Opposition, but Swinson was the de-facto leader of the opposition to Brexit.
 

luka

Well-known member
if your Leader can't impose themselves over the group then you have civil war, at whatever degree of intensity.
 

luka

Well-known member
although Corbyn is the greatest Englishman who ever lived, even including the mythical King Arthur, he led a party full of too many weasels and ferrets and they wouldn't submit to a man with a halo. the party needs a leader who is part weassel, part ferret. they won't be led by a saint.
 

luka

Well-known member
if you want to get anywhere you have to decide on a direction of travel. and that means choosing a Leader and falling into line.
 
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luka

Well-known member
the left are feral with rage and resentment becasue it was their turn. they won it fair and square. but that's not how things worked out.
 

luka

Well-known member
it's tricky. a labour party somehow has to pull of thr trick of including a Mr Tea, a John Eden, a Danny L, an Oliver Craner, a Sadmanbarty, a Subvert47, a luka....
foreign policy hawks, trade unionists, village hall socialists,small c conservatives, neoliberals, policy wonks, revolutionaries, saints, martyrs, self-professed 'realists', and so on and so forth. how do you pull that trick off?
 
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Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
I thought Eden doesn't vote, considers parliamentary politics nothing but the veriest Temple of Babylon, that sort of thing? Maybe I'm wrong though.
 
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