Who would've thought Scott Baio could've actually made me laugh.
Funny events in anti-woke world
- Thread starter Agema
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Who would've thought Scott Baio could've actually made me laugh.
It's a sad but true state of affairs, but Labour is the only functional vehicle for anti-Conservative politics on the national level, and it realistically will be for the foreseeable future (by which I mean decades). It will stay that way until there is voting reform.
The country urgently needs a new narrative over voting and voting reform. It needs to be made clear how manifestly unfair it is for the majority to vote for parties to the left of the Tories, and for the Tories to win anyway, because they earn a bigger vote-share than any single one taken individually.
But until that point, withdrawing support from Labour only serves to both 1) entrench the Conservatives, and 2) delay voting reform. Even switching support to a party which supports voting reform is quite counter-productive, because they will never be in a position to implement it; voting reform is only feasibly going to happen through either A) A Labour government, or B) A Labour-led coalition.
It can split if it really wants to after we have some form of A.V., or P.R.
In the meantime, it's also a fucking necessity that it lays off the endless factional infighting. Starmer ran on a platform of unifying different factions, but his recent expulsions of 4 socialist groups would seem to indicate that was just talk. If he imagines that will stifle dissent, he's made a pretty moronic miscalculation.
Well, okay. But it's not so plainly Starmer's fault, because the left is overtly seeking to remove him. So it is with a civil war with irreconcilable differences: there is no unity to be found, which means peace can only be secured by suppression.
Labour, LDs and Greens could try a "grand coalition": they either temporarily unify under an umbrella party, or they stand down candidates, leaving the constituency to represented by whichever party is most likely to take the seat. There could however be a cost to this as it may annoy voters, who decline to vote or even vote Tory just to give them a metaphorical slap in the face. But I don't think they have the vision or the urgency.
"The left" isn't interchangeable with specific subgroups. Were those groups actually organising anything to oust the leader? I can't find anything, and that wasn't the rationale put forward to the NEC.
We know members are being kicked out regardless of whether they're involved in any such anti-Starmer efforts. I hardly think Ken Loach was launching a challenge.
At least they're not trying to storm Westminster Palace?
I fear that freemasonry is vastly more boring than a lot of people want to believe.
You know you can actually blame part of this on the Australian Prime Minister, Scott Morrison.
He listened to one of his best friends.... who happens to be big now in Qanon
In 2019, Scotty was doing a speech to say sorry to all people who were molested/ raped by any major institution (government and private like the churches). Great IMO
His friend convince Scotty to add 'ritualised sexual abuse' into the speech... to set off all those who think there is a massive cabal of lefty child rapist. They've been using this as proof that the tide is finally turning and want other countries to follow suit
Actual victims have been horrified that their pain has been used to punish innocent people so blatantly
Who to replace him, out of interest?
The void of personality or political acumen that is Richard Burgon? Rayner?
From what I can see from Labour Party subreddits, the left of the party seem to have rehabilitated Owen Smith and want him to challenge Starmer, after disliking him for challenging Corbyn.
I can get behind Rayner, she was always my first pick for leader. Don't want a leadership challenge now, though: your average Labour member doesn't give a shit about those 4 proscribed groups, and the challenge would just fail.
Probably not lobbying MPs to mount an official leadership challenge, no. But it's not hard to read around and see a lot of them are keen for him to fail and attacking him.
That scarcely justifies guilt-by-association expulsions of anyone who might share a group with people who write that stuff.
The left of the Labour Party are unlikely to support Eagle; they dislike her generally for voting for the Iraq War (and against investigating it).
The only high profile realistic alternative I can see is Rayner. Who I would prefer to Starmer, though I think a leadership bid now would be doomed.
Depends on what they are getting up to, precisely. One can argue you don't wait around and leave dissidents in your ranks because they're not mounting a rebellion just yet. The other logic of course is that Labour might have polled and found public concerns that the party became a hotbed of radical socialists who want to ban private ownership or something, so a quick purge might improve PR.
It's not just that but Labour clearly has a problem with low public trust. Turfing out the leader too quickly just adds to the sense of chaos and disrepair. Stability, even under mediocrity, can have its advantages.
So let him take the party into the next election as Corbyn did, and that will tell us whether he needs to be ditched. Although I suspect at this rate one of those temporary Socialist Worker backed parties will quickly spin up their gears and complicate matters considerably for the next election.
Indeed. Make no mistake though, this is qanon in all but name.
Unfortunately it was gaining real traction here way before Scotty did a public conspiracy poopoo. One of my close family members tried pilling me on it out of nowhere ages ago, and won't stop trying to pill everyone on it ever since. Social media group coordination, algorithms and insidious money injections have been major contributors for it worldwide so far. France has got a concerning hold on it too;
In context of Scott Morrison, not sure if you've come across any of it yet, but there's interviews with the sister of his best buddy talking about his radicalisation and influence, though it's probably more publicised in Australian media than anywhere else I'd imagine. So apologies if it's already old knowledge!
There is no justice, and there is no restoration, there are only degrees of suffering. And I see our only options in regards to political voting as minimising the worst of the suffering.
If PR was the purpose, it'll fail spectacularly. Your average person is utterly unaware of groups like Socialist Appeal, but they will be aware of another several months of a 'purge' and 'infighting' narrative.
If combating disloyalty to the party was the intention, I'd have expected some kind of move against those functionaries caught stating on WhatsApp that they have worked against Labour victory. But they were hostile to the left of the party, so nobody seems to give a shit, it's all but forgotten.
This is another reason I don't think the time is right for any kind of leadership challenge. Starmer hasn't actually been tested in an election yet. He's just performed badly in a few polls over a short time period, during which the government is benefitting from a vaccine boost. As things calm down I expect Starmer's numbers to improve, and he is effective at combating Johnson when he tries.
But at present, infighting is the single biggest hamstring for the Labour Party, and Starmer himself has done more than anyone else to perpetuate it.
See I wouldn't agree with Eagle on that point as even as a non Labour person I was against the war and pro investigating it but I can somewhat understand her wanting to go in more due to put it somewhat politely reasons other than the WMD argument and more down to her as a persons and other aspects of her life which Iraq and some parts of the Middle East don't tend to be too good with.
Labour needs to look beyond the party walls into the wider public and Angela Eagle would do really well I feel just make sure some-one tempers some of her lets say not so great impulses in terms of wanting to spread influence beyond the UK on certain issues and things would be golden.