What is the point of Labour ?

[scottsdad]

On 14/01/2022 at 16:41, Zern said:

Labour Party finances apparently not so healthy:

The Labour Party is on the verge of bankruptcy - Evolve Politics

Coupled with loss of members and activists this could dampen any projected swings to Labour in the next General Election.

ooft

The legal ramifications of the Corbyn era - paying out squillions in damages for anti-semitism - has far-outweighed the subscription money from the huge number of people who joined because of Corbyn. 

Nobody hates Labour like the left, and nobody has damaged it more than the left. Especially Corbyn.

[craigkillie]

There's everyone's favourite socialist party undermining workers' rights for the sake of cheap pointscoring.

 

[scottsdad]

1 hour ago, craigkillie said:

There's everyone's favourite socialist party undermining workers' rights for the sake of cheap pointscoring.

 

I doubt my liver would handle me going to a 14 day conference without a break. 

[Clown Job]

3 hours ago, craigkillie said:

There's everyone's favourite socialist party undermining workers' rights for the sake of cheap pointscoring.

 

Sprinkled with some misogyny 

Apparently she’s a “Diva” for not wanting to works 2 weeks straight 

[Genuine Hibs Fan]

It's just such poor stuff, as obviously 2 "things" means engagements, meetings, events etc which is perfectly reasonable when she obviously has other ministerial  duties to perform. She also has autism which, while I'm no expert, I'd imagine makes attending these sorts of things (and let's remember COP was a complete waste of time from the outset) particularly difficult for her.

It's a sign of the growing lack of ability to see anything without ideological blinkers that anyone would see this as anything other than a request for proper working conditions. Some of the replies to the story are extremely depressing. Christ even the "gotcha" tweet of her and Harvie having a drink explicitly says they are going back to work later that day meeting representatives of other Green parties. 

 

[oneteaminglasgow]

Quote

"The Minister doesn’t want to do any more than two things in a day given there will be other work to do in and around that.

"It may be feasible to do three things in a day if they are all nearby one another and don’t require much preparation.

"Consideration should also be given to any evening events in Glasgow where the Minister may be very late (post 10pm) getting home in which case there should be a later start the following day.

"The Minister commented that she can’t be working 14 days straight — she needs two full days completely off, they don’t need to be consecutive."

I legitimately can’t see a single thing in there that could even loosely be described as unreasonable, never mind staggering or whatever that Labour fanny said. 

[Zern]

4 hours ago, scottsdad said:

The legal ramifications of the Corbyn era - paying out squillions in damages for anti-semitism - has far-outweighed the subscription money from the huge number of people who joined because of Corbyn. 

Nobody hates Labour like the left, and nobody has damaged it more than the left. Especially Corbyn.

Sure. Blame Corbyn. That'll help replace the members lost by their shift right-wing. The lack of union support is down to him too yes?

Doesn't Starmer have any responsibility for what is happening at Labour?

[scottsdad]

16 minutes ago, Zern said:

Sure. Blame Corbyn. That'll help replace the members lost by their shift right-wing. The lack of union support is down to him too yes?

Doesn't Starmer have any responsibility for what is happening at Labour?

Corbyn brought huge numbers of members to the party, people who had previously not been engaged with Labour or politics generally. That was indeed a good thing.

They all climbed into bed with him, and then he shat that bed.

These folk leaving post-Corbyn is no great surprise. I doubt they would have stayed unless Long-Bailey would have won the leadership, and the project would have carried on. 

Starmer is responsible now, yes, but the point about the finances is two-fold. Huge sums going out in compensation, and less coming in because unions are less happy now that they can't dictate what is going on. 

[welshbairn]

34 minutes ago, scottsdad said:

Corbyn brought huge numbers of members to the party, people who had previously not been engaged with Labour or politics generally. That was indeed a good thing.

They all climbed into bed with him, and then he shat that bed.

These folk leaving post-Corbyn is no great surprise. I doubt they would have stayed unless Long-Bailey would have won the leadership, and the project would have carried on. 

Starmer is responsible now, yes, but the point about the finances is two-fold. Huge sums going out in compensation, and less coming in because unions are less happy now that they can't dictate what is going on. 

Have you got the numbers for compensation pay outs? It's just that I can't remember any Labour MPs, Councillors or party employees getting sued for anti semitism. A few members said bad things, but mainly they were just criticising the Israeli State or backing the Palestinians, and I don't see how the Party can be held liable for every member's twitter feed anyway. 

Edited January 17, 2022 by welshbairn

[Zern]

I don't doubt that there has been compensation. I doubt the wisdom of using it as an excuse for the sorry state of their finances and dwindling support.

Blaming the Jews. Really?

Haven't they suffered enough?

[scottsdad]

16 hours ago, welshbairn said:

Have you got the numbers for compensation pay outs? It's just that I can't remember any Labour MPs, Councillors or party employees getting sued for anti semitism. A few members said bad things, but mainly they were just criticising the Israeli State or backing the Palestinians, and I don't see how the Party can be held liable for every member's twitter feed anyway. 

All the news reports is a six-figure payout, which is a fairly wide range.

Quote

But its finances have been hampered by pay-outs in legal cases relating to anti-Semitism, as well as the cost of fighting three general elections since 2015.

The party's loss of 59 seats at the 2019 vote also means it will receive less public funding for opposition parties, known as "short money".

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-58439902

Quote

The party agreed in the High Court last July to pay undisclosed six-figure settlements for making 'false and defamatory' comments about seven ex-employees who spoke out in the 2019 BBC Panorama documentary Is Labour Anti-Semitic? 

Meanwhile the latest general election thrashing in 2019 saw Labour lose 59 seats, meaning it has been receiving less public funding in 'short money', which is handed out to opposition parties depending on how many seats they have. 

For the year 2020, each opposition party was paid £18,297.43 per seat won at the last general election.

Having lost 59 seats, Labour saw a drop in annual funding of £1.07million.  

Meanwhile Unite leader Len McCluskey slashed the union's funds to Labour by £150,000 last year, complaining that as the party's biggest donor, it was 'unfair' for 'its money' to be spent on the anti-semitism payouts.  

A triple whammy really - compensation payouts, loss of short money and cuts from Unite tied to the compensation. 

 

[sparky88]

Labour should use the poll lead they've got to replace Starmer quickly. We know that he cant really move the polls enough on his own and the fear must be the Tories recover if Sue Gray is just about harsh enough to avoid 'whitewash' claims. 

[Highlandmagar]

33 minutes ago, sparky88 said:

Labour should use the poll lead they've got to replace Starmer quickly. We know that he cant really move the polls enough on his own and the fear must be the Tories recover if Sue Gray is just about harsh enough to avoid 'whitewash' claims. 

Replace him with who?

[welshbairn]

1 hour ago, scottsdad said:

All the news reports is a six-figure payout, which is a fairly wide range.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-58439902

A triple whammy really - compensation payouts, loss of short money and cuts from Unite tied to the compensation. 

 

It seems they paid out for "falsely" accusing people of lying about antisemitism on a TV programme, not for acts of anti semitism themselves. 

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/jul/22/labour-pays-out-six-figure-sum-and-apologises-in-antisemitism-row

[scottsdad]

44 minutes ago, sparky88 said:

Labour should use the poll lead they've got to replace Starmer quickly. We know that he cant really move the polls enough on his own and the fear must be the Tories recover if Sue Gray is just about harsh enough to avoid 'whitewash' claims. 

Just the kind of thinking that has killed Labour in the past. As recently as 2016, the Tories were in utter crisis after the Brexit referendum. Cameron resigned, leadership election looming, public trust gone - Labour under Corbyn could have really attacked the Tories and made some real progress. They were making inroads in the polls.

Instead the centrists within Labour thought the same as you - now is the time to attack the leader! So they formed a circular firing squad. Instead of attacking the Tories, Labour ended up in a months-long leadership challenge attacking themselves. The Tories appointed May and Labour was the party in crisis all summer.  I don't think Corbyn really recovered - that was the moment that the public would have given him a hearing and the party destroyed it. Right now is the time for Labour to start saying something positive; a leadership challenge will just kill them.

[DrewDon]

Only way Labour would boot Starmer is if he did something completely unacceptable like winning three elections in a row. 

[NotThePars]

It seems they paid out for "falsely" accusing people of lying about antisemitism on a TV programme, not for acts of anti semitism themselves. 
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/jul/22/labour-pays-out-six-figure-sum-and-apologises-in-antisemitism-row

The new leadership couldn’t fight those cases because they spent years insisting the previous leader of their own party was an existential threat to Jewish people so they could fight factional battles. The idea that it was the fault of the left is quite funny. The new leadership made their own bed here in shedding the membership numbers, alienating the unions, and paying off everyone they could to avoid awkward questions about their previous conduct. Ofc the Detourneys of the world will say it’s by design to make the party more reliant on wealthy donors but I’m not convinced. I think they just want to be in control of the ashes much like Scottish Labour up here.

Just the kind of thinking that has killed Labour in the past. As recently as 2016, the Tories were in utter crisis after the Brexit referendum. Cameron resigned, leadership election looming, public trust gone - Labour under Corbyn could have really attacked the Tories and made some real progress. They were making inroads in the polls.
Instead the centrists within Labour thought the same as you - now is the time to attack the leader! So they formed a circular firing squad. Instead of attacking the Tories, Labour ended up in a months-long leadership challenge attacking themselves. The Tories appointed May and Labour was the party in crisis all summer.  I don't think Corbyn really recovered - that was the moment that the public would have given him a hearing and the party destroyed it. Right now is the time for Labour to start saying something positive; a leadership challenge will just kill them.

Corbyn recovered well enough hence why they prevented a majority in 2017 and were clearly in the ascendancy for much of 2017-2018.

There won’t be a leadership challenge anyway. Everyone who matters has what they want and the left are largely deid in Labour with no one to rally round. Momentum’s emails atm are desperate stuff.

[ICTJohnboy]

2 hours ago, Highlandmagyar Tier 3 said:

Replace him with who?

 

[welshbairn]

I'm sure some of the pro Palestinian feelings in the Labour Party veered over the edge into anti semitism on occasion by mainly no marks on Twitter, but there was a hugely successful propaganda campaign to make it seem as if the core of the party and everyone around and including Corbyn was antisemitic. Any resistance to that accusation was seen as anti semitic in its own right, and people were expelled from the party merely for saying the accusations were exaggerated. The people behind the campaign have managed to make any criticism of the Israeli state and questioning of how they gained their territory and how Palestinians are treated, a sackable offence. Certainly anyone suggesting that the Israeli Embassy might have had anything to do with the anti Corbyn campaign would be out on their ear in an instant.  

[Highlandmagar]

1 hour ago, ICTJohnboy said:

 

Lol. No chance of her winning an election