UK Politics: Unboldy Go There Where No Country Has Gone Before

[DaveSumm]

7 hours ago, Bael's Bastard said:

You must not know many Jews, as British Jews were very vocal about their concerns about Corbyn and his antisemitism leading up to the elections.

https://www.thejc.com/news/uk-news/more-than-85-per-cent-of-british-jews-think-jeremy-corbyn-is-antisemitic-1.469654

https://www.survation.com/new-polling-of-british-jews-shows-tensions-remain-strong-between-labour-and-the-british-jewish-community/

@mormont Thanks for taking the time to read that, interesting.

Bael, there’s two explanations for your links; Corbyn is antisemitic and they’re right, or the smear campaign has worked and they’re wrong. So it doesn’t really move the debate along.

https://mobile.twitter.com/medialens/status/1200685382221942784

Again, I don’t offer this up as proof, I don’t have a horse in this race.

[Varysblackfyre321]

19 hours ago, DanteGabriel said:

I suspect no matter how skillfully Labour crafts good messages, working class voters will keep falling for the latest social wedge issue that the right wing uses to distract from creeping fascism and corporate capture of government. There's always going to be some marginalized group who serves as the right wing's bogeyman. It was gay people twenty years ago, black people before that. I don't have a solution except getting working class white people to stop voting out of fear and loathing, but I know it's apparently too much to hope for.

Yeah that does seem to be the idea that's being reinforced here.

That any talk of having any progressive/liberal thing on any issue will inflame the bigotry/intolerance of this group of people so much so many of them would not vote for Labour.

That being seen liberal in anyway must be avoided

Using this logic even in power why should Labour suddenly start talk of anything liberal if they're terrified of even appearing liberal will lose them their power.

Look @BigFatCoward I understand you have to work with the electorate you got, not the one you want. It's why I moaned in frustration whenever a US Democratic candidate talked about reparations-well other than I find the concept impractical in the context of US slavery. It's a turn for most Americans in general.

But you have to draw the line somewhere man. Parties who actually desire to make some liberal changes should at least appear to be liberal or not terrified of doing so in any capacity on any issue.

Like honestly man, should they go absolutely silent on the rights of the none heterosexuals in general too? Not have any talk of homophobia being a problem in the country that needs to be addressed?

Same question to Hoi. What issues besides trans rights steer away from any talk about out of the fear seeming socially liberal? 

[Heartofice]

IMO it’s really is about messaging and prioritising. If you want to win elections then you need to be seen to be able to deal with the issues that people care about. 

The issue is not that Labour is for trans rights, it’s that it spends too much bandwidth talking about issues that are not a priority for most people. None of these issues are vote winners anyway.

I should add that in general most of these liberal issues are taken as a given, no matter what party you are voting for, which is why loud performative declarations of support get a big old shrug

[Werthead]

12 hours ago, DaveSumm said:

@mormont Thanks for taking the time to read that, interesting.

Bael, there’s two explanations for your links; Corbyn is antisemitic and they’re right, or the smear campaign has worked and they’re wrong. So it doesn’t really move the debate along.

https://mobile.twitter.com/medialens/status/1200685382221942784

Again, I don’t offer this up as proof, I don’t have a horse in this race.

The Jewish Chronicle is a noted, strongly right-wing publication overwhelmingly supportive of the Conservative Party and the current government of Israel and massively critical of Labour. Saying that 90% of its readers think Corbyn is personally anti-semitic is like saying that 90% of Daily Mail readers believe that immigrants are evil or that 90% of Daily Express readers believe that Princess Diana's death is a conspiracy: it sounds like a damning statistic but it's actually factually meaningless, even moreso given its vastly smaller outreach. The publication doesn't even represent that many British Jews as a whole any more; it very nearly went bankrupt last year whilst other Jewish websites and periodicals did well. To the JC, Corbyn being anti-semitic or not is immaterial to their political purposes, for which it is only required that as many people as possible believe that he is and would vote Conservative instead.

There are a very large number of left-wing Jewish publications and groups which are affiliated to the Labour Party and have been very highly critical of the anti-semitic problems in Labour, but have worked with the party to help root it out (such as the Jewish Labour Movement). Most of these groups take the broader view that there has been a major problem in the party but that Corbyn is personally not anti-semitic, just piss-poor at handling the situation.

[DaveSumm]

43 minutes ago, Werthead said:

...or that 90% of Daily Express readers believe that Princess Diana's death is a conspiracy...

Weirdly I was going to refer to that exact example, I had a paper route at the time and even at 14 I knew it was daft as shit. Another favourite was “86% of our readers believe Bin Laden WAS in cahoots with Saddam!”

[dornishpen]

Is survation also a bad source? (Serious question) Because that @Bael's Bastardsecond link and found similar numbers of British Jews thought Corbyn and the Labour Party are antisemitic. And maybe traditionally oppressed minorities actually have experience with this sort of thing and instead of assuming it's based on media manipulation you could believe people. I mean it's not like antisemitism is rising around the world or anything like that. Oh wait, it is.

[Heartofice]

RBL, kinda confirming what I was saying,  thinks she can win the next election by making it the 'Climate Election' 

RBL in opposition forever

[DaveSumm]

5 hours ago, dornishpen said:

Is survation also a bad source? (Serious question) Because that @Bael's Bastardsecond link and found similar numbers of British Jews thought Corbyn and the Labour Party are antisemitic. And maybe traditionally oppressed minorities actually have experience with this sort of thing and instead of assuming it's based on media manipulation you could believe people. I mean it's not like antisemitism is rising around the world or anything like that. Oh wait, it is.

I’m not sure about the second link, but even without demonstrating bias for the source, the statement ‘X percentage of Jewish people think Corbyn is antisemitic’ just isn’t a good means of determining things. Yes, they have experience with antisemitism but do they know Corbyn personally? How many have direct experience with a member of the Labour Party? (I’m not saying it’s zero, but it’s not all of them).

The impression I get is that antisemitism in the Labour Party is a real thing, but it’s been exaggerated and used as a stick to beat Corbyn with. It might feel like we’re better off as a result, but the problem is as soon as it becomes politically advantageous to stop using it, people may perceive the problem has gone away when it hasn’t. It may have been far more attributed to Corbyn personally, giving the impression that the issue will die with his leadership when it won’t.

It’s been used as an electioneering tool by the Tories and so our perception of it is skewed, what it needs is proper journalism and investigation. Not a show of hands.

[Varysblackfyre321]

22 hours ago, Heartofice said:

I should add that in general most of these liberal issues are taken as a given, no matter what party you are voting for, which is why loud performative declarations of support get a big old shrug

Can you the name the issues where in most parties there’s near universal agreement on having a socially liberal/progressive stance?

And what evidence you have of Labour spewing far too much ‘progressive/liberal’ rhetoric in regards to these in comparison to other parties?

6 hours ago, Heartofice said:

RBL, kinda confirming what I was saying,  thinks she can win the next election by making it the 'Climate Election' 

RBL in opposition forever

Climate change is literally one of the most pressing issues for people in the U.K.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/oct/30/climate-crisis-affects-how-majority-will-vote-in-uk-election-poll

This is not a strictly ‘liberal’ stance to take and it is something voters say will influence their votes.

The Tories policies’s and manifesto show them to be rather weak on this particular issue. 

Why exactly shouldn’t she talk  on the inadequacies of her opposition in terms of combating climate change?

[Werthead]

9 hours ago, dornishpen said:

And maybe traditionally oppressed minorities actually have experience with this sort of thing and instead of assuming it's based on media manipulation you could believe people. I mean it's not like antisemitism is rising around the world or anything like that. Oh wait, it is.

When I see more Tories (of whatever or no faith) expressing concern about rampant antisemitism and Islamaphobia in their own parties, perhaps their interest in what's happening in Labour can be regarded as a genuine concern rather than political opportunism and the worst kind of point-scoring hypocrisy.

The fact these comments have resurfaced even after years of Labour dealing with the anti-semitic problem and the leader seen enabling that problem is leaving shows the desperation involved as they realise the next leader may not be as vulnerable on the issue (particularly if it's Nandy, who has widespread support from Jewish groups) and they might not be able to use it as a club much longer (although if Long-Bailey gets in, they might well be able to).

4 hours ago, Heartofice said:

RBL, kinda confirming what I was saying,  thinks she can win the next election by making it the 'Climate Election' 

RBL in opposition forever

Comparing the climate crisis, which millions of people are dealing with right now through widespread flooding in parts of the UK and is a major problem for infrastructure, housing and food supply for the entire population for decades to come, to trans rights, which affects a much tinier number of people (not to say that makes it invalid, just less of an issue for the overwhelming majority of the population), is ridiculous.

[dornishpen]

7 hours ago, DaveSumm said:

I’m not sure about the second link, but even without demonstrating bias for the source, the statement ‘X percentage of Jewish people think Corbyn is antisemitic’ just isn’t a good means of determining things. Yes, they have experience with antisemitism but do they know Corbyn personally? How many have direct experience with a member of the Labour Party? (I’m not saying it’s zero, but it’s not all of them).

The impression I get is that antisemitism in the Labour Party is a real thing, but it’s been exaggerated and used as a stick to beat Corbyn with. It might feel like we’re better off as a result, but the problem is as soon as it becomes politically advantageous to stop using it, people may perceive the problem has gone away when it hasn’t. It may have been far more attributed to Corbyn personally, giving the impression that the issue will die with his leadership when it won’t.

It’s been used as an electioneering tool by the Tories and so our perception of it is skewed, what it needs is proper journalism and investigation. Not a show of hands.

If you read the link, they didn't just ask about Labour, they asked about Labour and Conservative as well as major party leaders, so it wasn't a leading question in the way you think. My understanding is that British Jews were traditionally members of Labour though that's changed in recent years (I could be wrong, I'm not a British Jew), so I would guess that lots of them do know people in the Labour Party.

I think the reality is that the UK has antisemitism problem in general and in recent years maybe Labour has done a poorer job of hiding it. FWIW, when I visited the UK as an American Jew who didn't dress in a way that was identifiably Jewish or typically American, however I do look Jewish/Israeli (but could pass for lots of other Mediterranean peoples) and I have a (American) Jewish accent, though I don't know how much British people are familiar with different American accents to know that, I also have a Jewish name though almost none of these people knew my name, however in the UK I experienced both blatant and subtle antisemitism and weird questioning of my background by strangers to determine if I'm Jewish and so on. I can't say that I could identify the political party of any of them though.

[Liffguard]

34 minutes ago, dornishpen said:

I think the reality is that the UK has antisemitism problem in general and in recent years maybe Labour has done a poorer job of hiding it.

I think this is definitely one aspect of it. As best I can tell, anti-semitism exists in the Labour party at about the same rate as it exists in the broader UK population, or maybe a bit less. It's still a responsibility of the party leadership to combat it's presence, and valid criticisms can be made of failures to do so, but there doesn't seem to be any strong evidence that the Labour party contains a greater than average prevalance of anti-semitism or that the leadership actively encouraged it.

Also, even if we concede that antisemitism is a problem that's especially prevalent in Labour (a very big if), we can still criticise the way in which the issue was cynically weaponised by the mainstream press. There was never any wider campaign to address antisemitism in other parties, in other institutions, or in society as a whole. The press campaign was entirely confined to the Labour party, and specifically Corbyn. Which makes it pretty obvious that many of the instigators weren't actually opposed to antisemitism, except insofar that it was a useful weapon to use against Labour. And even for those people and groups who genuinely are disturbed by antisemitism, it's still worth asking why their focus was so narrow. Their behaviour was a bit like when supporters of a sports team only complain when the ref makes bad calls about their own team. Maybe they're correct about those bad calls, but we can ask about why they only complain about some bad calls and not others. They seem to have very selective perception.

[mormont]

1 minute ago, Liffguard said:

As best I can tell, anti-semitism exists in the Labour party at about the same rate as it exists in the broader UK population, or maybe a bit less.

This is not true, and I'm going to tell you why it's not true.

Just as racists latched onto 'free speech', Islamophobes latched onto women's rights and sexual abuse allegations, and anti-trans bigots latched onto feminism as ways to perpetuate their bigoted discourse under a cover of respectability or at least deniability, so have antisemites for many years latched onto political criticism of the state of Israel for the same reasons. We've seen exactly how successful that is. 

Of course, this means that antisemitism is more common where there is more political criticism of the actions of the state of Israel. And that means in the Labour party. Sad, but true.

The antisemitism in the Tory party tends to be more blatant, though, and it is a significant problem. 

[DaveSumm]

41 minutes ago, dornishpen said:

If you read the link, they didn't just ask about Labour, they asked about Labour and Conservative as well as major party leaders, so it wasn't a leading question in the way you think. My understanding is that British Jews were traditionally members of Labour though that's changed in recent years (I could be wrong, I'm not a British Jew), so I would guess that lots of them do know people in the Labour Party.

I’m not saying it’s a leading question, I’m saying that straw polls on belief don’t make a thing so. Even if it was a perfectly worded question, it only tells us what people think is going on, not what actually is. This would be completely different if it was about how much people actually experience anti-semitism as you have, that’s an entirely valid question. But if it’s regarding parties and people’s who the questioned have never met, it becomes a lot less relevant.

[Liffguard]

1 minute ago, mormont said:

Of course, this means that antisemitism is more common where there is more political criticism of the actions of the state of Israel. And that means in the Labour party. Sad, but true.

I'm sure that plenty of people use criticism of Israel to cover for antisemitism. I'm not sure that it follows that they'd therefore join the Labour party because many on the left also criticise Israel. It's one thing to argue that position A is frequently used as a cover for position B. And it's fair to argue that therefore any institution with a prevalence of position A should be on the lookout for a prevalance position B, and to criticise laxity in doing so. But it doesn't follow that position B necessarily is prevalent in that institution. I'm willing to be convinced otherwise, but I haven't seen data to support it.

[Bael's Bastard]

It's really shitty that some people's first reaction to the concerns of this particular small, historically persecuted minority (Jews were exiled and banned from England for centuries), is to deny the concerns about, and make a martyr and victim out of, Corbyn and his ilk. A minority knows when a person is bigoted against them, and British Jews overwhelmingly view Coryn as an antisemite. Not merely a clueless enabler, but an antisemite. To dismiss the concerns of Jews is to invite antisemitism to come out into the open and bloom. 

[DaveSumm]

13 minutes ago, Bael's Bastard said:

It's really shitty that some people's first reaction to the concerns of this particular small, historically persecuted minority (Jews were exiled and banned from England for centuries), is to deny the concerns about, and make a martyr and victim out of, Corbyn and his ilk.

Nobody here has denied anything. I’m just questioning the role the media has played in possibly inflating these issues.

13 minutes ago, Bael's Bastard said:

A minority knows when a person is bigoted against them, and British Jews overwhelmingly view Coryn as an antisemite. Not merely a clueless enabler, but an antisemite. To dismiss the concerns of Jews is to invite antisemitism to come out into the open and bloom. 

You’re still not progressing the debate here, it’s the same point. Do you have evidence that Corbyn is anti-semitic, evidence that isn’t just a poll on people’s views?

[A Horse Named Stranger]

This entire discussion, reminds me, of what I found the most galling thing about the Corbyn is an anti-semite debate back then.

It was just people bringing it up, who usually wouldn't give a fuck about discrimination in any other political context, except for the weaponization in a political debate.

I'd be willing to bet that a good potion of the Corbyn is despicable anti-semite crowd would be sitting at their country clubs and have a giggle over a Jew joke. Or which is more more socially accepted these days, about a muslim going out with a bang, or having a laugh at the outrage over the outrage over watermelon smiles.

[dornishpen]

1 hour ago, DaveSumm said:

Nobody here has denied anything. I’m just questioning the role the media has played in possibly inflating these issues.

You’re still not progressing the debate here, it’s the same point. Do you have evidence that Corbyn is anti-semitic, evidence that isn’t just a poll on people’s views?

It doesn't matter if Corbyn is personally antisemitic or not, if he allows antisemitism (particularly antisemitism disguised as anti-Zionism*) to flourish in his party without doing much of anything about it at some point it doesn't matter because the outcome is the same. If Corbyn is not personally antisemitic (and I do think that likely) he is at minimum apathetic to antisemitism.

 

*yes not all anti-Zionism is antisemitism standard disclaimer

[dornishpen]

2 hours ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

This entire discussion, reminds me, of what I found the most galling thing about the Corbyn is an anti-semite debate back then.

It was just people bringing it up, who usually wouldn't give a fuck about discrimination in any other political context, except for the weaponization in a political debate.

I'd be willing to bet that a good potion of the Corbyn is despicable anti-semite crowd would be sitting at their country clubs and have a giggle over a Jew joke. Or which is more more socially accepted these days, about a muslim going out with a bang, or having a laugh at the outrage over the outrage over watermelon smiles.

You think Jews who bring this up sit in country clubs and giggle over Jew jokes? Almost everyone I've talked to about this (aside from here) has been Jewish, and really no one else cares. Yes part of that can be attributed to being in the US and Americans not caring about other countries generally, but even in terms of antisemitism within the US, which has come from both the left (mostly rhetoric), right (rhetoric and violence) and difficult to assign (rhetoric and violence) no one really cares except other Jews. Like people will talk about something if it's really bad (multiple deaths) for a day or two and then it's just the Jewish community only who cares.