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

[A Horse Named Stranger]

29 minutes ago, dornishpen said:

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. 

Not sure, if genuine question or lazy deflection...

This criticism was obviously not aimed at the Jews. But more to the mostly conservative commentators who have otherwise very little problems with biggots; and siding with them. So basically people who couldn't care about discrimination otherwise suddenly started to act up like they were Antifa.

Then, wrt to the Jews feeling insecure/unsafe with Corbyn. It obviously was not all the Jews. Jews are obviously are very heterogenous group. So the perception of Corbyn being an anti-semite was not universally shared among all the Jews in the UK. It's really not for me to say, whether all the Jews that called Corbyn an anti-semite did so, because they truely felt this way (absolutely possible), or whether there was also a political agenda in place (or whether it was a combination of both). Werthead said something about the Jewish Chronicle and their political leanings. However, if somebody comes bursting in and makes statements on behalf of the entire Jewish community, that is something I find rather rich. If I am not mistaken Sanders was rather fond of Corbyn, and Sanders is Jewish himself. Of course Sanders is also not the spokesperson of the Jewish community.

Fact of the matter is, Labour had and still has an unresolved problem with anti-semitism. That criticism is pretty much universal and has been made by Jews from the entire political spectrum. So that is a criticism I take at face value. Now then, I am (obviously) not Jewish. But I share the point of view, that Corbyn himself is probably not an anti-semite himself, but that he has without a doubt handled anti-semitism in Labour poorly, mainly due to a political blindspot of his (again my opinion).

[dornishpen]

1 hour ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

Not sure, if genuine question or lazy deflection...

This criticism was obviously not aimed at the Jews. But more to the mostly conservative commentators who have otherwise very little problems with biggots; and siding with them. So basically people who couldn't care about discrimination otherwise suddenly started to act up like they were Antifa.

Then, wrt to the Jews feeling insecure/unsafe with Corbyn. It obviously was not all the Jews. Jews are obviously are very heterogenous group. So the perception of Corbyn being an anti-semite was not universally shared among all the Jews in the UK. It's really not for me to say, whether all the Jews that called Corbyn an anti-semite did so, because they truely felt this way (absolutely possible), or whether there was also a political agenda in place (or whether it was a combination of both). Werthead said something about the Jewish Chronicle and their political leanings. However, if somebody comes bursting in and makes statements on behalf of the entire Jewish community, that is something I find rather rich. If I am not mistaken Sanders was rather fond of Corbyn, and Sanders is Jewish himself. Of course Sanders is also not the spokesperson of the Jewish community.

Fact of the matter is, Labour had and still has an unresolved problem with anti-semitism. That criticism is pretty much universal and has been made by Jews from the entire political spectrum. So that is a criticism I take at face value. Now then, I am (obviously) not Jewish. But I share the point of view, that Corbyn himself is probably not an anti-semite himself, but that he has without a doubt handled anti-semitism in Labour poorly, mainly due to a political blindspot of his (again my opinion).

You're still ignoring the second link to the survation site, maybe because it doesn't fit your narrative, that one was commissioned by the JLC which is an umbrella organization of Jewish orgs and appears to be quite mainstream, it asked about the major parties and party leaders, not just Labour, I'm guessing this poll if it used good methodology was from a wide cross section of the U.K. jewry, and it still found extremely high numbers of British Jews thought Labour and Corbyn were antisemitic, so it's not just the conservative press, Jewish or gentile.

[Bael's Bastard]

3 hours ago, dornishpen said:

You're still ignoring the second link to the survation site, maybe because it doesn't fit your narrative, that one was commissioned by the JLC which is an umbrella organization of Jewish orgs and appears to be quite mainstream, it asked about the major parties and party leaders, not just Labour, I'm guessing this poll if it used good methodology was from a wide cross section of the U.K. jewry, and it still found extremely high numbers of British Jews thought Labour and Corbyn were antisemitic, so it's not just the conservative press, Jewish or gentile.

The sort of responses we are seeing here is part of why Jews increasingy find themselves unable to truly trust left or right on antisemitism, whether in the UK, the US, or elsewhere, because both are too often unwilling to call out their own antisemites, and only seem to opportunistically recognize antisemitism in their political opponents. I've come to expect it from the right, but it is disheartening coming so increasingly from the left. No other minority is lectured by self-proclaimed anti-racists in the UK and US what hatred of them is and isn't, like Jews are. 

[dornishpen]

10 minutes ago, Bael's Bastard said:

The sort of responses we are seeing here is part of why Jews increasingy find themselves unable to truly trust left or right on antisemitism, whether in the UK, the US, or elsewhere, because both are too often unwilling to call out their own antisemites, and only seem to opportunistically recognize antisemitism in their political opponents. I've come to expect it from the right, but it is disheartening coming so increasingly from the left. No other minority is lectured by self-proclaimed anti-racists in the UK and US what hatred of them is and isn't, like Jews are. 

I wouldn't say it doesn't happen to other minorities, it definitely does, but it happens to Jews a lot and with rising antisemitism it's becoming a more frequent occurrence. I think really most people don't care and happy to use whatever for political gain, but I don't think they care about lots of people or things they should theoretically care about and are happy to try to gaslight people to make it look less hypocritical. Like how many people know or care about how Orthodox Jews in Brooklyn have been the victims of frequent antisemitic violent physical assaults.

[Bael's Bastard]

9 minutes ago, dornishpen said:

I wouldn't say it doesn't happen to other minorities, it definitely does, but it happens to Jews a lot and with rising antisemitism it's becoming a more frequent occurrence. I think really most people don't care and happy to use whatever for political gain, but I don't think they care about lots of people or things they should theoretically care about and are happy to try to gaslight people to make it look less hypocritical. Like how many people know or care about how Orthodox Jews in Brooklyn have been the victims of frequent antisemitic violent physical assaults.

What I meant was that most liberals, especially progressives, have recognized that nobody outside a minority has any right to explain to that minority what constitutes racism or hatred against them. Nobody has a right to try to explain a group's own experience to them. Except Jews. Only Jews, who have been the victims of hatred more times than anyone can count over the last 3,200+ years, have their experiences ignored and denied in progressive circles. For all the great social and economic ideas on the progressive left, I have no faith any of the current major progressive movements will protect Jews from demonization and violence. And you are absolutely right about the Haredim and Hassidim. They are constantly otherized and demonized, and they are the main Jews going around dressed in ways that are identifiably Jewish.

[dornishpen]

49 minutes ago, Bael's Bastard said:

What I meant was that most liberals, especially progressives, have recognized that nobody outside a minority has any right to explain to that minority what constitutes racism or hatred against them. Nobody has a right to try to explain a group's own experience to them. Except Jews. Only Jews, who have been the victims of hatred more times than anyone can count over the last 3,200+ years, have their experiences ignored and denied in progressive circles. For all the great social and economic ideas on the progressive left, I have no faith any of the current major progressive movements will protect Jews from demonization and violence. And you are absolutely right about the Haredim and Hassidim. They are constantly otherized and demonized, and they are the main Jews going around dressed in ways that are identifiably Jewish.

I understood what you meant, but that does happen to other minorities. People on the left frequently give lip service to the idea that people can define their own oppression, but then when people do, they disagree and it doesn't just happen to us, it happens to I think probably all minorities. "But is that really racist" "I'm sure she didn't mean it that way" "But it's kinda true" and so on. I've experienced it as a Jew and with other minority statuses (not race or ethnicity, but still oppressed minority). I can't really quantify how much it happens to one group vs another group, but it's a really common thing and every group for whatever reason thinks it happens only to them and that people on the left are good with other oppressed minorities, but the truth is that a substantial number of people on left who claim to be allies regularly try to gaslight oppressed minorities about discrimination they've experienced.

[DaveSumm]

4 hours ago, Bael's Bastard said:

Nobody has a right to try to explain a group's own experience to them. Except Jews.

I’ll try one last time, as this isn’t going anywhere. We are not discussing the experiences of Jewish people. I raised the discussion to try and see what peoples opinions are of anti-semitism in the Labour party. If you have direct experience of members of the Labour Party then I would genuinely be interested to hear it. But repeatedly citing what people think is going on is not evidence that something is going on. And again, I am not for a second denying that this is an issue. But to suggest that there has been perfectly honest and ethical media coverage of the issue, and that Jewish people have with perfect clarity been provided with a means of determining whether members of the Labour of which they have no personal experience hold anti-semitic views, is clearly nonsense. There is a truck load of obfuscation and misinformation and bad intentions going on here, and surely no one could deny that this particular issue is one of the hardest to arrive at an opinion that truly reflects reality.

[mormont]

While there has undoubtedly been some cynical and hypocritical coverage of antisemitism in the Labour party, there has also been a lot of fair and accurate coverage of the same issue. In particular, remarks made by certain members have been accurately reported, in context. I think it's tempting to give more weight to the former than the latter, but it's probably a mistake. 

[Liffguard]

54 minutes ago, mormont said:

While there has undoubtedly been some cynical and hypocritical coverage of antisemitism in the Labour party, there has also been a lot of fair and accurate coverage of the same issue.

I honestly think you have the "some" and "a lot" backwards here. Fair and accurate coverage certainly exists, but the overwhelming majority of the mainstream coverage was extremely cynical and politically targeted.

I’d also say that coverage can be both accurate and cynical. So the press can report on statements made by particular Labour members, and the reports can be accurate, in context, and indicative of a real problem. That’s fine as far as it goes. But when the same press then makes it clear that it’s only interested in finding those problems in the Labour party, and is clearly unwilling to even look for those problems elsewhere, then we can reasonably question their motives.

It can be true that antisemitism genuinely exists in the Labour party, and also true that the mainstream press are only interested in antisemitism when they can use it as a weapon against the Labour party.

Just as an illustration, does anyone remember the Nancy Astor statue? During the height of the Labour antisemitism controversy, the former Conservative PM and a sitting MP unveils a statue commemorating an actual Nazi-sympathiser. Insofar as it was reported on, it was mostly just uncritically presented as commemorating the first female MP to actually sit in Parliament. Can anyone imagine the media shitstorm if it had been Corbyn unveiling a statue of a Labour MP with similar views?

[Heartofice]

Seems to me that:

1. There is clearly some level of anti semitism in the Labour Party. I have no idea how much there is, and how much of it is wrapped up in general anti Israel / anti west/ anti American sentiment as well as some people’s tendency to get caught up in theories about secret money men controlling everything. But clearly there is some over lap.

2. The press, mainly right wing press but also places like the Guardian have pounced in any instance and milked it hard. Certainly the Tories have been jumping for joy at this stuff and have tried to make as much of it as they can. I’ve personally found that very offputting.

3. Corbyn has done a dreadful job of managing the situation. Absolutely dreadful. He’s made it very easy for the media to get at him on the subject and his media management in general is dire. He might see himself as being principled and seeing courage in his careful wording but he needs to come out and condemn things if they need to be condemned. 

[mormont]

22 minutes ago, Liffguard said:

I’d also say that coverage can be both accurate and cynical. So the press can report on statements made by particular Labour members, and the reports can be accurate, in context, and indicative of a real problem. That’s fine as far as it goes. But when the same press then makes it clear that it’s only interested in finding those problems in the Labour party, and is clearly unwilling to even look for those problems elsewhere, then we can reasonably question their motives.

OK. But when it comes to whether Jews are fairly able to make their own judgment on Labour antisemitism, surely anything here other than 'accurate' is irrelevant? If the remarks or behaviour have been accurately reported, it's at best patronising to say that the problem here is Jewish readers being misled by the wicked media. It's reasonable to grant others the respect of being able to discriminate and perceive bias in reporting as effectively as you can. 

[DaveSumm]

1 hour ago, mormont said:

It's reasonable to grant others the respect of being able to discriminate and perceive bias in reporting as effectively as you can. 

For what it’s worth, I consider my own ability to perceive it as pretty poor. Or rather, the lengths I generally bother to go to on any given issue to find fair and balanced reporting, and even then the issue has only gained prominence because it was reported in the first place. So it’s got nothing to do with who’s being polled, it’s just fundamentally not a good means of discovering something. Especially if we ask the more specific question “what role has the media played in the perception of anti-semitism in the Labour Party”, then a poll should be disqualified immediately as it’s only ever going to tell you the end result even if it happens to be true. If you want to find out what colour the sky is, a poll showing 10 people thought it was blue might well be correct, but it’s not a scientific means of actually answering the question.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

22 hours ago, dornishpen said:

You're still ignoring the second link to the survation site, maybe because it doesn't fit your narrative, that one was commissioned by the JLC which is an umbrella organization of Jewish orgs and appears to be quite mainstream, it asked about the major parties and party leaders, not just Labour, I'm guessing this poll if it used good methodology was from a wide cross section of the U.K. jewry, and it still found extremely high numbers of British Jews thought Labour and Corbyn were antisemitic, so it's not just the conservative press, Jewish or gentile.

Not sure, how and why I of all people ended up defending Corbyn, I don't particularly like him afterall.

Anyway, to go back to your question. Look when the survey was conducted.

Mid February - Mid March 2019.

Anything that happened back then?

Luciana Berger quit Labour over anti-semitism and joined the CHUKa or the TIGers or whatever they used to call themselves back then. So Corbyn was again all over the place with his inadequate responses. So the anti-semitism problem of Labour was extremely present in the media and in the minds of the readers. Arguably the issue was even more salient within the minds of the Jewish community.

If you conducted a survey among black Brits during the height of the Windrush scandal, on what party has issues with racism, I'd think you'd get similar numbers for May.

I don't mean to downplay it (I know I am doing it anyway), but that partially explains the survey numbers. If you or anybody else want to prove or convince people that Corbyn is an anti-semite, I recommend to do that (provide quotes of him for example), and not just say look at this survey.

I agree with what had been said earlier, at some point it doesn't really matter whether Corbyn is tolerating anti-semitic positions because of his political blindspot, or because he agrees with them. The outcome is the same. However, if you accuse somebody personally of anti-semitism, you should be able to back up your claim.

[ants]

When talking about whether an individual is prejudiced (either consciously or unconsciously biased), it does raise some interesting questions.  If Corbyn was failing to manage anti-semitism in the party due to incompetence - is he an anti-semite?  Even if it assisted anti-semitism?  

It appears the crux of the argument here, between people who generally all agree that Labour had some anti-semitism and that that is an undoubtedly bad thing, is whether or not Corbyn consciously or unconsciously assisted anti-semitism, or was just incompetent on this issue, and whether therefore Corbyn himself was an anti-semite.  

[dornishpen]

I mean there was the time Corbyn said some Zionists (obviously code for Jews) didn't understand British irony. I'm sure someone can dig up the video or a transcript of the full remarks, but IIRC the context doesn't really help him in this case. Mostly though he's just so tolerant of antisemitism it's difficult to understand how someone who claims to be an anti-racist activist can be so tolerant of blatant antisemitism without being antisemitic himself even if he usually doesn't cross the line in public. 

[ants]

Hmm, I wasn't aware of that and looked it up.  Its a little hard to know if its bad, as in context he's clearly talking about specific individuals.  As we don't know how they identify themselves or what they said (or how they interpreted the speech, or hell, what the speech said), it's difficult to know how bad the comments are.

As a minimum it's an incredibly poorly worded statement.  At its worst it is very anti-semitic.  

But it does seem disingenuous on your part @dornishpen to say he was using Zionist as code for jews when it seems upon reading up on it he was actually referring to some very specific individuals.  

[Werthead]

Remember Boris saying that funding for British farmers would not only be protected and maintained after Brexit, but would be increased to match the losses from EU funding and the open market?

UK farming subsidies to be cut by 25%.

UK government refuses to guarantee food standards to protect UK farmers from cheap foreign imports.

[mormont]

Also, we're back to threatening to walk away, already. (But not really. It's the usual - the actual threat is to 'consider' walking away, leaving plenty of wiggle room, but the media are happy to play up the 'Boris gets tough' line that the government wants for domestic consumption.)

https://news.sky.com/story/eu-trade-talks-uk-prepared-to-walk-away-in-june-if-not-enough-progress-11944337

 

[Heartofice]

Giving that we are already quite far apart from the EU on this 'level playing field' lark, chances of a "no deal" are going up by the day.

[Varysblackfyre321]

On 2/25/2020 at 4:25 AM, Werthead said:

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.

But I guess it’d make Labor look more liberal by comparison so, it's a bad thing to attack the Tories on their awful response towards it idk.

@Heartofice what exactly is your grievance towards Labour candidates attacking Tories in regards to their policy on Climate change?