Jump to content
  • Sign up for free and receive a month's subscription

    You are viewing this page as a guest. That means you are either a member who has not logged in, or you have not yet registered with us. Signing up for an account only takes a minute and it means you will no longer see this annoying box! It will also allow you to get involved with our friendly(ish!) community and take part in the discussions on our forums. And because we're feeling generous, if you sign up for a free account we will give you a month's free trial access to our subscriber only content with no obligation to commit. Register an account and then send a private message to @dave u and he'll hook you up with a subscription.

Should Corbyn remain as Labour leader?


Sugar Ape
 Share

Should Corbyn remain as Labour leader?  

218 members have voted

  1. 1. Should Corbyn remain as Labour leader?



Recommended Posts

1 hour ago, mattyq said:

Listening to the radio this morning they had some Jewish bloke on who claimed Corbyn was AS due to his endorsement of that dodgy mural of 2 obviously Jewish guys trampling over the backs of the poor and the fact that he has steadfastly ignored the Jewish Council an done nothing to improve the situation with them.

 

That mural was very dodgy... it was immediately apparent to me that it was AS... it was directly out of some Goebbels propaganda poster circa 1942.. I fail to see how Corbyn didn't immediately recognise it as such

Re the Jewish Council he met them April last year and promised to organise another meeting a little later... they never heard back from him. This smacks of lousy leadership to me. The mural I can't explain... I really don't think he's AS but is he really that naive and/or stupid? I don't know

Either way it's all very poor, indeed

It goes without saying that the Rabbi is deffo a bad Tory and the Tories are almost certainly worse than Lab re Islamophobia and all round racism but it's still absolutely shit

He didn’t endorse anything, so I have to presume the rest of your post is a bit iffy as well

Link to comment
Share on other sites

9 minutes ago, TheHowieLama said:

He questioned why the mural was to be whitewashed and certainly supported the artist saying "He was in good company."

 

Apparently without actually looking at the mural

 

I am pretty sure you know very little about him and you may not have your finger on the pulse of British politics.

 

Just a guess based on your posting past.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

8 minutes ago, moof said:
 

I am pretty sure you know very little about him and you may not have your finger on the pulse of British politics.

 

Just a guess based on your posting past.

 

Mate -- it is what happened - he himself has said it.

 

"I sincerely regret that I did not look more closely at the image I was commenting on, the contents of which are deeply disturbing and anti-Semitic."

 

Never go full TK.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Imagine if Corbyn was actually AS.

 

He'd be toast.  A few million like me, WASP Labour voters, would be disgusted and walk away from the party unless they changed their leader.  

 

But he's not.

So I'm not walking away.

And the party isn't dumping him.

And it's polling well.

And it's growing.

And Jews are supporting him. 

And Muslims are supporting him.

And the black community is supporting him.

And the working class are supporting him.

And the doctors and nurses are supporting him.

And the teachers are supporting him.

And economists are supporting him.

It feels great to support him. 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, moof said:

He didn’t endorse anything, so I have to presume the rest of your post is a bit iffy as well

Haha, he admitted that he did endorse it and then apologised for it

So, I have to presume that your presumptions are a bit iffy... 

Jeremy apologised for it and that's fine but the fact that he never twigged in the first place worries me

Link to comment
Share on other sites

On 26/11/2019 at 16:30, mattyq said:

Haha, he admitted that he did endorse it and then apologised for it

So, I have to presume that your presumptions are a bit iffy... 

Jeremy apologised for it and that's fine but the fact that he never twigged in the first place worries me

He never endorsed it.

 

He made one hastily-written (and badly spelled) Facebook comment about artists who have had their work censored, but didn't take the time to look at the mural first.  If he had, he clearly wouldn't have "endorsed" it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

You tell the fuckers, Jennie!

https://jewishnews.timesofisrael.com/opinion-jennie-formby-chief-rabbi-can-criticise-but-heres-why-hes-wrong/

 

On 12 December, everyone should cast their vote according to their conscience and without fear. The key Jewish values of social justice, peace and community are exactly the values that Labour stand for. That there are Jewish people in Britain who feel they may have something to fear from a Labour government is deeply concerning to us.

 

Rabbi Mirvis has every right to highlight the anxiety that Jewish people feel. Antisemitism is on the rise around the world. Within the Labour Party, it has been deeply troubling that a small number of members have perpetuated conspiratorial thinking and recycled ancient antisemitic tropes, sometimes under the guise of criticising Israel.

 

Sadly, a minority in our party have adopted a bunker mentality in response, denying the existence of antisemitism in our movement and dismissing the very real experiences of Jewish people. That has never been my position, nor that of Jeremy Corbyn.

 

Where Rabbi Mirvis and I respectfully part ways is over his claim that our efforts to tackle anti-Jewish racism are “a mendacious fiction”. I want to set out the decisive actions we have taken to tackle antisemitism in the Labour Party.

 

Shami Chakrabarti and Baroness Royall’s 2016 inquiries made clear that nobody in our party should use Zionist as a term of abuse or compare Israel to Nazi Germany.

 

Our 2017 Conference passed a rule change, drafted with help from the Jewish Labour Movement, which made the Labour Party the first political party in Britain to have a rule explicitly prohibiting antisemitism.

 

When I took over in 2018, it was clear that the party’s slow and cumbersome disciplinary processes were not fit for purpose. So we set up an Antisemitism Working Group from our National Executive Committee which met experts and stakeholders and recommended a number of reforms.

 

In line with the Macpherson Principle, we made sure every single complaint of antisemitism is recorded. We introduced smaller, specialised NEC antisemitism panels to hear cases monthly (rather than quarterly), advised by an independent barrister with expertise in equality law, ensuring cases are reviewed more swiftly and with sound legal advice. We changed our rules to ensure that all antisemitism complaints are investigated nationally, as complaints of racism should not be subject to the whims of local parties.

 

A major cause of delays was that the power to expel lay solely with the National Constitutional Committee (NCC), a quasi-judicial disciplinary body created in the 1980s, hearing cases via lengthy trials, often involving lawyers. So, in 2018, we doubled the size of the NCC and introduced new guidelines to enable them to hear antisemitism cases on paper, but these reforms still didn’t allow for indisputable cases of antisemitism to be dealt with immediately.

 

So this year, Conference approved a major rule-change – initiated by Jeremy Corbyn – to give NEC panels the power to expel members. Now, when someone engages in antisemitism, they can be expelled within weeks – rather than months – of us receiving the complaint. Just this month a number of members have been expelled using these new powers.

 

We have doubled the number of staff working on antisemitism disciplinary cases and a designated member of staff works on improving our antisemitism processes. All staff have undertaken antisemitism education delivered by the Pears Institute for the Study of Antisemitism, alongside NEC and NCC members.

 

Staff have developed methods to identify the individuals behind the ‘faceless social media trolls’ that Rabbi Mirvis mentioned. We have created automated tools to search social media histories and detect patterns of behaviour and we have strengthened our membership checking system with a dedicated member of staff vetting membership applications.

 

And we have improved our recording of information, so that we now have data on the length of time cases take to be dealt with. Analysis of this shows a more than four-fold increase in the rate at which we are now dealing with antisemitism cases.

 

In line with suggestions from Jewish communal organisations to make our processes more transparent, I have twice published a detailed breakdown of data on antisemitism disciplinary cases and we will be publishing these on a regular basis going forward. As previous publications of our figures have made clear, complaints relate to a small minority of party members, about 0.1%.

 

While any suggestion that there are thousands of unresolved cases is categorically untrue, in recognition that some older complaints, before new procedures were brought in, were not dealt with swiftly or robustly enough, staff have been conducting audits of historical antisemitism complaints.

 

While these improvements give me confidence that complaints of antisemitism are thoroughly investigated, I agree with the Rabbi Mirvis that this is not just a matter of procedures or discipline, but of culture and education too.

 

That is why we have launched proactive education which we are continuing to roll out. This aims to give members the tools to identify antisemitic tropes and conspiracies, and challenge them. Our website “No Place for Antisemitism” includes the IHRA definition of antisemitism as well as materials discussing antisemitism, its history and its modern manifestations in discussions on Zionism and Israel.

 

To tackle the unhealthy culture around some of these discussions, Jeremy has made clear in video messages, emails to members, articles and speeches that there is no place for antisemitism and that anyone who denies its existence is wrong and is contributing to the problem. And I have communicated to local parties that meetings should not discuss disciplinary procedures or give platforms to members who have been suspended for antisemitism. Working with the Chief Whip and Leader, we’ve made clear MPs must abide by the same principle.

 

But we know we will always be playing catch-up, as long as social media platforms allow individuals to spread antisemitism within Labour-supporting networks. Online spaces which are used as fertile breeding ground for antisemitic conspiracy theories should never be allowed to legitimise themselves by hijacking our party’s name. Tech giants have turned a blind eye to this problem for a decade. In 2010 Jewish News reported on this very problem and Jeremy Corbyn signed a motion to Parliament congratulating them on this important investigation.

 

I personally wrote to the administrators of a number of Facebook groups last year to advise them on how to better moderate content within their groups. And our staff have provided information to Facebook to enable them to close down groups which use Labour’s name to disguise their sharing of racist content. We continue to be in contact with them on this issue.

 

The list of actions I’ve outlined above is by no means exhaustive, but it demonstrates the serious and extensive work the Labour Party has undertaken to deal with this issue. We know we have further to go to root out antisemitism, but I believe we are firmly on the path to achieving that.

 

The Labour Party seeks to build a better world, free from hatred and intolerance. To do that we must build a movement in which Jewish people feel not only safe and secure, but also celebrated, respected and welcome.

 

This is an objective to which I am fully committed and which I will never cease to pursue.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

2 hours ago, AngryofTuebrook said:

Amazed that is not on the top of the BBC News website.

 

Noticed the phrase ' casual A/S ' mentioned on a previous page. This appears to have morphed into ' Not A/S at all but we know what you are thinking '

  • Upvote 1
Link to comment
Share on other sites

Intriguing article. Also before the smearing starts, I’d just like to point out that the author, Gideon Levy is an Israeli and a Jew.

https://www.haaretz.com/amp/opinion/.premium-the-contract-on-corbyn-1.8192769?__twitter_impression=true

Quote

Opinion The Contract on Corbyn 

Corbyn is not an anti-Semite. His real sin is to fight against injustice in the world, including the version Israel perpetrates

Gideon Levy

13:27

The Jewish establishment in Britain and the Israeli propaganda machine have taken out a contract on the leader of the British Labour Party, Jeremy Corbyn. The contract was taken out a long time ago, and it was clear that the closer Corbyn came to being elected prime minister, the harsher the conflict would get.

On Tuesday it reached its climax in an article by the chief rabbi of Britain, Ephraim Mirvis, in an article in The Times. Mirvis has decided that the anxiety of British Jews over Corbyn is justified and he is not fit to be prime minister. He called on Jews not to vote for Labour in the election on December 12.

Haaretz Weekly Ep. 50 Haaretz

>> Why Britain's chief rabbi had no choice but to speak out against Corbyn ■ The real reason 'anti-racist' Corbyn can't deal with anti-Semitism

quick newsletter registration

Breaking news and analyses straight to your inbox

Click Here

Born in South Africa and a graduate of Har Etzion Yeshiva in the settlement of Alon Shvut, Mirvis is the voice of British Jewry. In Capetown, Johannesburg and Har Etzion, he should have learned what apartheid was and why one should fight it. His parents did so, but one doubts that he learned the moral lesson from the regions of disenfranchisement in which he lived in South Africa and the West Bank.

As opposed to the horrid Corbyn, Mirvis sees nothing wrong with the continued occupation; he does not identify with the struggle for Palestinian freedom, and he doesn’t sense the similarity between the South Africa of his childhood, Har Etzion of his youth and Israel of 2019. That is the real reason that he rejects Corbyn. The Jews of Britain also want a prime minister who supports Israel – that is, supports the occupation. A prime minister who is critical of Israel is to them an exemplar of the new anti-Semitism.

Corbyn is not an anti-Semite. He never was. His real sin is his staunch position against injustice in the world, including the version Israel perpetrates. Today this is anti-Semitism. The Hungarian Viktor Orban, the Austrian Freedom Party and the extreme right in Europe are not the danger to Jews. Corbyn is the enemy. The new and efficient strategy of Israel and the Zionist establishment brands every seeker of justice as an anti-Semite, and any criticism of Israel as hatred of Jews. Corbyn is a victim of this strategy, which threatens to paralyze and silence Europe with regard to Israel.

British Jewry might not be faking its anxiety, but it is certainly magnifying the danger. There is anti-Semitism, though less that what is presented, certainly on the left. About half of British Jews are considering fleeing if Corbyn is elected. Let them flee. The survey that showed this could actually encourage anti-Semitism: Are the Jews of Britain conditionally British? To whom is their loyalty?

The future of all British Jews is much more secure than the future of any Palestinian living under the occupation, and even more secure than that of any Arab living in Israel. Jews are persecuted and are victims of discrimination and racism less so than the Palestinians in the Israel they hold dear. Moreover, Islamophobia in Europe is more common than anti-Semitism, but people talk about it less.

British Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis gives a speech as he attends a Holocaust Memorial Day Ceremony at Central Hall Westminster, Tuesday Jan. 27, 2015, in London. AP

Related Articles

Why Britain's Chief Rabbi Had No Choice but to Speak Out Against Corbyn 

Israeli President Praises UK Rabbi in Veiled Swipe at Corbyn 

Mirvis presents no evidence of Corbyn’s anti-Semitism. It sufficed for him to note the fact that Corbyn described as “friends” those who “endorse the murder of Jews” – a reference to Corbyn’s comments on Hezbollah and Hamas. Corbyn is indeed a very harsh critic of the occupation, supports the boycott and compares the closure of Gaza with the siege of Stalingrad and Leningrad. These are anti-Israeli positions, but not necessarily anti-Semitic. The Jews of Britain are blurring this difference as are many Jews throughout the world, intentionally. One can (and should) be a harsh critic of Israel without being anti-Semitic.

If the Jews of Britain and their chief rabbi were more honest and courageous, they would ask themselves: Isn’t Israel’s brutal occupation policy the strongest motive for anti-Semitism today? There is anti-Semitism, it must be fought, but it must also be recognized that Israel supplies it an abundance of excuses and motives.

quick newsletter registration

Breaking news and analyses straight to your inbox

Click Here

The Jews and Israel’s true friends should hope that Corbyn is elected. He is a statesman who can change international discourse about the occupation and the struggle against it. He is a ray of hope for a different world and a different Israel – and what more could we want.

 

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Join the conversation

You can post now and register later. If you have an account, sign in now to post with your account.

Guest
Reply to this topic...

×   Pasted as rich text.   Paste as plain text instead

  Only 75 emoji are allowed.

×   Your link has been automatically embedded.   Display as a link instead

×   Your previous content has been restored.   Clear editor

×   You cannot paste images directly. Upload or insert images from URL.

 Share


×
×
  • Create New...