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Keir Starmer


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1 minute ago, sir roger said:

I was aiming at a bit of whimsicality , but probably lost on you in your increasing descent into obsequiousness.

 

Easy to apologise when you are happy to blame your predecessor for everything to boost your own profile. 

I have not seen the report yet but would wager that what you call the Corbynistas response will contain more checkable facts than the centrist side.

You’re so far up his arse you can’t see the daylight. 

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3 minutes ago, Gnasher said:

Watch your back Keir, they coming for you next and you're boxing yourself in a tight corner 

 

 

 

 

It is on him, isn’t it? He is the leader of the Labour Party who inherited this. It’s up to him to deal with it. I don’t like her but I don’t see much wrong with that. 

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Read the Summary and it isn't great

The Report can be found here

 

https://www.equalityhumanrights.com/sites/default/files/investigation-into-antisemitism-in-the-labour-party.pdf

 

Still don't think Corbyn was or is AS in any way... he was just a really bad leader who didn't know what he was doing and surrounded himself with some wrong uns 

But he was the leader and all of this is on him

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1 minute ago, Strontium Dog™ said:

 

Well those are just Zionist smears...

There needs to be a separation between how Labour acted in response to claims - by most accounts, this report rips into them - and the wider debate. For me, there’s no doubt there was political weaponisation of antisemitism, quite often by non-Jewish people looking to smack Labour. Inside... clearly it was handled horrendously. 
 

Corbyn’s statement is pretty terrible. 

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7 minutes ago, Nummer Neunzehn said:

It is on him, isn’t it? He is the leader of the Labour Party who inherited this. It’s up to him to deal with it. I don’t like her but I don’t see much wrong with that. 

I may be reading that wrong but I think she may be holding Starmer to account for his time as an opposition minister or at the least shes going to be driving policy and retribution on this issue. I think Starmer has made a fatal error here and I'm not speaking out of loyalty to Corbyn as i hope Starmer succeeds.

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Some damning stuff in the report. 

 

But, some of the gentler stuff in the report is being left out. Such as how Labour can't be held legally responsible for the conduct of some of those whose conduct was complained about, how the "harassment" of Jewish people was not really anything to do with the central structures of the party and was largely carried out by two rogue individuals, how a lot of the conduct reported on wasn't actually antisemitic conduct by party members and was more a case of naivety and the natural instinct to defend an institution that matters to people (like people turn a blind eye to unsavoury things their football club do etc) by doubting the extent of antisemitism in the Labour Party. The main bit that hasn't been picked up is the part of the report which states that, while there is still work to do, there were improvements made to the antisemitism complaints process. It seems to add weight to the claim that the process wasn't initially fit for purpose and that gradual improvements were being made under Formby etc. 

 

It sounds a lot like a you're getting better but not fast enough conclusion. 

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13 minutes ago, Nummer Neunzehn said:

Because I acknowledge something? Okay. A report just came out that says the law was broken and the leadership office interferes with complaints. Not a word on those? 

It was a joke! 

 

 

 

After years of getting similar responses when saying good things about the previous Labour leader, I thought that my comment was the correct way to reply to praise for a Labour leader. 

 

 

 

But, I forgot that the rules changed when Starmer was appointed.

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9 minutes ago, Nelly-Torres said:

It was a joke! 

 

After years of getting similar responses when saying good things about the previous Labour leader, I thought that my comment was the correct way to reply to praise for a Labour leader. 

 

But, I forgot that the rules changed when Starmer was appointed.

I genuinely thought it was a very good response to this. The big thing he has to deal with is the Corbyn question. He was asked many times about Corbyn. He said he would read his response. It goes directly against his comments in the press conference. 
 

Going through the report now... this isn’t funny. What the absolute fuck were they thinking. 
 

Quote

Throughout the period we investigated, there was political interference in the handling of antisemitism complaints – as part of a wider practice of LOTO involvement in disciplinary cases that were deemed ‘politically sensitive’, as well as a distinct practice in March–April 2018, when all antisemitism cases were referred to LOTO. Within the sample of 70 complaint files, we found 23 instances of political interference by LOTO staff and others. These included clear examples of interference at various stages throughout the complaint handling process, including in decisions on whether to investigate and whether to suspend.


We found that this political interference was not part of the Labour Party’s formal complaints process, so it was not a legitimate approach to determining complaints.
We concluded that this was indirectly discriminatory and unlawful, and that the Labour Party was legally responsible for it.


This practice has created a lack of transparency and consistency in the complaints process and a serious risk of actual or perceived discriminatory treatment in particular complaints. It has also fundamentally undermined public confidence in the complaints process.


Unlawful political interference by the office of the leader of the opposition. Multiple cases. I mean, you genuinely don’t have to be a Starmer cultist to acknowledge how bad that is. 

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5 minutes ago, Nelly-Torres said:

Some damning stuff in the report. 

 

But, some of the gentler stuff is being left out in the report. Such as how Labour can't be held legally responsible for the conduct of some of those whose conduct was complained about, how the "harassment" of Jewish people was not really anything to do with the central structures of the party and was largely carried out by two individuals, how a lot of the conduct reported on wasn't actually antisemitic conduct by party members and was more a case of naivety and the natural instinct to defend an institution that matters to people (like people turn a blind eye to unsavoury things their football club do etc) by doubting the extent of antisemitism in the Labour Party. The main bit that hasn't been picked up is the part of the report which states that, while there is still work to do, there were improvements made to the antisemitism complaints process. It seems to add weight to the claim that the process wasn't initially fit for purpose and that gradual improvements were being made under Formby etc. 

 

It sounds a lot like a you're getting better but not fast enough conclusion. 

Sadly the reporting on the points you highlight will be negligible to non-existent. Although there is no accusation of Corbyn himself being anti Semitic, nor the party being institutionally anti Semitic, this morning's media are now attacking the former leader with the energy of hungry wolves. Which, in my opinion, suggests the whole issue has been about getting Corbyn and the confection of anti Semitism was merely a handy weapon rather than the raging disease as it was presented. 

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22 minutes ago, Nummer Neunzehn said:

There needs to be a separation between how Labour acted in response to claims - by most accounts, this report rips into them - and the wider debate. For me, there’s no doubt there was political weaponisation of antisemitism, quite often by non-Jewish people looking to smack Labour. Inside... clearly it was handled horrendously. 
 

Corbyn’s statement is pretty terrible. 

Exactly.

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3 minutes ago, Nummer Neunzehn said:

Unlawful political interference by the office of the leader of the opposition. Multiple cases. I mean, you genuinely don’t have to be a Starmer cultists to acknowledge how bad that is. 

It doesn't look great that, I agree. But, then you're back to the position where some people who bemoan this will be the same people who criticised Corbyn or his team for NOT interfering in cases to ensure that the process was accelerated or that harsher sanctions were imposed. 

 

For me, the whole report has to be read in the context of the IHRA definition of antisemitism. There doesn't seem to be a universally accepted definition of what antisemitism is. Obviously, you get the clear cut cases which should be sanctioned as severely as possible. But, the report itself refers to "borderline" cases and cases where people have blindly defended the party or doubted the extent of antisemitism in the party. These latter cases appear to be being treated by the report as antisemitic. For me, that should be open for debate. Then you have the author of the IHRA definition saying that the document isn't fit for purpose, numerous universities in the UK have yet to adopt the definition. The point is that antisemitism is a somewhat unique form of racism in that there doesn't seem to be a static definition of it and there's overlap into some criticism of a country being complained of as antisemitic. That's a unique thing.

 

The point I'm trying to make is that when the racism complained of itself sometimes appears to be fluid, with a contested definition and with a (not wholly accepted) definition that is stated in a relatively new document, isn't it to be expected that any organisation might get things wrong at first, might take time to adapt and learn lessons and, like Labour, over time improve it's knowledge base and competence at dealing with complaints? 

 

 

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20 minutes ago, Red Phoenix said:

Zionist right wingers found that the Labour Party was institutionally socialist. It's now down to Sir Starmer to clean up the mess.

Damn, and I didn’t even need to go to Reddit. Deffo about Socialism this. 

20 minutes ago, torahboy said:

Sadly the reporting on the points you highlight will be negligible to non-existent. Although there is no accusation of Corbyn himself being anti Semitic, nor the party being institutionally anti Semitic, this morning's media are now attacking the former leader with the energy of hungry wolves. Which, in my opinion, suggests the whole issue has been about getting Corbyn and the confection of anti Semitism was merely a handy weapon rather than the raging disease as it was presented. 

Did you read the report? This isn’t just a ‘get Corbyn’ thing. Dismissing it as such is part of what has gone wrong. 

15 minutes ago, Dr Nowt said:

Exactly.

Fuck off. 
 

Sorry... reflex action. 

6 minutes ago, Nelly-Torres said:

It doesn't look great that, I agree. But, then you're back to the position where some people who bemoan this will be the same people who criticised Corbyn or his team for NOT interfering in cases to ensure that the process was accelerated or that harsher sanctions were imposed. 

 

For me, the whole report has to be read in the context of the IHRA definition of antisemitism. There doesn't seem to be a universally accepted definition of what antisemitism is. Obviously, you get the clear cut cases which should be sanctioned as severely as possible. But, the report itself refers to "borderline" cases and cases where people have blindly defended the party or doubted the extent of antisemitism in the party. These latter cases appear to be being treated by the report as antisemitic. For me, that should be open for debate. Then you have the author of the IHRA definition saying that the document isn't fit for purpose, numerous universities in the UK have yet to adopt the definition. The point is that antisemitism is a somewhat unique form of racism in that there doesn't seem to be a static definition of it and there's overlap into some criticism of a country being complained of as antisemitic. That's a unique thing.

 

The point I'm trying to make is that when the racism complained of itself sometimes appears to be fluid, with a contested definition and with a (not wholly accepted) definition that is stated in a relatively new document, isn't it to be expected that any organisation might get things wrong at first, might take time to adapt and learn lessons and, like Labour, over time improve it's knowledge base and competence at dealing with complaints? 

 

It’s not about how it looks. That’s an optics thing. It’s what *is* that needs accepting. Finding that sort of political interference is pretty grim.  

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43 minutes ago, Nummer Neunzehn said:

There needs to be a separation between how Labour acted in response to claims - by most accounts, this report rips into them - and the wider debate. For me, there’s no doubt there was political weaponisation of antisemitism, quite often by non-Jewish people looking to smack Labour. Inside... clearly it was handled horrendously.

 

I seem to recall saying at the time that I had no doubt whatsoever that the issue was being used by Corbyn's critics within and without the party as a stick to beat him and his regime. But that at the same time, this did not mean that the essence of the complaints were untrue.

 

Mostly I'm just pleased for all the Jewish socialists who were told they were making shit up because they didn't want to pay more tax, or whatever bollocks was being spouted at the time.

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On the political interference bit, it's noted that they cite Corbyn discussing Ken Livingstone's case/future suspension with his staff as political interference with the complaints process. 

 

Damned if you do.... 

 

"Labour MP John Mann MP has told Julia Hartley-Brewer that Jeremy Corbyn should kick Ken Livingstone out of Labour and that Jewish people would feel safer as a consequence.

 

"It’s nothing new, but the scale of it is far worse," he said of antisemitism within Labour. "It is far more vicious that it was."

"It’s got a lot to do with Momentum. They are orchestrating overt antisemitism. There is a far bigger group that are apologists.

"Jeremy Corbyn can act decisively on changing this dialogue. He can kick out Ken Livingstone, and the other antisemites from the party. If he does that the world can move on and Jewish people can feel significantly safer."

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A lot of people seem to be in a gloating mood on social media, demanding apologies etc. 

 

It's a two way street. Will they acknowledge the improvements made to the complaints process? Will they retract their now demonstrably false claims that the Labour Party is (or, was, the problem seemed to end in 2020, for some reason?) "institutionally antisemitic?" 

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3 minutes ago, Stickman said:

Such a shame that the likes of Hodge, Mann, Austin, Smeeth and Co didn't warn the Labour membership that they were electing such a bad anti-Semite back in 2015...Or maybe I didn't get that memo

 

Yep, you missed a lot of stuff at the time, evidently.

 

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/aug/13/jeremy-corbyn-labour-leadership-foreign-policy-antisemitism

 

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2015/aug/14/jewish-labour-mp-jeremy-corbyn-antisemitism-record-ivan-lewis

 

https://www.thejc.com/news/uk/the-key-questions-jeremy-corbyn-must-answer-1.68097

 

https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/staggers/2015/09/no-jeremy-corbyn-not-antisemitic-left-should-be-wary-who-he-calls-friends

 

etc

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