The Labour Thread

[The Paranoid Pineapple]

Some more great gains the other night lads

https://twitter.com/britainelects/status/911000370696085504
https://twitter.com/britainelects/status/910993283962286086

 

[Benji]

As long as the Tories are still losing, it's good news to me.

 

[Aber gas]

Some more great gains the other night lads

https://twitter.com/britainelects/status/911000370696085504
https://twitter.com/britainelects/status/910993283962286086

#libdimsurge

 

[Jockney]

Lib dem voters in Chesterfield aren't otherwise going to be voting labour, lez be real.

 

[Aber gas]

#libdimsurge

Also, looked into it a bit more. The Lib den vote is down 13 percent. Strange country we live in.

 

[Aber gas]

A minority of Anarchists and Libertarian Communists who I otherwise have a lot of respect for, not offering productive critique, implicitly lumping lots of top socialists in with the SWP because the latter have a presence/managed to sneak in.

Continuation of the Novara beef maybe?

 

[Look Out There Are Llamas]

Some more great gains the other night lads

https://twitter.com/britainelects/status/911000370696085504
https://twitter.com/britainelects/status/910993283962286086

Big up Oadby.

Ever feel that Labour's single market position is based a lot on the hokey cokey? In out, in out...

 

[Ian_Wrexham]

Some peak ultra-leftism going on at notable social media accounts re. Labour Party Conference and The World Transformed. I don't see the point in critique for critique's sake in the current moment. A lot of these people aren't even bothering to posit direct action (accompanying divestment from representational politics) anymore, which I thought was one of intended statements; it's just ultra-left cynicism.

I'm very cynical because a) the labour party has demonstrated my cynicism was correct with the last three months of rowing back on most of their more interesting promises b) because Weyman Bennett and SUTR are attending events alongside senior Labour Party figures and c) because internal party democracy is boring as fuck for anyone not invested in the party form.

 

[Ian_Wrexham]

Have you noticed too, that Momentum - who, previously were an insurgent organisation at odds with the majority of the party grandees - has shifted into A Respectable Wing Of The Party?

Instead of using their and Corbyn's new found respectability to push the party further left, Momentum's leaders (both organisationally and ideologically) seem more focused on entrenching their own place within the party structure.

There were crickets when Dawn Butler announced that Labour would deliver a real terms public sector wage cut. When Amber Rudd, in contempt of court, deported an Afghan asylum seeker and then had to return him, both the leadership and those on the left of the party who should have been holding them to account - were silent (their silence on issues of migrant justice more generally are equally contemptible). When Corbyn supported Sarah Champion's awful article on abuse and race, there was very little censure for The Absolute Boy from anyone in positions of influence on the left. And that they continue to have any truck at all with people like Paul Mason is beyond me. Corbyn's personal chumminess with various violent misogynists ought to be cause for concern too.

You can see the change in the way senior Momentum figures tweet now. When previously, they were attacked for being out-of-touch metropolitan elites, they seem to be throwing those accusations at the people on their left - and gearing their organisation for "normal people" who like pubs and football - rather than addressing concerns of those they deem "ultralefts", "identarians" or "playing purity politics".

I get that people's views and opinions change over time, but the only difference between now and 2014 - when many of these people were offering strident critiques of electoralism - seems to be which side of the fence they're now on.

 

[Abertawe]

You want Labour to return to libby shitness thus alienate the majority of the population. It wouldn't work.

 

[Ian_Wrexham]

You want Labour to return to libby shitness thus alienate the majority of the population. It wouldn't work.

No I don't. I want Labour/Momentum to promote an actually radical agenda, rather than have "radicals" leading them.

 

[Aber gas]

Tremendous stuff from Big John at conference this afternoon. Making our commitment to renationalised utilities clear and also getting rid of the disastrous pfi contracts. Also committed to providing a state investment bank with the aim of funding fourth generation industry.
It's a tremendous speech, I'll try and put it up a little later.

 

[Jockney]

Despite the caveat, you're still criticising people for not being as radical as you'd like them to be. On the one hand I think that is fair enough given the potential of the project and the very real ramifications on how the left will engage in politics in this country, but on the other hand completely elides what is actually happening in organisations like Momentum and across branches and CLPs up and the down the UK. Ignoring the unreconstructed Bennites, many of whom seem more keen on revenge than anything else, the new left within the party only really has absolute consensus on two things: 1) Jeremy needs to remain leader until 2) the left is organised and the party has been democratised enough to build a long-term socialist project within the Labour Party. Like, everything is contingent on that (perhaps to a fault), but that doesn't mean there isn't heterogeneity and dissent; several left CLP secretaries, and several more who hold positions in Momentum branches (that I know of), came out in opposition to Corbyn's stance on freedom of movement; then there are of course quite a few notable ex-SWP who have joined the Labour Party and are not happy with Corbyn's lack of discrimination when it comes to associating with fairly well-known rape apologists and people like Steve Hedley. But then the outcome of these criticisms should be, and usually is, increased engagement, rather than jacking the whole thing in. So much of socialist politics in my lifetime has been about the need to keep your hands clean; retreating further and further into groups until the organisation you're in calcifies and you forget that there's supposed to be a telos, a horizon; that resistance by itself isn't enough. I don't expect anarchists, or people skeptical of the Labour reform project more generally, to jump into bed with the party, or put faith in electoral politics: far from it, I think a diversity of tactics and positions can only be a good thing for the prospect of socialism in this country. I do think though, that tearing into a movement of (mainly young) people, and worse articulating those attacks in pious and moralistic language, ultimately betrays an absence of a politics. It isn't 'wrong' on any factual or ethical level, but it has almost negative utility.

 

[Aber gas]

Emily Thornberry at conference. This woman is just pure sass. Absolute top girl.
https://twitter.com/corbynator2/status/912306551934849024

 

[Ian_Wrexham]

Despite the caveat, you're still criticising people for not being as radical as you'd like them to be. On the one hand I think that is fair enough given the potential of the project and the very real ramifications on how the left will engage in politics in this country, but on the other hand completely elides what is actually happening in organisations like Momentum and across branches and CLPs up and the down the UK. Ignoring the unreconstructed Bennites, many of whom seem more keen on revenge than anything else, the new left within the party only really has absolute consensus on two things: 1) Jeremy needs to remain leader until 2) the left is organised and the party has been democratised enough to build a long-term socialist project within the Labour Party. Like, everything is contingent on that (perhaps to a fault), but that doesn't mean there isn't heterogeneity and dissent; several left CLP secretaries, and several more who hold positions in Momentum branches (that I know of), came out in opposition to Corbyn's stance on freedom of movement; then there are of course quite a few notable ex-SWP who have joined the Labour Party and are not happy with Corbyn's lack of discrimination when it comes to associating with fairly well-known rape apologists and people like Steve Hedley. But then the outcome of these criticisms should be, and usually is, increased engagement, rather than jacking the whole thing in. So much of socialist politics in my lifetime has been about the need to keep your hands clean; retreating further and further into groups until the organisation you're in calcifies and you forget that there's supposed to be a telos, a horizon; that resistance by itself isn't enough. I don't expect anarchists, or people skeptical of the Labour reform project more generally, to jump into bed with the party, or put faith in electoral politics: far from it, I think a diversity of tactics and positions can only be a good thing for the prospect of socialism in this country. I do think though, that tearing into a movement of (mainly young) people, and worse articulating those attacks in pious and moralistic language, ultimately betrays an absence of a politics. It isn't 'wrong' on any factual or ethical level, but it has almost negative utility.

On stuff like immigration, there's a real need for a group with clout and resources to support the multiple, autonomous, migrant justice struggles - be it against restricting access to housing and healthcare, or the scandal of detention and charter-flight deportation. I'm fine with any group making those criticisms being reformist - but it's cowardly to stay out of the debate altogether.

But by and large, Momentum doesn't want to touch these issues, much less actively seek to shift the position of the leadership on it. You can argue the same thing on other areas of policy that Labour have been poor on - e.g. removing the benefits cap, or increasing public sector pay.

Obviously what Momentum is doing is trying (with some success) to take over the bureaucracy of the party. In order to do that, they think they need to avoid conflict between the Mason-wing and the pro-free-movement tendency. But avoiding conflict allows contradictions that are inherent to any sufficiently large group to entrench and ferment - it also allows people who's main goal is enhancing their own status to worm their way into positions of control and dominance. A culture of avoiding conflict and of "unity" (of a top-down disciplinary sort) is a deeply unhealthy one.

I'm glad young people are getting engaged in politics. I worry that a world of bureaucratic-socialist passive-aggression will leave them burnt out and never wanting to engage with political activism ever again. If commies want to critically engage with labour, well it's their funeral. I don't think it's purity politics to say dealing with the sectarian left is Not For Me.

But the former radicals who are now tweeting in support of more cops, more border guards or whatever deserve nothing but contempt.

 

[Abertawe]

More cops & border staff, what a ludicrous desire

Look at this Jewish gyal go. Shame it can only be a Jew to deliver this kind of speech but this is the world in which we live in.

https://twitter.com/benabyad/status/912273124556713984

 

[Ebeneezer Goode]

More cops & border staff, what a ludicrous desire

Borders are violence, comrades!

 

[Jockney]

Borders are violence, comrades!

Please, have a go at explaining the historical development of the nation-state. We can wait.

 

[Ebeneezer Goode]

Please, have a go at explaining the historical development of the nation-state. We can wait.

I think quite a lot of things are going to turn out to be "violence" if this is the rationale you're going to use.

 

[Ian_Wrexham]

I think quite a lot of things are going to turn out to be "violence" if this is the rationale you're going to use.

Given you have kittens whenever fascists scuffle with anti-fascists it's weird you deny that the many thousands of deaths each year in Europe that could have been prevented through free movement don't constitute "violence".

 

[Ebeneezer Goode]

Given you have kittens whenever fascists scuffle with anti-fascists it's weird you deny that the many thousands of deaths each year in Europe that could have been prevented through free movement don't constitute "violence".

Because words have meaning.

 

[Abertawe]

Given you have kittens whenever fascists scuffle with anti-fascists it's weird you deny that the many thousands of deaths each year in Europe that could have been prevented through free movement don't constitute "violence".

Right, are you saying complete open border into the UK from anywhere?

 

[Ian_Wrexham]

Right, are you saying complete open border into the UK from anywhere?

I don't think abolishing the UK border would do an awful lot of good. Borders are like dams - you build up pressure you need to remove before you remove the dam. Unlike some people, I view it as practical and necessary though - not "a political horizon" - which in my mind is a massive cop out.

My steps towards open border are as follows:
1) stop policing internal borders - amnesty for everyone already here
2) open up safe passage into Europe from the middle east and north africa
3) organise (voluntary) dispersal of new migrants on arrival around Europe.

This would happen in conjunction with a dramatic shift in foreign policy away from imperialist positions and towards reparations and restitution for colonial atrocities.

 

[Aber gas]

As promised, here's big john's conference speech.

 

[AFCB_Mark]

The Party immediately retreating from McDonnell's PFI plan I noticed, clarifying that only a “handful” of the PFI deals would actually be taken over, once the sheer sums involved were worked out by the press. As opposed to the bluster of “We will bring existing PFI contracts back in-house. We’re bringing them back! We’re bringing them back!”. Which sounded rather Nigel Farage-esq

The more sensible line to take would have been: 'we won't sign any more PFI contracts in future, leaving the existing deals (mostly initiated by old New Labour it should be noted) to run their course, and admitting that we'll need to raise new facility funding for the NHS from tax instead'. But that isn't nearly as excitable I guess.

 

[Aber gas]

Not sure what's controversial about nationalising PFI contracts. It seems very sensible to let the ones with limited time run out. Take back the ones with break clauses and seize the others. Another fiscally responsible ( and popular) policy. Excellent stuff.
Good stuff on rent controls today too. For too long have rent seeking leeches made people financially insecure and miserable. There is finally hope for millions.

 

[Aber gas]

Anyway, here's a bit of polling.
https://twitter.com/britainelects/status/912784157046165504



It'll go higher....

 

[.V.]

Anyway, here's a bit of polling.
https://twitter.com/britainelects/status/912784157046165504



It'll go higher....

#fakenews

 

[Aber gas]

#fakenews

I'm thinking around 47 by next month

 

[Abertawe]

Skinner a savage. Dunno why they don't let hiM loose on the prime time shows that report on owt political. Love to see him light up that unreal Piers prick. https://twitter.com/UK_LDC/status/912583929751904256