Do you want to discuss boring politics? (24 Viewers)

shmmeee

Well-Known Member
Losing the party whip happens because you won’t follow message not because they don’t like your face. Corbyn and Abbott have spent time attacking the party from within and refusing to apologise. Elphinke whether you believe her or not has stuck to message and apologised when asked.

The difference is just that you also don’t think Corbyn and Abbott should follow the party line.
 

fernandopartridge

Well-Known Member
Losing the party whip happens because you won’t follow message not because they don’t like your face. Corbyn and Abbott have spent time attacking the party from within and refusing to apologise. Elphinke whether you believe her or not has stuck to message and apologised when asked.

The difference is just that you also don’t think Corbyn and Abbott should follow the party line.

It's a big tent isn't it?
 

fernandopartridge

Well-Known Member
Not sure if genuinely stupid or just pretending for the lols. But obviously she hasn’t because she wasn’t under the whip until recently.

It was obviously a facetious comment. She said Labour has changed, is she hinting at it having changed to the extent that she would be happy to tow the party line now on various issues?
 

shmmeee

Well-Known Member
It was obviously a facetious comment. She said Labour has changed, is she hinting at it having changed to the extent that she would be happy to tow the party line now on various issues?

Yeah. If you’ve not noticed Labour are currently in the “park your tanks on the opponents lawn” stage where you aim to take them on on their ground, namely illegal immigration in this case. Her defection was timed with Starmer taking a tougher line on safer routes rhetoric with the clear aim of convincing voters with immigration concerns they are safe to not vote Tory. The entire point of the message was “Labour has changed on immigration and can be trusted with our borders”

It’s an issue that makes the left uncomfortable, but is still a salient issue that a large chunk of voters care about when choosing who to vote for. Just like the economic stuff you have to go big bright colours very obviously in the other direction to normal to convince people. And it’s not just convincing people to vote for you per se but also Tory voters to stay home or that it’s safe to vote Lib Dem.

I said when Corbyn was in charge (probably on this thread) that to detoxify the Labour brand with voters post Corbyn we’d have to go to places further right than well feel comfortable with. The main reasons people didn’t vote Labour aside from Corbyn were: reversing Brexit, open borders, spending too much, antisemitism. On all of these Starmer has had to go hard to show the party is different. Has he gone too far in some places? Probably, but electorally there’s more cost to not going far enough than going too far. And all signs show that it’s working.

If you really think Starmer could run a right wing policy platform in government with the MPs he has and not face a rebellion from his massive majority who will feel empowered then you need to study electoral politics more TBH.
 

fernandopartridge

Well-Known Member
If you really think Starmer could run a right wing policy platform in government with the MPs he has and not face a rebellion from his massive majority who will feel empowered then you need to study electoral politics more TBH.

Like I said the other day, I'm prepared to wait and see. His front bench though appear very content with a right wing policy platform, in particular the COE and the SoSHSC.
 

shmmeee

Well-Known Member
Like I said the other day, I'm prepared to wait and see. His front bench though appear very content with a right wing policy platform, in particular the COE and the SoSHSC.

Well see. Undoubtedly like Blair there will be bits we don’t like that are seen as requirements to get and stay elected, bits he outright just fucks up trying to be clever (like PFI for Blair), but I fully expect more evidence based policy, better public services, taking climate change seriously, efforts to improve workers rights. Cos these are the basic things every Labour MP signs up for. There might be one or two who don’t but enough do across the left and soft left that, for example, trying to privatise the NHS would result in a rebellion so large that it would bring out at VoNC.

Starmer is stated policy and rhetoric is to the left of Blair pre election, to the left of Brown in office, and on many things further left than Milliband (eg nationalisation). What’s happening is he’s doing what every PM has needed to do to get elected and he’s meeting the voters on key issues where they are. Which sadly is “the nations finances are like my kitchen table” and “you shouldn’t be able to bypass the queue for immigration/social support”. The trade off is being further right than we’d like on those things, and probably for some rejoining the SM, and in return you get the power to fix public services and whatever else.

For the right the trade-off is not privatising the NHS, not cutting public services to the bone, and pretending they don’t hate the gays, blacks, and women. And when that happens they all call the government a bunch of socialists.
 

duffer

Well-Known Member
Losing the party whip happens because you won’t follow message not because they don’t like your face. Corbyn and Abbott have spent time attacking the party from within and refusing to apologise. Elphinke whether you believe her or not has stuck to message and apologised when asked.

The difference is just that you also don’t think Corbyn and Abbott should follow the party line.

That's not quite true, is it?

Abbot did not lose the whip for rebelling, she lost it for a single letter to the Guardian for which she quickly apologised.

Labour, under Starmer, is quite obviously not a broad church - I would that it was.

The 'broad church' claim is a complete fiction to justify Starmer ten minutes of political theatre at the expense of what little integrity he had left.

Given the negative publicity it's drawn, and the possible impact on more progressive voters, I don't think it's quite the act of political genius it's being pitched as hereabouts.
 

shmmeee

Well-Known Member
That's not quite true, is it?

Abbot did not lose the whip for rebelling, she lost it for a single letter to the Guardian for which she quickly apologised.

Labour, under Starmer, is quite obviously not a broad church - I would that it was.

The 'broad church' claim is a complete fiction to justify Starmer ten minutes of political theatre at the expense of what little integrity he had left.

Given the negative publicity it's drawn, and the possible impact on more progressive voters, I don't think it's quite the act of political genius it's being pitched as hereabouts.

She publicly said stuff that could be construed as anti semitic at a time the party was trying to give out a message that Jews are welcome. I didn’t say rebelled because it’s not about voting. You can vote against the whip and not lose it, but you can’t show you are actively working against what the party is trying to do and expect to keep it.

The fact is both her and Corbyn lost the whip for being racist, not for being left wing.
 

fernandopartridge

Well-Known Member
She publicly said stuff that could be construed as anti semitic at a time the party was trying to give out a message that Jews are welcome. I didn’t say rebelled because it’s not about voting. You can vote against the whip and not lose it, but you can’t show you are actively working against what the party is trying to do and expect to keep it.

The fact is both her and Corbyn lost the whip for being racist, not for being left wing.

Corbyn lost the whip for saying that antisemitism in the Labour party was overstated for political reasons. I don't think that is racism or even false, is it?
 

shmmeee

Well-Known Member
Corbyn lost the whip for saying that antisemitism in the Labour party was overstated for political reasons. I don't think that is racism or even false, is it?

Fine. For excusing racists. Whatever way you want to put it it wasn’t about their political alignment. Plenty of SCG MPs are still there.
 

chiefdave

Well-Known Member
More nobody could have predicted this news :rolleyes:
A judge has ruled that large parts of the government's Illegal Migration Act should not apply in Northern Ireland because they breach human rights laws.

He ruled some elements of the act are in breach of the Windsor Framework.

This is the revised post-Brexit deal agreed between the UK and European Union last year.

Mr Justice Humphreys also declared parts of the act to be incompatible with the European Convention on Human Rights.
 

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