Next UK Labour Leader - post Brexit

[WaffenThinMint]

9 hours ago, WhiteRoseKillie said:

Ronnie D barred from voting, but Lib Dem supporter fine.

Rather dishonest title from you there - poor form.

Lord Sainsbury gave £2 million each to the Labour and Lib Dem parties as part of their campaigns to keep Britain in the European Union along with a number of other pro-EU groups, that was all.

He is certainly no friend of the Liberal Democrats - he continued to bankroll the continuing SDP after their merger with the Liberals, and upon their demise transferred his allegiance back to Labour.

[BerwickMad]

Saw that John Dunn on the news, complaining that he had been thrown out of Labour after 45 years. It's an absolute disgrace according to him and many others.

He tweeted stuff like this:

@cutoid242 @owensmith2016 Shows what a dirty hypocrite the hemorrhoid salesman really is. Not getting an answer but Khan I have a 99 mister?

You are a b*****d!
If you are a Blairite or other right wing Labour Party traitor, the above statement applies to you. #traitorb*****ds


Perfectly justified to throw him out IMO.

[Ira Gaines]

Fucking hell. How did he think that would go? Absolutely no party would accept that surely.

[Dunning1874]

People who've posted stuff like Dunn, absolutely, kick them out.

What's puzzling though is the rampant inconsistency. Michael Foster describes Corbyn supporters as 'Nazi Stormtroopers', no disciplinary action. Tom Blenkinsop, John McTernan and countless others throw around terms like 'Entryist' and 'Trot' at anyone who says anything remotely pro-Corbyn, no disciplinary action. Someone sent a tweet a year ago saying they liked something Caroline Lucas said - right to vote removed.

It makes absolutely no sense to ban people from Labour on the basis that they voted for another party in the last general election when the entire general election strategy being called for in this leadership campaign is based on getting 2 million people who voted Tory in the last general election to vote Labour.

[BerwickMad]

Totally agree that it should be the same across the board. I heard that Ternan on LBC last night on the David Mellor show. Now I'm someone who accepts Labour is a broad church, but beyond Mellor constantly saying this guy was Labour through and through, he said absolutely nothing to suggest that he was. He launched a scathing attack on the idea of renationalising the railways for instance and was glowing in his praise for Richard Branson for owning an island. He literally said nothing remotely left of centre.

[WhiteRoseKillie]

9 hours ago, WaffenThinMint said:

Rather dishonest title from you there - poor form.

Lord Sainsbury gave £2 million each to the Labour and Lib Dem parties as part of their campaigns to keep Britain in the European Union along with a number of other pro-EU groups, that was all.

He is certainly no friend of the Liberal Democrats - he continued to bankroll the continuing SDP after their merger with the Liberals, and upon their demise transferred his allegiance back to Labour.

Not dishonest at all- if giving the Lib Dems 2 million isn't supporting them, what is? He is - like many of his peers (no pun intended) - an opportunistic chancer who will happily spread ground-bait all over, knowing that whoever ends up in a position of influence, he'll have their marker. Absolute scum. But good enough to be ennobled by, guess who...

Is it just me who sees the real problem with these chancers?

[Dunning1874]

4 hours ago, BerwickMad said:

Totally agree that it should be the same across the board. I heard that Ternan on LBC last night on the David Mellor show. Now I'm someone who accepts Labour is a broad church, but beyond Mellor constantly saying this guy was Labour through and through, he said absolutely nothing to suggest that he was. He launched a scathing attack on the idea of renationalising the railways for instance and was glowing in his praise for Richard Branson for owning an island. He literally said nothing remotely left of centre.

It can get a bit tiring to hear the 'Red Tories' insult thrown around, but McTernan really is the epitome of it. He doesn't have a left wing bone in his body. Abhors state involvement in anything, pro-NHS privatisation, virulently anti-Trade Union, argued that tax avoidance is a fundamental expression of freedom. He's also an absolute failure - everything he touches turns to shit. Julia Gillard's Director of Communications and Jim Murphy's Chief of Staff 

The purges get more ridiculous. Someone has been banned from voting as they 'shared inappropriate content on Facebook on 5 March'. Having checked through their Facebook, they found their sole post on March 5 was... "I fucking love the Foo Fighters."

The Foo Fighters are the biggest threat to democracy in this country, IMO.

[WaffenThinMint]

1 hour ago, WhiteRoseKillie said:

Not dishonest at all- if giving the Lib Dems 2 million isn't supporting them, what is? He is - like many of his peers (no pun intended) - an opportunistic chancer who will happily spread ground-bait all over, knowing that whoever ends up in a position of influence, he'll have their marker. Absolute scum. But good enough to be ennobled by, guess who...

Is it just me who sees the real problem with these chancers?

It seems like Lord Sainsbury can't win as far as you are concerned, can he?

He gets criticised for refusing to fund Labour when Corbyn took charge (largely out of an not unfounded concern about funds being "mismanaged" - ie. stolen - as tends to be the case whenever self styled "Reds" get into positions where they've a hand on the purse strings - see Brent, Liverpool & Sheffield for details...) but gives to other Labour supporting groups. However, he does directly give Labour £2 million for the Remain campaign because the stakes are too high & the time too short to show scruples.

He gives away £8 million in total for the campaign to all manner of ad-hoc cross-party groups - not just to the Lib Dems (the most pro-EU party of the lot, some reasons ideological, some selfish, but that's another topic...), his arch enemies from his SDP days. Yet it's only for funding them he's getting picked up on, something I guess he had to probably swallow a fair old bit of pride first before accepting there was larger matters at stake?

FFS, what exactly did Lord Sainsbury have to gain out of this? The guy is a multi-billionaire, he's not attended the House of Lords for over three years, he's 75 & feeling his mortality (like most manic hyper-philathropists tend to be), & spends most of his time wondering what bit of Cambridge University he's not flung a million quid at this week. If he was wanting to buy influence in the corridors of power, he'd not be bothering his shirt flinging a single penny at Labour or the Lib Dems ever again when even Chuck Norris and McGyver leading them could not save them from another ten years in the wilderness.

[WhiteRoseKillie]

1 hour ago, Dunning1874 said:

It can get a bit tiring to hear the 'Red Tories' insult thrown around, but McTernan really is the epitome of it. He doesn't have a left wing bone in his body. Abhors state involvement in anything, pro-NHS privatisation, virulently anti-Trade Union, argued that tax avoidance is a fundamental expression of freedom. He's also an absolute failure - everything he touches turns to shit. Julia Gillard's Director of Communications and Jim Murphy's Chief of Staff 

The purges get more ridiculous. Someone has been banned from voting as they 'shared inappropriate content on Facebook on 5 March'. Having checked through their Facebook, they found their sole post on March 5 was... "I fucking love the Foo Fighters."

The Foo Fighters are the biggest threat to democracy in this country, IMO.

The problem is with this "sharing the aims and values of the Party" line. The Party is theoretically a democracy - therefore the "aims and values" are what the membership say they are, not what McNicol, the NEC, or the PLP (including Corbyn) would like them to be.

When the dust settles after this election there is going to be such a bloodletting. What the PLP are having to come to terms with (and are struggling to do so) is that there has been a massive swell of interest in what is going on in Politics - i.e. yer average voter is beginning to look behind the sound-bites and - gasp! - actually question what they're up to. The electorate are beginning to resent being taken for granted, and if the PLP don't step up to the mark they'll find themselves being cast aside at the earliest opportunity, as happened to their colleagues in Scotland. Unfortunately, the effect outwith Scotland in the 2015 GE was to make UKIP look like a credible choice. It is time for Labour to reclaim the position of a clear alternative to the return to pre-WWI society that the Tories are bent on pursuing.

[Am Featha Taigh Nan Clach]

As much as I'm not a fan of New Labour, if what the party members want isn't what over circa a third of those who vote want, Labour will play second fiddle to a Conservative majority for years to come

[Newbornbairn]

21 hours ago, jmothecat said:

 

Good to have you back. A united left is a stronger left.

 

 

24 minutes ago, WhiteRoseKillie said:

 

When the dust settles after this election there is going to be such a bloodletting. 

 

A "united left" indeed. An unelectable party with more splits than a Girl Guide jamboree.

[jmothecat]

I really don't think we should be doing any sort of 'bloodletting' after the election. I'm not sure what purpose that would serve.

[WhiteRoseKillie]

3 minutes ago, NewBornBairn said:

 

 

A "united left" indeed. An unelectable party with more splits than a Girl Guide jamboree.

Indeed, the Party is unelectable at the moment, and it's because of those hangovers from the Government years doing what they can to hold onto their own positions rather than formulate any kind of Socialist alternative. Once those careerists are gone, the Party can work on a coherent agenda, rather than chasing a few swing voters in a few marginal seats.

 

[jmothecat]

Apparently the Corbyn camp want Richard Branson stripped of his knighthood for 'undermining democracy'. Because now revealing that a politician has staged a publicity stunt and acted dishonestly is undermining democracy.

Why would they possibly call for this? Surely they want this story forgotten about as quickly as possible but they insist on continuing to ensure it stays in the headlines.

[Newbornbairn]

Go with a socialist agenda and you've got good odds of taking some ground back from the SNP but you've no chance of winning in England. Zilch.

[WhiteRoseKillie]

5 minutes ago, jmothecat said:

I really don't think we should be doing any sort of 'bloodletting' after the election. I'm not sure what purpose that would serve.

Sorry, Jmo, but you're exactly the kind of person I can't wait to see leaving the Party. You have absolutely no ambition for the Party other than electoral success. The British Labour Party is only one part of the International Movement, and has acted against basic Social principles so many times that it has lost all credibility.

[jmothecat]

Sorry, Jmo, but you're exactly the kind of person I can't wait to see leaving the Party. You have absolutely no ambition for the Party other than electoral success. The British Labour Party is only one part of the International Movement, and has acted against basic Social principles so many times that it has lost all credibility.

Why would you want active, long-term members to leave the party? Surely alienating people like me is completely counter-productive to winning elections.

[Am Featha Taigh Nan Clach]

Now a days, if people who did not share the 'I've just spent 14 hours working down a pit' 'Labour' attitude they'd just vote Lib Dem or Conservative

[WhiteRoseKillie]

4 minutes ago, WhiteRoseKillie said:

Sorry, Jmo, but you're exactly the kind of person I can't wait to see leaving the Party. You have absolutely no ambition for the Party other than electoral success. The British Labour Party is only one part of the International Movement, and has acted against basic Social principles so many times that it has lost all credibility.

 

Just now, jmothecat said:

 

Why would you want active, long-term members to leave the party? Surely alienating people like me is completely counter-productive to winning elections.

 

Case, rested. I'm not a Socialist because I want to win elections. I am not a TU representative because I think it gives me status. At the risk of sounding clichéd, I want to fight against inequality and discrimination, build a better society and hopefully leave the world a slightly better place for my kids anfd grand-kids.

What I do not want to do is to throw principles to one side in the hope that a few votes may accrue, and my team might win.

[WaffenThinMint]

I'm reading the above in a mixture of disbelief and despair. If this is truly what a lot of those in the pro-Corbyn camp are thinking - something akin to the nonsense the Covenanters came out with about being a united people believing in Sound Doctrine being more important than winning battles (shortly before Cromwell destroyed them at Dunbar) - then we may as well all stick as much money on the Tories winning the next two general elections before the odds plunge any further - it will make for a tidy enough sum to part-offset the shrinking of our spending power in the decade to come whilst the Labourites obsess over ideological purity & to buggery with winning elections.

50 minutes ago, WhiteRoseKillie said:

 

Case, rested. I'm not a Socialist because I want to win elections. I am not a TU representative because I think it gives me status. At the risk of sounding clichéd, I want to fight against inequality and discrimination, build a better society and hopefully leave the world a slightly better place for my kids anfd grand-kids.

What I do not want to do is to throw principles to one side in the hope that a few votes may accrue, and my team might win.

If you want to fight against inequality and discrimination, build a better society and hopefully leave the world a slightly better place for your kids and grand-kids, your party needs to start winning elections again - period. No power, no changes. How else do you think changes are going to happen without winning elections? Protest marches? Strikes? Hasn't worked so far, has it?

Don't get me wrong, I despised Tony Blair & the careerists he brought with him (although Labour are kidding themselves if they're trying to pretend they weren't the party of the arch-careerist as much as the Tories since the Butskellism era). But there's nothing noble about watching your country ruined for the sake of purity of dogma.