But it was not first time she had heard question – urgent improvement and change of advisors is needed
Labour leadership hopeful Rebecca Long-Bailey confirmed on national television yesterday that she intends, like rival Keir Starmer, to get rid of Labour’s National Constitutional Committee (NCC) – Labour’s ultimate, quasi-judicial disciplinary body which is guided by independent layers – and replace it with an ‘independent’ system.
The confirmation came during a discussion on the BBC’s Marr programme of the twelve trans rights pledges she supported.
But Long-Bailey denied that this would entail expelling women’s groups such as Women’s Place UK. Long-Bailey said she didn’t think the pledges included that provision, but Marr pointed out that it is explicit in the twelve points published by the ‘Labour for Trans Rights’ groups to which she had committed.
Long-Bailey then fell for a ‘gotcha’ in which Marr left out a key part of a Jeremy Corbyn quote:
Marr omitted that Corbyn had said in 2018 that discussion of Israel and its policies as racist “because of their discriminatory impact” should not be considered antisemitic – and failed to mention that the same statement by Corbyn also recognised Israel’s right to exist and supported a ‘two state solution’:
Long-Bailey said she could not ‘remember the incident itself’. However, she had heard about it only a little while before, when Robert Peston raised it at the recent Jewish Labour Movement hustings.
Peston did not leave out the context about ‘discriminatory impact’, instead simply ignoring it as he challenged Long-Bailey and other candidates. But she did not take Marr to task for leaving it out.
She also confirmed that she will implement the ten demands of the Board of Deputies of British Jews (BOD), in spite of serious concerns raised by Jewish Voice for Labour and others about the legality and discriminatory effect of the ‘pledges’.
SKWAWKBOX view:
Ms Long-Bailey’s lack of awareness of what was in the trans pledge she supported will raise serious concerns.
Her willingness to accept pledges without being fully aware of what they say makes even more worrying her plan to abolish Labour’s most rigorous and legally-sound disciplinary process.
If Ms Long-Bailey wants to win the leadership contest, she urgently needs to improve – and to distance herself from the advisers who are clearly encouraging her to make hasty commitments.
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Isn’t this called “up shit creek without a paddle?” As soon as I knew that Burgon (or Pidcock had she been eligible) wasn’t standing for leader it became almost inevitable. The only way out of this is either for Corbyn to rescind his resignation or for the world to wait until my great-grandchildren have grown up – by which time there might not be any world worth saving. In all other scenarios, the LP is fucked for the remainder of my lifetime. I’ve been desperately trying to dissuade comrades just today to hold off joining the CPB or the Workers’ Party, but it’s starting to look like a losing battle.
https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/richard-burgon-says-young-jeremy-corbyn-could-come-back_uk_5e4691bfc5b64ba2974e0266
I have been arguing for a long time for Corbyn to withdraw his resignation and the party to end the practice of preferences based on gender and race and replace it by a more authentic process. RLB is reality is passionate about her views but she is on a steep learning curve. She will get mauled all the way. Its not entirely her fault . In America such preferential systems based on characteristics have led to the rise of incompetency and accusations of bias against others. What needs to happen is for a national left women’s caucus to be formed that will put forward its platform. and list of candidates male and female for leadership . For example any candidate would then need to have a two thirds endorsement by the WNC The current system is a sham and will destroy foundation of the party. The conservatives must be laughing at the prospect of ten more years.
mike mitchell at 12:54 am
I agree that the current selection process is unfair but I must admit to being a little confused as to why you think the solution to ‘positive’ discrimination is more ‘positive’ discrimination.
How about trying something really novel and just selecting the best person for the job regardless of their gender, ethnicity or any other characteristic you want to throw into the mix. Let the members decide who they want as their PPC via OMOV without any factions acting as an undemocratic gatekeeper. Let’s be truly inclusive, if we can utilise on-line voting for the election of our leadership then why not run a similar system for the selection of PPCs.
The Stalinism of Rebecca Long Bailey and her crimes against Labour women. So sad!
https://www.spiked-online.com/2020/02/12/the-purge-of-the-unwoke/
I am quite sure RLB is aware of limitations of LCTR though she tweeted her support of them. Recall she also tweeted her support of the 10 pledges of the LGBT+ campaign.
She knows what she’s doing.
Above all let’s keep our perspective. RLB’S performance re Brexit is sterling. She is the candidate who stands a cat in hell’s chance of winning our red wall back.
Silly sod.
So what’s new? – RLB is terminally confused between the terms ‘arse’ and ‘elbow’.
There really is no substitute for principle. It’s impossible to remember everything you’ve ever said, more so if you make shit up to win an argument or get out of a tricky interview – but you never forget your beliefs.
You can forget details, events, the words of others and even your own words, but that’s easily overcome with a grin and “What does it say on your cheat sheet, I forget?” Then when he or she looks down to read it, “What, you forgot in thirty seconds but you want to criticise me for forgetting what was said in an interview six months ago?”
Interviewers are only as smart as their earpieces and notes.
Out of a poor crop, RLB 1.5/3 Burgon 3/3 rest 0/3, the left wing democtratic socialist flame in Labour still just about flickers.
Last chance saloon for the Left in Labour.
A self-proclaimed ‘Zionist’ as ‘left wing’, ‘democratic’ and ‘socialist’ ?
You’re having a laugh!
A laugh is not what she’s having! Socialism and Israel are not antagonistic. Israel was founded and built by very sincere socialists (incl my grannie (alova ha shalom) who extended their Histadrut (workers’ movement) into the very soul of Israel.
Sadly, when, around 1977 the neoliberals were fronting Thatcher and Reagan, to develop the globalist monster that’’s triumphant today,the Likud party and its land-grabbing apartheid-ism was financed by them and flourished
So, although as an ethical system, socialism obviously condemns Israel’s current land-grabbing piracy and values, socialism is not anathema to the right of Israel to exist, only to it pursuing Likudist expansionism, and to the neoliberal values it promotes and its systemic anti-Palestine-ism.
One of Jeremy Corbyn’s excellent 1990s Morning Star articles lamented how the emergent RW Likud party managed to adulterate the Israeli histadrut tradition and later give us the likes of Benjamin Netanyahu.
qwertboi – The Israeli electorate have been voting in RW zealots for quite some time now so it’s hardly a temporary aberration is it. What happened to these principled socialist roots that you speak of, where did they all vanish to.
Ben Gurion was a Zionist, a socialist and a democrat so was Rabin. The later was murdered by a fellow Jew for seeking peace with the Palestinians.
Please stop equating Zionism with racism. Some Zionist are racists but it isn’t because they are Zionist.
Gorria, sorry but you don’t understand the meaning of Zionist. You cannot be a Zionist and a Socialist at the same time, they are incompatible. Even the JVL have had to accept it, as did the JVP in the USA well before them.
I’m afraid that you can’t get round the hard fact that Zionism is a neo-colonial project based upon the disposession of a native people. Forget the ‘socialist’ bullshit propaganda – you can’t be a socialist and indulge in ethnic cleansing, apartheid, military occupation and a culturally determined definition of citizenship.
The kibbutzim myths about ‘socialism’ are based on an exclusion of hard facts from consideration – a fantasy detachment from hard reality.
So RLB wants to get rid of the NCC, which appears to deal with cases passed to it by the NEC – if they even bother! And what about the Governance and Legal Unit and the Disputes Team?
It would appear that the left foot doesn’t know what the right hand is doing and the right hand is not communicating with the right foot or the left hand and RLB nor anyone else for that matter understands any of it!
This is where anyone who pretends to know the rules can step in and expel/suspend anyone they like, or rather, don’t like.
Too many cooks, too many broths. The lot should be ditched and start again – maybe with a new Party.
That’s me I’m finished with the Labour Party, apart from Richard Burgon there is no one else worth voting for I did intend to vote for RLB but after reading this I will not be voting for her.
Thank You! Steve (Skwawkbox) I have enjoyed & looked forward to your posts, they have kept me going through the dark times.
I will not be voting for anyone for leader & will vote for RIchard Burgon & the my membership of the Party will be terminated along with two others in my household as soon as the election is over.
I’m not waiting around to be suspended or expelled for supporting Palestine on Twitter.
Enough is enough I’m getting too old for all this subterfuge.
To all my acquaintances on here, thank you for your contributions, they have made some very interesting & heated readings.
I sincerely wish you all well.
“I’m not waiting around to be suspended or expelled for supporting Palestine on Twitter.”
So you are going to expel yourself. That saves them the trouble.
Does anyone have any confidence in the Labour Party’s disciplinary procedures.
Yes to NCC
No to NEC
Jo Bird sums it up, why do we the members and supporters not know who is responsible for the witch hunts
Not anyone with knowledge. The danger is that the lack of confidence is used to make things worse.
In my view, there is a need to wind back to the Chakraborty report and build on it. But I have little face that there is enough collective intelligence and integrity at the centre to do what’s required and face down the circling wolves.
Meanwhile –
Notice that the Beeb tonight has fronted a programme on holocaust denial – as if it was a major imminent threat. Which it isn’t – it’s a cult occupation at the wilder fringes of right-wing idiocy. But the mood music is – as usual – set to engender panic, whilst information about the horrors of the Third Reich actually occupies more screen time than almost any other single subject.
But ask people about ‘Nakba denial’, or the Balfour Declaration etc. etc. – and you’ll be met by a blank ‘You what’ ?
This is the blanket narrative that is distorting the whole issue, feeding back into the complaints process. The last thing that the BoD nexus wants is an objective quasi-judicial process.
Perfect example of fuckery from Peston, Marr and Persad,
At very least the next Labour spokesman should ask them to apologise to JC and party before the interview goes any further
Andrew Neil did exactly the same thing in GE interview,
Therefore in future say either you give us forewarning or we will simply respond ‘sorry we dont trust anything you say because of your previous record on twisting the facts’
Polite way of saying your all a bunch of right wing tory scumbags
We desperately need our JC to rise again
Terry Alderman
In one fell swoop we would clear out party of the liabilities we can no longer afford to carry
One condition would be appointment of two bad cops as deputies, love JC to bits but !
TERRY ALDERMAN17/02 at 10:32 pm
We desperately need our JC to rise again
Are you prepared for a long wait, I understand that the ‘faithful’ have been waiting around quite a while for the resurrection of their JC.
Did he ever have the ‘cajones’ for the Fight? A nice man who was perpetually on his knees apologising for something someone might have said! Get Up! Stand Up!
The utterly corrupt case of NEC /NCC Vs Chris Williamson and his victory over those bodies says it all ,, a shower of rubbish and honestly what I am seeing are the jackals and hyenas squabbling over the bones of a dying beast called Labour .
What with the infiltration by the State of Israel Govt ( viz LFOI,JLM,BOD ) into the inner most workings of the party and their corrupting of the direction of it , is deeply concerning and most worrying .
Worse still , such is the fear of those bodies , that there is no one willing like JC or Chris to stand up and stop them from further castrating the party.
With the strings being pulled by the agents of the Nuttyyaho Govt it will I fear become irrelevant to the ordinary working class people and their issues , just centred on not allowing an legitimate criticism of a Apartheid state called Israel , as concluded by the UN.
The choice is appalling compared to what we had in Corbyn , and Like Jack T has mooted , time for a new party as I don’t think this one is salvageable with all it’s incumbent baggage and hang ups .
I wonder if anyone’s asked JC if he’d be interested in leading a new 100% left wing membership party – it can’t only be the few of us here who like the idea surely?
I can’t think offhand what would be the best forum to ask people to register their support for the formation of such a party.
It wouldn’t work without Corbyn – we’d need Jeremy as leader to avoid any doubt about the new party’s passion and principles.
We’d need tighter control of membership than Labour’s to avoid entryists faking more AS in the new party’s name – I’ll willingly divulge the few ‘handles’ I have, and have my membership be provisional until my online history’s been checked.
It’ll be a massive job but better than sulking while the 1% make serfs of us.
David – As your proposal is dependant on Jeremy Corbyn betraying the Labour Party you are dead in the water before you even start.
Steve, I doubt JC would disagree that betrayal of Quislings is a contradiction in terms.
“Centrists” don’t deserve my loyalty, your loyalty or anyone else’s – Labour’s just another tool of the establishment now.
Without Corbyn leading you might as well tie a blue ribbon round it and hand it back to ̶T̶h̶a̶t̶c̶h̶e̶r̶ Blair.
David – You are more than welcome to come back at me and say “I told you so” if you are proved right.
Steve, there’s no chance of me being right – no matter how much I’d pay to see their faces as their funding drained away to a real people’s party it’s a daydream – I was just venting 🙂 🙂
More importantly, why would you want to belong to a Party that was just a talking shop without any chance of power in any forseeable future?
I understand despair. But what role does pointlessness fufil?
RH, whether it’s “just a talking shop” or something that could become a viable alternative to the status quo depends on how many on the left have lost all hope in Labour I think.
And on how many turn up in Derby, which in turn depends on whether the word spreads fast and far enough – and on the venue, the parking and on things I haven’t considered.
Maybe there just aren’t enough left-thinking people to win an election – but nobody can say that the number won’t change in six months, much less five years.
We can always rely on those opposed to real socialism to pooh-pooh any novel suggestion though, can’t we?
David, there will be a Socialist conference in Derby on 20th June, the ‘Festival of Resistance’. Chris Williamson will be a speaker as will many more well known opponents of the tories and the Israeli Lobby. It may not become a new Party but it will certainly become a movement to give voice to opinions and views which have been suppressed by the MSM.
There will be a web site shortly giving more details of events.
Thanks for telling us Jack. Let’s hope that Momentum (well, Lansman really) doesn’t endorse it, but that CLPD does.
Thanks for that Jack, I’ll look out for it 🙂
A bit late now but I said before that RLB should sack Lansman and get Ian Lavery as campaign manager.
Ian – I agree with you about Lansman but why Lavery, I wasn’t aware that he had a track record of running successful campaigns?