Years of right bleating about left harshness were always nonsense – and now made a mockery of by right’s purge
The SKWAWKBOX has reported the woeful treatment of Labour members and their elected officers in Bristol. First the chair and one co-secretary of Bristol West constituency party (CLP) were suspended for allowing a motion – decisively passed – in support of Jeremy Corbyn.
Then the other co-secretary was also suspended, on the nebulous grounds of suspicion of breaking some unspecified rule, while the MP’s office misused member data to whip support for right-wing candidates to replace them at the CLP’s annual general meeting (AGM). Then Labour’s widely-criticised south-west regional office cancelled the AGM – on the laughable grounds that there was nobody left to run the meeting.
And now, the chair and secretary of Bristol North-West CLP have also been suspended – and again on suspicion of breaking some unspecified rule.
Suspended members are unable to hold or stand for any kind of office or candidacy.
The party knows that its actions can have severe consequences for those affected – there have been deaths in the past linked to suspensions and expulsions and the smears the right spreads about them – so it generously advises those suspended to contact the Samaritans, Citizens Advice or their GP. Can you say ‘duty of care’?
The right’s shameless exploitation of the party’s rules for its boundless factional ambitions by culling the left is a scandal that makes a mockery of right-wingers’ constant bleating, during Jeremy Corbyn’s leadership, whenever the left called for action against those who were genuinely sabotaging the party.
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I think we need to start saving up for a fund to help out with court costs. Rather than being enticed to purchase raffle tickets by 1 £5000 prize, donate the money on something worthwhile such as supporting comrades.
I am really deeply appalled by this mcCathyism.
Sabine, despite the miraculous chance to begin ridding our party of parasites, our “warriors” chose appeasement🏳️
Maximum appeasement.
“WE DID EVERYTHING THEY ASKED ”
whined John McDonald.
TOTAL CRAVEN PATHETIC IRRESPONSIBLE DERELICTIONS of duty are STILL dripped by some who scream, if there was no appeasement, then we would be attacked by the MSM etc etc etc.
QUESTIONS – What then is the value of “warriors” or “leaders of integrity” who only peep out to dance to the tunes of our enemies?
Who allowed Starmar to get this far?
Were these continued atrocities committed by Starmar not predicted based on his record? … ESPECIALLY his DPP record? ? ?
It is not as if it were a secret. It is a plain as it could be.
When will we give up plasters and get down to serious operations?
How many more generations of puzzling failures to learn and change, must this country endure? Or is there some dirty secret we are yet to uncover? 🌹🌹🌹
PS : leadership (?????) has not only taken out the Socialist bit, but also the Democratic bit.
Socialism is democracy. You can’t gave one without the other. You cannot have democracy without the equality which is the air that socialism breathes. And, as history has shown us, you cannot have socialism without real functioning participatory democracy.
Those posters who admire the right’s ruthless assault on democracy and long for the power to do the same themselves are wrong. Corbyn was right to refrain from attempting to act dictatorially by expanding the powers of his office. Starmer and his worse than Stalinists can only be beating by excluding the capitalist class from the struggle in which they are his only and most effective allies, this involves rebuilding the Party from the bottom upwards, concentrating, as the pioneer socialists did, on political education and excluding every breath of capitalist influence, by boycotting their media and the ‘education’ system in its entirety.
Mr beige behaves like a death pot. I don’t think he does much forensic thinking.
Totalitarianism !
Starmer and Evans are entering a swamp of their own making. There will be no end to the disciplinary action, It feeds itself: ‘We had to destroy the constituency party to save it’.
It seems to me that they are planting the seeds of their own destruction.
Operation Hummingbird appears to be under way…
This is sheer madness ( and badness) Who do these lunatics think are going to vote for the party never mind campaign for the party if they continue their cull or purge of left wing members. Without the efforts and goodwill of left wing members the party will not stand a chance at the next election.
So demand an explanation? No explanation of exactly why they are suspended then STOP giving them any more support and money FFS!! I am so tired of capitulation we can’t upset the big tent BS nope they declared war why are we allowing this to happen?
Demand this campaign stops or your all leave and set up a true socialist Labour party let them try and campaign on their middle of the road BS policies. With no door knockers, Demand the dam unions back only socialist labour MP’s and build a party this country needs!
Let this carry on with civil war being declared by the right and staying silent and pulling the old stay and fight BS. I simply ask why? Why stay and fight for a party that ignores the rules, openly attacks socialists and hates the past and what Labour is meant to represent. So what am I fighting for this cancer that has destroyed all hopes of a true Labour party for the working man and replaced it with this 1990’s junk… Do nothing then nothing will change it will be New Labour 2.0 with all that BS of the Blair years ignoring the membership and treating them like crap now do you support that? Do you want to wait what 5,10,20 years under Tory scum until you say enought is enought?
So lets play their games right back… They are scared of the left let’s give them something to be scared of!
They are not scared of the left DG. Why would they be when they hold all the cards and the reins of power, and they will never-ever relinquish them, and will more than likely bring about the total destruction of the planet, and most if not all life on it in the not too distant future
Power begets wealth, and wealth begeis power, and they can never change, even if they wanted to, which they don’t of course.
“..the party will not stand a chance at the next election.”
That will suit them fine. Look up the form: what did the ‘Tinge’ MPs do? They seamlessly transitioned into opposition parties. What did Austin do? Or Wood watsit from Barrow? Or Mann, the creature that ambushed Ken Livingstone, knowing that Ken’s comrades would finish him off?
These careerists understand that nothing they can do in the way of centrist sabotaging can compare with the jackpots they will collect by following in the hallowed footsteps of Ramsay Mac, Jimmy Thomas and, to go from the sublime to the ridiculous, Woodrow Wyatt and Chuka Umuna.
Suspend members for running against socialist Labour? You must be joking, The traitors will all be rewarded and handsomely- the way that Starmer was for the sterling work he did, feeding the juggernaut of injustice, when at the DPP.l Arise Sir Keir (and cast off the last shreds of those ideals your parents shared in their youth.) Thus will the meaning of that old name, long revered by the poor and the powerless, be changed into another emblem of privilege, greed and stupidity.
should I really still be paying to be a labour member ?
Yes. It’s just as much your party.
No you shouldn’t this is absolute strident bullying harassment and Dictatorship. No self respecting left wing socialist who believed in democracy should remain in the Party a minute longer. Have the courage to leave now as should thousands and thousands of others and watch Stalin utterly destroy The Party at the behest of the BOD.
Yes the current leadership is on notice.
No
Stand firm, strategically we should be coordinating our actions with the unions until we all go or there is a challenge
Last thing we need is a completely futile gesture, this isn’t Black Adder
Jeremy was a great leader but he should have suspended all those who conspired with the media to bring about his downfall that was his only mistake he was to good a person for the vile cesspit that British politics has become.
bevin makes the point above that no democratic socialist should behave in the way Starmer and the right are behaving, and I have much sympathy with his position. That said, it does mean creating a new party of the Left where all must obey the rules of proper democracy.