Labour right’s New Stalinism descends into farce
The Labour Party hierarchy has escalated its war on free speech, even descending to labelling simple motions of solidarity with Jeremy Corbyn as racist in its attempt to enforce a ban on discussions and votes by constituency Labour parties (CLPs). Despite this, an avalanche of motions has begun – of solidarity with Corbyn, of demands for his reinstatement and even of no confidence in Keir Starmer and party general secretary David Evans for creating the situation – even previously pro-Starmer CLPs.
But the attempted strictures against motions for Corbyn’s reinstatement or of solidarity don’t explicitly ban no-confidence motions – and one group of members in Birmingham thought they’d better check.
Erdington Labour members wanted to debate a vote of no confidence in Evans, but the meeting’s chair wasn’t sure if the new threats guidance permitted him to allowa vote of no confidence in David Evans.
So the meeting agreed to write to David Evans – to check whether they were allowed to pass a vote of no confidence in David Evans.
The recent EHRC report reaffirmed the right of free speech to members under Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights, with enhanced protection for elected officials.
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I like their style!
Shame about their gobshite of an MP.
Don’t ask. DO IT‼️ S T O P the asking. BE on the front foot‼️
Just DO it ‼️
Their question was intended sarcastically – as an insult and a challenge and to prick Evans’ pride, signpost – have you just woken up? 😉
McNiven, The Right are immune to sarcasm. Plus sarcasm is overrated re producing URGENT change. Sarcasm does not “challenge” as much as you think.
The lingering desire to appeal to the Right Wing’s better nature when they have SHOWN repeatedly that they have none, is our enduring failing. It assures the likes of Evans and Starmer, that despite all evidence to the contrary, we persist in a craving to “calm things” be unified with them in a “Big Church”.
I’m new and that persistent craving is obvious to me. How much more obvious to Evans, starmer, Bliar etc.
So sling sarcasm‼️ And re “Evan’s pride” McNiven, pricking the prick’s pride is not a priority. Driving him out with Starmer & co is the URGENT need. We must do it and do it now. No messing about🌹🌹🌹
signpost ALWAYS comes up with some spurious way to find fault or discredit whoever! He knows damn well why they came up with the idea to ask Evans himself – ie to piss him off on the one hand, and to amuse left-wng members on the other hand. And as per usual – being the paid black propagandist shill that he is – he gets his put downs in either right at the top of the Comment section or thereabouts, so as to ‘catch’ as many readers of skwawkbox as possible as soon as the notification has been emailed to subscribers.
Be on the front foot my arse!
“Immune to sarcasm” they are not.
With every pathetic demand and mewling utterance they beg for the same respect from us that Jeremy holds quite naturally.
They know they’ll never earn the same admiration so they try to enforce our obedience by dictat – rubbing their noses in our disdain for them is never a waste of time.
Asking Evans if they’re allowed a NC vote against him personally was a very effective “FUCK YOU, EVANS – WE DON’T CARE.”
The more humiliation and piss poured on pretentious, prideful limp dicks like him and Starmer the better.
What was the reply ? Were Birmigham members allowed to table a motion on no-confident vote on the General Secretary?
I know of a CLP in which members were not allowed to table a motion expressing solidarity with Jeremy Corbyn (model CLPD’s motion 1st one) no mention of restoration of the Whip or criticism or the leader/GS the Chair ruled out of order. as he had received instructions that such a motion wasn’t a competent business.
But a motion praising Starmer for accepting the EHRC’s report in full was allowed.in the Agenda and was considered competent business.
Hence, no to a motion expressing solidarity towards Corbyn but yes to a motion praising Starmer. How is this equitable?
Maria, that sounds EXACTLY like my branch and CLP. Those who hog control of the “Left” limpest motions which are then blocked from the agenda by the ruthless Right. The last agenda was then stuffed with stuff just as you say praising Keith re EHRC.
An uphill battle here. For me, not because of the Right Wing but because of the “Left’s” dial being permanently set on damp, limp, “the MSM will attack”, will be “bad publicity”, bring them around, etc etc etc non stop pathetic drips, well punctuated though. After all they read and read and learn nothing… change nothing. There is no intention to change. Convinced of their virtue, they calmly sod the real needs of workers everywhere🌹🌹🌹
ITs the life of Brian syndrome,that effects branch meetings and CLPs.just get on with it….,their motions will probably go down the toilet anyway if Evans gets his way.c
Exactly Joseph. “Only a flesh wound”. From my first encounters with the individuals who hog control of “Left” groups in my branch and CLP, the constant flat refrain to any suggestion that showed determination, was “that would make bad press”, “CONVERT _____”, they will never ALLOW” a , b , c … aa, ab , ac, … ad infinitum”
NEVER have the odd individuals said what WE should “ALLOW”.
Hence my early diagnosis of a supine, defeatist culture on the “Left”. Without reflection, they subjugate themselves then blame the Right. ALL thoughts are enslaved by what they believe the Right will “allow” and what they assume the MSM will “permit”.
Isn’t that odd❓ Sad❓ Extraordinarily shameful❓… from adults, some with children?!?!?! What sort of future are they cultivating??? No wonder the world is as is.
That’s why OUR party URGENTLY needs to be revitalised AT THE HELM with people who work and have worked in real jobs. Jobs in which RESULTS are not measured in motions, pleading letters to “challenge”, self soothing sarcasm, attempts to “convert them.” In the world of the many, results are measured in lives saved, people made well, plants looked after, furniture built, food produced, roads cleaned, trains driven, fires put out, leaking taps fixed, bread baked, candles made… NOT theories about any of the above.
Good intentions without meaningful action, without PROGRESS, just do not cut it. This is obvious, but those who stand in the way of progress, do not suffer at the coal face. Virtue-signalling makes them feel good. Never mind bringing virtue to life.
You have encountered the type. They stay silent when you needed support. They roll their eyes often. Those few individuals are our problem. eg they turn a blind eye to racism in the branch but bloviate about any racism thousands of kilometres away… with well punctuated “symbolic statements” of course. That has to change 🌹🌹🌹
Reg and The People’s Front of Judea ehh , it’d be funny if not so serious as to the outcomes of lack of a real opposition and Stamers non opposition
signpost, I agree with you most of the left is very much worried about how the right within the LP is going to react or the MSM is going to react. For some obscure reason most of the left believes that:
1-eventually the Tory lites within the Labour Party would come to the realisation that we are right and they are wrong once we can prove to them that our policies can win General Elections.
2- that we have to be mindful of the MSM because they don’t like us, but eventually the MSM would come to the realisation that we are decent people.
What the left doesn’t realise is that we are never going to change the Tory lites within the LP or the MSM because their interests are opposed to our interests. Their isn’t equivocation in the Tory lites within our Party but it is most of the left that is equivocated believing in fairy tales of unity and the broad church. The same with the MSM, who own the MSM: the 99% or the 1%? It is like asking turkeys to vote for Xmas; the MSM would never support a socialist as leader of the LP.
The left fails to understand that the only thing that we can change is how we react to the Tory lite within the Labour Party and the MSM. The only thing under our control is how we respond and more importantly how we act.
The left of the LP is conditioned to a response that is mostly placatory and always conciliatory. It hardly acts, rather than anticipating/creating events, or formulating and sticking to our own narrative, we chose to response to events but never forcefully and always engaging in the narrative the right within the LP and the MSM imposes on us.
Maria Vazquez thank you, you have virtually answered my question. I that if a CLP was to put forward a motion stating they have confidence in Evans would it be classed as competent business.
If so I’d say you couldn’t make it up and yet here we have the leadership seemingly doing exactly that
#starmerism
1984 springs to mind
Of course they can, even if your own CLP chair is towing the Evans line, a VONC in your chair is allowed, and replace them with one who is democratic.
So easy, and I wonder why CLPs are not doing this more.
And so the Monty Pythonesque circus called the Starmer Party continues ,, take the piss , it’s a time honoured tradition when dealing with petty little dictators and their sycophants ,, Will be asking my CLP to do the same , and then do it anyway …. up yours Stammer…. V
“None of the rules specifically forbid the expression of solidarity with Jeremy Corbyn or criticism of the leadership’s political decisions.”:
https://voxpoliticalonline.com/2020/11/27/labour-leader-starmer-thought-party-rules-are-his-toys-for-coercing-the-membership-he-is-badly-wrong/
My daughter received a letter today (letter – NOT email) from the Labour Party, telling her that her membership was about to close.
She stopped her DD in April, and informed the Party that she had left. She responded to the local CLP when she received earlier emails.
Clearly, the LP is counting her as a current member EIGHT MONTHS after she resigned. Bear this in mind when you hear membership figures.
I put this on the Guardian in the politics blog. It was immediately wiped. Clearly the Guardian don’t want folks to know what the Labour Party is up to either!
The 6 month thing before membership expires is in the Rule Book, the same applied throughout Corbyn’s tenure.
Which part of EIGHT MONTHS do you not understand? Which part of “I resign from the Labour Party” do you not understand.
Do you know that eight is more than six?
Joe – Personally I think that the party should publish quarterly membership figures detailing the
Total Membership split into.
◾Paid up members
◾How many are in membership arrears,
◾How many new members
◾How many have left of there own accord (broken down into resignations and lapsed memberships)
◾Number of suspended members (broken down by reason for disciplinary action)
◾Number of expelled members (broken down into reason for expulsion)
This would remove much of the confusion surrounding these figures and it may also force the party to focus on the membership’s opinion a little more than they do currently or have done for some years.
The current system (or more to the point the lack of one) is clearly dysfunctional and only serves to foster suspicion from all sides.
Does it really matter that much if the previous administration were a bit slow in either recognising that her DD had stopped or in acknowledging her resignation.
Or mbe send in motions praising Stormer and Co for their bold move to destroy the LP by ripping up the rule book and constitution? I wonder if rt wing officers would rule it out or allow debate 🙂 Take the piss as the creatures deserve nothing but contempt; show them up.
Tommy Corbyn has tweeted: The fightback has started, “legal action has commenced, all this will be in the public domain soon.”
So let me get this right , Skwawky – Jeremy thought he’d done a deal, via Trickett and co, with reps of Starmer, before that Party Disciplinary hearing, to the effect that as long as Jeremy made some suitable grovelling comment to deny-by-inference his ‘offending’ (but quite accurate) comments about the Right bigging- up the scale of prevalence of anti-Semitism in the Party , he’d be allowed back in the Party. Then naughty Starmer (true to form) reneged on this by withholding the PLP Whip, and now wants a TOTAL grovelling recanting of any suggestion that the Right did any bigging-up of anti-Semitism AT ALL. So Jeremy is required to ‘gaslight’ his own four years of character assassination by the Right – to get back the PLP Whip !
So now Jeremy is going to court to FORCE Starmer and co to let him have the whip again – in the corrupt Right dominated Party ! In other words, after four fruitless years of constant , totally unopposed, sabotage of the one chance ever of a real Left Wing government under a Jeremy-led Labour Party, Corbyn is so wedded (in a sad ‘battered wife syndrome’ obsessive way) to staying forever in the now totally restored to Blairite neoliberalism, Labour Party, that he is prepared to put up with any amount of shit to be allowed back into this exclusive Westminster club, and well-paid job for life ! A job-for-life his son is also currently busy lining himself up for too – via being a bag-carrying dogsbody in John McDonnell’s office ! Such is the gross nepotism of both Left and Right in the PLP – and local councils. Jobs for life – across the generations !
Skwawkbox may find all this posturing by a now totally defeated Corbynite ‘Left’ and lay membership deeply inspiring . As a socialist who, along with hundreds of thousands of others , had such high hopes of the ‘Corbyn Surge’, the constant four year supine retreat of Corbyn and co in the face of constant Right abuse and sabotage, and now, the total failure of the PLP Socialist Campaign Group to support him in any meaningful way , for me the “my Party above all else” mantra – including the abdication of countless basic socialist principles and the defence of all the OTHER expelled LP socialists on trumped up charges, exhibited by Jeremy and his circle , even whilst Leader, – makes me want to vomit. The Labour Party is rotten to the core – across the equally careerist Right to pseudo Left spectrum.
Time to build a new radical Left party OUTSIDE of the dead-end , electorally kaput, Labour Party ‘Broad Church’ swamp !
jpenny, I think it’s blatantly obvious to most readers of this site that JC was tricked by Starmer and Evens into saying what he said in his FB statement recently, and did so by telling him that if he could just clarify publicly that he was not in any way inferring in the comment that got him suspended, that CONCERN about A/S in the LP was overstated, then they could probably resolve the problem of his suspension. And they did so knowing that once he HAD, most of the MSM would then conflate the two statements so as to mislead their readers and viewers and listeners into believing that Jeremy had done a u-turn and a climb down, and was NOW saying the OPPOSITE of what he said initially.
And needless to say, the shills on here were ready and waiting to dupe and deceive the readership of skwawkbox and mislead them into believing that that is what Jeremy HAD done, just as YOU did at the time, and are NOW doing yet AGAIN!
As Lloyd Bentsen said to Dan Quayle, “You’re no Jeremy Corbyn, Starmer.”
‘Time to build a new radical Left party OUTSIDE of the dead-end , electorally kaput, Labour Party ‘Broad Church’ swamp!’
Sounds like a great idea jpenny, and I’m sure it would get the full backing of the corporate MSM and the semi-corporate BBC et al, and ESPECIALLY if Jeremy was involved in it.
As for being electorally kaput, the general public don’t appear to be on board with that at the moment, and the last six polls have Starmer and Co just two points behind the Tories on average.
Are you sure you’re on the same planet?
…. and Starmer is currently enjoying a lead of 20+ point over Johnson in the leadership approval polls
Allan Howard and SteveH make strange bedfellows – when the Toffee jumps in with them my work here is done 😉
David – I doubt your work will ever be done, like the fight against discrimination fostering party unity is a never ending task. 😉
Fantastic news. Jeremy you have nothing to lose so show this crowd of Liars and charlatans what a real anti racist and socialist looks like.
Excellent news. I hope JC has a legal team as good as that used by Chris Williamson who won his case and was awarded £thousands in costs and damages against the LP.
When the situation regarding the suspension and readmission of JC is considered it is obvious that he has done nothing wrong and merely stands in the way of Starmer’s and Evans’ intent to continue their Zionisation of the LP. This is a situation which should have been resolved years ago but because the Party has been in the hands of right wingers for so long, even when Corbyn was Leader, it has been allowed to fester. It has given the Zionists the opportunity to embed themselves into the Party’s bureaucracy even further.
This attempt to make support for Jeremy Corbyn racist is not new. They tried something like this his a year or so ago when it was said in effect that as Jeremy was an antiSemite anyone who supported him is antisemitic too.
I remember at the time being outraged by this as I support Jeremy to the hilt and like him haven’t got a racist or antiJewish bone in my body.
Jeremy is a lifelong supporter of Palestinian rights which has given rise to this vile and unfounded accusation that he is an antisemite. I would point out that if being pro Palestinian makes you an antiSemite then surely it automatically follows than being pro Israel makes you an Islamophobe or an anti Arab racist.
We have hundreds of MPs who are Labour or Conservative Friends of Israel supporting Israel and the denial of Palestinian rights. Using the the party’s logic they are all, including Keir Starmer , Islamophobes sending out the clear signal that Muslim or Arab lives don’t matter just like Black Lives don’t matter to the hierarchy.
If Labour members are not allowed to discuss their actions then there is no purpose to membership. No point in giving them money and support. It has become a dam cult of New Labour 2.0 and not the Labour party I want anything to do with..
They have no rights to stop motions of no competence followed up with a shredded membership card. We need a socialist Labour party and we don’t need this cult…It’s more than time for JC and the other so called socialists to say OK you don’t want us fine bye.
They will be so desperate to stop him and others leaving their cult because there have to have a shred of socialism left otherwise how can you claim to be Labour? If we carry on like this current BS the left will slowly disappear and it will just be this disaster.
No more appeasing these scumbags they started this fight let’s finish it!
DG, how on earth do you square Starmer and CO wanting to STOP JC (and ‘OTHERS’) leaving the LP with FIRST suspending him for pointing out a perfectly valid point, THEN reinstating him, and THEN almost immediately removing the whip! Just about EVERYONE on the left is aware that during the course of the past four or five months Starmer and Co have been doing everything they can to ‘prompt’ left-wing members to leave the party in disgust, starting with the sacking of RLB.
And purely out of curiousity, just HOW exactly do you envisage *us*, the left, finishing this fight (that ‘they’ started)?
And given what’s been happening during the past five years AND the ‘transformation’ of Jeremy into an anti-semite, along with the left-wing membership, I wonder if there would be a repeat performance by the MSM and the Jewish newspapers et al if Jeremy were to leave the LP and form a new socialist party…… Do you think it could be a possibility DG?
Or an *ABSOLUTE* DEAD CERTAINTY?!!!
PS I suspect it might be the later.
latter, even!
Diane Abbott tweeted.. I have never known a time in the Labour Party when local parties couldn’t discuss what they wanted within the confines of the law. What is the point of being a Labour Party member if you can only discuss what party bureaucrats tell you to? Followed by this perfect response, Labour party should pre warn anyone thinking of joining that they will not have the same level of human rights of free thought and free speech enjoyed by the rest of the UK and that speaking out may be punishable.