love* in the time of plague (and by love* i mean brexit* and other dreary matters of uk politics)

RLB isn't being kicked out of the party and the people defending her don't have Shadow Cabinet positions to lose. Peake, potentially, might be the flashpoint.

Pretty funny that, thanks to Jermy Crumbyn, there are a bunch of helpful articles online from 2017 explaining how to quit the labour party.

Yep, the New Statesman comes in handy at last.

this was my breaking-point because it's so obviously concocted bullshit. starmer is meant to be this balanced forensic motherfucker and when he finally does something it's based on actual fucking hot air? prick

I wonder what Emily Thornberry is thinking right now.

This is great timing for the Tories as well, as RLB dominates the news cycle instead of Jenrick who has been ketched bang to rights, knee deep in corruption. some real fucking forensic opposition there Starmzy!

― calzino, Thursday, 25 June 2020 16:16 (twenty-three minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

I think Forensic thinks he can 3D chess this into pressure on Johnson like 'see how decisively I deal with people who step over the line while the PM protects Cummings and now Jenrick"

It'll fail in a single news cycle.

https://cdn.images.express.co.uk/img/dynamic/1/590x/Emily-Thornberry-pictured-on-a-train-after-the-Nottingham-hustings-1240309.jpg?r=1581345621108

We are days away from Israel annexing the West Bank – one of the most significant breaches of international law this century.

And what is the 'human rights lawyer' who leads the Labour Party doing? Defending the people who enforce the occupation.

That's who Keir Starmer is.

— Ronan Burtenshaw (@ronanburtenshaw) June 25, 2020

.@Newsweek exclusive: Equalities commissioner found to have fundraised for the Conservative Party, without declaring it, following the EHRC saying that it would not investigate allegations of Islamophobia from within the party. https://t.co/SEufvKKoak

— alexhuds (@alexhuds) June 25, 2020

fwiw, i don't think personalising it as a problem with Starmer makes sense. It's a problem with Labour and the broader political landscape. RLB was no stronger in opposing the terms of reference for this.

In an alternate universe, RLB is sacking Peake from her Shadow Cabinet.

I'm told a delegation of left frontbenchers is trying to secure a meeting with Starmer to discuss RLB's sacking

— Patrick Maguire (@patrickkmaguire) June 25, 2020

to what end? no way he can backtrack

The Tories engage in 10 Juedo Bolshevisms a week....tepid responses or silence

RLB retweets an article linking two types of police brutality from an interview, not a political thesis and its absolute fire from them

— Fred Durst Apologist (@DurstApologist) June 25, 2020

Request to meet with Starmer declined.

Looking forward to seeing what Rayner says about this.

Is there any truth to this "hand of Israel" stuff?

We should condemn racist police brutality in the USA, Israel and around the world.

It’s right to criticise the training of police & their brutality. But it’s wrong to attribute US police brutality to ‘the hand of Israel.’

US cops should be held accountable for their actions.

— Miriam Mirwitch (@mrwtch) June 25, 2020

Notably Mirwitch does not address RLB's sacking.

the punctuation makes it seems like she's quoting peake but she isn't, she's just saying it seems to her like the sort of thing someone who would use that phrase might say

Yes. But she keeps stressing that "hand of Israel" is a racist trope, regularly and knowingly used. Has anyone here come across it?

Yes that's an incredibly misleading use of punctuation, she didn't say that.

My suspicion is that the decision was taken months ago to immediately fire the first frontbencher who did something like this regardless of who it was. I'm not convinced that making a martyr out of RLB was in the plan, not at this point at least.

Not as such but sure the idea of The Jews influencing events worldwide is an old trope. Nothing to do with Peake's statements tho.

xpost

Mirwitch is smearing RLB by leaving 'hand of Israel' in there.

xps = cranks probably use it.

cancel culture gone mad

Fucking Starmer.. Man... Burtenshaw so otm.

I hope he backtracks for the sole reason that LJ has to glue his membership card back together lol

Basically this comes down to RLB being principled and brave by refusing to remove the tweet after clarification. If I was in her position I'd probably think sod it and just do it. But as has been said, it seems like Starmer has had it in for her, if reports are to be trusted. so if it wasn't over this it would soon be something else. In a sense the issue of a/s is a red herring here. It's about left purging.

It might have helped if she'd read the entire interview first.

It might have helped if she'd read the entire interview first.

Highly doubt this was an oversight on her part and not damage control after the right smelled blood on this.

Which is I think my only issue with RLB's stance - Peake's statement is fine and not anti-semitic even if she was wrong about the specific training. I get RLB didn't want to get involved in a big to do over that but that's clearly backfired.

I'm afraid she's just not very smart in that case.

Anyway, it's a win-win for Starmer, he gets to boot the last link with Corbyn out of the cabinet and to come over all The One Man Who Can Defeat Anti-Semitism.

Had my brother and sister-in-law and their friends on Facebook giving it, "Result!"

All the people who don't vote Labour now then?

Thank God antisemitism has been defeated.

All the people who don't vote Labour now then?

I don't know who my brother voted for in the last election but I'm pretty certain my sister-in-law didn't vote Labour! I could definitely see them voting Labour with Starmzy as leader though.

I'm afraid she's just not very smart in that case.

None of them are particularly smart, in some ways it's the worst thing about them all

My suspicion is that the decision was taken months ago to immediately fire the first frontbencher who did something like this regardless of who it was.

you think if rachel reeves made her astor comments last week instead of in february she'd have been booted?

and ofc interesting to compare the response to RLB linking to an interview approvingly on twitter in which peake mentions the links between US policing and Israeli security with the (obv non-existent) response to shadow minister for apprenticeships and lifelong learning toby perkins publishing official campaign leaflets saying "I was disgusted that Travellers were extorting thousands of pounds to leave illegal camps. Now I've won cross party support for legislation to end this vile practice that robs businesses and landowners."

🚮

i’m going to break rank slightly here. i think she was stupid to retweet if she read it, and stupid if she hadn’t, this is especially the case if she was politically vulnerable.

rlb has got quite appealing form, to which i’m quite sympathetic, of knee jerk facing mancunian arts people (MES!) but as i say, bloody daft in the circs.

on the peake interview, as i think matt dc said, reaching for an israel connection, when US police are killing black people without any need for other reference points, is totally unnecessary and does feed into a soft AS.

also, and here it’s hard to say how much she was deliberately hamstrung by the party, but up against one of the worst tory cabinet ministers, she hasn’t performed noticeably well.

i like RLB. i’m *really* disappointed to see her go. it’s a strongman move i’m not sure starmer is in a position to make. but narratives other than “ffs RLB!” don’t make much sense to me.

knee-jerk *faving

This is quite good on a next step.

"Solidarity with Palestinians and with black people in the USA, victims of a single imperial system, is a basic principle for socialists. SCG members who remain on the frontbench, cannot pretend to be brave moles – they do not burrow but gnaw." https://t.co/CLnI7i59uR

— New Socialist (@NewSocialistUK) June 25, 2020

idk i kinda get the imperial angle but what is to be gained by melding the BLM movement with Palestine? it sounds like it will create an entire front of weaknesses unlikely to progress either set of interests in order to do what? make a point about imperial militarism used domestically?

You're not breaking rank with me btw.

no i meant to note that.

the linking of the struggle for black liberation and the Palestinian struggle has been made time and time again and is just a common trope on the left: see Mandela, Angela Davis.

retweeting an actor saying a dumb, made-up thing linking Israel to the George Floyd murder, was a really fucking stupid thing to do. RLB is v much a protege of corbyn in that she makes unforced errors frequently

xpost i guess i do have a problem using the word “imperial” wrt israel. it’s a highly militaristic state that has imo committed war crimes. but imperial is a *really* bad word to use wrt to a jewish state, mainly tho not exclusively because it is adjacent to the language of global rule of jewish conspiracy theories. it also doesn’t really meaningfully align with US imperialism either military or financial.

I mean also the line is just one line in the piece which is, you know, a fairly long feature, but still, how could she miss that line and the connotations her linking to a piece with that line in it???

it also doesn’t really meaningfully align with US imperialism either military or financial.

― Fizzles, Thursday, June 25, 2020 11:47 AM (one minute ago) bookmarkflaglink

?

i assume Fizzles means Israel isn't an imperial state rather than whether it benefits from US imperial policy

I can see why just re-tweeting without careful framing (which can be used to discredit BLM by the wrong ppl) wasn't the best move but this whole episode is more of an issue with how MPs use social media to me.

Ultimately Starmer has weaponised AS in a factional way again. He gains nothing but applause from the wrong people. But that is the way he is running things, which might not have been clear to RLB, idk xps to Fizzles

"retweeting an actor saying a dumb, made-up thing linking Israel to the George Floyd murder"

Except she was not doing this.