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

sonia sodha is abysmal

Would really like to see more politicians in general just disavow social media altogether. Shared accounts with thoroughly team-vetted messages now and then if they must.

This is tempting but what sort of reach would politicians like AOC, or the imaginary British AOC everyone wants to will into existence, have without it?

the imaginary British AOC everyone wants to will into existence

egregious jess phillips shade from SV

sultana shows promise; needs to turn the volume up

oh wait i quit labour yesterday i can't like any of them now

layla moran it is ;)

"the imaginary British AOC everyone wants to will into existence"

it would have been Jess Phillips, but alas she told it like it was and we just couldn't handle the truth

Would really like to see more politicians in general just disavow social media altogether. Shared accounts with thoroughly team-vetted messages now and then if they must.

I don't think this is the way to go. Being on social media is fine, just have to bring along a couple of brain cells whenever its time to use it

when you fail to meet absurd, maliciously-set standards?

The problem for Labour under almost any leadership is that it has no control over these - and they've existed in one form or another for a century at least. These are the standards that mean it's not OK for a Labour MP to be at an event with one antisemitic crank among 400 others, but Tory MEPs can vote openly in support of Viktor Orban and no one bats an eyelid. These have existed in one form or another for the best part of a century at least and can't just be wished away, so it's about what you do to change it - and maybe a lot of the heavy lifting for that has to be done outside the Parliamentary Labour Party.

The question then is whether Labour work within these constraints to achieve power and then try and do something about them (or not as the case may be), whether they actively and openly fight against them (and risk being trashed), or whether they try and ignore them and do what they were going to do anyway on the basis that wider public opinion will get you through. Labour under Corbyn generally took the third option, Labour under Starmer appear to have settled on the former and both have obvious flaws.

Without wanting to go back over yesterday's argument again, RLB did not really fall foul of fiendishly difficult terrain here or impossibly attainable standards here, it was a basic error. I think everyone here agrees that you should be able to criticise the actions of the Israeli state/government without being antisemitic and there are ways of doing that that have been widely talked about and widely shared, particularly by Jewish leftists, and plenty of people on the left are still incapable of doing so properly. There was enough grey area in the Peake interview between 'valid political point' and 'antisemitic dogwhistle' to give RLB pause for thought before offering a breathless endorsement that frankly wouldn't have benefited anyone in the first place. (An underrated political skill is knowing when to stay quiet and let other people, non-politicians in particular, make the point for you.)

Not being able to hear a dogwhistle or even consider whether one might exist is not really excusable for a Shadow Cabinet minister right now, and RLB signed up for this alongside all the other leadership candidates. It was a fuck-up, but nothing more sinister than that.

It was also a piece of blatant, cynical, political theatre by Starmer that might work in the short term (he looks decisive, tough on antisemitism, able to fire people unlike Johnson, putting the fear of of missteps into other shadow ministers etc). But it's also playing with fire because, leaving aside the question of alienating the left, once the right work out how to play this to their advantage they'll be digging into everything and daring him to sack half the Shadow Cabinet. As I've said a public apology would have been enough but it might also have been the start of open season on Starmer and RLB in particular.

If you want to get people to engage properly with the way in which approaches to police brutality are exchanged between heavily militarised states then pointing and going "Israeli secret services" is one of the worst ways to go about it, especially if it's only partly true or not true at all. (And I stress the distinction between secret services and other state forces here, trying to erase that distinction does no one any favours).

Always imagined KS as more of a Nicky Butt type tbh

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EbboKCFU8AAFx-V?format=png&name=large

I don't think this is the way to go. Being on social media is fine, just have to bring along a couple of brain cells whenever its time to use it

Not being on it is also fine. Just not convinced it's done a single person in power more good than harm. There's also the abuse and threats problem in general. It is not a safe space nor a healthy way to give or receive messages (the pressure to knock out a banal condemnation or message of solidarity every time something awful happens every hour of the day) and probably never will be.

(Another piece of important context to yesterday is that far-right groups and other antisemitic conspiracists have at various times accused 'the Jews' of attempting to start a race war, or attempting to promote widespread racial mixing. Either way fomenting resentment or distrust of Jewish people within black communities is a key aim of a lot of these cunts, and while I'm 100% sure that neither RLB nor Peake meant that for a second, it was steering very close to another antisemitic trope and would have been heard at least partly in that context).

280 characters is not enough to make any kind of serious political point on difficult terrain, it's an absolute goldmine for anyone wanting to willfully misinterpet any politician they dislike.

excellent posts, Matt.

Surely there's a '140 characters is not enough to make any kind of...' equivalent post from five years ago heh

What I've seen from the far right has been unequivocal support for police brutality in the US, The Jews in their eyes are behind BLM not the cops. But I take your point. xposts

I should also point out that any Labour opposition, particularly one courting authoritarian voters, is going to be blowing plenty of its own dogwhistles in other areas and I'm not excusing that.

Guardian very confident that only left wing MPs could have a problem with RLB's sacking
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/jun/26/keir-starmear-faces-backlash-from-leftwing-mps-over-rebecca-long-bailey-sacking

An alternate view is that cracking down ruthlessly on any negative reference to Israel but giving a pass to European antisemites is the dog-whistle - emphasising for the benefit of white authoritarians that the British political landscape is actively hostile to solidarity with Muslims.

I don't think maintaining a constant state of vigilance abt how everything you say/endorse could be taken as a dogwhistle is 'basic'. the complaints here have been that peake's comments "feed into a soft AS" or "steer very close to another antisemitic trope" which are in that extremely fuzzy "I can imagine an antisemite saying something like this" territory. I do think that's an absurd standard, as you are basically going solely by what makes ppl feel threatened, so its entirely subjective and changeable and rests on the infallibility of victims. it's the same logic of optics and feeling that led to that article about BLM being antisemitic. "it has that vibe", "it's nagl" - this v quickly dissolves into prejudice

"If you want to get people to engage properly with the way in which approaches to police brutality are exchanged between heavily militarised states then pointing and going "Israeli secret services" is one of the worst ways to go about it, especially if it's only partly true or not true at all. (And I stress the distinction between secret services and other state forces here, trying to erase that distinction does no one any favours)."

There is some naivety here. The people calling for RLB's sacking aren't interested to engage with these issues under any circumstances -- unless it's for factional benefit, so they aren't taking it seriously -- and people who like Peake's work and are hearing about it for the first time will do various things with that bit of info that are completely out of her control anyway.

xps

I'm not talking about those people I'm talking about the wider public.

I mean, the Jewish leftists that I follow are between furious and fatalistic about this - none of them consider it antisemitic (and of course it restricts their ability to criticise the IDF if the idea that doing so is automatically antisemitic get further mainstreamed).

The enormous melt on my friendslist who I actually got into a barney with on this was casting it as in a tradition "she didn't have to say Israel, but it's always Israel"

I've noted for months that ILX poster Calzino hates Keir Starmer and calls him a useless Tory bastard at every opportunity.

I always thought that was amusingly excessive - I thought KS was bland, inoffensive, dull, ineffectual, probably quite an effective candidate in pragmatic terms, possibly well-meaning.

Yesterday's actions were the first really to make me see why you might think as Calzino does.

I can't really trust KS on anything after this.

I guess more fundamentally I am concerned by how many ppl will play along w/ enforcing v broad and nebulous standards of who and what doesn't belong in democratic politics. I think the standards for exclusion should be v high. taking structural racism seriously means accepting it's deeply embedded in what we have to work with & trying to improve it, not just a feature of these distinct villains who can be weeded out. the total number/percentage of british ppl who have successfully avoided employing any tropes that a significant number of other ppl wld deem either bigoted or adjacent to bigotry is tiny, and not enough to build an even semi-representative democracy out of, and more and more of ppl's past can be discovered by malicious actors, we need a more honest way of dealing with the gap between where we want to be and where we are. so of matt's options I pick b) fighting against them, seeing as the trashing seems more like an inevitability than a risk

glad to get you on board Pinefox. I'll post off your Starmer is a Cunt badge asap!

Matt - I addressed that. How many times do you read an interview with an actor or a musician and they are saying things outside their expertise -- acting or making music -- to go off on something that, were you to later look it up, was a distorted version but actually was just enough to send you into a new field or what have you. The way Peake engages with it is the way a lot of people do. Its awkward, mistakes are made but it is often done xp

I think a lot Labour members thought Starmer would a dull but reasonable social democrat who might have a tendency for triangulation and bullshit but would generally carry on leading the party in a centre-leftish direction. That prospect is not looking good at all at this moment.

admirable ruthlessness in a way - would that JC's cadre had shown equivalent concision when they were in charge

I don't think maintaining a constant state of vigilance abt how everything you say/endorse could be taken as a dogwhistle is 'basic'. the complaints here have been that peake's comments "feed into a soft AS" or "steer very close to another antisemitic trope" which are in that extremely fuzzy "I can imagine an antisemite saying something like this" territory. I do think that's an absurd standard, as you are basically going solely by what makes ppl feel threatened, so its entirely subjective and changeable and rests on the infallibility of victims

In this particular incident it didn't require a "constant state of vigilance", it was completely obvious how it was going to be interpreted from the start, which indicates a blind spot with RLB that could have become a liability. Not enough to get her sacked, but still.

More generally, I actually do believe it's the responsibility of elected representatives, and others, to maintain a state of vigilance over their language (or in this case, language already used in an article they've excitedly endorsed). And also, crucially, to learn from mistakes like this. Victims aren't always infallible but bigotry is in large part about making people threatened and people have a responsibility to avoid blundering into that - these sorts of discussions are happening across the left (and more generally) wrt race, gender etc etc. Minorities aren't a monolith but people who make up a majority have a responsibility to listen to them when they say that particular ways of phrasing or lines of argument are unacceptable or echo racist tropes or otherwise make them feel threatened. Otherwise you're getting into similar territory where people say it's fine to call a black woman aggressive in the office, or whatever.

A lot of the people shouting loudest about this have no interest whatsoever in applying this principle consistently, that goes without saying.

even Joylon windmill sticking up for RLB! She might have had shortcomings as a prospective Labour leader but non-factional people who know her all seem to say she is very hard-working and quite brilliant. It's a bitter pill for her, but I'm sure she'll be back, well maybe in 20 - 30 years tbf!

(There's a thornier question about how you go about addressing this when two sets of minority interests are diametrically opposed but that's not quite what we're talking about here).

Boris Johnson’s spokesman asked whether the PM regrets saying seaside towns should “show some guts” and put up a “welcome sign” to all visitors, replies that “the prime minister’s words speak for themselves.”

— Adam Bienkov (@AdamBienkov) June 26, 2020

Meanwhile, absolutely washing his hands of the problem here.

Which of his words are speaking for themselves?

Not that it matters, they can do and say what they like and there's nothing anyone can do about it.

That question in brackets is the question. Minorities have different voices within them xps to Matt

Also unless I haven't made myself sufficiently clear here, weaponising individual missteps for unrelated reasons does no one any favours least of all minorities themselves.

Meanwhile, absolutely washing his hands of the problem here.

Not convinced Johnson is washing his hands any more than he was six months ago.

no one incident requires a constant state of vigilance, but to avoid every single incident does. if the goal is maximising reflection on language, taking minorities' experiences seriously and so on, I'm not sure treating ppl as "liabilities" works - the net effect of censures like this is not going to be ppl becoming more sensitive to the experiences of jews - it just ends up creating bigger divides & disenfranchising ppl who resent ppl calling them cranks/stupid etc. cf. brexit & "fuck off and join the tories"

will spare you all the tangent abt how one of the main problems w/ the state of thinking in general in 2020 is the idea that all our problems could be solved if only the right people would just fuck off

if only the left had someone

https://i.imgur.com/ZfV6v1J.jpg

fp

Re: Boris, the tabloids today were full of WHY DID YOU GO TO THE BEACH FFS and CRYING HEALTH MINISTER DISAPPOINTED IN US BAD BAD CHILDREN; I don't mean to kinkshame but would really want out of this s&m roleplay the govt and the press seem to be engaged in with the populace.

Members of the Socialist Campaign Group of Labour MPs met with Keir Starmer this morning: pic.twitter.com/JDaGIIZyij

— Socialist Campaign Group (@socialistcam) June 26, 2020

Cross-party MPs have urged government to stop homeless migrants being forced to return to the streets.

29 Labour, Liberal Democrat and Green MPs have signed a joint letter warning of a coming ‘cliff-edge’ as the programme housing people experiencing homelessness in hotels during Covid-19 ends across England at the beginning of July.

Pleased to have MPs across political parties join me in a letter to the Government warning of a coming ‘cliff-edge’ as the programme to house people experiencing homelessness in hotels during COVID-19 ends across England at the beginning of July. pic.twitter.com/DFo31HVlD5

— Apsana Begum MP (@ApsanaBegumMP) June 26, 2020

looking forward to starmer showing strong leadership on this one too

on the “soft AS” phrase - it’s not a good one. the intention was to say it’s not the grotesque and violent version of AS that people who hate jews (mainly but not exclusively on the right) but it is still AS, and feeds into tropes of global jewishness (my reason for taking exception to the word “imperial”). it’s probably best expressed here by Bush:

Keir Starmer has Rebecca Long-Bailey, his former leadership rival, from her post as shadow education secretary after she described the actor Maxine Peake as a “diamond” and shared an Independent interview with the Shameless star in which she said that “the tactics used by the police in America, kneeling on George Floyd’s neck, that was learnt from seminars with Israeli secret services”.

What’s wrong with that? It’s true to say that the world’s police forces share training and exchange techniques, and that holds true for the police in most nations.

But it is not true to say that neck kneeling was taught by, or originates from, Israeli secret services - as Amnesty International, cited as the original source for the claim [tell us], they have not said so.

It goes to the essence of many of Labour's long-running problems on this issue - why should Israel’s security services be treated as more responsible for the killing than those of the United Kingdom or France, or any of the countless forces that use aggressive restraint techniques? Why is Peake, a British actor, singling out the world’s only Jewish majority state as the point of origin for the killing of an African-American? Why not the United Kingdom - or why not simply the United States, where the killing took place? It's an example of an all-too-common pattern on the British left: of placing Israel at the heart of a global web of ills.

As I've written before, the true face of Labour's antisemitism problem is not people who have hatred in their hearts, but people who are either simply unable to see the problem when it is in front of them, or are unwilling to confront or condemn expressions of it when they see them.

It was poorly put, at best, by Peake. It’s grey enough in terms of AS to have set alarm bells going for RLB, especially considering her position, especially considering perception of AS was considered a major vulnerability in the last election, and being seen to respond better - quicker and more decisively - has been made a priority for the leadership.

i don’t think it’s an unreasonable level of vigilance to say to your senior party members “think twice before publicly posting anything with a reference to israel in it, and then probably don’t anyway”.

even without starmer’s desire to marginalise the left it would have created a hell of a headache. with that it was probably an incredibly easy decision.

it’s a huge pity to see her go, especially taking into account calz’s tweet up thread about the work she was putting in at grassroots level to be across her brief and the general extreme crapness of williamson. she’s clearly diligent and capable and the last senior Labour person able to articulate the principles of socialism from the position of the front bench.

apologies for prolonging the conversation - one of those posts where you go, do i really want to post this? but did just want to clarify the bad “soft AS” point.

as always on AS i’d encourage people to go to this excellent report on Anti-Semitism in Contmepoearu Britain.

The attempt to comprehend the meaning of these figures from the point of view of a British Jewish individual, results in a significant breakthrough in understanding Jewish anxieties. Fierce antisemitism is undoubtedly a minority position in British society. However, Jews lead their lives without full knowledge or certainty about the scope or character of the thoughts and attitudes of others. Such is the nature of social interactions. What Jews come across in everyday social encounters at an individual level is expressions of single attitudes, often in a casual manner, rather than comprehensive profiles of all attitudes that other individuals may possess, and antisemitic attitudes, at some level, can be found among 30% of the British population in some shape or form. These attitudes do not need to be fierce and do not need to cluster within a particular individual in order to be noticed by Jews. British society harbours some sort of anti-Israel attitude or attitudes, which are often treated as suspicious by many Jews, and not without reason, since, as we have seen, for significant proportions of people, anti-Israel attitudes are indeed mixed with antisemitic ones. Thus, 62% of British society endorse at least one antisemitic and/or one anti-Israel attitude, making the likelihood of Jews encountering such attitudes very high. In light of this recast, Jewish anxieties and fears instantly become more understandable.

29 Labour, Liberal Democrat and Green MPs have signed a joint letter

arise coth

Emma Hardy in the running to replace RLB, i've met Emma (briefly), she seems meltier than a Mr Whippy on Bournemouth beach

if you've obtained a rep for something (fairly or not) you have to really go hard the other way to remove it. Labour has got itself a rep for antisemitism. This isn't the time to publically thread through a semantic argument about why it's good not bad actually to bring up Israel in the context of US police brutality.

Not convinced it needed to be a sacking personally, and it is definitely storing up debts that will have to be repaid, but I think Matt's right about the short-term appeal of it to KS.

whats going on in glasgow atm?

Contmepoearu

didn't he play for Steaua Bucharest?