the day after the deadline: can the union survive brexit and other deep questions

politics aside this does raise issues about the way the Labour party is conducting its HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA GET TAE FUCK

I mean, the whole sub idea does seem like something Musk just pulled out of his arse

I don't judge a book by the cover, but he really owns that consummate slimeball look, and you wouldn't trust the fucker with a proverbial anything.

good riddance to bad rubbish, the shadow minister for BAE systems

all he wanted to do was serve his constituents, build nukes and harass women

same

if there's no place for that in today's Labour party...*shakes head sadly*

he even shoe-horned an antisemitism bit into his resignation letter, it was like he'd filled out a form

"That Mr Corbyn could carry out this witch hunt against me, a proud Jewish man is ... oh, hold on..."

https://www.buzzfeed.com/markdistefano/raheem-lbc-booted?utm_term=.mbzMZYg7n#.ubkP2GRBa

It's incredible that Bannon somehow managed to make Farage look like the voice of reason here.

radio raheem refuses to do the right thing, is ejected

Woodcock quits Labour just as many people are calling for other people, like Hoey, to be subject to reselection processes.

JC has been very patient with a lot of these people. I am glad when they simply leave.

It is noticeable that many people who vitriolically attack JC turn out to be criminal or corrupt in some way.

"He was just marching around, still huffing and angry about how the Steve Bannon interview had gone,"

Oh please. Any oxygen for Bannon is his win our loss and they know this just as much at ITV. Just a relief that Question Time series finished the week before last.

I'm kinda intrigued by this:

FARAGE: Everybody hates Tommy Robinson apart from…

Who?

all right-thinking englishmen obv

And Morrissey

alt right-thinking englishmen

in the video clip of the radio part of the interview farage looks somewhat concerned as to what bannon was about to say and was desperately trying to calm the situation down.
he actually looked nervous.
so glad theo released what happened afterwards off mic.

More fool me for not realizing what a risible moron Bannon is.

Lol you didn't?

Anyway, interests of honesty I've been to the DWP twice this week and the actual humans were really civil and supportive, so it's just the language on the government websites and paperwork that's hostile so far.

Steve Bannon, Tommy Robinson, Donald Trump and Nigel Farage are trying to whip up a hard right bigotry movement across Europe.

Margaret Hodge responds with a personal attack on 'racist' Jeremy Corbyn.

The Guardian report on this was hugely frustrating, it mentioned that differences existed between the IHRA definition of antisemitism and the one in Labour's new code of conduct, but didn't actually mention what points had been ommitted from the Labour version. According to the Independent:

The code explicitly endorses the IHRA’s working definition of antisemitism and includes a list of behaviours likely to be regarded as antisemitic copied word-for-word from the international organisation’s own document.

But it then omits four examples from the IHRA list – accusing Jewish people of being more loyal to Israel than their home country, claiming that Israel’s existence as a state is a racist endeavour, requiring higher standards of behaviour from Israel than other nations, and comparing contemporary Israeli policies to those of the Nazis.

Given that the leadership presumably knew full well how that was likely to be received, I'm not sure it's exactly a hill worth dying on (to put it mildly).

I agree, it seems ridiculous. However Jon Lansman wrote about the new code in the Guardian last week and said that only one example was omitted (existence of Israel as a racist endeavour.)

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jul/12/labour-antisemitism-code-gold-standard-political-parties

Rhea Wolfson, who is also a Jewish NEC member, has given a lot of pushback on this as well.

I’m not 100% people are interested in facts but here are some anyway. The Labour Code of Conduct on AS does not breach the macpherson principal, that is a misreading. It is quite the opposite and sets a lower bar including intent that isn’t manifested in ‘typical’ AS behaviour

— Rhea Wolfson (@rheawolfson) July 18, 2018

Honestly though, even if well intended, the reaction from a broad swathe of the British Jewish community tells its own story.

surprise 5 Live phone-in on Labour antisemitism this morning but on the other hand what the fuck are the idiots responsible playing at?

I think I missed the Conservative Islamophobia phone-in, yeah I know it isn't helpful - but just saying.

Honestly from the outside it feels impossible to tell the degree to which this is a substantive issue vs. a handy and difficult to dispel cudgel to beat Labour with. Anyone care to hand out percentages

5/95

The anti-semitism thing is STILL going on? How can they roll so much out of this, out of so little

Granted, havent lived in UK for a few years but using anti-semitism as a weapon feels like a misreading of UK public? (regardless of whether its an issue or a handy cudgel feel like british people aren't interested in it)

I don't think it's so much British aversion to anti-semitism that they're putting stock in.

They see a lot of mileage in discrediting Corbyn by emphasising his awkwardness in the face of this. The more alien they can make him appear relative to the more central concerns of the general public the better.

The anti-semitism row has proven to be fertile ground in that regard.

I wish he was able to say "dunno what you're on about mate'. Where are the basic classes for learning how to deal with dickheads?

He's not dealing with this v well is the thing, which leaves it out there as one of the few obvious cudgels to hand

it's a classic 'when did you stop beating your wife' situation, i am genuinely not sure as to how labour can unpaint itself out of this extremely stupid corner

particularly enjoyed this pungent concern-troll from sajid javid, which skirts pretty close to calling corbyn a holocaust denier

Margaret Hodge’s family were murdered in the Holocaust. Instead of listening to her, Corbyn chooses to condemn her. How on earth can he claim he doesn’t have a problem with Jews? #disgraceful https://t.co/Lv2Rk2wTFY

— Sajid Javid (@sajidjavid) July 19, 2018

Could stop doing pointless shit like the current shenanigans on ignoring the IHRA definitions which has no positive rationale as far as I can tell except to keep a few antisemites onside

tru

or if there is a rationale maybe come out and convincingly defend it idk

It’s not stupid and the issue continues to come up because it hasn’t been dealt with sufficiently. I’m not interested in the bad faith actors but the point is that many Jewish people do feel strongly about it, including friends of mine, and at no point should the argument be that it’s all a load of nonsense. It is a problem because it is a problem and several fuckups don’t give the Jewish community any reason to take it in good faith. Genuinely don’t understand what’s so difficult to get about that, nor that people you dislike aren’t wrong about this.

Like, the rumour that they didn’t consult with the Jewish Labour Movement on the code? The oldest affiliated group? That’s really unbelievable, it looks awful and it sounds awful and it’s just not surprising that any of this has happened.

part of my theory is that there are enough people who are Corbyn friendly/adjacent who believe Israel has no right to exist, hence this obfuscation

Discusses from a legal standpoint, including the
IHRA definitions...

https://www.lrb.co.uk/v39/n09/stephen-sedley/defining-anti-semitism

(xp) definitely

this is also interesting and useful i think (klug urges readers "to go back to the two primary sources so as to check my analysis and to judge for themselves whether etc", which i haven't done -- part of the question he's asking is whether the rewrite doesn't IMPROVE on the original in key respects)
https://www.opendemocracy.net/uk/brian-klug/code-of-conduct-for-antisemitism-tale-of-two-texts

probably don't read the comments :(

this is one situation where the comments - o god the comments - add an important contextual layer to Klug's argument

Could stop doing pointless shit like the current shenanigans on ignoring the IHRA definitions which has no positive rationale as far as I can tell except to keep a few antisemites onside

From what I can tell the rabbis who are all in agreement on this don't really all agree on anything else, which should be a huge warning sign. It's a stupid, self-defeating own-goal for Labour. My suspicion is they know that if they adopted the IHRA definition in full they'd have to start expelling people left, right and centre, but that would probably be worth it to put to bed an issue that's potentially toxic for them.

Also on an issue of pure principle surely a minority group should be able to define what is and is not racist against them, rather than have another group try and define it for them?

lol 2 this non story:

The Ministry of Defence is to spend about £4m reimbursing 8,000 military personnel who are paying higher income taxes in Scotland, with some highly-paid officers getting back £1,500 this year.

Gavin Williamson, the Defence secretary, said military personnel who have to pay higher Scottish income taxes would get a lump payment at the end of this tax year worth between £12 and £1,500 per head.

The move is designed to fuel the battle between the Conservatives and Edinburgh’s Scottish National party government over its decision to use Scotland’s new powers to set its own income tax rates.
Williamson claimed that unfairly penalised Scottish military personnel, many of whom are based overseas but are taxed at the Scottish rate, and would make Scotland a less attractive posting for army, navy and air force staff.

It could also put off some Scots from joining the armed forces because they would be paid less than their counterparts elsewhere in the UK.

“It is completely wrong for the brave men and women of our armed forces to be punished for serving in Scotland by unfair raids on their pay packets by the Scottish government,” he said.

I think the only solution is to move the UK Nuclear missile base from Faslane to the Thames Estuary. Everything else of any note in the UK is in that vicinity.

fwiw, the brave men and women of our armed forces would have to be earning £24,000 in order to be paying £12 per annum more in income tax in Scotland and, by my calculation, somewhere north of £250,000 in order to be paying £1,500 p.a. more.

it's true, there are far better and more pressing reasons to punish the brave men and women of our armed forces

lol

Yes, good luck finding deep enough waters for nuclear submarines anywhere else in the UK but Scotland. Pay up or shut up.

I briefly got in what the brits would call a row with a far-leftie on twitter who earnestly believes ash sarkar is a psyop and I need to lie down

seems legit

shd've told them to literally go fuck themselves