Diane Abbott

Muttley said:
Perhaps if Corbyn hadn't ignored the vote of confidence that he lost (comprehensively by 80%) after the 2016 GE...
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That Friday morning was probably the tories weakest moment between 2006 and the pandemic starting. They'd lost the referendum, even Boris and Gove looked like they were sh*tting themselves, Cameron came out at 9am and handed his notice in... and that was the moment Labours MPs decided they'd take all the heat off the government and waste months on a foregone conclusion leadership election.

You could tell the party's centrists/right wing MPs were doing it as a favour to the tories and weren't serious about it as Owen Smith (who?) ended up being the only candidate. If they'd really been trying to change the party's leadership they'd have put up a big name. Harriet Harman or someone.
 
BlindBoyGrunt said:
Then your memory doesn't serve you well. The right (Kinnock and co) were visibly distraught when the results were coming in.

You can dismiss something without looking at it if you wish, but the Al Jazeera documentaries contain a lot of footage from hidden cameras, one showing Labour MP Joan Ryan, making a false accusation of anti-Semitism and also showing her discussing with Shai Masot, a senior political officer at the Israeli embassy in London, a £1m slush fund that she had been offered
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Exactly. You can't dismiss it, because it's all there on camera.
 
SuperStu said:
Hang on, lets not murky the waters on that point. Whatever else people think of Abbott we've had documented evidence of Labour staff actually deliberately sabotaging the party - i.e. leaks to journalists, delaying investigations and disciplinary procedures, hiding members funds. Abbott wasn't involved in any of that.
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Do you actually have my criticism of what she said though?
 
BlindBoyGrunt said:
That is because Judaism isn't a race and many Jews are offended at the suggestion that it is.
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And many Jews say that Judaism is a race. My point was that it transcends religion alone. Think about Jewish atheists: Edwina Currie, Amy Winehouse, David Baddiel. Do you think the Gestapo would have left them alone in 1939?
 
Pembroke said:
Yes Diane. Jews did not get to sit at the back of the bus. Jews died in gas chambers.
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This ignores the millions of Africans who have died at the hands of Europeans. Leopold II of Belgium is responsible for 10m deaths, and they had to sit at the back of the bus.
 
Starmer being a **** again. That's pretty much the only thing we know about him. He's a **** and he'll always be a ****. The alpacas haven't forgotten what you did, Keith. They'll get their revenge one day.
 
Muttley said:
Perhaps if Corbyn hadn't ignored the vote of confidence that he lost (comprehensively by 80%) after the 2016 GE...
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How did he ignore it?

There was a leadership election which he won hands down.

Why did the centrists ignore that would be the better question.

Andy_W said:
As for Labour leaks and Forde report( (which covers it), the culture within Labour was clearly terrible and badly organised, but it was on all sides, neither side wanted to listen to the other, and back then they had absolutely zero chance of winning, unless being on relatively the same page. Ultimately the leadership chain is at fault for allowing this to happen or facilitating it, and that buck stops with the guy at the top.

The forde report said the various sides influenced decisions, but it was bad both ways, but sides favoured their side, rather than the election win. From what I remember, neither of the factions wanted to lose the election and didn't work to that on the whole, they were just more prioritising their side. In either case, the report said it had little influence on the actual result of the election.

The right folk didn't want the party going too far left as they never thought it could win, and the left folk wanted to move away from the right (who they couldn't win without), they're both entitled to think what they want, but back then they couldn't win without each other, as then need each other plus some more votes from the Tories. This still applies, and is seemingly going to cause problems with voters again, do a degree.
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One faction actively worked to lose the election. That is indisputable. Pretending that didn't happen just makes it look like you're pushing an agenda.

The chain of leadership has to, at some point, assume that things are being done as requested. Why would anyone expect that anything was being done underhandedly? In your world there would never be any political coups because leaders would always know everything. There'd be no military mutinies because leaders would always know everything. It is simplistic at best.

The "right folk" were instructed by their members and their leaders to move left. If they didn't want to do that they had the option to leave (as the TIGgers eventually did).

Andy_W said:
The report is clearly good work, and its helped move Labour in the right direction and enabled the party to try and work towards the same aim, and Starmer's been much better at removing those who don't want to be a part of that.
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Such good work that both the person who commissioned it, and the media, have ignored it, almost completely. The only real mentions it's had in the press have been misrepresentations of it's findings.

Andy_W said:
But, why did it take a leak for this to all come out, why didn't Corbyn realise this and get a grip on it sooner?
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Why did it take a whistleblower to prevent the Gunpowder Plot in 1605. Why didn't James I realise and get a grip sooner?

Surprisingly enough, when things are being done behind closed doors, it's difficult for someone to know about them so that they can get a grip. This is a stupid line of argument.

Andy_W said:
Interesting how you don't point any of these problems at the leadership though, and that both factions were working against each other, and how both effectively knew they were onto a loss when the election was called (which is understandable). Most of the gain in Labour votes between the Tories calling the election and the election happening were largely down to Tory **** ups, obviously, the Tory campaign was also terrible, yet still won.
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Again, this is just stupiditiy followed by revisionist nonsense. There was only one faction working against a Labour victory. The polling gap DECREASED when purdah set in and corbyn was able to set out his vision for the country. The left weren't very far from getting control of parliament. Had the centrists not deliberately sabotaged that election then we might be in a much better place now. Disputing reality is just more proof you have an agenda.
 
Pembroke said:
Yes Diane. Jews did not get to sit at the back of the bus. Jews died in gas chambers.
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As I've said, I don't agree with what Abbotts said but this isn't the right response to it. Firstly there's nothing to gain from trying to make a competition out of which group have suffered the most/worst racism. Secondly don't pretend there hasn't been a long history of anti-black racism in the USA - slavery, lynchings, Jim Crow laws, the Tulsa Race Massacre, the industrial prison system, etc, etc, etc. That's gross.
 
Pembroke said:
Yes Diane. Jews did not get to sit at the back of the bus. Jews died in gas chambers.
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You do know that Jews were initially required to wear badges to identify themselves and that those badges prevented their free movement?

You do know that sitting at the back of the bus was the softer end of racial segregation in the US and that lynchings were common?

Diane Abbott hasn't covered herself in glory today, but this comes a close second.
 
SuperStu said:
As I've said, I don't agree with what Abbotts said but this isn't the right response to it. Firstly there's nothing to gain from trying to make a competition out of which group have suffered the most/worst racism. Secondly don't pretend there hasn't been a long history of anti-black racism in the USA - slavery, lynchings, Jim Crow laws, the Tulsa Race Massacre, the industrial prison system, etc, etc, etc. That's gross.
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Read Diane Abbots words. She creates a hierarchy of racism. She queries if Jews can experience racism. She questions if gypsies can experience racism. They just experienced prejudice. She minimised the experiences of races versus people of colour.
 
Pembroke said:
Read Diane Abbots words. She creates a hierarchy of racism. She queries if Jews can experience racism. She questions if gypsies can experience racism. They just experienced prejudice. She minimised the experiences of races versus people of colour.
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None of this contradicts what I've said in any way.
 
Pembroke said:
Read Diane Abbots words. She creates a hierarchy of racism. She queries if Jews can experience racism. She questions if gypsies can experience racism. They just experienced prejudice. She minimised the experiences of races versus people of colour.
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Read the article she's responding to.

One of the reasons often cited for not having e.g. Idris Elba as James Bond is that a black man wouldn't have the automatically assumed access that a middle-class white Englishman does. Is that racist or is it the reality after years of general racism in various societies? We did have an Irishman playing Bond which is one of the points she's making (very badly).

I don't want to defend Diane Abbott for something that she, heself, has already apologised for.

However, she seems to be making the argument that racism is exclusively about race as colour, where antisemitism would be the equivalent to "racism" against Jews. It's a complicated subject that has had hundreds of hours of academic work. There are no 'right' answers but making a clear argument is of utmost importance when discussing it. Abbott let herself down by rushing something out without making sure she was clear - that might have been an extra paragraph in the non-draft version - utter stupidity from someone already under the scrutiny she is under.
 
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Pembroke said:
Read Diane Abbots words. She creates a hierarchy of racism. She queries if Jews can experience racism. She questions if gypsies can experience racism. They just experienced prejudice. She minimised the experiences of races versus people of colour.
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A hierarchy of racism already exists within Labour, as stated in the Forde report. Starmer himself has acted promptly to Abbott's letter by withdrawing the whip for suspected anti-Semitism, but no word about Gypsies or the Irish.
And Starmer has yet to respond to the much older and blatant racism shown toward Abbott herself in the leaked labour report and confirmed by the subsequent Forde report. The evidence is there so what is he waiting for?
 
The Gypsies experienced enough prejudice for the Nazis to wipe out 250,000-500,000 of them.
The actual number is unknown. Though 30,000 of them ended walking up that pathway that countless others did. They all ended up at the same point.
The hierarchy of suffering/racism ceased at the door of the gas chamber.
 
Sexpom said:
She’s had the whip suspended for saying “Jews don’t face racism” they apparently face the same prejudices as redheads.

How this woman is even still part of the Labour Party after her gaffes during the last election campaign is beyond me. She really is thick.
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How she ever got in is beyond me.
 
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