Corbyn suspended from the Labour party

No doubt the actual issue is a handy stick for his foes to beat him with. How much he personally is anti-Semitic has been kept pretty well hidden apart from odd instances. Knowing how pedantic Labour members can be on procedural issues, it is likely the fact that he stood by as so many supporters have been allowed to get away with remarks, posts, comments and jottings with little or no censure. That is what has got him in the end. Lots of small pieces of evidence, too many for his supporters’ traditional distraction tactics to conceal all of them. Hoist by his own petard in a way, the arch pedant brought down.

Except, of course, the EHRC report only indicates very limited numbers of issues with antisemitism in the Labour Party. In fact, it is hardly damning. Critical, of course, but not quite what it is being bigged up as being. For an organisation of more than half a million members, it's a surprisingly small number of cases, in fact.

On the other hand, it was always clear from the off that the accusations of antisemitism were mostly confected as a line of attack after other options had failed. None of them surfaced until the failure of the 'chicken coup' and then reports of antisemitism pretty much disappeared after he stepped down as leader. This is geeing it all up once again and I'm not surprised that Corbyn agreed the majority of the findings of the report (he did, you note), but still maintained that the case was overstated. I don't doubt he knew that it would cause strife, but then if you've got principles, you should stick by them. Something Starmer is lacking, unfortunately. We're going to end up with a Blair tribute act at this rate who will only tinker around the edges of the issues if he does end up in power.

Looking at the findings of the leaked 800-odd page internal report which has barely been mentioned (and wasn't submitted to the EHRC), then there is absolutely no doubt that a substantial section of the party machinery was actively working against Corbyn and his leadership team during this period. The EHRC criticisms of interference in disciplinary processes by the leadership's offices don't note that this was apparently to try and speed up what was a broken system. The EHRC report also doesn't make a single mention of the General Secretary during the period investigated, Iain McNicol. How is this possible? He was the person whose job it was to ensure that the party policies for this sort of thing functioned correctly. Why weren't the recommendations of the Chakrabarti Inquiry in 2016 implemented? You can certainly criticise Corbyn and Co for not getting this done, but it was actually the job of McNicol and it seems he did pretty much nothing.

Ultimately, this looks like it will quite possibly lead to a split in the Labour Party. Hardly ideal when you've got such a bunch of clowns in government who are running the place into the ground, but possibly the only way forward. The PLP has fought tooth and nail against Corbyn to avoid the implementation of pretty mild socially democratic policies and it looks as though they will have their wish. Corbyn not faultless either, of course, but then he didn't look for power in the first place. Not a surprise he didn't have the wider backing when it was thrust upon him by people who actually wanted some moderately left-wing policies.

I just hope that whatever emerges out of the smoking rubble of 2020/2021 in the post-Covid, post-Brexit world, we'll end up with a grown up electoral system with proper PR so that we don't have to continue as a sham of a democracy where too many votes just don't count for anything.

Not surprised by this, however I think it is a big mistake, if as the commission has said some things are unlawful we should expect prosecution to follow, I am willing to bet there will be none. Corbyn is right in his response, the commission picked and chose the evidence to find what it set out to.
In suspending Corbyn without the backing of the NEC Starmer has opened up a massive division and been seen to be following the dog whistle of the Tory press, as Maringer  says the commission found very little considering Labour has half a million members and most of that was against people attacking Corbyn or attacking IsraelI policy rather than Jews as a religion.  He would have been much wiser to let Corbyn have his say and express his disagreement and move on. As it is he has played into Tory hands, he was a major figure in Corbyns shadow cabinet and must be tainted by the same brush, if he believes all the accusations he is either immoral for not resigning or complicit pretending he was unaware when it was a daily line of attack by the media is not an option. The Labour Party has the same members as when Corbyn was leader, has the anti semetism magically vanished?

Quoted from codcheeky

Not surprised by this, however I think it is a big mistake, if as the commission has said some things are unlawful we should expect prosecution to follow, I am willing to bet there will be none. Corbyn is right in his response, the commission picked and chose the evidence to find what it set out to.
In suspending Corbyn without the backing of the NEC Starmer has opened up a massive division and been seen to be following the dog whistle of the Tory press, as Maringer  says the commission found very little considering Labour has half a million members and most of that was against people attacking Corbyn or attacking IsraelI policy rather than Jews as a religion.  He would have been much wiser to let Corbyn have his say and express his disagreement and move on. As it is he has played into Tory hands, he was a major figure in Corbyns shadow cabinet and must be tainted by the same brush, if he believes all the accusations he is either immoral for not resigning or complicit pretending he was unaware when it was a daily line of attack by the media is not an option. The Labour Party has the same members as when Corbyn was leader, has the anti semetism magically vanished?

This episode probably says more about Starmer than about Corbyn. It is an opportunistic action intended to show that he is not the inert version of Blair and Kinnock he appears to be. Action Man arises!

Having said that, I do think there were far more examples of anti-semitism than the report itemises. The issue with Corbyn is that he did not nip them in the bud when people were being personally bullied on Twitter unmercifully. Of course it was very easy to say such trolling was anonymous and could not be attributed to Labour members but Corbyn missed a big trick there by not quickly and publicly condemning such behaviour. He seemed to tacitly accept it as an extension of the direct action he represented when first elected. It has however allowed him and Livingstone to claim with some justification that any public incidents were minor and overstated. Quite possibly they were, but this is about a political dogfight now.

Quoted from ska face

I recognise that bloke.

Isn't he the one who is about to split the Labour party right down the middle?  

Mind you, politics is due a shake up. It would be nice for example to vote Conservative and get a conservative government.

Perhaps when this pandemic is over there might be a movement towards creating parties that actually reflect their name which can only be a good thing.

Yes, it would be good if the Labour Party represented the combined forces of labour in this country. Unfortunately Keith Starmer seems more keen to get the big money donors, landlords and leeches on board and dismiss the concerns of the actual wealth creators.

Quoted from ska face

Yes, it would be good if the Labour Party represented the combined forces of labour in this country. Unfortunately Keith Starmer seems more keen to get the big money donors, landlords and leeches on board and dismiss the concerns of the actual wealth creators.

It is a struggle these days to find actual wealth creators isn’t it? Plenty of working people in service and transport and media but the wealth bit is becoming scarcer.

The people who create the wealth remain the same. Workers. White collar, blue collar, north, south, paper shufflers and brick layers.

Those who extract the wealth - landlords, tax evaders, the corrupt and the boss class - are becoming more numerous and more brazen.