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Sunday 15 September 2024

Corbyn Bashing Becoming Tedious

Guardian Media Group has, of late, done an exceptional service to those who wondered just how convinced of their stance were the people who now wield power within the Labour Party. And the answer is that they are not convincing others, nor are they convincing themselves. Hence the constant stream of articles attempting to justify their factionalism and disloyalty.

Keir Starmer, and ...

The latest of these has come in today’s Observer, under the by-line of Anushka Asthana, who has, it seems, written a whole book around the subject of New New Labour, which sounds like something worth avoiding. The article is described as an “exclusive”, which is a bit rich, considering it’s the media group she usually writes for. So what’s the schtick?

‘Corbyn had flown too close to the sun’: how Labour insiders battled the left and plotted the party’s path back to power … Exclusive extract from new book says Corbyn’s appearance at Glastonbury was a key moment in the party’s long way back to power. And as one anti-Corbyn group tried to build a moderate coalition, it also needed a credible leader”. Do go on.

Some in Labour make fun of the idea that Corbyn supporters treat the 2017 general election like a victory when, in fact, it was a loss. But in reality, the Labour leader had defied his detractors who were expecting a repeat of Michael Foot’s 1983 election drubbing and instead watched Corbyn strip Theresa May of her parliamentary majority”. And there was more.

Moreover, Corbyn had won 40% of the national vote, more than the 35% that handed Tony Blair a significant majority in 2005”. And who is the main protagonist here? As if you need to ask. “Meanwhile, some 130 miles away in a south London park, Morgan McSweeney was sitting on a bench, thinking about what the scene at Glastonbury meant for his new job”. And more.

Labour Together, as the operation became known, was explicitly not about trying to defeat Corbyn through any internal coup - they now considered that to be impossible. But it would try to defeat Corbynism … McSweeney was among those who took the 2017 result very seriously and believed that Corbyn, whose politics he despised, could win the next election”.

Oh what a giveaway! Gives the lie to all the “unelectable under any scenario” drivel. Then came claims of anti-Semitism: Labour Together “identified problem posts in hundreds of Facebook groups with links to either the party or leftwing politics …They then farmed out the posts they uncovered to journalists who were … reporting on rising evidence of antisemitism”.

... his unconvincing enabler Morgan McSweeney

Links to? Meaning what? Were these posts by Labour members? If not, that would have been smears. But it was working: “Together with a row over whether the party would adopt all the examples linked to the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) definition of antisemitism, the scandal was becoming increasingly destabilising for Corbyn”.

Plus this nugget: “McSweeney had an aim - to schmooze the Guardian and kill the Canary. ‘Destroy the Canary or the Canary destroys us’”. And? “As part of a ‘Stop funding fake news’ campaign, they took screenshots of articles they felt had either racist or fake content, then posted messages on Twitter aimed at brands that were advertising on the websites’ pages”.

That wasn’t all. Was “stop funding fake news” the campaign of the same name that had a seriously dodgy privacy policy and made claims about its successes that it failed to stand up? It was, after all, regularly targeting sites like The Canary (and Evolve Politics). Was it going after fake news, or merely trying to defund sites whose politics it disliked? No word on that one.

And the result? A measly 33.7% of the popular vote. The excuse? “Those who opted to vote ‘tactically’ for the Lib Dems where they could beat Tories, but also others deciding to go with their ‘hearts’ by voting for the Greens or independents in the certainty that Starmer would be prime minister”. No admission that today’s authoritarian Labour has alienated activists.

So what is the legacy of “Labour Together”? A leader whose dishonesty in getting the Top Job - and since getting it - has been exceeded only by Reform UK Oberscheissenführer Nigel “Thirsty” Farage. An increasingly authoritarian party which has claimed to be hot on anti-Semitism, while expelling rather a lot of Jewish members. And don’t mention that “hierarchy of racism”.

Another day, another apologia. They got a landslide, and that means they were right. Right to smear the Canary. Right to egg on the idea that Labour had come over all anti-Semitic. No mention that when Corbyn said the latter problem had been exaggerated, he was right. Stripped of the whip for making a factually correct statement. The looking glass world of New New Labour.

Pity about the freezing pensioners and the poorest young families, mind.


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10 comments:

Anonymous said...

The straightforward fact is that the Starmer/Reeves version of the Labour Party is a far right corrupt racist gang of warmongers. Cringing servants to fascist USA.

Which means they are highly likely to lose the next general election. Which means more of the same from their tory allies.

Anonymous said...

Talking of The Canary:
https://www.thecanary.co/long-read/2024/09/12/spycops-documentary/

Gulliver said...

Remember, they're not confessing, they're bragging.

Taken together with the recent "discovery" that the JC is in reality the propaganda arm of the Isreali PM and that the same JC was one of the go-to places these swine would offload their bullshit, and you can see why this sort of information was withheld from the general population for 7 years.

Anushka Asthana, and creatures like her, are not so much journalists as accessories to the ongoing immiseration of thousands.

Anonymous said...

Yet their apologists still bang on about 'Corbinistas', 'making Labour electable' and how lefties need to 'stay out of our party'. Who they? Last time I checked, prior to Kinnock, Labour was a majority centre left, minority right and hard left party. It is now a majority right wing party, with virtually no centre left and a handful of hard left mps.

So who actually are the people who 'took over the party'? That for nearly a hundred years was the party of the working classes, not middle England or the wealthy. It represented the latter, but not at working peoples expense.

Now it is literally no different to the Conservatives. The slow journey started by Kinnock, accelerated by Blair, has been finished by Starmer. The Labour party is no long a Social Democratic party, it IS a Conservative party.

Neoliberalism has won. The left in all its guises barely holds on by its finger nails, while the far right is growing in power, lying, hate mongering, and gaining power all over the World.

Thanks Friedman, you utter tosser....

Ben Lapointe said...

Centrists: Half way between the left and the right. All left with their words, extreme right when it comes to action.

Slap each others backs because they removed the "extreme" leftist Corbyn who would have been critical of Israel. Quite silent when said Israel is committing genocide.

He'll with them. The lot.

James said...

They have unintentionally portrayed McSweeny as @@#! Thanks Mr Sweemy for the crap we have since endured - Boris and Covid, Liz Truess, racism and now our country being complicit in genocide. Wel done you !

James said...

B@stards the lot of them !

Anonymous said...

Better watch yourself Tim.

First they came for The Canary......

Anonymous said...

"...a moderate coalition..."

Yeah, right.

So "moderate", it attacks pensioners and children, supports mass murder genocide of innocent Palestinians, promotes war in Ukraine, and lickspittles to the USA.

The Newspeak Dictionary 2024.

Anonymous said...

The Starmer Quisling red tory shithouse deteriorates each day. Nothing more than a standard far right racist coward on orders from Washington.

https://www.thecanary.co/uk/analysis/2024/09/17/starmer-diane-abbott/