U.K. Labour Suspends Ex-Leader Corbyn After Anti-Semitism Probe

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-10-29/u-k-labour-suspends-ex-leader-corbyn-after-anti-semitism-probe

...was the worst opposition leader ever. His handling of anti-Semitism issues was at best very poor throughout his time as leader and I can't say I blame Starmer for taking this action given Corbyn's refusal to accept any responsibility for the torrent of anti-Semitism issues throughout his time as Labour leader that only served to discredit Labour as a voice against bigotry.

They act like US racist right wingers. There was also the Hindu nationalists supporting Boris Johnson.

I don't live in the UK. I follow a lot of Labour supporters in the UK.

Link to tweet

You cannot beat them with whataboutery. The general election last year proved that.

You don't win the argument by being as bad as your opponent. You win it by being better. Corbyn failed on this point. He just wasn't seen as being credible. Against an appallingly bad government to boot.

I point out they're just a group of people like any other, you want to put down people specifically, Netanyahu should be ousted and put in prison for crimes against humanity and whatever corruption he's participated in. During prime minister's questions Corbyn would always say the right words when accused of anti-Semitism in the party, not quite as fervently as I expected but I didn't know anything deeper was up, I just thought he was a horrible campaigner, and they really should have picked someone else

when she's tried to get the Tories to address Islamophobia and other forms of discrimination within its ranks.

Link to tweet

Sayeeda Warsi on Tory Islamophobia: 'It feels like I'm in an abusive relationship'

Half of Conservative party members believe Islam is threat, poll finds

Pointing this out is NOT "whataboutery". Labelling it as such means that any discussion of widespread discrimination is shut down. That helps nobody.

JonLP24 above points to other aspects of systemic party racism. Doing so is not "whataboutery" either.

For some reason, these wider issues have never gained the media traction that the ongoing controversy over Labour antiSemitism has.

The Tories are by no means free of antiSemitism.

Antisemitism and the Conservative Party

The Conservative Party anti-Semitism crisis nobody talks about

John Bercow says he was subject to antisemitic abuse from Conservatives

Tories investigate three candidates over alleged antisemitism

I could supply more links, but what the hell. They're just "whataboutery" too, yeah?

Nobody in their right mind could accuse me of being a Corbynite, and I'd be among the first to say that Corbyn didn't deal with the situation while he was leader as well as one would hope a party leader would.

Starmer is no better in my eyes, in his own way. In fact, my initial neutral impression of him is dwindling into the sense that he's just yet another stuffed shirt blowing in the wind.

Among the allegations for which Corbyn's been condemned is that he was guilty of "inappropriate involvement" to speed up the suspension of Ken Livingstone from the Labour Party for allegations of antiSemitism (my inference being that this was probably an attempt to overcome the sabotage of wilful inertia I go into a bit more detail about below). This is from the EHRC report:



I hope Starmer has followed due procedures in his suspension of Corbyn, and not sought to speed up the process though "inappropriate involvement".

Quite a while after the Livingstone suspension and a lost general election, it emerged that elements within the Labour leadership had been trying to prolong the antiSemitism controversy for their own ends, just as some (overlapping, if not the same) elements sought to sabotage any prospects of a Labour general election win under Corbyn. I've drawn my own conclusions on the evidence available so far, others can draw their own.

This is also from the EHRC report:



I wonder who was Labour leader while these improvements happened?

he messed things up quite badly.


(Yes, the Tories are much worse on not only Islamophobia, but a wide variety of forms of racism, but you expect that of Tories.)