The Labour Party. All discussion here please

[Top Cats Hat 10]

7 minutes ago, Robin-H said:

Is Bendix a pseudonym for Jean-Pierre Faye? 

Possibly, but to someone who has owned a number of Transit vans, it is the bit of the starter motor which sticks when you have a chipped tooth on the flywheel and requires a firm blow with a lump hammer to release it. 😀

[bendix 10]

12 minutes ago, Robin-H said:

Is Bendix a pseudonym for Jean-Pierre Faye? 

No, but i think the theory has some merit.  I get TCH's objections - he points out the differences in SOME policies.    OK, fair enough.  They propose in many instances differnt tactical solutions to problems).

 

My sense though is that it's less about policies (which are no more than proposed solutions to a worldview) and that the horseshoe theory really comes into its own when you consider how broadly aligned the respective macro worldviews of the far right and far left are. Both are essentially nationalist.  Both by into conspiracy theories about global elites, usually with some weird references to a controlled media.  Both have political bogeymen.  Both view international capitalism with suspicion.  And both - the far right and far left - are aggressively waging hate campaigns against political foes online using the same terminology and attacks.

 

(although TCH will argue that those members of the far left doing it are likely not far left because we don't know they are far left but only that they profess to be far left.  Or something like that . . . I dunno)

Edited July 4, 2019 by bendix

[Top Cats Hat 10]

15 minutes ago, bendix said:

Both are essentially nationalist. 

I think that you will struggle to convince anyone to believe that the far-left is essentially nationalist. 

 

By far the largest element of the far-left in the UK is Trotskyist. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Stalinism and to some degree, Maoism have collapsed as a political force. Now if you have read your history, you will know that one of the major reasons Stalin fell out with Trotsky was that Stalin was essentially a Russian nationalist (as indeed is Putin) whereas Trotsky was a follower of the idea of ‘permanent revolution’ which among other things, argues that socialism in one country is virtually unsustainable and therefore has to be achieved internationally.

 

Any movement which uses slogans such as ‘Workers of the World Unite’ and sings an anthem called the Internationale, by definition cannot be nationalist.

[bendix 10]

6 minutes ago, Top Cats Hat said:

I think that you will struggle to convince anyone to believe that the far-left is essentially nationalist. 

 

By far the largest element of the far-left in the UK is Trotskyist. Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, Stalinism and to some degree, Maoism have collapsed as a political force. Now if you have read your history, you will know that one of the major reasons Stalin fell out with Trotsky was that Stalin was essentially a Russian nationalist (as indeed is Putin) whereas Trotsky was a follower of the idea of ‘permanent revolution’ which among other things, argues that socialism in one country is virtually unsustainable and therefore has to be achieved internationally.

 

Any movement which uses slogans such as ‘Workers of the World Unite’ and sings an anthem called the Internationale, by definition cannot be nationalist.

Putting to oneside the intersting history lesson (and ignoring the fact that trite phrases like Workers of the World Unite are lovely rallying cries but largely meaningless nonsense), let's look at Corbyn's own views on the EU and its affect on nationalism.

 

In 1993 he opposed the Maastricht Treaty because it ""takes away from national parliaments the power to set economic policy and hands it over to an unelected set of bankers who will impose the economic policies of price stability, deflation and high unemployment throughout the European Community."

 

In 2009 he wrote that the EU " has always been to create a huge free-market Europe, with ever-limiting powers for national parliaments and an increasingly powerful common foreign and security policy."

 

Pretty close to the nationalist anti-capitalist UKIP / EDL / Britain First positions, don't you think?  

 

 

 

[the_bloke 17]

5 hours ago, Top Cats Hat said:

Phrases like that come from the far-right and various crank white supremacist conspiraloons. I have never heard a Labour Party supporter or indeed anyone on the left of British politics used a phrase like that other than in a critique or racism and fascism.

https://jewishnews.timesofisrael.com/labour-member-suspended-jews-control-the-media-tweet/

 

Re: your point above, I've highlighted in bold - that's the usual defence for anyone on the left when they express bigoted views, and then claim they were misquoted, or misspoke etc. It's like starting a sentence with 'I am not being racist but..'

[Top Cats Hat 10]

3 hours ago, bendix said:

Putting to oneside the intersting history lesson (and ignoring the fact that trite phrases like Workers of the World Unite are lovely rallying cries but largely meaningless nonsense), let's look at Corbyn's own views on the EU and its affect on nationalism.

 

In 1993 he opposed the Maastricht Treaty because it ""takes away from national parliaments the power to set economic policy and hands it over to an unelected set of bankers who will impose the economic policies of price stability, deflation and high unemployment throughout the European Community."

 

In 2009 he wrote that the EU " has always been to create a huge free-market Europe, with ever-limiting powers for national parliaments and an increasingly powerful common foreign and security policy."

 

Pretty close to the nationalist anti-capitalist UKIP / EDL / Britain First positions, don't you think?  

 

 

 

Your argument is predicated on the assumption that Corbyn represents a majority view on Europe. He doesn’t.

 

While most of the left have their criticisms of the EU, the majority support our membership of it. They look in bewilderment at others on the left who claim that EU rules prevent widespread nationalisation, ignoring the fact that state owned industry and infrastructure is way more prevalent in most EU countries than here in the UK where pretty much everything, including social housing, has been sold off cheaply into private ownership.

[Robin-H 11]

2 minutes ago, Top Cats Hat said:

Your argument is predicated on the assumption that Corbyn represents a majority view on Europe. He doesn’t.

 

While most of the left have their criticisms of the EU, the majority support our membership of it. They look in bewilderment at others on the left who claim that EU rules prevent widespread nationalisation, ignoring the fact that state owned industry and infrastructure is way more prevalent in most EU countries than here in the UK where pretty much everything, including social housing, has been sold off cheaply into private ownership.

Does that matter? I don't think anyone is arguing that there are homogenous views of the left and right, only that some views from the fringes of either position are more similar than it might otherwise be assumed. 

[Top Cats Hat 10]

1 minute ago, Robin-H said:

only that some views from the fringes of either position are more similar than it might otherwise be assumed. 

That’s true, but it’s about as relevant as pointing out that they watch the same  TV programmes or like the same flavour of milk shake. Shortly before the BNP disappeared up its own harris, it declared itself as a green organisation and would be supporting environmental issues. 

 

Does that mean that we should all stop supporting Greenpeace, Extinction Rebellion or the Green Party? Of course not, because it is irrelevant. 

[Robin-H 11]

4 minutes ago, Top Cats Hat said:

That’s true, but it’s about as relevant as pointing out that they watch the same  TV programmes or like the same flavour of milk shake. Shortly before the BNP disappeared up its own harris, it declared itself as a green organisation and would be supporting environmental issues. 

 

Does that mean that we should all stop supporting Greenpeace, Extinction Rebellion or the Green Party? Of course not, because it is irrelevant. 

I'm not sure that I understand the point. 

 

No, because the BNP purported to be a green organisation it doesn't mean you shouldn't support the green party. I'm at a loss as to why that is a logical analogy for anything? 

[Longcol 596]

How on earth has Corbyn (and his minders)managed things so badly that Labour are at an all time low in the opinion polls - in 4th place!

 

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/corbyn-labour-leader-poll-slump-low-a8988866.html

 

The dreams of the Patron Saint of the Islington Allotments Society of being the PM to usher in the socialist utopia are, as many of us have been saying, just dreams.

[alchresearch 214]

And things just get worse.

 

A threatening legal letter over antisemitism just makes me wonder what the Labour Party has got to hide

https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/labour-party-antisemitism-carter-ruck-lawyers-brexit-jeremy-corbyn-a8994696.html

 

Copy of letter here:

 

 

 

A shame they forgot this in 2017:

 

Whistleblowers keep us safe. We can’t allow them to be silenced - Shami Chakrabarti

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/feb/13/whistleblowers-official-secrets-act-law-commission

 

 

[Longcol 596]

Time for Corbyn and his minders to go - although it's probably already too late.