The General Corbyn Thread

[Tntp]

Thank you for that. My post was intended to get a response, and you duly obliged. For the record, I generally agree with your posts about Ukraine. NATO clearly has superior military technology and it should be applied asap to kick the Russians out of Ukraine. Where I think you go wrong on some issues is to turn the discussion into who is and isn’t anti-Semitic. This has happened with your comments on the Lineker controversy. Things aren’t black and white. It’s a bit more nuanced than that. Corbyn was a useless leader and tin-eared on a number of matters. But I don’t think he is anti-Semitic. I notice you only seem to attack those on the left when it comes to alleged anti-semitism. What about those not on the left? Rachel Reeves and Teresa May were positively gushing about Nancy Astor when her statue was unveiled. But where was the criticism of her antisemitism and Nazi sympathies? Perhaps it was because Corbyn also praised her for her being the first woman MP. There was no criticism of Corbyn that I can recall, because if he was accused of anti-semitism regarding his support for Nancy Astor, then the same criticism would have to be levelled at Rachel Reeves and co, but that would never do.

Here’s a test for you. I am a member of the National Secular Society (NSS). It has long campaigned for the banning of male child ritual circumcision, whether for children of Jewish or Muslim parents, or for cultural reasons, such as in the USA. In those countries where prohibition has from time to time been proposed by lawmakers, the representatives of Jewish communities have accused those lawmakers of anti-semitism. Do you agree with that view? You should be aware that there are a number of Labour parliamentarians in this country who are members of the NSS. As far as I am aware, most if not all are not Corbynites. Are you going to go after them if you think their opposition to ritual male child circumcision amounts to anti-semitism? To help you, you could Google Brian D Earp, a medical ethicist who has written extensively on bodily autonomy as it relates to circumcision. By the way, you lose the argument if you claim male circumcision is nothing like FGM.

For the record, I voted for Corbyn first time round, then for Owen Smith, and finally for Starmer. In the latter two cases, I naively believed their pledges to continue with Corbyn’s main economic policies, but you can surely understand why non-Corbynite old style lefties like me (I’m 70 this year) feel let down, if not betrayed. I’ve now resigned from the Labour Party, but I will continue to vote for them.

[Bewildered]

Thank you for that. My post was intended to get a response, and you duly obliged. For the record, I generally agree with your posts about Ukraine. NATO clearly has superior military technology and it should be applied asap to kick the Russians out of Ukraine. Where I think you go wrong on some issues is to turn the discussion into who is and isn’t anti-Semitic. This has happened with your comments on the Lineker controversy. Things aren’t black and white. It’s a bit more nuanced than that. Corbyn was a useless leader and tin-eared on a number of matters. But I don’t think he is anti-Semitic. I notice you only seem to attack those on the left when it comes to alleged anti-semitism. What about those not on the left? Rachel Reeves and Teresa May were positively gushing about Nancy Astor when her statue was unveiled. But where was the criticism of her antisemitism and Nazi sympathies? Perhaps it was because Corbyn also praised her for her being the first woman MP. There was no criticism of Corbyn that I can recall, because if he was accused of anti-semitism regarding his support for Nancy Astor, then the same criticism would have to be levelled at Rachel Reeves and co, but that would never do.

Here’s a test for you. I am a member of the National Secular Society (NSS). It has long campaigned for the banning of male child ritual circumcision, whether for children of Jewish or Muslim parents, or for cultural reasons, such as in the USA. In those countries where prohibition has from time to time been proposed by lawmakers, the representatives of Jewish communities have accused those lawmakers of anti-semitism. Do you agree with that view? You should be aware that there are a number of Labour parliamentarians in this country who are members of the NSS. As far as I am aware, most if not all are not Corbynites. Are you going to go after them if you think their opposition to ritual male child circumcision amounts to anti-semitism? To help you, you could Google Brian D Earp, a medical ethicist who has written extensively on bodily autonomy as it relates to circumcision. By the way, you lose the argument if you claim male circumcision is nothing like FGM.

For the record, I voted for Corbyn first time round, then for Owen Smith, and finally for Starmer. In the latter two cases, I naively believed their pledges to continue with Corbyn’s main economic policies, but you can surely understand why non-Corbynite old style lefties like me (I’m 70 this year) feel let down, if not betrayed. I’ve now resigned from the Labour Party, but I will continue to vote for them.

I don’t want to get into a long debate about male circumcision, however I really don’t like EACL’s posts about anti-semiticism and disagree with him a lot*, but my (perhaps uneducated, just going in the understanding I accumulated from whatever sources I’ve been exposed to and passively absorbed) view of male circumcision is that it’s entirely different from female circumcision because my understanding is that it is not a particularly damaging or harmful procedure that affects function/feeling in the same way , and much of the criticism is from anti-religious biogotry, and when focussed on Jewish circumcision could be anti-semitic. So I think your test here is not that acute, ie i don’t think I am biased against Corbyn supporters in the same way EACL is, but I would say their opposition to male circumcision could be problematic. Also we don’t need this test, EACL clearly is biased against Corbyn.

* To be a little more precise I wasn’t a Corbyn supporter but I thought some of the things regarding him and anti-semitism was political exploitation and phony, though I also think (actually personally know) there was a real issue of people in the hard left holding anti-Semitic views and getting into the party and I think Corbyn did tolerate too much anti-Semitism.

[Iron Magpie]

I see Corbyn is still living in your head rent free.

[bjn]

Can we move the Corbyn stuff to another thread? It’s derailing.

[Woodchopper]

Can we move the Corbyn stuff to another thread? It’s derailing.

I've done that (others asked privately as well).

[Imrael]

I'm late to the party and havent re-read the thread. Also I'm in a ridiculously safe Tory seat so one of the meaningless votes

I would have voted Corbyn over Johnson if I thought it would mean anything. But it would have been very much lesser of 2 evils - I thought then he was marginally more likely to "go quietly" and allow an orderly transfewr of power when he lost the following election.

I saw him as another personailty cult much like Johnson in many ways, and just as potentially demagogic/dangerous. Also prone to unthought-through policies domestically and very worrying on foreign affairs. And I thought the charge of anti-semitism stood up (as someone who's generally very critical of the Israeli government)

[noggins]

Corbyn was simply not competent. Being a mardy conscience-driven backbencher, regardless of what you think of that conscience, does not qualify one to be a party leader, let alone PM.

[EACLucifer]

Thank you for that. My post was intended to get a response, and you duly obliged. For the record, I generally agree with your posts about Ukraine. NATO clearly has superior military technology and it should be applied asap to kick the Russians out of Ukraine. Where I think you go wrong on some issues is to turn the discussion into who is and isn’t anti-Semitic. This has happened with your comments on the Lineker controversy. Things aren’t black and white. It’s a bit more nuanced than that. Corbyn was a useless leader and tin-eared on a number of matters. But I don’t think he is anti-Semitic.

More than 85% of the British Jewish community disagrees with you on that. It isn't just an issue of personal prejudice - though Corbyn has expressed antisemitic tropes before - but also what one considers acceptable. Corbyn donated money to an open Holocaust denier. He praised a man that said that Jews used the blood non-Jewish children to bake bread - that's a very old libel that's lead to a lot of pogroms. There's plenty of other examples, but the key is that Corbyn didn't have any problem promoting these people because he agreed with them on some things and he did not believe the the extreme racism they displayed was a reason not to to do.

To put it another way, if you claim to support no platform policies for racists, and were too "pure" to appear alongside tories to campaign for remaining in the EU - which was Labour policy* - then you will inevitably end up judged by the people you don't consider too unpleasant to share a platform with. In Corbyn's case, that's holocaust deniers (plural), blood-libellers (plural), terrorists (Hezbollah and Hamas and PFLP spokespersons, also a PFLP hijacker who threw an armed grenade on a hijacked aeroplane that by some miraculous chance did not go off).

Additionally he defended a mural featuring traditional racist caricatures of Jews, and has several times engaged in conspiratorial inuendo regarding Jews including ones regarding alleged outsize power in the media, a staple of old-fashioned antisemitism, and defended others who do so, like the disgraced clergyman Stephen Sizer.

Here's a thread covering a number of the issues as I don't have time to dig through every one of them myself. I don't really care if you think every example is clear cut, enough of them are to be damning.

I notice you only seem to attack those on the left when it comes to alleged anti-semitism. What about those not on the left? Rachel Reeves and Teresa May were positively gushing about Nancy Astor when her statue was unveiled. But where was the criticism of her antisemitism and Nazi sympathies? Perhaps it was because Corbyn also praised her for her being the first woman MP. There was no criticism of Corbyn that I can recall, because if he was accused of anti-semitism regarding his support for Nancy Astor, then the same criticism would have to be levelled at Rachel Reeves and co, but that would never do.

Well there aren't many people defending traditional right-wing antisemitism on here, thankfully, so I don't have to set them straight.

Astor's repulsive views seem to have slipped under the radar amid the rush to praise her for being the first woman elected to parliament. For what it is worth, I do not think she should be honoured, given how extreme her views were, but I also understand why people want some representation of the overcoming of sexism that a woman being elected as an MP represents.

Here’s a test for you. I am a member of the National Secular Society (NSS). It has long campaigned for the banning of male child ritual circumcision, whether for children of Jewish or Muslim parents, or for cultural reasons, such as in the USA. In those countries where prohibition has from time to time been proposed by lawmakers, the representatives of Jewish communities have accused those lawmakers of anti-semitism. Do you agree with that view? You should be aware that there are a number of Labour parliamentarians in this country who are members of the NSS. As far as I am aware, most if not all are not Corbynites. Are you going to go after them if you think their opposition to ritual male child circumcision amounts to anti-semitism? To help you, you could Google Brian D Earp, a medical ethicist who has written extensively on bodily autonomy as it relates to circumcision. By the way, you lose the argument if you claim male circumcision is nothing like FGM.

This is an unexpected example to choose, but actually quite a useful one. My take on it would be if your opposition to infant circumcision arises from a position that surgery that is not medically necessary should not be carried out on those too young to consent** and you apply that belief consistently, then it wouldn't be antisemitic. Such criticisms are also unlikely to fall foul of any recognised definition of antisemitism, and I don't see anything about criticising Jewish religious practise in the IHRA working definition. Obviously there is no prejudice in existence that hasn't seen false accusations, but the criticisms of Corbyn aren't really to do with things like this issue.

That said, it doesn't mean all criticism of the practise is free of antisemitism. It is routinely weaponised against Jews by the far right in particular. What makes their criticisms antisemitic are things like the use of traditional racist caricatures of Jews in cartoons and so on, as well as claims that Jews imposed the practise on (usually American) Gentiles in some way shape or form - this is often from the same people who think that migration is a Jewish plot too. For the record, infant circumcision in the USA among those who are neither Muslim nor Jewish is largely a product of Christian hysteria about m.st.rbation.

This is one of the reasons I really don't like the term antisemitism*** - and likewise Islamophobia - is because it does lead to the conflation of criticism of religion with ethnic prejudice, especially as Judaism is traditionally an ethnoreligion that has not actively sought converts, as opposed to universal religions like Christianity and Islam that traditionally have sought converts, often by force. Likewise criticism of Islamic religious practices and beliefs can stem from the conflict of those practices and beliefs with a liberal, equal society, but it can also be used to a euphemise bigotry against Arabs and South Asians especially. It also results in people thinking it is something other than racism - for the most part, it is just a form of racism, and a form - given the Christian and Islamic intellectual inheritance of much of the world - that is all too common.

For the record, I voted for Corbyn first time round, then for Owen Smith, and finally for Starmer. In the latter two cases, I naively believed their pledges to continue with Corbyn’s main economic policies, but you can surely understand why non-Corbynite old style lefties like me (I’m 70 this year) feel let down, if not betrayed. I’ve now resigned from the Labour Party, but I will continue to vote for them.

You can feel how you want, of course. The votings the important part anyway. Corbyn was known to me well before 2015, mostly due to his disgraceful work with the Iranian propaganda channel Press TV, which is why I so staunchly opposed his leadership candidacy. There are two issues to it. One of them is that Labour is supposed to be an antiracist party - and that has to apply to all kinds of racism. We knew Corbyn was bad on this, and during his time as leader, antisemites were emboldened, to the point we even had things like a council candidate selected despite having shared Holocaust denial articles from American white supremacists, and Jews within the party were bullied relentlessly. The second issue is one you recognise - Corbyn was a useless leader. Few other people could have done so badly against Johnson in 2019. It wasn't just the perception that he was soft on antisemitism that caused that, though, it was things like being so soft on Russia after the Salisbury poisonings. I'm disabled - quite seriously so. My life is very, very precarious. So are those of my closest friends. We are exactly the kind of people that are in danger from a Tory government. We don't need a Labour government to feel good about ourselves, we need one as a matter of safety. One that's further left would be nice, but the key thing right now is winning, and that's something Corbyn was never going to do. On top of that, there was the referendum. Brexit is one of the biggest acts of national self-sabotage I've witnessed, isolating and impoverishing the country and empowering xenophobes. Though it was Labour policy to support remain, Corbyn barely campaigned**** and we all know why - he's a lifelong europhobe.

*Labour policy, but not Corbyn's policy - he's always been a europhobe which is just one of the reasons he was such a bad pick for leadership with a referendum incoming

**This is my position, for what it's worth, and I was a member of the NSS for a while, but allowed my membership to lapse due to nothing more than disorganisation on my part.

***ideally not "anti-Semitism", for the record, "Semitism" isn't a reference to semitic linguistic or ethnic origin, but an accusation that Jewry had infiltrated German (Aryan) culture. This is also why the term doesn't refer to other traditional speakers of semitic languages - it was always a euphemism for hatred of Jews (Judenhasse)

****This is particularly of note as one thing he can't be criticised over is how hard he campaigns on issues he cares about.

[EACLucifer]

Also we don’t need this test, EACL clearly is biased against Corbyn.

"Biased against". Lol. As if knowing about someone for well over a decade and forming an opinion on them based on their actions is akin to prejudice.

Corbyn hosted a f.cking talk show for the Iranian regime's* propaganda channel for a number of years. Then that channel got caught broadcasting forced confessions obtained by torture - direct complicity in torture, in other words. That didn't stop Corbyn from working for them, of course. It did, however, lead to them getting a fine. Eventually the non-payment of that fine forced them off the airwaves in this country. Only then did Corbyn stop working for them.

He also signed an early day motion commending Pilger for denying Serbian atrocities in Kosovo.

There's a lot to dislike. More recently there's his stances on the Douma poison gas attack by the Assad regime and the Salisbury poisoning, and his both-sidesing of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

*currently busy beating schoolgirls to death for how they dress and how they react to other schoolgirls being beaten to death for how they dress