3184

I saw somebody mention that 69 MPs had left the party that they were elected for and only 4 had triggered a by-election so it’s not usual practice.

3185

They (the Tory quitters anyway) could have made that clear in any number of votes when it would have mattered.

3186

A United Ireland due to Brexit and a hard border = a return to The Troubles. Sinn Fein have demographics and time on their side, I’d hope that there are cooler and smarter heads in there to prevail over anything too precipitous, but with death of McGuinness, who bloody knows these days.

3187

There’s a letter in the Guardian today signed by 200 Jewish Labour supporters:

We believe that the Labour party under the progressive leadership of Jeremy Corbyn is a crucial ally in the fight against bigotry and reaction. His lifetime record of campaigning for equality and human rights, including consistent support for initiatives against antisemitism, is formidable. His involvement strengthens this struggle.

If you’re wondering about the initiatives against antisemitism, I’ve also seen this list doing the rounds on social media, spoilered for length - it’s obviously collected to show Corbyn in the best light, but nevertheless a useful reminder of some of the things he’s done:

Corbyn and antisemitism

  1. In October 1936, Jeremy Corbyn’s mother participated in the battle of Cable Street indefence of British Jews after British fascists had staged an assault on the area. Corbyn was raised in a household passionately opposed to antisemitism in all its forms.

  2. In 23rd April 1977, Corbyn organised a counter-demonstration to protect Wood Green from a neo-nazi march through the district. The area had a significant Jewish population.

  3. On 7 November 1990, Corbyn signed a motion condemning the rise of antisemitism in the UK

  4. In 2002 Jeremy Corbyn led a clean-up and vigil at Finsbury Park Synagogue which had been vandalised in an anti-Semitic attack

  5. On 30 April 2002, Corbyn tabled a motion in the House of Commons condemning an anti-Semitic attackon a London Synagogue

  6. On 26 November 2003, Jeremy Corbyn signed a Parliamentary motion condemning terrorist attacks on two synagogues

  7. In February 2009, Jeremy Corbyn signed a parliamentary motion condemning a fascist for establishing a website to host antisemitic materials

  8. On 24th March 2009, Corbyn signed a Parliamentary motion praising British Jews who resisted the Holocaust by risking their lives to save potential victims

  9. Nine years ago, Corbyn signed a Parliamentary motion praising “Jewish News” for its pioneering investigation into the spread of Antisemitism on Facebook

  10. On 9 February 2010, Corbyn signed a Parliamentary motion calling for an investigation into Facebook and its failure to prevent the spread of antisemitic materials on its site.

  11. On 27 October 2010, Corbyn signed a Parliamentary motion praising the late Israeli Prime Minister for pursuing a two state solution to the Israel/Palestine question.

  12. On 13 June 2012, Corbyn sponsored and signed a motion condemning the BBC for cutting a Jewish Community television programme from its schedule.

  13. 1 October 2013, Corbyn appeared on the BBC to defend Ralph Miliband against vile antisemitic attacks by the UK press.

  14. Five years ago Corbyn signed a Parliamentary motion condemning antisemitism in sport.

  15. On 1 March 2013, Corbyn signed a Parliamentary motion condemning and expressing concern at growing levels of antisemitism in European football.

  16. On 9 January 2014, Jeremy Corbyn signed a Parliamentary motion praising Holocaust education programmes that had taken 20,000 British students to Auschwitz.

  17. On 22 June 2015, Corbyn signed a Parliamentary motion expressing concern at the neo-nazi march being planned for an area of London with a significant Jewish population.

  18. On 9 October 2016, Corbyn, close to tears, commemorated the 1936 Battle of Cable Street and recalled the role his mother played in defending London’s Jewish community.

  19. On 3 December 2016, Corbyn made a visit to Terezin Concentration Camp when Jewish people were murdered by the Nazis. It was Jeremy’s third visit to such a camp, all of which were largely unreported in the most read UK papers.

  20. Last year, a widely-endorsed 2018 academic report found ninety-five serious reporting failures in the reporting of the Labour Antisemitism story with the worst offenders The Sun, the Mail & the BBC.

  21. On 28 February 2016, five months after becoming leader, Jeremy Corbyn appointed Baroness Royall to investigate antisemitism at Oxford University Labour Club.

  22. On 27 April 2016 Corbyn suspended an MP pending an investigation into antisemitism.

  23. A day later, Corbyn suspended the three times Mayor of London after complaints of antisemitic comments.

  24. On 29 April 2016, Corbyn launched an inquiry into the prevalence of antisemitism in the Labour Party. In spite of later changes in how the inquiry was reported, it was initially praised by Jewish community organisations.

  25. In Corbyn’s first seven months as leader of the Labour Party, just ten complaints were received about antisemitism. 90% of those were suspended from the Labour Party within 24 hours.

  26. In September 2017, Corbyn backed a motion at Labour’s annual conference introducing a new set of rules regarding antisemitism.

  27. In the six months that followed the introduction of the new code of conduct, to March 2018, 94% of the fifty-four people accused of antisemitism remained suspended or barred from Labour Party membership. Three of the fifty-four were exonerated.

  28. When Jennie Formby became general secretary of the party last year, she appointed a highly-qualified in-house Counsel, as recommended in the Chakrabarti Report.

  29. In 2018, Labour almost doubled the size of its staff team handling investigations and dispute processes.

  30. Last year, to speed up the handling of antisemitism cases, smaller panels of 3-5 NEC members were established to enable cases to be heard more quickly.

  31. Since 2018, every complaint made about antisemitism is allocated its own independent specialist barrister to ensure due process is followed.

  32. The entire backlog of cases outstanding upon Jennie Formby becoming General Secretary of the Labour Party was cleared within 6 months of Jennie taking up her post.

  33. Since September 2018, Labour has doubled the size of its National Constitutional Committee (NCC) – its senior disciplinary panel – from 11 to 25 members to enable it to process cases more quickly.

  34. Under Formby and Labour’s left-run NEC, NCC arranged elections at short notice to ensure the NCC reached its new full capacity without delay.

  35. Since later 2018, the NCC routinely convenes a greater number of hearing panels to allow cases to be heard and finalised without delay.

  36. In 2018, the NEC established a ‘Procedures Working Group’ to lead reforms in the way disciplinary cases are handled.

  37. The NEC adopted the IHRA working definition of antisemitism and all eleven examples of antisemitism attached to it.

  38. A rule change agreed at Conference in 2018 means that all serious complaints, including antisemitism, are dealt with nationally to ensure consistency.

  39. Last year, Jennie Formby wrote to the admins and moderators of Facebook groups about how they can effectively moderate online spaces and requested that any discriminatory content be reported to the Labour Party for investigation.

  40. Since last year, no one outside Labour’s Governance and Legal Unit can be involved in decision-making on antisemitism investigations. This independence allows decisions free from political influence to be taken.

(I hope it would go without saying, but: of course more could and should be done about antisemitism in Labour, and that anyone making antisemitic comments should be ejected from the party without mercy. I don’t want to give the impression that I think all is well and we should rest on our laurels, it is obviously something that requires eternal vigilance.)

3188

I could talk at length about JVL and CPLD members on that letter but perhaps these two examples might give a better clue.

Are Candace Owens and Blacks 4 Trump representative of their minority groups?

Edit: with British Jewish support of Corbyn around 12% it matches American black support of Trump at 10-15%

3189

I don’t think I understand this line. Why would there be a hard border if Ireland was united? Or did you mean a hard border between the newly-united Ireland and the island of Britain?

I’m really enjoying the conversation between you guys, though I confess I’m only following about a third of the acronyms.

3190

Heh, yeah, same here. I just make up shit in my head. Like when someone upthread said someone was a RoI party, I read that as “Return on Investment” party. That sounds like an alright party, you know?

3191

A united Ireland that results from a hard border*

It’s not really known outside Ireland, but it was Unionists (supporting the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland) in the 1910s that set up the first paramilitary organisation and began to engage in violence in anticipation of the whole island of Ireland gaining home rule (effectively self-determination while remaining part of the Empire). They threatened rebellion despite Home Rule being supported by the British Government at the time.

There are still unionist paramilitary organisations, they’ve handed very few of their weapons backs, and they would die rather than become part of a united Ireland.

Sinn Fein = SF = The main Catholic/United Irish party. They’re the most widely supported party in Northern Ireland (NI) and due to demographics (Catholics have far bigger families than protestants), they’re sitting happy knowing that their support is only growing. Due to gerrymandering, they’ve traditionally been less represented in politics than they should have been but that’s started to change. Sinn Fein is an all-ireland political party and also runs in elections in the Republic of Ireland (RoI, colloquially ‘the south’).

Historically they had very little support in southern Ireland, but in the last election gained 14%. The ruling party gained 25% by comparison. They were poised to become kingmakers in the 2020 election but

A) the legislative stalemate in Northern Ireland has made them look ineffective and more interested in posturing and grandstanding than governing

&

B) their actions in the south have very much become “bemoan anything the governing party is doing without ever introducing credible alternatives”.

As such, they’re under some internal pressure to start looking and acting like they can govern if they want to perform well in the next set of elections.

Does that help at all?

3192

Although the Irish volunteers were formed in 1913 after the creation of the Ulster volunteers, it’s membership included militarised rebel organisations dating back to the 18th century. Of course it is fair to describe such organisations as freedom fighters, but the story is somewhat more complex than you make out.

Your next assertion is more clearly untrue, the DUP achieved more votes than SF in both 2017 elections. The assembly results give the two parties almost equal seat counts on almost equal vote counts. The General results do give DUP a disproportionate number of seats, but that’s typical of fptp. In any case if you just look at DUP vs SF, moving one seat across would actually overstate the SF vote. Similarly if you look at nationalist/unionist. If there has been gerrymandering by the independent boundary commission during the Blair government, it has been remarkably ineffective.

In short, @kedaha is a liar. Do not trust what he says.

3193

SF earned 1200 less votes in 2017 than DUP. Considering the ongoing demographic changes ( and the implosion of the SDLP), it’d be a bit strange to argue that they aren’t the most widely supported party in NI.

I very clearly used the word paramilitary organisation. Previous rebellions (and the forces involved) were very different from the paramilitary Irish Volunteers and Ulster Volunteers.

I also said that Northern Ireland had been gerrymandered in the past - which is true. A quick Google of the term shows it generally being used in relation to Northern Ireland up until it became a hot topic in the USA in recent years. I mean, the shape of Northern Ireland is precisely because of gerrymandering - as much area of Ulster as possible in the 1920s without threatening a protestant political majority.

And it isn’t as if the DUP aren’t still engaging in it either.

This is what Northern Ireland would have looked like if only protestant majority areas had have formed Northern Ireland in 1924/25

It was considered by both Ulster Unionists and the British Conservatives that Ulster needed as much space and population as possible to remain viable as a rump state. They then engaged in blatant gerrymandering for most of the history of Northern Ireland to entirely disenfranchise Catholics. The gerrymandering of Derry is quite literally a textbook example used in university political science classes.

3194

Well, Labour loses another MP.

The next big hope for change is next week, when the Cooper amendments is voted on again. This may force yet more resignations from the government, as patience is running thin (850 hours to go!).

And I will eat some sort of hat-shaped object, and send pictures to @kedaha, if SF take their seats any time in the next decade (of course I don’t discount things changing on longer timescales).

I’d give higher odds of NI more longer having any seats in the UK Parliament… and I agree with @kedaha’s assessment of a hard border fostering sentiment for a united Ireland, and the return to the Troubles that would ensue. I can’t speak to the historical assessment.

3195

Good luck to foreigners or 2nd + generation emigres trying to figure out Ireland’s politics :) I would gently suggest not trying to make any sweeping generalizations unless you live there, its genuinely a very complex scene.

Oh and as your question was not answered @Rock8man ROI= Republic of Ireland , the country in the south of Ireland which will be staying as part of the EU. NI= Northern Ireland, the country in the North of Ireland which is park of the UK and would leave if Brexit occurs. I am sure you figured it out but just in case.

Anyway I saw the extra Labour MP resigning the party. Its at times like these that Corbyn’s short term blind stubbornness (a trait he shares with May) pisses me off.

This is absolutely the weakest two leaders of Labour & Conservative parties at the same time I have seen in my lifetime.

3196

IMO they are weak by intent. This is a case where strong leadership probably means political suicide. So they’re being guided by unenlightened self-interest.

3197

Sounds more than plausible sadly :( They have done the political calculus and decided being a pooh stick is preferable to being a fish I guess.

3198

Not claiming to be an expert on the intricacies of NI politics (I left at a young age) - many of my family still there begrudgingly vote for SF as the alternative is splitting the vote and letting the damn awful DUP in everywhere. My family just want to get on with their lives in peace and it’s a shame there is no credible alternative to vote for.

3199

In my college days I joined the youth wing of one of the Irish political parties out of curiousity. Stayed in touch, went to national conferences, that kind of thing. Have met a good few DUP councillors and MLAs at various events and they have universally been contemptible human beings, and it’s not as if Irish politicians in general aren’t more than a bit craven (and I’ve plenty of experience there).

Theresa May giving them veto power was when I knew the UK and any sort of negotiated Brexit was screwed.

3200

@Jonah @kedaha yup, I think our shared stories would probably go on for pages :) Its a complex scene thats for sure.

In other news, this one is a short watch. Corbyn should be focused on changing this perception that now exists under his leadership.

3201

Possibly 4 more Labour MP’s tomorrow, but the Westminster gossip pipeline is so crazy at the moment so who knows.

Two of Corbynisms most feared political enemies and long standing targets for his most devoted followers, quiz show host and magnificent eye candy Rachel Riley and soap actress Tracy Ann Obermann have now initiated legal proceedings against some of the worst of the them, as they’ve been running a concerted hate and abuse campaign against these two women for the last year or so.

3202

Fwiw, I appreciate you all sharing your stories. It’s damn hard to get any context for another place’s politics and factions and history, and anyone sharing here is helping the rest of us out :)

3203

Rachel Riley is basically a host on a quiz show, and her speciality is doing maths problems really fast and generally being very brainy and very pretty. Its a daytime quiz show that old people like called Countdown, and theres also a funny comedian panel version on Friday evenings.

Until she decided to speak up about the abuse her m8 Tracy was getting she has been completely apolitical, but now she needs guards.