That Corbyn fella...

Asked whether he backed Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, he said: “I’ve never met him. I don’t know … I think he speaks well and I admire that.”

Christ…

I don't know why the electorate took such a scunner to the lad tbh

It was a slightly different question. He was asked whether he admired him, not whether he backed him. Not sure at what point that changed.

Asked if he admired President Zelensky of Ukraine, Corbyn replied: “I’ve never met him. I don’t know.” After John Pienaar, the interviewer, responded: “Well, I’ve never met him and I admire him, do you admire him?” Corbyn said: “I think he speaks well, and I admire that.”

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2022/jul/19/antisemitism-factional-weapon-labour-party-forde-report-finds

Independent QC finds exactly what we all knew at the time but media and their right-wing feeders conspired to cover up SHOCKER. I, for one, am astounded. Doubtless there will be repercussions.

FTR, what the Forde report has uncovered can get you expelled from the Labour Party at the moment under Stalin's leadership. Caught red-handed and still trying to squirm. We see you.

I look forward to the individuals who sent WhatsApp messages containing disgusting discriminatory language and those individuals who cynically used antisemitism as a means of attacking Jeremy Corbyn being fully disciplined and ejected from the party without further hesitation.

As that is surely what will happen now, yes?

Stalin???

Do you even hyperbole, bro?

Just taking a lead from what's obviously your side, bro.

E2a: the only Labour leader who's engaged in purges in the last 20 years is Keir Starmer. So yeah, the name fucking fits.

Hollow laugh.

This will be forgotten as quickly as the Chilcott Report. Anyone remember that?

My side? Obviously?

I don’t have a side, just think references to Stalin and talk of purges are infantile and unhelpful.

Well, apologies if you aren't identifying with one particular faction.

But the fact remains: the faction in charge currently is engaged in the kind of purges (real, not imagined) that would have been labelled 'Stalinist' had they been practised by the former leadership. Any talk of reselection was labelled 'Stalinist' by the Labour right and gratefully regurgitated by their mates in the media. So yeah, I'm happy to continue using the previously accepted vernacular where it applies.

E2a: did you think such language was infantile and unhelpful when it was being wielded back then and, if so, were you vocal about it? Genuine question. Because if not, you don't have an argument here.

Also E2a: I'm sorry; I don't know you from Adam. You may have no skin in this game. But I do. I was disbarred from the 2016 leadership election because my anonymous Twitter account referred to 'centrist morons' and the Labour staffers clearly spent time investigating tweets to tie them to members. It stank at the time, but no one believed us. So yeah, I'm a bit touchy about this.

Apology appreciated but as your first response to not unconditionally accepting your viewpoint was to go down the tribal route which does no one any favours, perhaps have a think first?

Sorry, just seen you edited your post. I think use of phrases such as Stalinist infantile, whether or not I’ve challenged in in the past doesn’t effect whether or not I think it applies.

Sorry, you’ve edited again!! Thank you for the detail, do understand your perspective better.

This will be forgotten as quickly as the Chilcott Report. Anyone remember that?

The Standard repeatedly ran Corbyn antisemitism stories during the last GE campaign. Maybe this will give some anti Labour ammunition to the aspirants to the Tory party leadership? Convenient time for them to release the report if it does...

Timing does look as if it’s not coincidental

No no no. The current Labour leadership has been engaged in an amazingly intelligent and strategically brilliant game of 5D chess in which it appears to both endorse and oppose the current Government so as to outwit it and its own current supporters at the same time. They would never make the faux pas of releasing a report right into the hands of the opposition at a crucial time to gift them a break...

... or maybe they would. Pretty much all they've ever been any good at anyway.

Sorry, you’ve edited again!! Thank you for the detail, do understand your perspective better.

Yeah, I'm prickly, so I wanted to make it absolutely clear why. No offence intended, but I've spent the best part of six years being called a crank, a crazy and a conspiracy theorist by 'sensible moderates', so I'm being a bit scatter-gun in my responses to things this evening. Thanks for the leeway and apols again.

The reports I've read blames both sides. Is that not the case?

Insofar as one side spuriously accused the other of antisemitism without any evidence and the other side said 'no, that's bollocks', yes.

Otherwise no. While any report by a QC is going to try and find some kind of middle ground, the fact there is overwhelming evidence for one faction's wrongdoing detailed in the report and merely unevidenced reference to the other faction's wrongdoing speaks volumes.

What's genuinely revealing about the report is that it seeks to 'both sides' things as much as possible (if this sounds a bit Trumpian, that's because it is). But it fails, most notably because it has an embarrassment of evidence against one side and a paucity of evidence against the other.

How could both sides try and use antisemitism for their own factional purposes? Like, as if those on the left would even go near that shit. Honestly.

In fairness, it does reveal one element of 'both sides', in that one of them was trying to win elections for Labour and the other clearly was trying to lose them.

Maybe I'll read the report and get a better view. I suspect I'll find other things to keep me busy.

Well, quite. I mean, don't bother if you don't want to know why the current Labour leadership's team engaged in nefarious practices to throw two general elections. A mere bagatelle.

And yet they now want us to trust them and vote for them. Just fancy that.

Interestingly the Forde report says that AS was both a problem in the party and used as a weapon, yet Corbyn was ejected from the party for saying the same.

We get your passion, it’s absolute heartfelt, but not everyone is feeling it. And the how is as important as the what if people are going to meaningfully engage rather than think “there’s no room here for me”.

Sneering at anyone who doesn’t agree with you isn’t going to help to win hearts and minds, indeed it only going to discourage the ‘undecideds’ and we do know where that leads.

I'm doing anything but sneer at people who don't agree with me. All I'm doing is pointing to an independent report that states unequivocally one side of the Labour party colluded with the media to undermine its own chances at two previous general elections and funnelled campaign money away from winnable seats (which could have changed the result) and towards safe seats held by MPs from their own faction.

Why that isn't a fucking national scandal is beyond me. I don't give two hoots whether people aren't feeling it. It's a fucking disgrace. Essentially the people in charge of the Labour Party currently figured diamond-hard Brexit and Boris Johnson was a price worth paying for them taking back control of the party. Fuck those cunts.

E2a: I mean, do you reckon the last five years have been worth it? Just to get a Brylcreemed nonentity and his coterie of mooing Blairite 90s tribute wankers back in charge of the opposition?