That Starmer fella...

Is there not a world where Guardian headlines of ‘cull of left wingers’ is an intended outcome of the last few days - it feeds into the Leaderships narrative of a changed party for good.

@andyp is right about deselections - a criticism of Corbyn was that he didn’t have the factional ruthlessness that Keir has shown and didn’t weaken the right enough. Although difficult as the left of the party has always been a relatively small part of the PPL.

Factionalism is rife in both left and right wing parties in the UK because of the two party system - as mentioned earlier under an alternative voting system factionalism would probably be replaced by multiple smaller parities.

EDIT: Just caught up on the GE thread and we can probably leave this as it's been done to death there as well.

All this stuff about deselecting left wing candidates, well doesn't it show that the parties are simply too big? Maybe in this day and age, there isn't much in the way of common ground between right and left anymore. Starmer makes Dennis Healey look like Robespierre and would be deselected now. All the more reason to pressure Labour to jettison our
crap electoral system.

Maybe in this day and age, there isn't much in the way of common ground between right and left anymore

I think there’s a surprising amount of crossover, you just have to get into the weeds a bit. There are liberal conservative arguments for collective bargaining, common ownership, green energy, affordable housing (inc. rent control), and public ownership of utilities. All can be seen as balancing forces to maintain a multipolar competitive settlement, which is a fairly central tenet of liberalism.

A large problem with the Conservative Party and much of the Labour right is that they’re not actually (small c) conservatives, or principled liberals at all.

So Diane Abbott is free to run now? Hopefully she stays away from liking any tweets in the next month

It feels like this is the reset to me. She'll be free to stand, she'll decide not to, she'll get gushing praise from all concerned, dignified end to her career, everyone's a winner.

What an almighty mess tho eh.

Apparently that was the original agreement but then both sides didn't really stick to it and we had the mess. So maybe she won't resign

https://www.newstatesman.com/politics/2024/05/faiza-shaheen-row-helps-keir-starmer

Interesting article. Brutal if so. Goes beyond realpolitik, given the forecast, easy win for Labour.

Creates uncomfortable questions in either case. By design, it suggests something of a moral vacuum at the head of the party (to borrow from Sir Humphrey.) Trying to quell factional infighting with capricious and publicly, vindictive purges of members / candidates that don't wholeheartedly align with the leadership only sows the seeds of deeper grievance. I'd also consider that the type of personalities that would endorse such strategy, are exactly the type that will end up turning on each other, as soon as it's to their advantage in the future.

If by accident, then what a bloody facepalm. Deeply unedifying stuff.

Thing is, Faiza,although a brilliant candidate, was hardly a household name outside of the local east london party and a few left wing groups. Surely deliberately kicking her out just to seem tough to Tory voters both creates a stink, alienates your base, upsets activists and any labour branch that's had candidates imposed on them, and possibly looses you a seat. As well as that, it publicises to those you want to look tough to that there are still a core of left wingers within your party that they may not have known about and that vehemently disagree with the direction you're heading in and makes you look like you are just a careerist politician who'll say and do and old shit to get power, but has no real principles. Then on top of that letting Diane Abbot stand as well after all the noise around that, when she is really quite high profile and for whatever reasons rather unpopular for some and seen as crazy left wing by others, and very close to Corbyn etc just makes you look weak and like you're scared of her profile. The messaging just seems confused, chaotic and makes Labour look mean.

If Diane Abbot chooses to stand, surely that gives Labour a complete week of headlines over Sunak/Tories being funded by the deplorable Frank Hestor

it publicises to those you want to look tough to that there are still a core of left wingers within your party

I don't think the people they are chasing will look that deeply or be that intellectually engaged.

In which case why bother? There's only a rump of left wingers left in the parliamentary party anyway; even if they vote against Starmer occasionally they can't do much damage if they get any sort of majority at all.

a moral vacuum at the head of the party

Yes

Because starmer doesn't want internal conflicts while in power like the last few years of Tory mayhem

Same approach as Johnson, worked well for him

Edit: although to be fair he filled the party with headbangers rather than those of his personal political persuasion

The think with the Tories is they had all that. Inflict because of the fact the last 2 leaders were so weak. If Johnson wasn't such a fuck up personally he would have remained in control surely, such was his popularity. So I suppose the fact Starmer seems to want to purge suggests he knows that, probably due to his personal unpopularity, he is a weak leader leading a party that despite the fact it is miles ahead in the poles is actually in a relatively fragile position. They are only really ahead due to the ineptitude of the Tories and the fact that after 14 years EVERYone is sick of them, even natural Tory voters. It's hardly a recipe for success. I'm not fan of Blair, but at least when he first won in 97 there was a sense of positivity and hope, at least until the Iraq shit show. I see and personally feel non of that now, not with anyone really and not even personally as a Labour member. Faiza would have been my MP, I was all ready to start canvassing for her this week and I was excited about her being MP. I feel non of that now, I'm just fucked off with Starmer and the party now and feel no enthusiasm at all., especially after a having a pro Starmer candidate from outside the area dropped on us. I can't see any local members campaigning for Labour at all now. You can't afford to fuck of your membership indefinitely, surely? After all, Starmer owes his position to them. I'm just fucked off really

Honda Civic obviously

I assume you mean the peerage thing? Diane Abbott has stated she was never offered one and I think Yvette cooper laughed it off too

[Johnson] such was his popularity.

In what sense? With the party members? Definitely. With the party? I'm not sure. With the public? Not really.

The point with Johnson was that he erased any decent from those who raised any questions in relation to Brexit, because he wanted no barriers to that one issue. Otherwise I don't really think he believed he would ever be brought down. Remember how long it took him to go?

I might be a bit out of it, but how many left wing labour MPs have been suspended or deselected? Is this list accurate or are there a lot more? https://labourlist.org/2024/05/suspended-expelled-quit-who-are-the-mps-sitting-without-the-labour-whip/?amp

Personally I don't see him as a weak leader. He's dealt with the antisemitism issue in the public and presses mind. He's set a tone with things like currygate. And he's batted back the SNP Gaza trap while keeping party discipline. Overall given the clusterfuck he started with, he looks to have done a solid job in a short period of time.

The Times is either getting leaked a lot of false stories about Labour, making things up or the people involved are lying

I trust the times slightly less than politicians.

The Times is either getting leaked a lot of false stories about Labour, making things up or the people involved are lying

A rumour I've seen floating around Twitter is that the Murdoch press offered support for Labour in exchange for not doing Leveson 2.0. The rumour is they refused - and the barrage of stories last week was the response.

Also, daft (now deleted) tweet from Abbott last night - 'more lies from Starmer'. I had a lot of sympathy for her but I'm finding it wane rapidly.

I lost all my sympathy when she wore mismatching shoes on election day.

I'm sure people on here will dismiss that and recount all the times they've gone to work with mismatching shoes on a critically important day for their career. But it's that sort of shit that makes it impossible to defend her irl to real people.

Fuck off.

She's a grown adult, she can wear what the fuck she wants.

Or half of what she wants. I'd forgotten about that and it was silly, the kind of thing that endears someone to me TBH, but also the kind of thing someone really should've noticed before cameras were involved.