UKH

Following on from the archived thread.

This post sort of confirmed my previous post, that ANYTHING Corbyn did would be seen as heresy for some people.

My post > How many other MPs work at a food bank doing a regular shift EVERY week. Of course that's not proper work is it?

Quote Summo

"People don't want an mp or leader of a party who works in a food bank, they should be so busy doing parliamentary work that they don't have time.  They should be leading from the front trying to improve things, not just ranting at the world how everything is wrong, that's the voters job, the MPs job is to fix it. "

4 likes, 1 dislike.

So I was wondering what people really expect of their MPs?

Do you expect them to work every hour possible doing "parliamentary work" to the extent of eliminating, working in their local constituency, integrating with their own constituents and maybe learning about life in general?

Do some people want our MPs to be so involved in "parliamentary work" that they have no time for anything else?

Are our MPs only to have contact with thir constituents who have the time, knowledge and wherewithal to actually get in touch with their MPs?

I've said this before but it's worth stating again, I've ended up defending someone I don't particularly think was a great leader for Labour, but as a person and a representative for his constituents, I find him hard to fault. This is especially true if you look at other MPs "jobs" outside of parliament, many of which seem to be very highly paid for not much work, and it's hard to see it isn't an opportunity to gain influence.

Corbyn's work in a food bank is a disgrace, the disgrace being there is a NEED for food banks in our society. That post and the likes for it, confirmed my ideas that, when it comes to Corbyn logic and thought go out the window, the bile and hatred overtakes some people and they enter "Troll Mode" without the merest perception of hypocrisy, it's a sad old world. because this is the attitude of the mob, condemned without recourse to defence, it's this attitude which makes sure any accusations stick and we then have our perceptions coloured by any outside influence, whether that the opposition, or the media, or simply haters.

Since when did helping people become such a bad thing. I've heard the same arguments against feeding kids during the holidays, it's sad and sickening.

We deserve the parliament we have with these attitudes and vilification of people doing good works, but it's not first time "Bloody Do-Gooders" have been the object of vilification.

You're looking at this completely the wrong way.
One of the benefits of being the 5th richest country in the world is that we have foodbanks to help feed the 15 million people living in poverty.  Don't forget that 5 million of them are children.

The system works!!!

I'm hoping you we being sarcastic, but just in case, should we be having people living in poverty?

I'd like my MP to stop sticking his head up Boris's arse to further his career. Useless tw*t.

All Corbyn needed to do was broadly accept the report instead of going on about how his political enemies have exaggerated anti-Semitism in Labour. He was the one who chose to divide Labour (yet again).

Given the thread title, I was hoping for a thread about his brother Piers' descent into the 5G, anti-vax, anti-mask, anti-lockdown madness.  I gather he was fire breathing during the latest protest in London, and he's been racking up the arrests and fines.

Frankly a far more interesting and relevant story than Jeremy's compounding of his failures by failing to fade gracefully from his shit-stained limelight.  These organised protests are calling out for some investigating journalism in to which particular enemies of our state are fuelling them.  It'd be ironic if Piers is ultimately working for the Koch family but not at all surprising given his long history of climate change denialism.

Mine too. Safe seat, parachuted in, zero interest in her constituency.  Yes, Ruth Edwards. Don't look away,  I'm talking to you 

That is a funny way of looking at it and follows the current logic of some Boris fans that failure equals success.

I grew up without food banks because there was no need for them. If large sections of your society depend upon charity to live then that is a failing. The foodbanks are not government issue. The benefit of being one of the 5th richest nations is that we shouldn't need food banks

Not really what I'm talking about here, but I agree, though, if you are being blamed for something and you don't think it's your fault, or a false accusation, do you just suck it up?

Obviously, politicly that might be the best thing to do, but then you're tarred with a brush that you think isn't correct.

Interesting video here, https://www.doubledown.news/watch/2020/29/october/-i-lost-39-members-of-my-...

Again you post, sort of confirms the reason for my OP, no fan of Corbyn, but you've used his brother to criticise Jeremy.

The fact that JC works a shift per week on a food bank is to his credit. But I'd like MPs to do 40 hours a week, 47 weeks a year working, like the rest of us.

Ditto here, Prentiss, sadly not Victoria.

Take it that way if you like.  I rather thought the criticism of each brother stood alone and was independent of the other, but there you go.

Frankly I'm a lot more concerned with Piers using his share of the limelight to undermine public health on the very day we hit crisis point than I am by anything Jeremy has left to give, and at this point Piers can cause more harm to the country.  These protests are exactly the kind of place where idiots are going to cause super-spreading events that accelerate the pandemic.

It's a question of priorities.  MPs, particularly party leaders, have influence and power. Using their time on "small" things means fewer opportunities to use their power to make bigger differences, in this instance  perhaps winning an election and removing the need for food banks. Similarly Corbyn spent a lot of time talking to minority pressure groups but very little to the population at large. 

Is feeding people a "small" thing, besides that he's doing this in his own time, are you suggesting MPs shouldn't have their "own" time.

And what about MPs with three or four jobs?

It seems to me people are happy for MPs, mainly Tories but no exclusively, to have plenty of lucrative "extras" as consultants and non-executives, but god forbid helping feed people!!

It's how I end up defending Corbyn, because there seem to me, at least, to be massive double standards here.

At least in Corbyn case, he's actually meeting people in his constituency, you know the people he represents.

I'm trying to examine this without my own politic getting in the way, why does anything he does invite ridicule and criticism, from some people?

It is if you are doing it one by one when you have the power to potentially do it by the million.>>

I'm not sure part leaders do, really. It's a full time activity.

What about them?   Corbyn wasn't just an MP.  People are pretty vocal about Johnson being part time, and rightly so.

"People don't want an mp or leader of a party who works in a food bank, they should be so busy doing parliamentary work that they don't have time."

But he isn't actually working at the food bank is he... He is meeting his constituents, trying to understand the individual issues they face: he is "working" there to enrich his ability to fulfil his role  as an MP.

And in the meantime, we let people go hungry? What do you do today for the mother who can't afford to feed her kids.

He's still doing it, and he was doing it before he became leader, but you seem to be focusing on his time as leader.

But he is now, just an MP that is. Fair enough about Johnson.

Of course, which is why I started this thread, what better way to "know" what you constituency needs than by helping those most in need.

It's part of what I don't understand, why people see this as something to beat him up with.

It simply seems people hate him no matter what, or pull out some twisted logic to dislike what is in effect charity work.

It seems to me these are things Corbyn does because that's how he is, not for a photo op or to get him elected, he just does stuff he thinks helps people. And he gets vilified for it, I really can't get my head around it.

Completely agree.

Pretty much agree.

Corbyn seems like a nice enough bloke.  As I understand it he is good good constituency MP.  However his leadership ability scores negative.  So many examples.  I can’t help but blame him for the fact that he is obviously unelectable as PM and therefore it’s partly down to him that we have this lot in charge.  I know that maybe unreasonable but it is how I feel.  

I found his playing the victim the other day quite difficult to take, for those who have rightly complained about anti semitism, it just makes it seem like he is more concerned about himself. 

As we do have food banks, it’s nice that he is there.  

Should we need food banks? No.  That isn’t Corbyn’s fault though.  

I don’t know if you remember this.  It’s quite funny but worryingly true.  

youtube.com/watch?v=s2dNEQiHUUo&

'Corbyn seems like a nice bloke.' Funny; every time I've heard him or seen him he seemed to be petulant, peevish, vindictive, self pitying and self righteous.

Surely the time to get his point across was during the EHRC investigation? Once it was completed and the findings were published he should've sucked it up and maybe, just maybe, considered that he might have been in the wrong.

Re your food bank point, I think it's good that he does some voluntary work and I doubt it's preventing him from fulfilling his duties as an MP. I think at the moment he's suffering from 'bitch eating crackers' syndrome and being slagged off for anything and everything, which is daft because there's plenty of valid reasons to criticise him, like his appalling leadership.

My MP works his arse off.

If he's not in parliament he's in his constituency organising, advocating and generally trying to make life better for his constituents. All of them, not just those he thinks voted for him. On top of that, before Covid, he was out knocking on doors and chatting to people every Saturday morning.

He doesn't have time to work in a food bank.

If your MP is a lazy bastard then make sure everyone knows that and ask them not to vote for them. We don't need to send useless people to parliament.

That's probably why he's working in a food bank, and supported Jews and Palestinians in the UK.

I'm not sure he was consulted, he might have been, but also, we don't know what he said or what was said to him. Like I said earlier, if I'm accused of something I thing isn't true, I don't think I just suck it up and keep my gob shut, especially as this would be something very dear to Corbyn's heart.

This link obviously has a opposite view of what the general media is portraying , https://www.doubledown.news/watch/2020/29/october/-i-lost-39-members-of-my-... 

And there's always been Jews prepared to defend Corbyn, so I've often wondered, are they deluded?

A lifelong anti-racist, I find it hard to believe Corbyn made an exception for Jewish people.

The thread was mainly about why some people seem to hate him for everything, regardless of what he's actually doing.

I can see how if some MP turns up at a food bank, or hospital, to help out and is there for an hour but then F's off and never helps again, this might be irksome, but he's not done that.

He started sometime ago and is continuing to help.

It was / is.

It would be a pretty silly way for someone who aspired to be the prime minister of one of the largest economies in the world to spend their time.

Now that he's been sacked, of course, no problem, I'm sure they could use an additional worker or two. And it will give him an interest, and an audience.

I would guess that the argument with the Equality and Human Rights Commission is over the definition of antisemitism that the EHRC used - namely the IHRC definition which states that to deny the Jewish people the right of self determination I.e. ague against the formation of Israel is racist. this definition is supported by some in the Labour Party and disagreed with by others, some of whom side with right of the Palestinians to return to their homeland. Given that, I can see why Corbyn wouldn’t want to agree with some of their findings. The IHRC definition would by default define any Jew who disagreed with the formation of Israel as being an anti semite. 

A food bank worker can change the lives of dozens of people. A party leader can change the lives of millions.

The very reason you are able to complain about Boris as PM is because you supported Corbyn as Labour party leader. With a stronger leader May or Johnson would never have won. The conservative party has arguably never been so weak or disliked, and they still grew their majority. 

The only reason there isn't a Labour government now is because of Corbyn, McDonnell, mccluskey and momentum. 

And Brexit. The only reason the North of England voted Tory was because of Brexit. 

What can't you get your head around? They've been told what to think by the newspapers. 

He only had to broadly agree with the report. His position around the IHRC definition is not uncommon on the left but it wasn't the reason Labour were so heavily criticised nor would he have been suspended over that.

In reply to Cobra_Head

I don't think Corbyn is anti-Semitic but so what, the report isn't about that is it?

The report categorically states that:

"Article 10 will protect Labour Party members who, for example, make legitimate criticisms of the Israeli government, or express their opinions on internal Party matters, such as the scale of antisemitism within the party, based on their own experience, and within the law".

He stated his opinion on the scale of anti-semitism within the party and was suspended. 

If the report says he's allowed to say it, and points out that it would probably be illegal (under article 10 of the Human rights act) to punish him for doing so, why should he bit express that opinion, and why are labour enacting a suspension that probably contravenes the human rights act? The sorry of intervention is very thing that they are accusing him of doing!

This is basically the situation 

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/nov/01/mr-corbyns-self-pity-...

Many members and former members of the Labour Party would disagree. See Luciana Berger in the times today (https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/luciana-berger-interview-im-still-hounde...).

Personally I think if you share a platform with known anti-semites and support causes associated with anti-semites then you should be labelled an anti-Semite I.e. Jeremy Corbyn was and is an anti-Semite.

If a politician on the right shared a platform with neo-nazis, supported neo-nazi causes they’d rightly be labelled as one. 

How people can defend him or even support him is really problematic.

They've been told that genuine empathy and a desire to change the world for the better is "unelectable" and they try their best to make sure that becomes the case by spreading the lie. You can only be "electable" if you cosy up to the corporate world and turn a blind eye to the injustices of society. The 13 million people who voted for Corbyn to be PM in 2017 were all wrong.

Can you give a  example of anyone saying that, or anything similar?

He did broadly agree with the report which is not surprising because the EHRC report broadly vindicates what came out in the Labour Leaks report. Only the corporate media gatekeepers of our opinions will spin it otherwise. 

It found three breaches of the Equality Act (2010) 

• failure to provide adequate training to those handling antisemitism complaints which is the responsibility of Corbyn's opponents in charge of the GLU.
• political interference in antisemitism complaints which turns out to be the GLU deliberately mishandling antisemitism complaints and the Leaders Office asking the GLU to sort out the mess caused by their mishandling and failure to provide adequate training. 
• harassment which is a total of two Labour Party members who went rogue but the Labour Party was legally responsible for (in the same way that if I went on a home visit and stole something then my employer would also have a legal responsibility for what had happened).

It didn't find that the Labour Party is institutionally antisemitic (which was the claim of Corbyn's opponents) and it did find improvements in the handling of antisemitism during the leadership of Jeremy Corbyn and Jennie Formby.

That is not about what the report says. Its a different (if related) problem. Currently he is suspended and I think too many people on both sides are assuming he will be found guilty before the investigation happens. All he needs to do to remain in Labour is broadly accept the findings of the report.

I'm very sympathetic to Luciana's views and am disgusted with the way she was treated by some in the party but many a misguided activist with peacemaking intent has stood alongside anti-Semites. That just might make them stupid rather than anti-Semitic. On a personal level Corbyn should have apologised about shared platforms with people who were clearly anti-Semitic long ago but the more importantly structural issues was Labour should never have allowed him to be leader without an apology and a clear position he would never support such views.

"He stated his opinion on the scale of anti-semitism within the party and was suspended."

No he did not he restated his opinion on the views of party opponents exaggerating anti-Semitism in Labour when he should have apologised on behalf of the party he led and stated his broad agreement on the serious level and nature of anti-Semitism described in the report and backed his leaders proposed actions.

If he agreed why did he publicly say what he said and not apologise and support the party position on the report?

Jeremy Corbyn...he just keeps popping up.

its like a Whack a Mole game.

Yesterdays politics anyone? Regressive ideas?....No thanks....WHACK!!

But here he is... jutting his scrawny neck out of another hole....

WHACK!!

These posts of yours are like getting political commentary from ken dodd. Why can't you stick to the dodgy 70s style slapstick jokes?

Jeremy Corbyn is a dodgy 70’s style slapstick joke.

Can't argue with that, except that he's become a very sick joke, and the country is currently suffering from, and will continue for many years to suffer from, the fallout of having had him as leader of the Labour Party.

He stated, quite clearly, that one anti-semite in the party was one too many, but that the problem in the party was not as widespread as many would have you believe. What sort of mental gymnastics are you going through to come to the conclusion that that is not an opinion on the scale of anti-semitism within the party?

Exhibit A:

https://www.thejc.com/comment/opinion/not-sure-why-that-mural-is-antisemiti...

Remind us all of Corbyn's reaction?

Exhibit B

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2018/aug/13/jeremy-corbyn-not-involved...

Though, to be fair, he can't remember whether he was there or not...

You mean MPs like that one who took money from the Iranian government to work as a host in their TV network - a network eventually banned in the U.K. for its role in interviewing prisoners who’d been tortured into confessions? Which MP could it possibly be? Not... saintly Mr Corbyn?!

Frankly, I blame Margeret Beckett. In an effort to have have a proper oxford union-esque debate, she enabled the self destruction of the modern labour party, and by implication, opened the door for Brexit and the extremists and disaster capitalists that pass for our current government. 

I don't think I can understate how much the rank and file voters in the north loathed and despised Corbyn personally ( rightly or wrongly - probably wrongly as he had , or thought he had, their best interests at heart, but had nothing in common with them). He was always going to fail away from his heartland, and I think everyone apart from the true believers knew that.

Can someone post a link to an example of the Labour Party anti-semitism we're talking about? 

See REWs links for starters. Then read about Luciana  Berger. Then Ken Livingstone. Then glance at momentum Twitter. Etc

Can't you just give me an example? 

Err, I just did. Several 

No you didn't. You referred me back to something else. Can you, MG, give me an example of Labour anti-semitism? An explicit example of one from your own experience, or a link to a specific example. 

You asked "Can someone post a link to an example.." so I gave you two from posts a couple higher, plus some other pointers. If you missed them, here is the first again. You'll have to scroll up all by yourself for the other.

https://www.thejc.com/comment/opinion/not-sure-why-that-mural-is-antisemiti...

Now you asking for personal experience, which is entirely different. I don't have that, not being Jewish or a Labour party member.

EDIT. Actually the delightful Ruth George my former MP:

"On 19 February 2019, after a Labour councillor suggested The Independent Group's financial backers were "Israelis" on Facebook, George responded that 'Support from the State of Israel, which supports both Conservative and Labour ‘Friends of Israel’ of which Luciana was chair is possible and I would not condemn those who suggest it, especially when the group's financial backers are not being revealed'. Acknowledging that she had invoked an antisemitic conspiracy theory, after criticism from Jewish groups, she apologised and withdrew her comment.[10][11][12]"

You still haven't given me an example of Jeremy Corbyn being anti-semitic, or the Labour Party being anti-semitic. You've said other people on this thread have said it, so that proves it. Give me an example of something anti-semitic Jeremy Corbyn said. 

Maybe because you keep moving the goal.posts? You haven't mentioned Corbyn until now!

Isn't that what we're talking about? It's in the thread title. So are you saying Jeremy Corbyn isn't anti-semitic? 

I was answering your questions! It would have been easier to ask about Corbyn to begin with if that's what you wanted to know. I think he is, as evidenced by his reaction to the mural and long close association with terrorist groups which murdered Jews.

OK. You don't actually have any examples of Corbyn or the Labour Party being anti-semitic. 

??? Are you reading my replies? Or do you regard associated Jews with shading money manipulation as just fine?

Are you reading mine? Give me an actual example of Corbyn saying something anti-semitic. 

No mental gymnastics at all... I cant stand Corbyn but his statement was classic political distraction avoiding answering the question he should have answered whilst stirring up trouble from his supporters... The question will be does he agree with the report? If he doesn't say yes (aside from technical definitions) in the investigation he cannot remain in the party.

This is pretty damning of Corbyn (https://www.thejlc.org/letter_to_jeremy_corbyn).

But as you’re a hard left fruit loop and an anti-Semite yourself I doubt you’ll take much of it on board.

"They don't understand irony". https://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/jeremy-corbyn-antisemitism-r...

"Give me examples of Labour antisemitism"

<given examples >

"No, personal examples "

<given example >

"No examples of Corbyn being antisemitic"

<given examples>

"No, examples of Corbyn saying things>

<given example>

"So there is nothing?"

Actions speak a thousand words? 

Accepting an expenses paid trip to a wreath laying ceremony commemorating terrorists, then denying you were even there despite the photos. The expenses the Islamists paid were coincidently just below the amount they have to publically declare, what's the chance of that. Whilst he tries to play the dumb granddad he's as slimey as the rest of them. 

Or when Chami(spelling) produced that report for him claiming Labour loved Jews she got a seat in the lords. Gravy train as much as any tory. 

He did publicly give comment that amounts to his broad agreement with the EHRC report. Why wouldn't he when,  despite all the pre planned corporate media spin, the report broadly vindicates his position. He has no need to apologise (though he probably would have done better to find a form of words where he apologised on behalf of his political opponents within the party during his time as leader).

The EHRC report finds that Corbyn inherited a party that had a culture that tolerated antisemitism, Corbyn had to battle his political opponents who were resisting change, and Corbyn's efforts to tackle antisemitism were bearing fruit by 2018.

Edit to add that the report finds no examples of toleration of antisemitic behaviour from Jeremy Corbyn himself. 

Must be difficult to read and comprehend your reasoned responses with patented "Jeremy" rose tinted goggles on and with heads buried like ostriches in the sand.

Question - do you consider yourself to be anti-Semitic?

I don’t understand how you can ignore the huge amount of evidence relating to JC’s actions without being anti-Semitic yourself.

Anti-semitism thrived in Labour whilst JC was party leader as he set such a poor example (I.e. by being an anti-Semite)

Im sure there was anti-semites in the party in the Blair and Miliband era, but they never really emerged from their caves because they knew their views wouldn’t be tolerated.

"Zionist" does not equal "Jew" and more than "Conservative" equals "Christian".

In fact, I would argue that attempting to equate the two is anti-semitic, as it attempts to de-legitamise the position of Jews who are not Zionists. Ascribing a political view to an entire ethnic group is descriminatory.

I would argue that failure to properly examine the truth of the levels of anti-semitism in all aspects of public life, as those who would scapegoat Corbyn are trying to do, is a far more serious betrayal.

The labour party had an institutional problem that predated his leadership. So do other political institutions. The press, the Tories and the right of the PLP have tried to focus everything on Corbyn and will now try to sweep the rest of it under the carpet. Which will not result in much of the societal change that is still required to root out descrimination. A more honest appraisal could advance that cause more significantly.

If Corbyn really had the best interests of the Labour Party at heart, he would have the self-awareness to recognise that his behaviour now, and his inability to quash the problems when he was leader of the Party, is not doing the Party any good. His time as leader is past, and he is unlikely to play any significant part in the party in the future. He may revert to his previous position of serial disloyalty to the Front Bench, but he is yesterday's man. Quite why energy is being expended on defending him by people who want to see a Labour Government is beyond me. 

I'm not sure what either of these examples have to do with his suspension now, for staying his opinion on the levels of anti-semitism within the labour party?

Yawn. Ask some questions, get insulted and accused. I haven't voted Labour for years, and I don't support Corbyn. But as far as I can see the main thrust is he didn't deny being anti-semitic strongly enough, therefore he is. In fact there's almost an argument that because he doesn't admit he is, then that proves he is. Which is much like a witch trial. Anyway, I don't care that much, so I'm out.

As for calling me an anti-semite, go f*ck yourself. 

Why is that? Aren't our MPs often accused of being in Ivory towers?

And I never thought of Corbyn as someone who's goal was to be prime minister, he was put forward for leader, he galvanised a lot of support, most people laughed at the idea, and yet he became a beacon for those left behind by years of Blair and Tory apathy. He's not like Johnson who's whole raison d'être was to be PM at whatever cost, and who is total disengaged from the realities of "normal" life, where £500,000 salary it not enough.

But what if, as I'm pretty certain he did, work there before becoming leader, if it's something the bloke wants to do, and it IS work, why is that an issue for you? What would you rather him do, in his spare time?

I'm still not sure the Tories have signed up to the EHRC definitions.

But that's not what you said originally "People don't want an mp or leader of a party who works in a food bank, they should be so busy doing parliamentary work that they don't have time. "

Are you saying, MPs shouldn't have an free time or a life outside of politics?

It seems like you'd end up with a pretty strange bunch of people running the country.

I'm not arguing about Which party grew their majority, I wondering what "work" would satisfy some people, and why working in a food bank is something to be vilified.

A food bank worker might be in a position to see life as it really is for some people, rather than what they think it might be. Most Tories give the impression that going to a food bank, is like some sort of Spa day. Maybe, if they worked there for a while it might enlighten them and change polices.

'But as far as I can see the main thrust is he didn't deny being anti-semitic strongly enough, therefore he is.'

No, it really isn't. Personally I think some of Corbyn's past actions have been more damning than he realises - the support for the caricature anti-Semitic mural was pretty dodgy for instance, that could have been a mural in Nazi Germany and it would have fitted right in, and for him not to see that was ignorant bordering on suspicious.

But his suspension is nothing to do with that. It it is to do with the inevitable effect his reaction was going to have; it was inevitably going to let the Tories squeeze yet more mileage out of the AS concerns, and add a nice dash of 'Labour party at war with itself' as well.

Was it really beyond him to maintain a dignified silence for just a few weeks,  for the good of the party and therefore - ultimately - for the good of all those constituents he purports to care so much about? Apparently it was.

Well that's my fear, I can understand him not being everyone's cup of tea, he's not mine, but I don't understand the hatred, or the fact working in a food bank, can be a bad thing.

It really rather doesn't look like it:

'https://www.islingtongazette.co.uk/news/jeremy-corbyn-s-day-working-at-a-fo...'

As cynical and superficial as anything Cummings could dream up. You've been had.

He did broadly agree with it, but he was accused of not doing much, I don't think that's true, and I would hope any one should be able to defend themselves against any accusations.

No you're right, but it's not always being reported that way, from what I've read of the report, and I've been busy, is there there were 70ish cases of people suggesting the accusations of AS were overblown, for which they we accused of being AS, and 2 cases of what seemed to be "true" anti-Semitism. There seemed to be a lot of anti-Corbyn people not doing as much as they could to process AS complaints, there by make matters worse.

That is exactly how it seems, I'm baffled, why people can't see through this.

I think the perpetrators of the Munich massacre would have been proud to have been described as anti Semitic.  

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-45170622

Corbyn claims he played no part, then if you scroll down through the article he's pictured holding the wreath that went on the terrorists graves. 

You still haven't said why you think Corbyn working in a food bank isn't work. "Corbyn has never actually WORKED in his life." 15:17 Fri

Turning up with a few councillors and a camera crew for a PR stunt isn't the same as working in food bank week in, week out. If it wasn't a stunt nobody would know he was even there. 

I think it's easy to lose sight of the real evidence in the blizzard of mis and disinformation as this whole episode has been weaponised into a stick to beat him (and the Labour party under his leadership) with. 

For example, whatever his failings as party leader over this issue, the allegation that Corbyn himself is personally antisemitic.  That's ridiculous.  I do, however, think he's a narcissist incapable of acknowledging his own failings or sincerely apologising, for anything.  (A personal quality for which he is, of course, not even remotely in the same league as Johnson et al.)

The sheer hypocrisy of many of those pointing at Corbyn and shouting 'racist', and of the Tories, post-Windrush, post-Grenfell, under the leadership of Boris Letterbox Pickaninny Watermelon Smile Johnson accusing the Labour party of institutional racism, has been absolutely mind boggling.

Well that's that yes, but In the last parliament British MPs earned £8.4 million on top of their salaries, according to data website Data Lobo, with 15 MPs earning more than half of that. So it's not just Corbyn, is it? And it not just a few quid for a TV show either.

Also, it's not really the point of the thread, I was wondering why working in a food bank isn't considered worthy, as many seen to suggest.

That's exactly what he's NOT doing, which once again proves the point I was trying to make, in your effort to dispel any iota of good within Corbyn, you're trying to suggest it was a PR stunt, he's been doing this EVERY week since March at least.

I agree if it was a one off for a newspaper then he'd be a wanker, but it isn't. The other people working there knew he was doing it.

I'm not sure any councillors turn up with him either.

Have you got a link for that? Because the link I included above - including a quote from the Great Man himself - implicitly suggests that he HASN'T been doing it regularly. Happy to be corrected.

You do seem to go out of your way to miss the point.  It's not about the money.  It's about working for what is essentially an enemy propaganda machine while a British MP.

“I read the Daily Mail, there was page after page of how evil I was, and I thought my God I wouldn’t want to live I the same street as this fella Corbyn, he’s obviously totally evil and bad news in every way”

-

Jeremy Corbyn

Are they really the enemy?

You seemed to be upset about him working in a food bank earlier, sorry I missed the point.

As I said: petulant, peevish, vindictive, self pitying and self righteous.

To which can be added: no wit, either.

Well it's more they see us as an enemy, and put considerable effort in  to spying, etc.  And recruiting gullible politicians for their propaganda.

I wasn't upset.  I just don't think its an effective way for a party leader to use their time.  The fact he lost the Brexit vote and two elections would seem to support this view.

The article in the Islington Gazette(link by mg up the thread) names the councillors and said he visited with them. It does not say this is Corbyn Saturday job since march and the councillors just visited. 

Even if true, why does an mp have a second job? Isn't there any work that only a constituency mp could carry out for him to get on with? Anyone can work in a food bank, but only an mp can represent their constituents in parliament. There are a few things happening at the moment for mps to be concerned about, tins of beans aren't one of them. 

I agree, but using the term Zionist to mean all (or almost all) Jews is exactly what antisemites do so they can claim they are only making a political point and not anti-Jewish.

I'm sure Corbyn doesn't believe he is antisemitic. But his anti-Israel position is so uncompromising that he classes anybody who doesn't agree with him, that it has no right to exist, as an enemy and other.

Some people on here are a lot more right wing than they would like to believe. Also, spin over substance has such a grip on UK politics now.

Ask his detractors for a critique of his policies and you'll rarely get one. If you do, it'll likely be "we don't have a magic money tree" or some other conservative soundbite.

You mean like getting out and meeting his constituents? Like at a ohh,food bank.

As for the "second job" FFS. Far better helping in a foodbank than being paid off by a special interest group via a "job".

If he's actually working at a food bank then he is not available for his constituents, except for those who are collecting food. Anyone else there would be effectively co-workers.

Does he expect anyone with a problem that requires his input to describe their problems in front of every Tom, Dick or Harriet that happens to drop in - what about confidentiality, not to mention distracting him from sorting food.

Your post is a litany of inane drivel, tying to divert from your original post support your original post on the other thread "Corbyn has never actually WORKED in his life." 15:17 Fri. But if he is working he shouldn't be!

"Corbyns never workd...."

"But he works here"

"but he shouldn't be...."

It's like some child's argument, "yeah, but...."

You obviously think getting first hand knowledge of people's needs isn't important, or that everyone that needs the help of their MP, should have the wherewithal to make an appointment and go to see him in person.

You deserve the parliament we have, and that lack of interest the majority of our MPs have in peoples daily lives.

It was a tweet from someone who works in the food bank too. "Even though he'd been expelled from the Party he still turned up as usually to help out at the food bank..."

It's not a second job is it, it's helping out in his own time.

There are a few things happening, but most MPs seem to be worrying about how much they can earn, not how much they can help others.

anyhow, you seem to be proving my point, that ANYTHING he did, if he was curing leapers, wouldn't be good enough for some people.

Our MPs should be working every hour of every day on parliamentary stuff, and have no time for anything else.

I guess you are proving mine too, it doesn't matter what he says or does, he'll always be the messiah to some. 

Just a quick question. In what way does the anti-semitism of Corbyn differ from his stance on Israels treatment of Palestine? Can we differenciate between a political stance on Israel's atrocities and genuine racism?

This is great! I cannot believe how hard it must have been to get this horde of children remember their lines!

CB

I've stated many times, I'm not a great fan of his, I simply don't understand how in some people's eyes he can do no right. Fred99 said he'd never worked a day in his life, which was the catylist for my post. Obviously he has worked, he worked hard for his constituents and  he doesn't seem to be a slouch outside of politics.

It's nothing to do with being a messiah, it to do with treating what seems like a genuine, honest and principled, kind person with some sort of respect. You don't have to like him to see he's trying to be helpful, and seems pretty selfless.

It's like the first time at the Cenotaph, everybody diving on his tie or his bowing, but while everyone else was eating their lunch, he was with the veterans, this didn't seem to mater to most people, he was being disrespectful, when in fact he was the only one NOT.

I'd also say that your expectations of our MPs is a bit fantastical and unrealistic.

Can you give an example of Corbyn's AS. We're supposed to be able to differentiate, even the IHRC definitions allow for criticism of the Israeli government.

Are you suggesting criticism of  Israel is AS?

You do realise simply being seen and speaking to people is doing a constituency MPs job and that, oddly enough, he might just be able to fit in the other work as well?

I hope you dont find out that some MPs have multiple directorships etc where they not only arent available for their constituents but may be passively encouraged to work against their interests.

There is a difference between criticising Israel's dire policies and deliberately being front and centre as a wreath is laid on the grave of a Munich terrorist in commemoration. 

Isn't a political stance "I deplore some of the actions of the Israeli state in their treatment of the Palestinian people" and racism "all jews are terrible, everything the IDF does is their - personal - fault, and they want to undermine our democracy (especially George Soros)" ?

I'm not, myself, mad keen on some of the things that the UK government has done, but that's on the basis of actions, not a desire to demonise all British people.

My feeling is that Jeremy Corbyn's interest in supporting those who support the Palestinians over-rode him considering any other things that those people might be supporting.  A lack of judgement that would be fine in an activist but is a liability in a politician.

Agreed, so are you suggesting this makes him an anti-Semite? There rest of his life seems to suggest otherwise. Wasn't there some suggestion he was tricked into that? I don't know enough about it.

Can you support a cause without condoning the methods some use to try and achieve the goal?

Hasn't Corbyn got lots of Jewish supporters, has he tricked them?

https://www.doubledown.news/watch/2020/29/october/-i-lost-39-members-of-my-...

Is this bloke deluded or does he have the messiah issue you seem to think is quite rife.

I'd suggest a good stance would be to not support terrorists, granted it's a bit of a hobby of his. The any enemy of the capitalist west or the crown seems to be a friend of Corbyn. 

Edit. If he was knowingly tricked into accepting a paid trip to a terrorist grave and just happened to be at the front with a wreath... how gullible is he? A clear national security risk. 

Didn't really want to get involved in all of this, it was more about what people want from their MPs, but seeing as we're here.

Who's saying ANYTHING about this? At least 741 Palestinians have lost their homes between January and September.

https://www.middleeasteye.net/news/israel-west-bank-east-jerusalem-demoliti...

And who's frightened in case they get called anti-Semites, which is quite likely, what the Israeli government wants.

You didn't say what you think about Corbyn's Jewish friends or the bloke in the video, delusional or hoodwinked?

So how does one make it clear they are making a political point about the Zionist movement. What could Corbyn have said here (or could I use) that would allow you to believe he (or I) were talking about Zionists and not Jews?

Corbyn may well have his judgment clouded on the matter by his opposition to Israeli foreign policy. But I fail to see how continuing to equate anti-zionist sentiment to anti-semitism advances the cause of eradication of anti-semitism one iota?

I'd contend it is in fact counter-productive to that cause.

I don't know. Only he knows. It doesn't change the actions we know Corbyn has carried out. There's no speculation as it's fact. 

'he doesn't seem to be a slouch outside of politics.' I'm absolutely fascinated where you glean that from.  I'm not aware that he has any 'hinterland' at all - his listing in Wikipedia as about as uninspiring and thin as you could imagine. But maybe that's just my prejudice.

Except there are Jews who are anti-Zionists, so how does that fit?

He's never said, it doesn't have a right to exist, AFAIK, he's always been looking for a two state solution. Last I heard he was talking about 1968 borders and the Oslo agreement, that'snot getting rid of Israel.

Volunteering once a week is in NO WAY the same as clocking in at 8.00a.m. for a shift ending at 5.00p.m. with half an hour for lunch, 5 days a week, standing at a lathe, (for example) and needing a good wash afterwards to feel clean.

Nor is it the same as working as a Shop Assistant, being ready to work for 9.00a.m., finishing after 5.30p.m., Monday to Saturday, with e.g. Wednesday afternoons off.

And for all normal jobs, 4 weeks holiday (+ Bank Holidays) is all you get until you've worked at the same job for a few years. Having to take holidays in conjunction with other workers, which means not being able to have first choice of weeks 9 times out of 10. Whereas MP's seem to have more holidays than students - and that's saying something.

For what it's worth, I don't believe there are more than a handful of current MP's who can truly say that they've endured the daily grind and truly WORKED for a living, from ALL parties.

We may well expect this of Tory MP's, but it grates when a Labour MP makes such great play of being a "worker" when he's had no more of a hard life than Johnson, and all at considerable greater income than the ordinary working man - who has been paying his wages all this time.

I am not saying that he is or isn't. I was just wondering if some are taking a political stance as AS or if there is something more

You seem to be confusing parliament not sitting with holidays. The theory is that the MP will spend a lot of that time back in the constituency doing constituency things.

Which, incidently is pretty much why students had those long holidays. So they could get out harvesting the crops.

I pretty much agree with this. Corbyn has a track record of supporting the underdog, without necessarily considering the wider political implications

My recollection was that his position was that he was there to commemorate the people who'd died in the 1985 PLO Headquarters attack - hence the wreath - and that the Munich terrorist wreath-laying was by other people, elsewhere in the same graveyard.  Which gives us the "was there but didn't participate" oddity

I remember an MP, I think it was Pickles, who tried to defend the need for MPs to have an allowance that allowed them to live in central London by declaring the need for him to live close to work as he needed to be at work at a certain time.

The Question Time audience and possibly millions of people at home were astonished at his apparent lack of understanding as to how most other people go about their daily lives.

Yup! I agree with you there.

Regarding the initial thread purpose. Personally I like to see my politicians getting involved in local charities and supporting the community in practical ways rather than living in some ivory political tower and only coming out for photo opportunities

I don't remember hearing a peep out of you, nor any of the other people I've occasionally seen coming out with this kind of horseshit about Corbyn, when Claire Fox took her seat in the Lords courtesy of Boris Johnson.

I see, well I served an apprenticeship and worked as a plumber/welder for 8 years, working on pipes up to 48" diameter, I had to wash my hands and have A SHOWER every day!!!

Now I run my own business and work on a computer quite a lot, I type a lot of documents and make sure my workers are safe, productive and have continuity of work. I hardly need to wash my hands all week, except for Covid of course.

I would class what I do now much harder work than I did when I was a welder. since being self employed I also work longer hours by some 25% minimum, but I guess you'd reckon I'm not really working now and I've done nowt for the last 25 years.

Thanks for the reply though, it explains a lot.

For the record, I'm pretty sure there are a number of MPs who don't do  much or are in it for what they can get out of it to make them richer, not just Labour MPs either, Anna Soubry springs to mind, amongst others.

I don't see Corbyn as one of thee people, obviously, I don't know for certain, but considering AFAIK he's never taken any expenses for the work he does, while almost every other MP does, I don't think he's in it for the money.

If one just wanted to make a point against the policies of the current Netanyahu government, quite a reasonably stance to take IMO, then say exactly that.

To my understanding, Zionist means anybody who supported the creation of a Jewish state and, now it exists, supports its continuation. That's a very broad category of people to lump in together and Corbyn must know it is often conflated with meaning all Jews so, if he really was only wanting to criticise some policies of the current Israeli Government, it would be more sensible to avoid it. Of course if his argument is that Israel has no right to exist - and that is certainly the position of some of the countries and groups he is happy to stand alongside - then perhaps using Zionist is correct. But there 'Zionist' is useful again in providing plausible deniability.

A fox in a hon house !?

She is special Baroness, appointed this summer ... switched from the far left (RCP) to the far right. She denied the Bosnian genocide, defended IRA bombing and Gary Glitter's right to download  child porn. 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Claire_Fox

I suspect that's bollocks, who gets to selected to stand for seat straight out of uni or school? Even if they are they type who have worked their way up through the party (or maybe a union) those are still jobs.

In fact, a very quick google produces this helpful briefing https://researchbriefings.files.parliament.uk/documents/CBP-7483/CBP-7483.p...

From which I screen grabbed this:

She wasn't the only one with links to Child porn, good old Dame Margaret Hodge and her second husband Henry Hodge (later Sir Henry), going on to have two daughters. Sir Henry Hodge was a fellow Labour Borough Councillor and in 1974 became Chairman of the National Council for Civil Liberties who went on to become a High Court judge.

Sir Henry Egar Garfield Hodge, OBE –  Second husband

By 1978, PIE, the Paedophile Information Exchange and National Council for Civil Liberties had already been affiliated for three years. (just one year after Hodge became chairman) Another group, Paedophile Action for Liberation, a Gay Liberation Front offshoot, had also been affiliated to NCCL until it was absorbed by PIE. PIE, which campaigned for adults to have sex legally with children, only broke off its relationship with NCCL when it went undercover in 1982. Sir Henry Hodge died in 2009.

Like many words though Zionist seems to have evolved over the years, to many people Zionist is a person who believes in the expansion of Israel, not simply the existence of Israel. This of course plays into the hands of people who wish to include anti-Zionist (the enlargement of Israel) in the greater and more AS anti-Zionist( people who don't want an Israel).

I think most people use Zionist in the expansionist sense of the word, but not everyone obviously.

Zionism is both an ideology and nationalist movement. So it means different things to different people.

You can read a bit more here http://www.ijan.org/.

Zionism is only about 100 years old, and the Heredi Jews have always been against it, on religious grounds!

Appointed without a murmur of complaint from an awful lot of people who vociferously put forward the view that Jeremy Corbyn's alleged (imagined) refusal to condemn IRA terrorism should disqualify him from involvement in British politics.

She was one of 36 appointed to the House of Lords this summer, including Evgeny Lebedev, Jo Johnson (the Prime Minister's brother) and Ian Botham.

Meanwhile, the Archbishop of York retired this summer and unlike every other retiring Archbishop going back centuries before him was not given a peerage to allow him to continue to sit in the Lords, on the grounds that Boris Johnson didn't want the place getting overcrowded, apparently. 

If we were generally in favour of accusing party leaders of institutional racism on circumstantial evidence, we might note that there's also another way in which John Sentamu is unlike all his predecessors.

Also offwidth

Please do not refer to it as child porn, it is abusive images of real life children being sexually abused.

Mine specifically was about images, if you read my post, paedophilia, to be precise, but I think everyone knew what both Offwidth and I meant, we weren't belittling anything.

Let's not get tied up in semantics and cloud the real issue.

Of course not.

Go on then, where is this huge amount of evidence? The EHRC report didn't find any.

Let's have a look at the "evidence" put forward by the usual suspects in this thread so far.

Mural - Corbyn didn't defend the mural, he responded to a tweet from the artist with an anecdote about another artwork that had been destroyed elsewhere. At that point Corbyn hadn't seen the mural so had no idea that the topic of the mural was an antisemitic trope.  

Funeral/wreath laying - He attended a cemetery to commemorate the innocent victims of the illegal 1985 Israeli bombing raid in Tunisia. In the Mail's picture Corbyn is being shown a wreath at a point only 15 paces away from the plaque to the 1985 victims. The Mail smear successfully sows confusion because 3 days later at the same cemetery a wreath was laid for terrorists in an entirely unconnected event.

Irony - He made his remark about a particular group of English Zionists who had been in the audience at an event and heckling a Palestinian ambassador who had just used irony to make his point.

Iranian TV host - Corbyn has received a single payment of up to £5000 for appearances on an Iranian English language channel which has also hosted mainstream British journalists. He has a long history of speaking out against human rights abuses in Iran and has signed more Early Day Motions condemning Iran than any other serving MP.

Long association with antisemitic terrorists - Jeremy Corbyn has spent his political life trying to establish cross cultural dialogue as a basis for peace and mutual understanding. By attending events that have been organised by political organisations which have anti-Israel viewpoints, and by appearing on Iranian TV, Jeremy Corbyn will have exposed large numbers of Middle Eastern citizens to arguments about Israel and Western ideas that they will never have heard from their own leaders. 

You can only sustain your fiction about Jeremy Corbyn being antisemitic by completely believing the smears and distortions you are fed about him by our corporate media and by completely disregarding all the evidence to the contrary from Corbyn himself and the people who back him up (which is admittedly harder to find because we don't have an impartial media).

That's not what the EHRC report shows. It shows that antisemitism reduced in Labour from 2018 which was when Corbyn started to win the internal battle against the right wing controlled GLU.

How about, for instance, Alastair Campbell's 2005 antisemitic poster campaign which depicted Michael Howard (who is Jewish) as a pig? Not emerging from a cave but front and centre of Blair's Labour.

I don't know what Corbyn thinks but there is no way that he could have avoided making a comment on the day he was centre of that story. His comment was fair and broadly in line with what Starmer had said. The suspension was clearly planned.

It's way to simplistic to say the Haredim are "against Zionism" - historically they were against the view of Zionism as a secular nationalism, not against Jewish nationalism per se. I think it's a small minority of Haredim sects who now are against the state of Israel - the vast majority of the anti-Zionist Haredim of Europe perished in the Holocaust.

I think the majority of Israeli Haredim now vote in elections there, the orthodox parties are important blocs in the Knesset.

If you've ever come Neturei Karta and think from them that Haredim are anti-Zionist, it's a bit like judging British Muslims on the basis of the posters you've seen on a Hizb ut Tarhir stand.

My words were taken from a quote on the Wikipedia page from the 'honourable' baroness. My intention was to highlight her disgusting attitudes, after deepsoup rightly highlighted hypocrisy and now the contrast to Sentamu.

Broadly in line... he does his usual of not quite accepting responsibility, or sawing I read it but it's somebody else fault etc.. or still questioning the scale of the problem. When in reality the report said the problem was so big they had to limit the scale of their investigation to purely mps, and could not look at party members as well.

That's a pure lie. The report says nothing of the sort.

In reality you are either lying, are regurtitating without checking some rubbish from someone else or arent capable of basic reading comprehension. None of which look good.

Why would they be unable to take a sample beyond just MPs? As indeed they did including councillors and the like. Which should give you a hint about what the rules they were using were.

Oh you bl**dy conspiracy theorists. You'll do everything other than apply logic or win elections.

'The suspension was clearly planned.' Why? Who would it benefit? Don't bother saying that Starmer needed to get rid of Corbyn - outside your bubble Corbyn is nothing, a nonentity, just a footnote in history whose only claim to fame will be for leading the Labour party to the greatest loss since the 30s',  against  one of the most incompetent Tory leaders ever.

There's qualities like grace, dignity, self respect: if Corbyn had any of these he would STFU and disappear for a while. Maybe work at a food bank for a few weeks, rather than for just one afternoon.

All of which goes to prove my point, being a Zionist is different things to different people, so you can be anti-Zionist, without being anti-Semitic. My whole point is, once again, whenever people talk of Israel, it quite often becomes an argument about semantics, rather than the issue, which MOST people understand what is being said, but often is contorted to infer AS, to suit. It's like having to make the distinction between Israel and the Israeli government, it's not very often you need to do that with any other country, but with Israel it seems you need to. If people say Israel, I'm usually 100% certain they don't mean the Israeli citizens or Jews, but I've seen people accused of being AS over this.

Most of us know what AS looks like, it not difficult to spot in a person or their actions. Simply making errors in your language or not being very very specific is AS.

Of course there are those who will hide behind this ambiguity, but I think there are very few who get away with it for a long time.

I'm still of the mind that being anti-Zionist now is being against the greater expansion of Israel, other opinions are available.

I agree that Corbyn would be expected to comment, and most of his statement was fine, and would not have caused problems. What caused the problem, and caused the suspension, was his insistence that the issue was 'dramatically overstated for political reasons'. This statement was made after he had been informed in advance of Starmer's intended speech in which he said: 

'And if – after all the pain, all the grief, and all the evidence in this report, there are still those who think there’s no problem with anti-semitism in the Labour Party. That it’s all exaggerated, or a factional attack.

Then, frankly, you are part of the problem too. And you should be nowhere near the Labour Party either.'

Corbyn knew this was going to be Starmer's statement, and yet he went ahead as he did. The responsibility for Corbyn's suspension lies solely with him. 

In reality, the report said nothing of the sort. They did limit the scale of the investigation, but did not restrict it solely to MPs.

But there are semantics the other way, people who insist that their anti zionism isn't the same as anti-semitism, despite the fact that lots of things they do seem to suggest it is.

The Zionist movement was for a Jewish state, so anti-Zionism, including from ultra orthodox Jews, is against the existence of a Jewish state. I would be wary of using the term for anything beyond that because that's how most understand it, on both sides of the debate.

I don't really think it's that complicated.

If you believe that the settlements are illegal (as I do) just say that. If you think the Israeli govt. and the IDF break international law and don't respect their obligations under human rights treaties (as I do) say that.

If you think the state of Israel has no right to exist (I don't) say you're an anti-Zionist. 

I thought I'd already said that.

It was but like many words we use it's evolved.

I'll try to, but if I make a mistake and conflate the two, I'm not suddenly AS, I've not been specific.

You should have a look at Wikipedia, and see the number of different types of Zionism, six, before you can suggest it's easy and then point fingers.  Lie most things Israel related it's complicated and we should be careful of accusations without knowing any context.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zionism

There are Jews who are not religious who think the state of Israel shouldn't exist, are they anti-Semitic? Miko Peled (sp?) for one, an ex-IDF Generals son. This has always puzzled me, what they would be called. They're not saying Jews shouldn't exist, but Israel shouldn't. So what are they?

If I could draw your attention to the words I've emphasised above out of Starmer's statement you can see that Corbyn did not contradict Starmer and there was no need to suspend him. Corbyn broadly agrees with the EHRC report and said as much in his statement.

Starmer knows this and should have given Corbyn some credit that on the day of a media storm he had to be allowed to defend his record.

The reason is that he wants 400,000 principled Labour members to tear up their membership in disgust before the NEC elections. He's quite happy for Labour's healthy finances, which have been based on subs from a large and passionate membership, to be replaced by a reliance on corporate donations and the inevitable corporate influence that dependence will buy. Starmer is turning Labour back into the reliable back up plan for global neoliberalism. Some Labour right wingers on here were celebrating it earlier.

Wow. Really?! Is Starmer operating on his own, or is he following someone else's orders?

How long have you been a party member BTW?

Labour mps and supporters who dislike the current Labour party could always form their own new party? Corbyn has never liked Labour policies for the last 30 years, but he knows he'd never get elected standing on his own merits, so wears the Labour badge in a traditional Labour constituency. That's what a person who is honourable and sticks to their beliefs does! He's not alone, that's how Blair became an mp on his second attempt. 

Speaking as a Labour right-winger, I shall just be happy to see a competent Labour government in power that doesn't try to privatise everything in sight, looks after our poorest and most vulnerable, abides by the rule of law and reconciles economic stability with social justice and sustainability.

The most important word in that lot is the word 'government'.

I've been thinking that even if he has (Corbyn) been unfairly painted as being ineffective in stopping antisemitism from taking root, it's still almost the duty of an ex leader of a party to not cause any waves so that it's got more chance of future success, he might have said something like 'While I don't entirely agree with the findings, which may be down to human nature with it being about my time as leader, I hope this marks an end to the controversy, and that the party unites as an effective opposition.' One would think he'd be put that above anything which is about himself if he wanted Labour to succeed - imho.

There are genuine right wingers in Labour, I may be wrong but I think you'd like to see reform but don't think it's politically possible. Do you think that the economy we live in delivers any of those things you want to see? It doesn't. We don't yet know anything about Starmer's policies but we do know which faction of the party he favours. It's the faction that did introduce privatisation of the NHS, oversaw a rise in homelessness and a low pay economy with a workfare benefits system, and they would describe you as a "Trot" for what you've said above as we saw in the leaked report. 

A political party is a means to an end, I won't be supporting Labour to form a government where all they are going to do is manage the destruction of society a bit better than the alternative.

You make the presumption he cares about Labour and hasn't just used it as a means to fund his own political ideologies for the last however many decades. 

And if he'd been accused of paedophilia, he still shouldn't make waves? If he'd been accused of not contributing to the office tea and biscuit fund, once or twice, then you might be right.

When would you not complain against something you are accused of, and don't think is correct?

I'm not sure he was complaining about what he had or hadn't done, he was disagreeing with the scale, and what was considered as anti-Semitism, surely he has the right to defend himself?

You make the presumption he doesn't care about truth and integrity, which is what you are asking him to ignore, probably easy for you, not quite so easy for many of us.

He hasn't been accused of paedophilia, so that's a mute point, I've broadly outlined how he could have expressed not entirely agreeing with the findings, it's a way of saying that he doesn't think it's true - which carries within it self defence. 

I do think the above is a way of him defending himself. If somebody said you weren't very nice, and you said 'I don't agree', that's a form of self defence (and justified, no doubt).

'When would you not complain against something you are accused of, and don't think is correct?'

When it would damage the enterprise that I was supporting. We all have to put up with stuff that 'isn't fair'.

I think he probably does. I've read one person saying he has a high degree of narcissism, and has to believe in his own purity, which makes it difficult for him to see his own failings (and mistakes). He seems like a decent sort to me, and I'm cautious about diagnosing character flaws in others unless I've spent a certain amount of time with them, and known them for a year or something (or more), it can take a while to get a sense of a person.

He must have forgot to pack it on his overnighter away via the train with no free seats. Easy mistake, he often seems to leave his honesty behind in his Westminster locker when going away on little trips. 

The issue that has dogged the labour party isn't that Jeremy Corbyn is anti-semitic. This is a straw man. The issue is that anti-semitism hasn't been dealt with properly and he was the leader while this was going on. For the record I don't think he is an anti-semite. What I believe is he comes across as strong  against those he fights  but he is weak at calling out his allies/friends. The clearest example of this is the Reverend Sizer who blamed Israel for 9/11. Instead of saying this was rubbish-Corbyn offered him his support.  He supported -what he perceived were  his  anti-capitalist friends in a cartoon in the East end of London-which was in fact anti-semitic propaganda worthy of the Elders of Zion. He blamed Israel for  a Jihadi massacre in Egypt so that he could feel at home with   his friends on Iran's State Radio.(A station that was banned by Ofcam for being complicit in torture confessions.)   He is a weak man when it comes to his 'in crowd' and he   did not call out these egregious examples. These are not examples of him being explicitly anti-semitic-they are examples of him excusing ridiculous conspiracy views. This weakness gives other members of the party 'permission' to use tropes, propaganda, bullying . Some  of these use Israel as a focus but use conspiracies and anti-Semitic tropes about the Rothschilds, the holocaust, world financial domination, star of David, blood libel etc -the use of which is nothing to do with legitimate critisism of Israel.  Others don't include Israel. 

Some examples of Anti-Semitism associated with the left in Britain.

1/ The Labour Chair of Luciana Berger's constituency (where she had a vote of no confidence in her)-Dr Alex Scott Samuel- appeared on a David Icke backed talk show where his views were published with 'Rothschild' conspiracy theories over his picture.

2/Labour Students at Oxford mocked Jewish victims of the Paris Kosher supermarket and called Auschwitz 'a cash cow.'

3/ Alan Bull- a labour council candidate in Peterborough shared Anti-Semitic material claiming the Holocaust 'was a hoax'.

4/ Former labour party candidate-John Clarke shared a neo-Nazi meme stating that the Rothschild family has used money lending and Israel to 'take over the world.'

5/ Jeremy Corbyn attended events organised by Deir Yassin remembered', sharing events with Paul Eisen-a self confessed holocaust denier.

6/Jackie Walker-former vice chair of momentum said Jews were the 'chief financiers of the sugar and the slave trade.' Jeremy Corbyn campaigned along side her.

7/Zafar Iqbal-labour councillor for Birmingham shared a David Duke video on facebook about 'Goldman Sacks and the Zio Matrix.'

8/Pam Bradley a labour councillor in Lancashire posted links to anti-semitic websites about Trump and the Rothschilds.

9/Ken Livingstone said 'rich Jews vote Tory' and 'Hitler supported Zionism'-quoting the 'Haavara' agreement (1933)an attempted agreement where a small number of Jews in Germany tried to strike a deal with the Nazi regime in order to allow desperate Jews to escape.

10/Tim Lezard who was offered a job at Labour's South Bank HQ tweeted about setting up a new campaign group-'Nazi friends of Israel',

11/ Labour members and momentum member-Bob Campbell- on Teesside shared an image of a rat marked with a Jewish religious symbol, claiming Israel controlled ISIS.

12/ Salim Mulla -Blackburn Labour Councillor (former mayor), endorsed a video blaming Israel for School shootings in America and said 'Zionism was 'orchestrating' ISIS.

13/Labour Councillor in Luton-Aysegul Gurbuz tweeted , Hitler 'Greatest man in history'.

14/Former Spittalfields and Bangla town labour party chair tweeted, a far right 'time line of the Jewish Genocide of the British People'.

15/Khadim Hussain, former Lord Mayor of Bradford made facebook post, 'Hitler killed 6million Zionists' and implying 'Israel created so called ISIS'

16/ John McAuliffe-labour member posted on his Facebook- 'Holocaust a useful political tool of Israel to establish a financial racket'

17Vicki Kirby former labour Parliamentary Candidate in Woking tweeted-'Hitler might be a Zionist God' and said 'Jews have big noses'.

18/A grossly anti-Semitic mural, (using imagery worthy of the 'Protocols of the Elders of Zion') in the East End was defended by Jeremy Corbyn.

19/ The reverend Stephen Sizer on a social media article said' 9./11-Israel did it'. Jeremy Corbyn defended him.

20/At a fringe meeting of the labour Party in 2017 the topic was raised that 'people should be allowed to question whether the holocaust happened.'

21 Sheikh Raed Salah who revived the medieval anti-semitic,'blood libel' slur that Jews cook with children's blood, was described by Jeremy Corbyn as a 'very honoured citizen'.

22/Labour party member and potential council candidate in Camden-Mohammed Joynal Uddin claimed on Facebook that the Talmud, said Jesus 'was boiling in semen in hell' and says the 'the Virgin Mary is a whore'. He is still a Labour Party member.

23/Kayla Bibby -a Labour activist in Liverpool - shared a meme on twitter entitled 'bloodsucking Alien Parasites killing America'. A Jewish Religious symbol was plastered over the 'alien parasite' and covered the eyes of the Statue of Liberty. She requested this meme from a site called 'Incog Man' , an American site that propagates white- supremacist, racist and homophobic hatred.

Not sure I agree with this (and to some extent this depends on exactly how you define AS) but I am pretty sure that he doesn't think he's an anti-semite.

So just for the sake of argument, you're accused of paedophilia, but it might harm the enterprise you're supporting to contest the accusation, you just accept it?

What do we have to put up with that isn't fair?

He also seems to have a lot of Jewish friends that don't seem to think he's an anti-Semite either, maybe they're all wrong?

Some people might suggest that complaining about the recent demolishing of 70 homes in Israel, anti-Semitic, it doesn't mean it is.

In reply There are a whole host of 'the right sort' of Jews that Corbyn likes and who like him ie anti-the existence of Israel and  militant anti-zionist. These are paraded as proof he is not antisemitic. And I can sort of see the point. The "wrong sort" get the abuse- 'zionazi  etc as Berger was called.

'Some people' would be stupid.

Anybody accused of paedophilia has every right to defend themselves, but, Corbyn hasn't been accused of being one, or even been accused of antisemitism, he's been found to have let antisemitism 'gain a hold' in the Labour party while in charge (in a manner of speaking), I'm not being funny, but why don't you keep your argument within the framework of what has been happening?

The complaining itself - not anti-semitic, but complain with the wrong language, then it might well be.

Also, please get your facts straight. I'm not going to bother checking but I'd be pretty certain that 70 homes were not demolished in Israel. 70 homes in Israeli controlled territory is much more likely.

It really is important to be precise with all this. It shouldn't have to be, but because of the way AS is misused in both directions it's unfortunately more necessary than maybe in other areas.

You're scraping the bottom of the barrel here in order to fling some mud at the left. Your examples are dubious and, for the ones I know about, they misrepresent the facts, for instance Corbyn defended Sizer (a prominent defender of Palestinian Christians) two years prior to the incident you refer to. Sizer's 9/11 controversy is more obvious and Corbyn didn't defend him then. You've also thrown the mural incident in which I've already debunked in this thread (he never defended that either).

How big is the equivalent list of antisemitism associated with the right in Britain? I reckon you'll not just find activists and councillors but you'll quickly find 23 Tory MP's who've engaged in antisemitism similar to your examples here. If the list is similar then it's a problem of society and not particular to Corbyn or the left.

You mention Luciana Berger and it's worth noting a detail that is usually omitted from the media reports, all the documented threats and abuse that she has been subjected to have come from far right conspiracy theorists. That's where these anti-semitic tropes you are talking about are coming from - the alt right. Your last example got their meme from a white supremacist hate site, that's where the real hatred and danger to Jewish people comes from - not left wing pro Palestinian activists but violent right wing neo nazis.

That is pretty much exactly what he said, I've put up his full statement below, note especially the last paragraph. It just shows how much our media is willing to misrepresent the truth and how effective it is that you apparently believe he said something else and so do the people you have been debating with including those who have defended Corbyn.

“Antisemitism is absolutely abhorrent, wrong and responsible for some of humanity’s greatest crimes. As Leader of the Labour Party I was always determined to eliminate all forms of racism and root out the cancer of antisemitism. I have campaigned in support of Jewish people and communities my entire life and I will continue to do so.

“The EHRC’s report shows that when I became Labour leader in 2015, the Party’s processes for handling complaints were not fit for purpose. Reform was then stalled by an obstructive party bureaucracy. But from 2018, Jennie Formby and a new NEC that supported my leadership made substantial improvements, making it much easier and swifter to remove antisemites. My team acted to speed up, not hinder the process.

“Anyone claiming there is no antisemitism in the Labour Party is wrong. Of course there is, as there is throughout society, and sometimes it is voiced by people who think of themselves as on the left.

“Jewish members of our party and the wider community were right to expect us to deal with it, and I regret that it took longer to deliver that change than it should.

“One antisemite is one too many, but the scale of the problem was also dramatically overstated for political reasons by our opponents inside and outside the party, as well as by much of the media. That combination hurt Jewish people and must never be repeated.

“My sincere hope is that relations with Jewish communities can be rebuilt and those fears overcome. While I do not accept all of its findings, I trust its recommendations will be swiftly implemented to help move on from this period.”

Thanks, that's really interesting, it potentially puts Kier Starmer in a new light.

Aren't the Israeli government currently building homes in Israeli controlled territory. I'd don't know enough about it to be honest.

Nevertheless I'm pretty certain, it the Israeli's doing the demolishing.

So once again, we've moved away from what's actually happening, to talking about whether I'm not using the right language, and hopefully not upsetting anyone.

Most people will know what I'm saying, and most people will realise I'm not being AS, only those who what to hide what's happening, would suggest this is anything different.

You've sort of just proved the point of why Corbyn, might NEED to question the findings of the report.

Mention Israel in a bad light and 99% of the time it'll end up not about what's happening but about semantics, and AS.

People might try harder to understand what's being said, and it's context, before throwing the AS hand-grenade.

It really really plays into the real AS hands and weakens rooting out the real problem.

There really aught to be an AS equivalent of a Godwin's.

Edit:

Having just looked it up, where the houses were demolished, it's interesting that you chose to call it "Israeli controlled territory" rather than what the rest of the world calls it "Occupied Territory", a strange distinction considering, your suggestion people be careful with their language. Are you trying to whitewash us?

That is the written statement. Even there words matter.. it completely bypasses many of the key criticisms in the report. Crucially what he said on the TV interview, that triggered the suspension, was different. He is suspended subject to process and can prove his innocence if he genuinely accepts the key issues raised in the report. Labour could not kick him out over arguments about definitions.

It's quite possible he didn't write the statement, but at least we know his stance from what came out of his own mouth. 

That's not being disputed here.

Being clear and precise is so that nobody can wrongfully acuse you of AS. Not sure what "upset" has to do with it or why you've brought it up.

Nobody has suggested that you're being anti-Semitic.

His suspension is more to do with how he went about questioning it.

Don't be so silly, you know well enough from my posting history that I'm not trying to "whitewash" anyone. An unnecessary accusation that belittles you.

I wonder if there is an official term for it and who or what makes it official. I'll see if the Israeli government and the UN have official terms for the West Bank.

Surely the spoken statement is him reading out the written statement? I can't find any footage but what reason is there to believe they would differ?

I have found the TV interview and he is using the same phrases as are in the written statement.

He does accept the key findings of the report (which is not as damning as the media would have us believe) and has said so repeatedly. 

Well my attempts to find "official" names is proving difficult. I'm pretty sure the Israeli government always call them "disputed territories" but everything else seems to run into a wall of Wikipedia which isn't really acceptable as a definitive source for "official" names.

The UN history of the conflict webpages mention "Occupied Palestinian territories" but there's no indication that this is the UN's official term.

Technically, "disputed" may be more legally correct than "occupied" because to occupy in this sense it needs to have had a legal previous occupier and it's a complete can of worms down that road.

Also, different bits of the West Bank have different status depending on whether they're under the administrative control of Israel or of the PA. So although it would be correct to say that parts of the West Bank are "occupied" in the common meaning of the term, this wouldn't be correct for other PA controlled parts.

Not surprisingly, anything to do with this conflict is fractal, the more you dig down a level, the more you find that there are many more levels down there.

'You're scraping the bottom of the barrel here in order to fling some mud at the left. Your examples are dubious and, for the ones I know about, they misrepresent the facts", How do you know my examples are dubious if you only know about a few of them. I look forward to your research.

"for instance Corbyn defended Sizer (a prominent defender of Palestinian Christians) two years prior to the incident you refer to"  In reply-Corbyn wrote to the Church of England in April 2012 to defend Sizer, not before the 9/11 claim..

'Sizer's 9/11 controversy is more obvious and Corbyn didn't defend him then' The facebook quote was not in the public domain in 2001 and there is no evidence Corbyn saw it. However Sizer's pronouncements and association would be well known to Corbyn in 2012 when he chose to defend him.

'You've also thrown the mural incident in which I've already debunked in this thread (he never defended that either)." -He defended people who objected to its  removal by quoting another mural. By doing this he gave it credence-which is a message other people pick up on. Only later did he criticise it. The mural is so obviously anti-Semitic and hurtful to the Jewish Community (doubly so when we consider its location in the old East End) that it surprises me he had the time to comment on this without noticing-(remember this is a man we are repeatedly told - whose mother was at Cable Street and who has striven against racism all his life and worked with a lot of Jewish people in his constituency). He either chose to ignore its message- (because he wanted to push his 'revolutionary' comparison to the front), or he agreed with its message or he had time to comment on the post but not look at it properly-(which is not a good look for someone who has 'fought racism all his life'.) Whichever it was does not reflect well on a subsequent leader of the Labour Party.

'How big is the equivalent list of antisemitism associated with the right in Britain?' I totally agree that the Tories will have lots of antisemitism. I think this argument is what they call 'Whataboutery'. There are lots of differences between the parties-but the one that comes to mind is that Labour prides itself on its anti-racist credentials-the Tories play fast and loose with whatever works for them. 

'You mention Luciana Berger and it's worth noting a detail that is usually omitted from the media reports, all the documented threats and abuse that she has been subjected to have come from far right conspiracy theorists' .

I did not mention where Berger's threats came from. I shall take you word that none were from members of the Labour Party.

 "That's where these anti-semitic tropes you are talking about are coming from - the alt right. Your last example got their meme from a white supremacist hate site, that's where the real hatred and danger to Jewish people comes from - not left wing pro Palestinian activists but violent right wing neo nazis." 

My last example was the Labour chair of the CLP (where Luciana Berger was the MP). The fact that there are horrendous right wing web sites is of course a right wing problem. My point was that the chairman of the CLP chose these sites. I didn't claim these anti-Semitic tropes came from left wing pro-Palestinian activists-to be honest most of the tropes go back hundreds if not thousands of years. The fact that  where the 'real hatred and danger to Jewish people' comes from is the far right is not what this argument is about. It is about the fact that the  Labour Party-which I am a member of should be seen to be taking a  lead not indulging in 'they are doing it worse'. I don't expect the BNP or American equivalent to be good on racism-I do expect the Labour party to be so.

I realise all of that, and my question about whitewashing was a general one, obviously Israel would prefer them to be called something other than "Occupied Palestinian territories".

My main point was, we're constantly asked to NOT make Israel a SPECIAL case, and yet in the space of a few posts, you've warned me how my language could be misinterpreted and used an unusual title for what most people would call something else.

Why does everyone have to be so precise with their language, when ever Israel is involved?

It's because whatever is being said, can be attacked, if your not precise enough and the point you were making dropped long in the distance.

I wasn't suggesting you were accusing me of AS, but some might, and some might want to, it saves facing up to the argument.

It makes discussion Israel long winded and open to simply mistakes being accusations of a terrible crime, namely AS.

A few of your examples will be genuine racism, a few are well known smears, a few are shades of grey where you could give the benefit of any doubt to the person who appears to have made a mistake and why wouldn't you? Do you think it serves the cause of anti-racism when you add to the impression that the party that tries to be anti-racist but just falls short is worse than the party that is racist to the core thereby helping the unashamedly racist party to form a government?

I compared Labour to the Conservatives not the BNP. Of course Labour should be taking the lead in anti-racism, and they are, but they're not perfect. They were an organisation with 600,000 members during Corbyn's leadership, if society has a problem with antisemitism then some of those 600,000 members are going to be part of the problem. The EHRC report did not find the Labour party to have been institutionally antisemitic or criticise Jeremy Corbyn or the people around him. It found that Labour processes for dealing with antisemitism improved during the time of Corbyn's leadership. 

Clearly you hold Labour to a higher standard than you do the Conservatives and that's fine but the issue I am trying to counter is that, as a result of the weaponisation of antisemitism which your post helped to fuel, most people believe Labour to be at a lower standard than the Conservatives in dealing with antisemitism which is simply not the truth.

I'm not sure you get it, the problem isn't about whatever ism might exist in any party, they've all got them. It's the fact that even when presented with a report Corbyn didn't accept it in plain speech. He tried to work around it verbally. The fact a different statement appeared sometime later online, that may or may not have been written by him, is irrelevent. He had his chance to comment and we heard the real Corbyn. 

What did you hear him say that is different to the written statement or are you just making things up again?

Oh dear this is painful. It's what he didn't say, he wouldn't acknowledge there was any problem and denied the scale of the cases they cited. 

It is painful. We've gone this round and round again. Read his full statement that I've posted above. He acknowledged the problem and didn't deny anything. You're lying in plain sight.

His full statement doesn't change part of what he said. I'll leave you to your messiah. I give up. 

His full statement is what he said. You've been asserting that you heard him say words that aren't in the written statement. Well there was no alternative spoken statement before or after. Just like "traingate" this is another lie to add to the list of lies that you regularly trot out against Corbyn and continue to trot out even after I've shown you that it's a lie. 

Here's live reporting from the day.

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/live/2020/oct/29/uk-politics-live-ehrc...

The timeline is this.

10:00 EHRC report published. It highlights some problems but doesn't find Labour to have been institutionally antisemitic and shows that the problem was improving under Corbyn's leadership. 

10:00 - onwards. The usual suspects come out with the usual smears and demand Corbyn's resignation for things that the EHRC report doesn't back up.

10:50 Corbyn releases his statement as a written post on Facebook. 

11:17 Starmer gives his statement at a press conference.

[Note: The two statements are both out now and broadly say the same thing as I have shown]

11:24  At his press conference, Starmer is asked about Corbyn's written statement. “I will look carefully at what Jeremy Corbyn has said,” Mr Forensic replied.

13:08 Jeremy Corbyn is suspended from the Labour party for his written statement [the one I have posted in full above and most on here have agreed is broadly in agreement with Starmers own statement].

In interviews the next day Starmer the forensic barrister is misquoting Corbyn in order to justify the suspension and Labour and Corbyn has not been told which rule he has broken to lead to his suspension. 

 Do you think it serves the cause of anti-racism when you add to the impression that the party that tries to be anti-racist but just falls short is worse than the party that is racist to the core thereby helping the unashamedly racist party to form a government?  The original reason for my post was in reply to someone who said he had seen no examples of antisemitism in Labour and would like to see evidence-Not to slur people. The criticism of people providing that evidence has been-a/it doesn't exist b/it is exaggerated c/ it is a slur d/ it is part of a conspiracy. You now add the reason that by speaking up they are doing the cause of 'anti-racism' a disfavour. What has hurt the Jewish community (or considerable parts of it) is that any time they  bring up the problem they feel dismissed. One of the local MP's round here, who is Jewish, has been forced to provide examples of this racism against him, because of these repeated dismissals. To be told that they are being disloyal to anti-racism-- so should be quiet,-smells of Stalinism.

Clearly you hold Labour to a higher standard than you do the Conservatives and that's fine but the issue I am trying to counter is that, as a result of the weaponisation of antisemitism which your post helped to fuel, most people believe Labour to be at a lower standard than the Conservatives in dealing with antisemitism which is simply not the truth.

I think to say that my post helped to fuel 'weaponisation of anti-Semitism' is not the issue. I am not a producer of propaganda. The issue is the truth-which we can be free to discuss- we are not machines who should alter what we see or say because of the party line or one faction of the party line. There is no doubt that the issue has been used by the Tories, and by supporters of the status quo in Israel. That is not a reason for telling the Jewish Community to shut up or their concerns should be ignored because it upsets folk. 

I don't thin anyone is telling the "Jewish" community (whoever they are) to shut up.

You seem to be siding with the part of the Jewish community, who is against Corbyn, but ignoring the part of the Jewish community who did, and still do support Corbyn.

Corbyn was disagreeing with part of the report, not dismissing all of it. Does he have the right to disagree?

I was replying to Cumbria Mammoth who said raising the issues of antisemitism in the Labour party was bad for Labour's anti racism credentials. 'Shut up ' being short hand for what he said. But there are lots of other egs of people being told not to raise the issue of antisemitism.Of course Corbyn has the right to query the report. But he is a member of a 'club' and will be aware of the consequences of his actions.

Fair enough.

Antisemitism is in the Labour party as it is in society but across the 23 examples you gave a) b) c) d) and e) are all true as well.

Why be selective about the truth then? If you are amplifying left antisemitism and minimising right antisemitism then that isn't the truth. Why have you not come on with 23 examples of British antisemitism which I would contend would have inevitably have included probably 20 examples from the Conservatives/right.

Because I was replying to Aln- who said he/she had never seen egs of antisemitism in the labour party and could someone provide examples.. I wasn't replying to someone saying they had never seen egs in other parties. It is very reassuring that according to you those examples are not  of concern as they are examples of exaggeration , conspiracies, slurs, untrue or because you don't like them because they upset Labour's antiracism credentials. By your reasoning any example isn't the truth unless it contains examples of all other examples. 

You never answered my question from the other week after your comment about Starmer trying to get 400,000 Labour party members to tear up their membership cards.

Are you a party member and when did you join? Have you ripped up your membership card? (Actually, cancelling your direct debit is probably far more effective but anyways...)

I thought TLRs take on the whole mess was pretty good. https://tldrnews.co.uk/tldr-uk/why-corbyn-was-suspended-from-the-labour-par...

There are some unfortunate parallels developing between people still defending Corbyn with the Trumpist ultras preparing to defend Trump when everyone else just seems to say "can we move on now please? Lots of other things that really need sorting out..."

There are no parallels at all, people are defending his right to defend himself, I'm not sure you can see the difference here. If you were accused of something you thought wasn't valid, would you simply accept it?

I've gone to court in a different county 150 miles away because I was in a a car, when the coppers pulled us over and accused one of use of not wearing a seat belt, at the time it was probably about a £30 fine. The person accuse was wearing a seat belt, I had a day off work and had to stay in a hotel the night before, to make sure we were there on time. It probably cost me alone about £600. We won and I got about £80 back.

I'd do it again, sometimes you need to do what YOU think is right, there are principles we all live by, you can chose to roll over, for whatever reason, or you can strive for the truth.

He had years and many many opportunities to defend himself.

If you want to use the court analogy, then the report was the jury's verdict - Corbyn was found "guilty", and he's the convict shouting "it wasn't me!" as the prison officers are taking him down to the cells.

He did exactly what Starmer had asked everyone in the party not to do, hence just yet further drawing out the agony and electoral damage.

It's not vastly different to trump. What they think of themselves and not admitting they are wrong is vastly more important than the credibility of the political party they claim to represent. It's like when Corbyn lost the GE they declared it a successful result. Plain deluded.  

To all those to whom this has mattered so much previously; this year the Labour leader was much smarter dressed than the PM at the Cenotaph today.

To be fair that's not the highest of benchmarks to set. You could pull a suit randomly off the rack in a charity shop, then drag yourself through the proverbial hedge backwards, then come out more presentable than Corbyn and Johnson combined. 

And yes it does matter. If the old boys aged 90 plus on their zimmers can spruce up, then so can the leaders. Yes it's the thought that counts, but it's just a little bit of effort to show respect to those who did so much more. 

He shoots, he scores 😉

The 23 examples include examples of all of the above, I'm not writing them all off as such. I know that those of a left wing persuasion can be susceptible to falling down the conspiracy rabbit hole where the actions of the state of Israel and of international neoliberalism are seen as imposed on the world by a powerful Jewish lobby. This is a danger we should be aware of.

I did miss the context that you were answering a specific question as asked by aln. I originally took you to be yet another right wing propagandist trying to maintain the false perception that antisemitism is more of a problem of the left than of the right. This one sided deception should be countered by anyone who has an interest in the truth so how you present information can be important.  We've seen on this thread that people are prepared to just tell barefaced lies to maintain that perception.

No, I don't see why you're so interested in my personal life? 

If you have a look at the EHRC report instead of reading right wing hit pieces about it in the corporate media you'll see that Corbyn wasn't found guilty at all and as I've been showing in this thread he hasn't contradicted Starmer so it is Starmer that is drawing out the damage.

Well if you're not a member I'm wondering where you got your idea that Starmer is trying to get 400,000 "decent" Labour party members to rip up their membership cards? As you're not willing to say whether you've got any skin in the game, you could have a go at answering my other original question - has Starmer come up with this plot on his own or is he an agent of some other power?

The court room analogy was Mr Cobra Head's, not mine. We all know what Corbyn said after the report came out, and I think we all know that the EHRC's judgement was on the party, not on individuals. Starmer said the Labour party had to accept the findings and not minimise them, and stop blaming the failings on enemies either inside or outside the party in order to rebuild trust in the party. Corbyn's original statement on the report then said "the scale of the problem was also dramatically overstated for political reasons by our opponents inside and outside the party", so either he's not nearly as bright as I had given him credit for or he knew exactly what position he was placing his successor in. 

Well as long as he looked smart, wasn't that the same principles the Nazis used, the more cruel and deadly the smarter the uniform. The SS always looked very dapper.

The report has only just been published, in case you hadn't noticed.

Godwin's law alert!

Yes, after a multi-year process of Corbyn dealing with some issues, failing to deal with others and causing himself more issues.

Blah blah blah, it doesn't change the fact that if he was to comment on what the report says, he NEEDS it to be published first!!

Thought we'd already passed that one? Anyhow, it's as reasonable an argument as saying this years line up was very smart!!

Yes, but he - like the rest of the party - had been told not to comment on the report if by doing so he either minimized the harm done or blamed it on factional fighting. Corbyn went out and did exactly what he had been asked not to.

Starmer is part of the political establishment and wants to protect establishment interests by preserving the status quo. He knows how politics works and is quite capable of plotting without being led by anyone else.

It's not the first time that that faction of the party has engaged in a purge to try to get it's way in Labour internal democracy.

The EHRC report judged Labour for the actions of two individuals who it says Labour had been legally responsible for. There's no scenario whereby Corbyn could have done or said anything antisemitic and Labour not to be found responsible for it under the criteria of the report. If we're using the courtroom analogy then Corbyn was indeed found "not guilty".

[Note: these aren't Starmer's words you've used. In Starmer's similar sentence he says you shouldn't say "That it’s all exaggerated, or a factional attack", Corbyn didn't blame the failings on factional attacks.]

I've shown above in this post and previously in this thread that there is no contradiction between Starmer's statement or Corbyn's statement, neither in spirit nor on technicalities. Corbyn broadly agrees with both the EHRC report and Starmer's statement. If there was any doubt then you might have thought that a party leader who is interested in party unity might have given some credit to a figure who is supported by the majority of party members on the day when he is under the media spotlight and intense attacks from his political enemies, and by implication so are the party members who have supported him.

If what you say us true the investigation will find him innocent and you have nothing to worry about. It's hardly like the party could hide any decision and the reasoning behind it.

The conflict between Starmer and Corbyn is not over the content but the timing. New big boss says to the world-zero tolerance of equivocation and tales of exaggeration. Just before he says this Old big boss says on facebook it's exaggerated and politically motivated. Which makes New big boss look a Charlie in front of everyone. Corbyn gives little wriggle room to Starmer. Starmer carries on looking a Charlie because of what Corbyn has said or party disciplines Corbyn. Whether Corbyn does this deliberately is the interesting question. 

Let's hope so but much of the damage is already done.

I don't see it that way. It was a pre planned media storm that would have happened whatever Corbyn had said or even if he'd said nowt. Everyone knew it was coming.

'Damage has been done.' 

WTF are you talking about? How much more damage could be done than losing an election by 80 seats?

Goodness, are you 2 still going on about this.

Why not wait to see what the investigation determines (where, depending on your viewpoint I'm sure JC will have a chance to explain himself or dig an even deeper hole), then you can start all over again 😁

That's a surprise.

Today's Guardian Today in Focus podcast is worth a listen.

https://www.theguardian.com/news/audio/2020/nov/10/labour-battle-to-root-ou...

There is a bonus if Labour keeps on fighting about it's core roots, Corbyn, mccluskey, etc.. then it won't ever win and the lib dems might emerge from their hibernation. They have missed plenty of chances over the last 4 or 5 yrs though.